site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7360 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 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.

"Dat's Raciss" is the easy, stop-gap answer. I hate to bring up Rotherham in this context, but that was exactly what stymied investigation in part: when eventually the pieces started coming together that no, this wasn't just a few, isolated cases of underclass girls gone wild, people in charge put blockages in the way because "oh no, investigating this would seem to blame the Muslim community and that would be racist/racists would use it as a weapon".

"But they wouldn't do it to Christians" - well, if Christian church groups are engaging in this kind of fraud, they damn well should do it to them.

Also, there seems to be a general fraud problem going back years in Minnesota, if allegations of $9 billion going down the Swanee are correct. Governor Tim says it's only $1 billion but that may just be "cases known about for this specific scam":

Minnesota has been under the spotlight for years for Medicaid fraud, including a massive $300 million pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said it was the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scam and that defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.

In 2022, during President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people were charged. The number of defendants has grown to 78 throughout the ongoing investigation.

So far, 57 people have been convicted, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial.

Most of the defendants are of Somali descent.

Numerous other fraud cases are being investigated, including new allegations focused on child care centers.

In news interviews and press releases over the summer, prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated the total loss from all fraud cases could exceed $1 billion. Earlier this month, a federal prosecutor alleged that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen.

...Among those running schemes to get funds for child nutrition, housing services and autism programs, 82 of the 92 defendants are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has said fraud will not be tolerated and his administration “will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”

...Walz has said an audit due by late January should give a better picture of the extent of the fraud but allowed that the $1 billion estimate could be accurate. He said his administration is taking aggressive action to prevent additional fraud. He has long defended how his administration responded.

As an aside, is there anything Kamala touched for her presidential campaign that hasn't come back to bite her? Timmy boy here was her hand-picked choice because he was biddable, and now here's the track record of This Could Have Been Your VP come out to haunt him.

Timmy boy here was her hand-picked choice because he was biddable, and now here's the track record of This Could Have Been Your VP come out to haunt him.

If nothing else, I can agree with you on that one. If the FBI finds significant prosecutable fraud, it will be nothing short of an embarrassment for the entire Democratic Party that the governor wasn't aware that millions or even billions was being stolen from right under his nose. He'd done a pretty good job of catching other Somali fraudsters but there's still no excuse for not catching these ones earlier. The only thing worse would be if it wasn't Somalis (necessarily) but people in DHS itself, people he worked with and trusted who were doing the stealing. It would look especially bad if he publicly praised those who were the masterminds of the crime for getting people off the welfare rolls, when what they were really doing is funneling money that should have gone to the poor to wealthy celebrities, pro athletes, and pet projects. It would look even worse if he claimed he had no idea what was going on and then text messages came out that at least insinuated that he probably had an inkling. And it wouldn't do him any favors if his response to this was to sue the reporter who broke the story for defamation and ask the court to hold her in contempt if she doesn't reveal her sources, creating the distinct possibility that the person who uncovered the scandal would also be the first person to go to jail. Yeah, that would make him look really bad. So bad that I don't know how anyone could vote Democrat after that. Then again, Phil Bryant keeps getting appointed to Trump Administration committees like the FEMA Review Council and the National Assessment of Education Progress, so maybe it wouldn't turn out so bad for him or the party.

The defense of “only 1b” is quite the shitty defense

"This scam was only $1b. The other scams, well, we have to wait for the figures".

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