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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It increases it hugely during a conflict. Afterwards the incentives change, especially after a very shameful US withdrawal / unilateral cessation of hostilities, in which case the smart move for them is to complete the bomb, display it publicly, make clear there are many spares distributed across hardened underground facilities, and so a state of nuclear MAD has been reached with Israel.
Twelver Shias really do have a millenarian eschatology but I don’t think that says much about how likely they would be to use that nuclear weapon. In addition, there would be a price to pay for breaking the 80 year nuclear taboo diplomatically, including with Russia and China (since a successful wartime use of a nuclear weapon would almost certainly lead to Poland, Japan and others getting the bomb, which is contrary to the political desires of those states).
Lastly, it’s unclear that a nuclear attack on Israel, depending on scale, would 100% be the end of Israel or (viable) Zionism. It might well be, and presumably this theory involves the subsequent storming (after the deaths of 800k+ Israelis) of the country from multiple sides by an army of angry Muslims, both ‘axis of resistance’ and otherwise Sunnis from Egypt, Syria etc just caught up in the nature of things. But it also might not, Israel would retaliate with nuclear attacks, the population is well armed, it’s possible the US could intervene, there could be a period of anarchy before a Jewish state of a kind is restored, there a number of scenarios.
So certainly it increases the chance, yes. But I don’t think that a regime that survives intact under, say, Khamenei’s son will necessarily do it. That an Iran that survives will get nuclear weapons though is inevitable, surely.
Does Iran even have a sufficiently reliable delivery mechanism for this to be viable? At least a decent chunk of their ballistic attacks have been intercepted. Landing a nuclear warhead might have some (debatable) tactical/strategic benefit, but a bunch of spicy isotopes getting detected after a ballistic missile interception only has all of the fallout (heh). Existing nuclear powers trying to limit the viability of proliferation, and so forth.
And given Israel's intelligence victories over Iran previously, it seems likely they'd have advance knowledge of such an attempt, and likely have interceptor missiles earmarked specifically for, uh, non-conventional warheads.
The odds are so bad. They'd have better luck trying to snuggle a bomb in, and good luck with that lol
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link