site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8141 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It seems like you are approaching the situation from the perspective of an individual man who wants to improve his love life. Which is fine, but I'm more interested in solutions for society as a whole. There are a lot of issues involved, but I think that ultimately man is a tournament species. So in the absence of laws, traditions, social norms, and so on, there are inevitably large numbers of males of the species who do not get the opportunity to have a female mate.

Which is fine, but I'm more interested in solutions for society as a whole.

I think, as far as society goes. Raising young boys, especially those coming from bad family backgrounds with these points in mind + some sort of government intervention policy would help shift the needle.

We'd also need to raise wages for men who can not attend higher education, whatever the reason.

We'd also need to crack down on the american food industry so that people can be skinnier, much of the increase in obesity is basically both the quality of and the amount of food we consume. Becoming attractive physically will help a lot. Thats 3 i can think off of the top of my head.

What's your reason for assuming the interventions needed should target men and male behavior.

Is there something that men have started doing differently that we need to correct?

What's your reason for assuming the interventions needed should target men and male behavior.

The other possible solutions are probably a no go.

Targeting womens sexuality would probably be a dead end with little return. We as humans dont choose what we are attracted to. Women as a group cant undo their desire for men with money and status any more than i as a man can undo my desire for hourglass figure, youthful girls. The best we could try is having them tought to look for more personality traits outside of attraction, but that wont do as much as good as simply making said person attractive to start with. You cant negotiate it.

We also cant reverse the reality of our economic system: the service economy is here to stay. Social and Mentally intensive skills pay, and i dont see a way around this, itll probably continue as AI make progress.

Is there something that men have started doing differently that we need to correct?

I touched on some of this in the general post: Not graduating college at the same rate, more likely to have little to no friends (lack of socialization), many are even out off the workforce all together.

I know it seems that im kind of unfairly targeting men here, but i see little alternative.

I know it seems that im kind of unfairly targeting men here, but i see little alternative.

I've proposed literally just return to a status quo ante of circa 1993 with regard to education policy/funding.

I don't think you have to 'target' female sexuality. Literally just level the playing field and stop subsidizing degrees that don't pay well or boosting female employment in careers they aren't suited for. Let the market correct.

And you will then have, on the margins, more men with relatively high status and a bit more wealth, and more women who haven't had their standards raised arbitrarily whilst becoming less appealing as partners.

And we start to reduce the political polarization of women because it is 100% clear that the college education is driving the women to the left in droves.

If nobody is willing to make a policy change that risks upsetting females, the current course will only correct when something breaks.

I bring this up mainly because The Gender Divide is extremely pronounced among younger generations. There's zero reason to think this moderates later.

As the Boomers shuffle off, there's going to be a crack in the dam that currently protects females from social restriction and cultural 'retaliation.'

What do you think happens if a generation where a huge portion of the men don't even believe in gender equality achieves political power?

Implement some solutions now to correct course, or I'm genuinely afraid for how the Zoomers will end up addressing this problem that, from their perspective, stole their future.

Cutting down on all the ambient "Men, Amirite?" seems achievable. Right now, only being an absolute panty-melter can get a woman to briefly forget she's supposed to hate her oppressors or whatever.

Agreed

How do you reconcile that idea with the fact that, even in our post-sexual-revolution age in which women are sexually free and can have jobs, fewer than 10% of adult American men are virgins and only about 30% are single?

How do you reconcile that idea with the fact that, even in our post-sexual-revolution age in which women are sexually free and can have jobs, fewer than 10% of adult American men are virgins and only about 30% are single?

I think that societal laws, norms etc. have eroded but are nowhere near the point of having completely broken down.

There's the famous statistic that at one point 17 women reproduced for every man. But if you trace down that claim, it's likely that such an event happened during our hunter gatherer past, not during civilization. I'm not sure that tournament dynamics are compatible with the maintenance of civilization: the polygamous Islamic dynasties were famously unstable, as characterized by Ibn Khaldun, and were repeatedly overthrown by more cohesive, more monogamous groups from the periphery. If you don't have buy-in from most men (and women), and family formation ceases, it's almost tautological that you can't maintain the structure of society. This is a key insight from J.D. Unwin's Sex and Culture, and the strongest counter argument against extreme forms of feminism and sexual libertinism.

There's the famous statistic that at one point 17 women reproduced for every man. But if you trace down that claim, it's likely that such an event happened during our hunter gatherer past, not during civilization

My understanding is that it was during the bronze age, not among hunter-gatherers. And that it was driven, not by massive harems, but by warfare.

The men of one village/clan (who mostly share Y chromosomes due to their shared kinship) attack another clan/village, kill the men and take the women as war-brides. This wipes out the Y chromosomes of the conquered group but not the mitochondrial DNA from the women. The newly expanded clan branches off, forming new villages. So successful male genetic dynasties expand while unsuccessful ones are wiped out. Over time, you get the 1/17 ratio showing up in the genetic data.

It's not as if a typical family structure was one patriarch and 17 wives. More like one man with a wife from his own clan, plus maybe a slave-wife from a conquered clan.

Although you're absolutely right that polygamy is unstable, it also leads to lower birth rates. A polygamous man may have very high fertility, but his 2nd+ wives have lower fertility than if they'd just married monogamously.

There's the famous statistic that at one point 17 women reproduced for every man. But if you trace down that claim, it's likely that such an event happened during our hunter gatherer past, not during civilization.

If I had to guess, I would say that /u/thenelection is correct, that it was actually the rise of agriculture which resulted in such an extreme ratio. But even if the ratio is "a more reasonable 4:1," that's still consistent with my claim that man is naturally a tournament species. It seems pretty clear to me that most men would build a harem if they could get away with it. And that most women would join a harem if it were socially acceptable and the economics worked.

You reverse it. Civilization didn't free us from the bottleneck; it created it. Hunter gatherers had a ratio of something like 2:1 to 4:1. It was simply materially impossible for one man to monopolize reproductive access in a community. The advent of agriculture 5000 to 7000 years ago caused that ratio to skyrocket to the 17:1 figure (which is better stated as the ratio of effective genetic population size, but the implication is directionally correct). See "A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture" (https://genome.cshlp.org/content/25/4/459.full.pdf).

Later on, as sedentary societies evolved and monogamy norms were created and propagated themselves, the ratio dropped back to a more reasonable 4:1 or 5:1.

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