site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm really struggling to envision how this would work in practice.

Prosecutor charges defendant with rape or sexual assault and argues with evidence that the charge applies because the victim lacked the cognitive ability to consent to sex, due to being too young of a child.

A 20-year-old man has consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl, but it's okay because "she seemed really mature for her age"?

It would be okay because she was not mentally handicapped. Normal 15 year olds understand sex.

How would this synergise (or not) with other rights only afforded to people who have reached the age of majority? 15-year-olds can vote, drink alcohol, smoke, buy guns etc. provided they can demonstrate that they're unusually mature for their age? Can you imagine the administrative overhead involved in having a public body vet the emotional maturity of every 15-, 16- and 17-year-old in the land on a case-by-case basis?

I think all of those are fine for 15 year olds as long as their parents can veto it. In fact that's how it was for a long time until the late 20th century. They used to have smoking rooms in high schools (for students) and they would bring their rifles to school and so on. What is more important is whether they can not have their parents be their guardians. I think there should be the ability for smart 15 year olds to become emancipated in cases where their parents lack ability, are abusive, or are just too different from their own tastes. This is very rare, however, but courts already hear emancipation cases. Most 15 year olds probably don't want to be emancipated since they get along with their parents and depend on them. In fact the opposite is more frequently the case, many parents keep parenting until their child is in their early 20s, which is probably why the age of adulthood in the US used to be 21. This happens because their 18 and 19 year olds are still dependent on them and don't trust their own judgement. For example, I bought a gun when I was 18. Looking back I definitely did not need it and I was glad my parents took it away from me. I went to college and they found I had a fake ID when I came back for the summer and that got taken too when I was 19. A lot of girls had tracking apps on their phones for their parents during freshman year of university and when I was 21, a friend wanted his freshman girlfriend to come live with him in a different city while he did an internship, but her father wouldn't allow her.

As for the franchise, I don't care at all because I don't vote. The reason for that is that I don't accept mass democracy as a political system, but that's a totally different can of worms.

I think there should be the ability for smart 15-year-olds to become emancipated in cases where their parents lack ability, are abusive, or are just too different from their own tastes.

Libertarian discussion of this idea

But when are we to say that this parental trustee jurisdiction over children shall come to an end? Surely any particular age (21,18, or whatever) can only be completely arbitrary. The clue to the solution of this thorny question lies in the parental property rights in their home. For the child has his full rights of self-ownership when he demonstrates that he has them in nature—in short, when he leaves or “runs away” from home. Regardless of his age, we must grant to every child the absolute right to run away and to find new foster parents who will voluntarily adopt him, or to try to exist on his own. Parents may try to persuade the runaway child to return, but it is totally impermissible enslavement and an aggression upon his right of self-ownership for them to use force to compel him to return. The absolute right to run away is the child’s ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.

The absolute right to run away is the child’s ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.

So, 5 years old who leaves home to move in with nice uncle who promises him as much chocolate as he wants to eat, is adult citizen with full rights, while 50 years old who is living with mom is still legally a baby?

Very cool. Misesistan is going to be interesting place. Perhaps not to live in, but certainly to watch from the other side of the world.

For what it's worth I don't think Ludwig von Mises would have supported this. Mises Institute's Mises is really Murray Rothbard wearing a Mises mask.

The problem is that libertarianism is a fundamentally lazy attempt to systematize and plan social structure. The problem with this plan for children is that parents are adapted to maximize their childrens' fertility. Understanding how exactly this works gets into a ton of math and science very quickly, and that's where the NAP writer checks out.