site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

To work at its best, marriage should be a partnership. "This happens because I say so" can only work where "I say so" is reasonable and not "I've decided to take out loans, mortgage the house, and put all our savings into this sure thing a guy told me about, and if you don't like it, here's a black eye for you".

I simply suggest this is not a common scenario, at least not in the relatively recent past.

And even if it were, it would require a strong male-lad society to police and punish such actors anyway. There's no scenario where "women can veto any given decision and husband has no authority to limit her" leads to overall superior outcomes.

The current experiment where women are allowed almost unfettered decision-making within a marriage hasn't really worked better for anyone, by most accounts.

I would like to see that happen, but I'm dubious for a couple of reasons.

I think "we live in a globalized world and everyone is aggressively sorted according to their skills and IQ" covers a lot of the issue.

If you're a low-productivity worker, then you're competing against cheap labor from around the globe. If you're a high-skill, high productivity worker you can still do well, but you have to go where the opportunities are. And then you'll be most likely locked into a high-stakes, high competitiveness industry with little margin for error and high demands on your time and performance. Which you will be compensated for, but which can he lost in short order if you screw up.

NOBODY seems to have a viable plan to 'ensure' the creation of stable, high-paying jobs which don't demand endless hours of work and/or take a massive toll on one's health.

But there's a LOT we could be doing to make it easier to create more jobs in the U.S. and lower the overall cost of living.