site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33824 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

More money won't fix it, and it's not like you have money anyway.

You know America has ten times the GDP per capita of Argentina and six times the GDP per capita of Russia, yes? Like there are reasoned and informed criticisms you can make of the USA. 'Doesn't have money' is not one.

There seems to be such a huge split between the left and right on this!

From the left, I hear that Americans are broke. Living with their parents, no healthcare, no job (or a really crappy job), struggling to survive. The official statistics are either made up, or highly misleading (like, a handful of billionares have all the money while the rest of us have nothing).

From the right, I hear that America is the wealthiest country that has ever existed. Way more money than China or Europe. The economy has boomed thanks to Reagonomics, the Bush tax cuts, and Trumps... tweets. We can easily spend a trillion for Greenland, or missile defense, or battleships, or whatever, because we have essentially infinite money.

I think the libertarians are the most correct on this. Whichever party is currently in power will say we have plenty of money to pursue their goals. Whichever party is out of power will say that we're broke, we can't afford it, we need to pay down the debt, etc...

The left believes the US is broke because they pursue PPP minimizing lifestyles(living in NYC, grad school, etc).

Yep, the advice I'd give a teen who wants a comfortable life now is about 180 opposed to what was the default when I was teen; move as far as you can stomach to large cities and go into trades instead of higher education. Or if you want to set yourself up, work in a trade in the city while living a frugal lifestyle for 5 years and get yourself a sizeable downpayment for a house in a rural area.

That's precisely the issue. America has GDP and tries to have more GDP. It doesn't have money. It is a country with a chronically negative current account balance, literally $40T in debt, it has less money than anyone. On top of that it consistently has horrible financial discipline and vulnerability to scams and corruption at home. It can't afford to invest into shitholes with dubious ROI, so it does not invest in them and instead robs allies blind, raises tariffs, extorts investment, tries to monetize everything (eg Golden Visa, Board of Peace). Why do you think there exists BRI, but all American attempts to Build Back Better World or whatever have withered on the vine? China has money. America is broke. The main way it can share prosperity around is to deficit-spend buying Argentinian goods. And unfortunately, it already has enough beef and soy.

The deficit isn’t a negative. It’s been a necessity for the US to run large deficits to finance global trade since everyone else needs dollars to trade with since it’s essentially the only “real” global currency.

In many ways it’s been a negative for the US because it’s made domestic manufacturing too expensive.

...

That's not a natural law.

It's an accounting identity.

Good post. Sometimes people Write paragraphs on subjects. But this does breakdown to just being an accounting identity.

...

The American market will swallow up beef at reasonable prices. Even a mild discount vs the very high US cost of production will enable functionally infinite sales. Soy and wine(the most visible Argentine product to the US market is, far and away, malbec), maybe not, but the limitation on Americans buying steak and brisket is budgetary, not consumption ability.

Even a mild discount vs the very high US cost of production will enable functionally infinite sales.

US has been a small beef market for Argentina. 70% goes to China. I'm sure it's not because Argentinian beef is too expensive for Americans right now.

Funny you invoke South American beef. That's part of the Mercosur dispute right now.

The best available studies project that this arrangement will cost the Irish beef sector up to €130 million annually due to downward pressure on prices. Because Mercosur beef is produced to much lower environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards than its European competition, it is likely to be significantly less expensive to buy.

We have quotas on Argentinian beef that pre-date Trump. Trump wants to quadruple the amount which I think is a good thing. In the past Argentina has had restrictions on beef exports and taxes because the domestic population gets angry if beef prices are high.

The most interesting thing about Argentina to me is it has some American similarities but rich people live in cities. It makes me curious how much anti-urban living in the US is just a result of the high crime rates following the Great migration.

Argentina isn’t really a low crime society compared to the vast majority of America, where rich people actually live(not a lot of the Uber wealthy in St. Louis, detroit, Baltimore).

It’s high crime for a country that is almost all white.

It’s low crime for LATAM

It’s overall about the US average.

I think it’s obvious black peoples are a big reason why America doesn’t have many dense cities (NYC, Boston, some Miami). Some of that is crime and some of that is schooling. I feel safer in Buenos Aires than I do Chicago and NYC. Though NYC murder rate is reasonable.

The U.S. is entirely capable of having nice(albeit low affordability) low crime urban core neighborhoods in major cities. There’s several. The U.S. economy just doesn’t mandate rich people live in urban cores.

But they are always low affordability. Every city has some kind of barrier to prevent diverse urban communities. Zoning or price.

It makes me curious how much anti-urban living in the US is just a result of the high crime rates following the Great migration.

Rich people live in cities in the US too, and I think almost always have (though the ultra-rich will have multiple residences of course). The working class, middle class and UMC are the ones who moved out, and I believe this started immediately after WWII simply because of lack of housing (hence the building of the Levittowns and their follow-ons), but the high crime rates and the race riots probably accelerated the trend.

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