site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Let's think this through.

First, it seems like some people are kind of not-friends with the United States. How many Chinese spies are here on Student Visa? How many future ISIS agents are we educating right now? Even without deliberate malice, different norms might lead to people smuggling dangerous fungi and genetically modified roundworms without safeguards, for instance.

Ok, but even if everything is sunshine and rainbows, how does this work out in practice? The majority of students in the US are only able to attend due to generous student loans available. There are people around the world who are able to afford the sticker price on an American education, and they send their brightest to us. But with the demographic collapse we're talking about, eventually we'll run out of rich kids and start needing poor kids. Are they going to be receiving unbacked loans to go to American schools? When they can just fuck off back to some jungle and laugh in the face of debt collectors?

Either we need a more explicit Indentured Servitude pact for college or this isn't starting to look like a solution either.

First, it seems like some people are kind of not-friends with the United States. How many Chinese spies are here on Student Visa? How many future ISIS agents are we educating right now? Even without deliberate malice, different norms might lead to people smuggling dangerous fungi and genetically modified roundworms without safeguards, for instance.

You're assuming the people who want to keep the colleges and their enrollment numbers propped up care about this.

But with the demographic collapse we're talking about, eventually we'll run out of rich kids and start needing poor kids. Are they going to be receiving unbacked loans to go to American schools? When they can just fuck off back to some jungle and laugh in the face of debt collectors?

Yes, and yes, because the "unbacked loans" will mostly be from the government, so it'll be the citizenry eating the costs of the defaults — either through taxes, or more likely via inflation, since the money will just be printed. In short, it'll provide a scheme for the government to keep these institutions afloat at taxpayer expense without just doing so directly, while also furthering demographic replacement.

Ah ok. I've been arguing that it's not a good idea or sustainable and you've been arguing that it's physically possible (for now).

The indentured servitude pact still doesn’t account for Earth’s inevitable immolation in the expanding Sun.

If you want to write something off for failing “eventually,” you’ve got to be more specific.

I thought it was very specific - if we give forigners unsecured loans for education they will just go back home without repaying them unless we actually indenture them and force them to stay to pay off the debt.