site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5734 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The prior discussion about the Texas redistricting case was prompted by a particular piece of evidence, but - last I checked it - apparently missed the legislative history that made the case clearer.

Adam Unikowsky posted about it, yesterday. To start at the end of his post, to temper commentary:

What’s my take on all this?

This is the type of case in which it’s particularly easy to fall victim to motivated reasoning—that is, convincing yourself that the plaintiffs’ or defendants’ legal arguments are more persuasive because you’re rooting for the Democrats or Republicans to win the House of Representatives. Courts have occasionally been known to engage in motivated reasoning, and indeed I frequently read commentary suggesting that we are doomed to a judicial dystopia in which all cases split on party lines until the end of time. Let’s hope not. But regardless of how this particular case is resolved, you, reader, should try to formulate your views without regard to partisan impulses.

Unikowsky's abbreviated timeline (explained in more detail in the article):

June 9: New York Times publishes an article saying that President Trump’s team was pushing Texas to redistrict for partisan reasons, but Texas Republicans weren’t interested.

June 23: Governor Abbott announces that he is calling a special legislative session and lists several agenda items, but redistricting isn’t among them.

July 7: Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, sends a letter to Governor Abbott expressing the view that four Texas congressional districts “currently constitute unconstitutional ‘coalition districts’” and “urg[ing] the State of Texas to rectify these race-based considerations from these specific districts.”

July 9: Governor Abbott issues a formal proclamation calling a special session which includes the following item: “Legislation that provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Read the whole thing, but it looks to me like the Trump administration thought it'd be a good idea to use race as a pretext for partisanship, rather than requesting openly partisan gerrymandering, to begin with, and it bit them in the ass.

Adam Unikowsky posted about it, yesterday

Brief note for any aspiring substackers here: please don't insert vaguely related AI slop in between paragraphs. It greatly reduces the odds I'll read your stuff.

The funniest outcome here is that Texas creates a whole pile of slightly-pink districts to try to stretch the Republican butter over as much toast as possible, and a truly bad midterm causes Texas to elect more Democrats than they thought they would. And one day the reverse in California leads the state that gave us Nixon and Reagan back to the Republican fold.

Yeah, AI illustrations are Unikowsky's thing and they're usually tasteful and varied enough to ignore, but this joke got old halfway through the first telling. (Though I'm not surprised lawyers commenting on the case are poking fun at the dissent.)

Poe's law strikes on ai slop? Nevertheless there are too many slop pushers who unironically push this slop that the joke is going to go over everyone's head.

Even as a joke, it wore thin pretty quickly. Irony isn't an excuse unless it's worthwhile.

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