site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Additional factors, speaking personally:

  • All the pronatal propaganda is making it clear that being a father is extra hard if you're not in your early twenties, so I'm already at only the second best age to become one;

  • Even the top countries are getting doompilly about AI-related lack of opportunity and meaning in society in a decade or two, and my country is likely to be behind on AI and so get the worst of both worlds, just like it's the worst of both worlds between liberalism and tradness at the moment.

  • As others mentioned, unless you already live in a world where you get a mandatory wife at 18, you can't have children unless you have a female partner amicable to it. At the moment, I don't have one at all, and dating in modernity as someone who doesn't already have big in-person social circles has already been discussed to death.

  • My job would allow plenty of time for children, but not if I want to support my wife and get an apartment that will fit us. And it appears to be an absolutely miserable time to switch jobs right now, since, again, total industry upheaval. I'm only comfortable right now because we have legacy code and non-yuppie upper management.

All the pronatal propaganda is making it clear that being a father is extra hard if you're not in your early twenties, so I'm already at only the second best age to become one

Na, especially as the dad, you just shouldn't be very old, i.e. in retirement when they are in high school. Especially since, despite all the talk, many women really want to be the primary carers for the kids anyway. For that reason and simply due to fertility issues the situation for women is different, but even for them plenty of pronatalists actually consider late twenties the best time.