site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   24115 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Motte’s Declining Audience

Several times this month I have tried to load the site and it’s been very slow, looked weird (with a kind of almost rdrama pink theme and unusual spacing) or failed to load at all.

I’d guess that this is a big reason why, after 5+ years of relative stability, the last few months have seen a huge drop off in culture war thread comments. Posting here for visibility, but this seems like something we should fix or this place is going to die pretty quickly.

Same. I don't want to have to go crawling back to reddit.

Why did we get ejected from Reddit again? Reddit admins let us know we couldn't debate trans stuff?

Never was ejected. /r/TheMotte is still there. Every month /u/naraburns bot still posts an (empty) QC thread.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

I think it was the right decision. I'm very proud that our little community survived the migration, despite all the nay-sayers at the time!

I think the timing was fine and allowed the migration to proceed with maximum cohesion. Trying to do it while /r/themotte was under administrative sanctions would have lost more users.

The writing was on the wall considering correspondence from the admins. It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'. It reminds me of 'Performance Managing' someone out of their job in corporate. Once the process has started, its almost impossible to reverse. They have made their mind up that they are going to get rid of you and that's that.

As it stands, Reddit is completely ruined for any serious political discourse these days. Bots, datamining for AI, making things 'advertiser friendly'.

It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'.

Yup, which makes it all the more depressing when this place occasionally pulls that same bullshit.

Yup. I already knew it was going to be Amadan before even clicking the link. Most mod work is trivial janitorial duties and some mods should really be forbidden from doing any other type.

I believe the straw on the camel's back was when we had a comment removed over someone trying to civilly and factually explain (((parentheses))).

It was just someone using a regular set of [brackets] for a parenthetical statement and the Reddit turbo-jannies jumped on it as a supposedly bannable offense. Which indicated that the jig was probably up and someone higher up on the food chain was hunting for any excuse to start the witch burnings.

@erwgv3g34 @FistfullOfCrows @sarker

Guy A used guillemets. Guy B said Guy A sounded like a Nazi. Guy C said:

Nazis do (((this)))

But « thiis » [sic] is just a different type of quotation mark used in French, German, Russian and so on.

Guy C got whacked; other two did not. Hence, it's SoulFire that was correct to begin with.

Probably a Third World sweatshop worker or bot solely working on "does post contain naughty thing".

Wasn't it a set of «««guillemets»»»?

Who wants to bet a turbo jannie that had never seen russian quotes just thought it was a fancy new alt-right version of the echo brackets.

It was, iirc, a single «pair».

Technically we didn't, but the feeling was that we were close. Because we were willing to let people freely speak their minds on a number of topics (including transgender stuff), we had posts getting removed by site admins. The belief was that it was only a matter of time until the admins closed the sub for refusing to uphold the site-wide rules about what opinions one is allowed to express. Personally I agree with that belief, but we didn't technically get shut down.

Too many no-no words meant the sub was at risk of deletion, iirc. Much easier to respect the spirit of the community off-site where we could set our own standards for what content needs moderated.

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