site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31549 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.

In for a penny in for a pound, you can’t back down now or leftists internalize that they have a veto over Trump policies. They can make anything “not an effective way” by protesting loudly enough.

I remember when learning Russian military ideology was the popular thing to do. A key Russian doctrine was escalate to deescalate. Which is basically where the Trump admin is right now.

You could choose to deescalate though you’ve earned legitimacy to act thru elections. Thus giving up a monopoly on violence and making the price to stop anything you want to do being the mild sum of 2 leftist. Or you can not sacrifice your political power and double or triple down. I don’t think we are anywhere close to a point where they could back down.

I think at this point it’s obvious these encounters are being engineered by leftist groups. Probably with some local government support. For whatever reasons both sides have decided this is where they will battle. The left hoping to sink Trump with a version of his Vietnam. If he wins here then he will gain a lot of power and have a demoralized opponent.

The last killing I believe is obviously a suicide by ICE. He doesn’t look like a guy who’s too dumb to not understand what happens when you’re armed and start fighting cops. Perhaps not quite a suicide but if his chosen encounter escalated he was a willing martyr.

He doesn’t look like a guy who’s too dumb

People's stupidity is one of the few things we don't know the limits of. You might have internalized the knowledge that bringing a gun to a protest makes sense only if you are willing and ready to use it, and if you want this to be a peaceful protest, then you open carry and never escalate.

This guy didn't. Maybe he really wanted to take one for the team. But my take is that he simply was this clueless.

Are you not an American? It's a pretty basic tradition for American gun owners to bring weapons with them to protests and it's extremely uncommon for them to get executed for it. He wasn't even egregious about it, for example here is some of the protests during COVID.

There's this image of the "Bundy sniper" who was even pointing the rifle directly at federal agents from a vantage point like a sniper, he still went home without trouble.

If you bring a gun to a protest in the US you do not expect to be killed for it because we have the 2nd amendment. There's a reason why the NRA and the Gun Owners of America have both spoken up against this "you can't have a gun at protests" claim, because it goes against American rights and protest tradition.

He’s an ICU nurse and looks basically semi-normalish white guy. At some point you have to assume a person has agency and semi-rationality.

1.Taking a full-loaded gun with extra mags 2. Getting into fisticuffs with ICE 3. 2 weeks after ICE shot a chick

99% of males who can hold down a professional career would view this behavior as strongly correlated with getting shot. It’s also possible according to the video that he had some plan of shooting a bunch of ICE guys as he appears to reach for his gun after he had be unarmed.

I am semi-surprised Right-Wing media hasn’t tried the suicide by ICE narrative because this clearly looks like suicide by ICE. It’s not going to be 100% of the time but solidly in the 2-10% chance something happens and you get shot.

Are you not an American? It's a pretty basic tradition for American gun owners to bring weapons with them to protests and it's extremely uncommon for them to get executed for it. He wasn't even egregious about it, for example here is some of the protests during COVID.

There's this image of the "Bundy sniper" who was even pointing the rifle directly at federal agents from a vantage point like a sniper, he still went home without trouble.

If you bring a gun to a protest in the US you do not expect to be killed for it because we have the 2nd amendment.

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