site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27990 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I find this issue somewhat ironic in that, IMO, Trans overrepresentation in this field is more about 'The sort of mildly-spectrumatic social misfits that would historically have been overrepresented as school shooters are now being nudged hard into transitioning' moreso than expressly 'it's the transness that does it'.

On the other hand, grabbing that particular demographic and ramming a bunch of random hormones down them plus giving them a persecution complex is probably not the absolute ideal way of handling the delicate subject of adolescent mental health.

The sort of mildly-spectrumatic social misfits that would historically have been overrepresented as school shooters are now being nudged hard into transitioning

It's funny to think that, if Columbine had happened today, the names that would have lived on in infamy would have been Erica Harris and – well, I suppose Dylan can be a girl's name too.

I peeped at the big canadian subs and predictably, any discussion regarding the killer's identity is being actively moderated. And the removed threads did acknowledge the bit of nuance you reference. Of course, now that it's confirmed they belong to an inconvenient demographic, I doubt we'd see much institutional bipartisan appetite for any exhaustive scrutiny. Because now the victims aren't just dead kids, but we gotta protect the kids transitioning. This individual reportedly surpassed Elliot Rodger in terms of casualties, yet it seems unlikely that we will witness a comparable level of sustained analysis of their background, motivations, or formative influences.

The recent shooting in Sydney, Australia had the same thing. Any attempt to bring up 'maybe there is some causatory factor here' getting immediate 'HOW DARE YOU NOT FOCUS ON THE VICTIMS AND IT'S THE GUNS' reactions, whilst you know if it were hypothetical Chudzilla there'd be absolutely no hesitation in making it a 'right wingers are gonna kill us all' story.

Even in Australia the lasting political impact seems to be negligible in terms of laws passed or anything that might actually hit Islamic radicalization. Instead massive upsurge in polling for the populist right party, death of the established middle-right party and gun control efforts.

Yes, I tend to think it's a combination of 1) shooters being almost entirely male, and thus more likely to be trans women than cis women or trans men, and 2) both shooters and trans people having strong positive correlations with mental illness.

You can debate the reasons for trans correlation with mental illness, say that it's all because of bigotry against gender-non-conforming people if you like, but the observation itself seems to remain true. Shooters tend to be biologically male people with some sort of mental disorder, and trans women are biologically male people who frequently have some sort of (other than being trans) mental disorder.

It isn't an epidemic or anything. But if trans women are slightly more likely, statistically, to be shooters than other demographics, it wouldn't surprise me.

This seems very plausible. On the other hand, society is generally chill about most mass shooters carrying the Y chromosome, I am sure that the take 'you can prevent violence by aborting your male fetus' exists somewhere but I have not stumbled upon it.

This seems entirely fair, most men do not engage in horrific violence, after all.

However, then it seems also fair to apply similar standards to trans women -- sure, they may be over-represented compared to cis men in shootings, but the violent ones still form a tiny minority.

Certainly, and the base rate being what it is, the odds that any given trans-identifying person is violent are so low that you should not assume the worst. In general you should try to treat people as individuals.

Society is pretty chill about most mass shooters being biologically male because biological males form 50% of the population or thereabouts- you can't not be chill about it.

I think trans ideology just caught on hard with school shooter types, that is to say a very particular strain of autistic mega-exile. I mean I think we all knew it wasn't Chad and Stacy driving those transgender teen numbers over the last few years.

Strong chance that this demographic is also on SSRIs, so that hypothesis still has legs too, IMO.

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