site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   6261 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A good write-up on a detransition study by the PI (Well, it's a cogent write-up, on its own; I didn't check if it was faithful to the study.)

They subtyped detransition into "Detransitioning with regret," 'Identity evolutions," "Transition ambivalence,' and "Interrupted gender transitions." The biggest surprise to me was the last subtype, since the others were pretty much what you'd expect. (Or, at least, what I'd expected.)

Interrupted gender transitions (Class D)

The main way to understand this detransition experience is as a temporary transition interruption, usually involuntary. This type of experience is often mediated by external barriers such as discrimination, limited access to gender-affirming care, or lack of support—not by changes in identity or self-understandings. They predominantly reported satisfaction with treatments and no or very low decisional regret.

Compared to the other three groups, Class D contains the largest portion of trans women and other participants who were assigned male at birth (37%), with 62% being trans men or nonbinary people born female. On average, participants realized their transgender or gender-diverse (TGD) identity at age 14—slightly younger than the other groups. Though, they typically began medical transition at older ages than the other groups, with 62% having ever started a medical transition.

At the time of the survey they were an average age of 27 years. Nearly half in Class D were bisexual (48%) while 8% identified as straight. Most participants (95%) continued to identify as TGD, the highest of all the classes.

They generally reported decision-making supports, with a majority reporting access to assessments or talk therapy.

The write-up has a lot of tables and graphs, so block quotes aren't very effective.

To paraphrase the author, this is higher quality information than we had, previously, but the study can't tell us how to use that information... So, how would a utilitarian interpret this? Or a deontologist, virtue ethicist, contractualist, contractarianist, etc?

I kinda don't believe in utilitarians, they tend to use "utility" to cover up their actual values. For example, I'd say that a utilitarian would recommenend improvimg the diagnostic process so that there's less people detransitioning for "identity evolutions" reasons (they hurt their health only to end up where they would have been anyway, without thebmedical interventions), but another utilitarian can just as easily say "well, if they don't regret it, have they *reaaaaally* lost any utils?". Similarly there aren't really utilitarian reasons for favoring hormones and surgeries, over coping strategies to deal with body image / identity issues.

The actual conflict is between Natural Law people and transhumanists.

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