site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount’s offer is deemed superior

In a development that was predicted by many, Paramount Skydance owned by the Ellison family has derailed the Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros and will acquire the company.

The Ellison family are close, long-time personal friends and business partners with Netanyahu. For example, in 2020 Haaretz reported that Ellison intervened to secure a lawyer to represent Netanyahu in his corruption case. In 2021 Larry Ellison offered Netanyahu a paid role on Oracle’s board. Larry Ellison has widely been described as the largest private donor to the IDF.

With Paramount Skydance now poised to acquire Warner Bros, here is an incomplete list of the properties that now have or will shortly come under ownership of the Ellison Family.

August 2025- Hostile takeover of Paramount:

  • Paramount Pictures
  • Paramount Television
  • CBS
  • CBS News
  • CBS Sports
  • Nickelodeon
  • MTV
  • BET
  • Comedy Central
  • Showtime
  • Paramount+

We saw the immediate fallout from the Ellison family acquisition of CBS News with the installation of Bari Weiss to lead the editorial direction of the company.

Only last month in January 2036 the TikTok algorithm came under the ownership and control of Ellison-owned Oracle, so for practical purposes TikTok should be added to this list:

  • TikTok

Now with the impending takeover by Paramount of Warner Bros, these properties will come under the control of the Ellison family:

  • Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group
  • CNN / CNN International
  • HBO / HBO Max
  • Discovery+
  • Discovery Channel
  • DC/DC Studios
  • TLC
  • TNT
  • TBS
  • Turner Classic Movies (TCM)
  • Animal Planet
  • Science Channel
  • Travel Channel
  • American Heroes Channel (formerly the Military Channel)
  • Cartoon Network / AdultSwim

This is the consolidation of American Media under the Ellison family in just sixth months.

Netanyahu has described International Media as the "eighth front" of Israel's wars, it is wildly intolerable to me that the Trump Administration would permit the consolidation of this breadth of news media into a family with foreign loyalties and foreign ties. The reforms at CBS News and elevation of Bari Weiss also prove a political motive and intent to fight this Eighth Front defined by Netanyahu, which is a front Israel is fighting against the minds of the American People.

At what point do "conspiracies" stop becoming conspiracies and start just becoming recognized as plain reality? All the "conspiracy theorists" predicted from the beginning the TikTok algorithm would be handed to an apparatus loyal to Israel, and that Paramount Skydance would not allow Netflix to win Warner Bros, because they are fighting a geopolitical war and not optimizing dollars and cents.

All of this while the United States mobilizes to fight another war for Israel... but deporting Somalis from Minnesota is just impossible we are told.

Well it doesn't seem to be helping them much in the struggle for public opinion. It's remarkable how anti-Israel some of my female friends have gotten, despite being otherwise very much normie. One cancelled a newspaper subscription to 'The Australian' because of the amount of Israeli propaganda in it.

I know they've been doing all kinds of work to go after the algorithms and manipulate AIs but that doesn't seem to be working out so well? I just see people posting like this: https://x.com/JohnDoe1465199/status/2021247139616092212

What kind of idiot gets their volatile, strongly held political opinions from a chatbot or is prepared to admit they've lost an argument with AI? There are plenty of people dumber than AIs but I think few would admit this. The clumsy way that they try and manipulate these AIs is also not particularly effective. When it comes to deception, humans are still the masters.

Perhaps the media system is like how a dam needs to be at 100%. If the dam is at 99% then it's broken and the water slices through. Twitter and 4chan have considerable influence amongst the young, many older people remember that Iran was supposedly 6 months from a nuke 20 years ago...

On the other hand it's not totally like a dam. There are also plenty of people who are just set in their ways and go on and on about Judeo-Christian values or, in the case of Trump, just openly bemoan that Israel doesn't control the US congress like they used to. That's the boomer and old-media class who run governments and order strikes.

The natural state is that the vast majority of goyim hate them. The fact that some of the boomers actually like them speaks volumes to the effectiveness of propaganda. Without the propaganda the US would probably have had bouts of pogroms. Christians and jews are naturally incompatible. Getting sections of Christians to like jews is an impressive feat of propaganda.

"Natural state" as I understand it would require that the "goyim" know absolutely nothing about jews from things such as cultural background, religion, etc. and form their opinion solely on living alongside them. I am not aware of any such social experiments.

Looking at history it is not difficult for explicitly religious Christians to hate anyone at all who is not Christian. Jews aren't particularly special in that regard.

"Natural state" as I understand it would require that the "goyim" know absolutely nothing about jews from things such as cultural background, religion, etc. and form their opinion solely on living alongside them. I am not aware of any such social experiments.

In medieval times, these social experiments are called China and India. Here, where no one heard about Abrahamic faith, Jews were seen as just another foreign barbarians with strange and ridiculous habits, or just another caste that keeps their customs and rituals for themselves.

In modern times, these experiments are called Thailand, Laos, Cambodia etc. - countries where few people care about Abrahamic scripture or Middle Eastern issues, but know well tourists and travellers from all over developed world. Ask there what tourists are the least welcomed, the answer would be tourists from Asian country named on I (and it is not Iran, Iraq or Indonesia).

Interesting. Specifically Israeli tourists, as opposed to "American with sidelocks"?

Few "Americans with sidelocks" are likely to go backpacking through SE Asia. It is specifically Israeli tourists who have well earned reputation of super-hyper-duper assholes (and not only in this part of the world).