site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13315 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Here is the FBI agent affidavit in support of probable cause for his arrest. The evidence breaks down like:

1. Based on Cole's credit card transaction history he purchased all the parts that were themselves part of the bombs as well as other safety tools one might use to make a bomb across 2019/2020. Sample paragraph (not gonna quote all of them):

Both pipe bombs were manufactured using a 1” x 8” galvanized pipe with markings consistent with a particular manufacturer’s (the “Pipe Manufacturer”) product labeling. COLE purchased a total of six galvanized pipes of this size and shape on or about June 1, June 8, and November 16, 2020. The purchases were made at two different Home Depot location in northern Virginia. According to the Pipe Manufacturer, approximately 26,000 of these items from Pipe Manufacturer were sold in 2020, and over 22,000 of these items were sold to Home Depot.

(continue for the end caps, wiring, steel wool, kitchen timers, etc.)

2. Analysis of cellphone data shows that Cole's phone was connected to towers in the vicinity of where the bombs were placed at the same time surveillance footage shows the bomb planter in the area. Sample paragraph (5 or so of these, covering from 7:39 to 8:24):

At approximately 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 59323, which faces southeast (approximately 120˚) from its location at 103 G Street, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector A”). Also at 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 126187, which faces east (approximately 90˚) from its location at 200 Independence Avenue, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector B”). Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:39:32 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked westbound on D Street, Southeast and then turned southbound on South Capitol Street, Southeast. These locations are consistent with the coverage areas of Sector A and B.

3. A license plate reader caught Cole's vehicle in the area shortly before the first security camera footage captures the bomb planter. Cole's cell phone also starts communicating with towers in the area shortly after.

COLE is the registered owner of a 2017 Nissan Sentra with a Virginia license plate. On January 5, 2021, at approximately 7:10 p.m., COLE’s Nissan Sentra was observed driving past a License Plate Reader at the South Capitol Street exit from Interstate 395 South, which is less than one-half mile from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed on foot near North Carolina and New Jersey Avenues, Southeast at 7:34 p.m. Approximately 5 minutes later, at 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE began to interact with Provider towers in the area.

You'd have to be stupid to commit a serious federal crime and expect to get away. There feds have so many resources and so determined, and also it does not help that the vast majority of criminals are not masterminds and make in hindsight stupid mistakes.

I mean, agreed you have to stupid or mentally ill to do something like this since there is no upside, but maybe use cash and turn off your cell phone, bro? License plate alone wouldn’t be enough to build a case.

Even the license plate is easy to obscure. If you're carrying a bike on a rear rack a plate reader won't work. Some hitch racks fold up when not in use and will block the plate on some sedans. I rode the turnpike for free for years with a rack like this until I got pulled over for it and decided I didn't want to risk the ticket, but that only happens if a cop is directly behind you and can't read the plate, and is bored enough to make an issue out of it. There was a news article a while back about how much revenue the turnpike was losing from people carrying bikes, saying that they were pulling some people over for foiling the readers, but this isn't something a cop is realistically going to pull you over for in and of itself (the cop who pulled me over said that they wouldn't do it if someone were carrying a bike), only if you were getting free rides as a consequence. I think that they realistically understand that this is a lost cause, though.

Who buys bomb equipment with credit cards?

Who brings their cell phone with them to commit crimes?

To be honest, lots of criminals. A lot of crimes are solved by police departments with a lot less resources than the FBI using some pretty hard to pin down evidence. Cell tower + LPR hits can often get you down to only a very small pool of individuals that need to be investigated further. One prosecutor friend of mine got a conviction for an armed robbery based on basically cell towers, LPRS, and a photo of underwear.

people who commit crimes and get caught make bad decisions. this is the simple explanation for everything. of course in this particular situation the timing is very weird because you have the grifter news site making bombshell accusations about capitol police being involved in the pipe bombing. but there is even a explanation for the timing which is grifter news site is making FBI look bad even if the grifter story is false so FBI now allocates resources on this particular case instead of whatever 'higher' priority the FBI would otherwise use their resources.

also, if this is an FBI coverup this confirms the republican party is the washington generals.

Criminals. I mean, if I were building and planting a bomb I'd make use of salvaged stuff as much as possible, anything I couldn't would be bought with cash (thought that didn't help here), the cell phone would stay at home, I'd try to note the location of CCTV cameras and such and at least try to make me and my car get lost in the noise if I couldn't avoid them, etc. I also would NOT do Google, Bing, or even DDG searches of bomb-making and stuff from devices that could be associated with me (including other people's phones at my house). But

a) I'm also not going to build or plant a bomb.

and

b) Blowing shit up is fun, but this would be a lot of work and who goes into crime to do a lot of work?

c) If you're going to bomb the Capitol as part of an attempt to overthrow the government, the least you expect afterward is the boogaloo, the most you expect is that your people get into power. You don't plan to evade the FBI because after the bombing the FBI either won't exist or won't have power over you.

If it's not confirmed I'm very confident DC is under wide-area persistent surveillance. You have to spend a lot of time figuring out CCTV locations to defeat it.

Who brings their cell phone with them to commit crimes?

From experience as a defense attorney, just about everyone. Obviously, selection bias since there might be hordes of people leaving their cell phones at home, committing crimes, and not getting arrested, and I would never see them.

Yeah and I'm glad for it, still, I'd think someone conscientious enough to make a delayed fuse bomb and have all 10 fingers would be conscious enough to not bring their cell phone while planting said bombs.

Well if that isn't proof we're living in a panopticon, nothing is. They were able to trace his month-old purchases of 9V battery connectors that he made with cash:

COLE purchased five of the Nine Volt Distributor’s nine-volt battery connectors from Micro Center in northern Virginia on or about November 12 and December 28, 2019, including cash purchases made during the December transaction.

December 28, 2019, including cash purchases made during the December transaction.

Isn't that a cash transaction that was over a year old that they tracked, not just months?

Also, is the "including" saying he made both credit and cash purchases at that same December transaction?

Ah, yes, right, over a year. If you're not tracking everything, how do you track that?

It sounds like he split the purchase, putting part of it on cash and part of it on a card. When I was a cashier in high school people would occasionally do this, though these days I don't know the motivation (back then it was people using food stamps and paying the balance in cash or using cash they had and charging the rest before charging was a thing rich people did to rack up points).

Card maxed out, maybe? Needed to break a $50 at the same time because the ATM sometimes gives those out instead of $20s and I hate that?

I mean, we’ve known this since Snowden haven’t we? I guess until now they were just sitting on all data in the universe and not doing anything with it.

Not the cash part.

I'm not really sure what this proves though - once they have his license plate, there are enough security cameras or automatic license plate readers in Northern Virginia that a sufficiently determined federal agency can look through footage to figure out where you were driving, and large companies have had video footage of the registers for ages. Court decisions on using license plate readers to track movements are a decade old at this point.

He bought 9V connectors at the end of 2019 and planted the bomb in the beginning of 2021. Are we to believe that microcenter retained CCTV footage of every cash register for over a year?

I mean they must have? The only way they'd know he paid cash was via security footage, or if he did the transaction 50% cash / 50% card so that the receipt info could be traced to him

Microcenter likes to register you as a customer. If he put his phone number into the system when he made his cash purchase, then the purchase would still be recorded under his account.

Yes, point reward systems are also part of the panopticon.

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