site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28431 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

We're probably in an intermediate period when combat drones are an almighty game changer. No one has come up with an effective countermeasure to them so far. I'm sure this 'll soon change though.

Anduril makes drones that fly into other drones, smashing them. You have a bunch of these waiting and they launch when hostile drones come in. If they don't find a drone to intercept then they land and wait for another attack.

https://www.anduril.com/roadrunner/

Also quite a variety of other military drones.

I still expect someone to field a miniature CIWS that can be mounted to anything larger than a pickup. Some combination of passive IR search and short-range phased array radar could probably counter the drone tactics I've seen so far. You wouldn't need a round larger than 22LR to take down the drones I've seen, as long as a computer is aiming it and you get enough rounds downrange.

Honestly, I'm still hoping for something novel on this end, like a triple-barrel rotary cannon that uses ammunition like this to emerge as the best solution to this problem.

A similar system has been used for a cannon with an extreme rate of fire before; I suspect it probably scales down better than your typical minigun, doesn't need to run the mechanism as fast for the same amount of projectiles coming out the end, and the rounds can be made of cheap extruded plastic.

Forgive me for the "akshually" style comment, but this isn't entirely true.

No one has come up with a VERY CHEAP effective countermeasure yet. The ones that do work are 1) expensive and 2) Horded by the US/ISR/China and (maybe) a few other countries because nobody wants to show off their cool-new-shit in Ukraine. We want to save it for when it - yikes - actually matters.

Much like the human element of the Ukraine war, the drone element is mostly one of attrition and competing supply lines. At one point, 10,000 drones were falling out of the skies over Ukraine per month because of effective and cheap countermeasures. The tactical wheel turns, however, and both sides elevated their drone-counterdrone game.

There's a possible one I saw recently.

Surprise! Its just a more advanced artillery round.

Less a 'countermeasure' to drones and more a way to delete any locations it might be possible to launch or pilot drones from.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats