site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9053 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

No country plans to have their entire leadership killed, become an international pariah by firing missiles at every neighbor, and then finish it off by obliterating the country's only export of value. It's cope. Pure cope. If the Americans are being humiliated, then they can put on the clown suit and honk their horns as all of their enemies die. Third Worldists have internalized 'if you kill your enemies, they win' mentality, and I hope they cling onto it as long as they can.

I'm not sure anyone is arguing the war is good for Iran. More that it's not good for anyone else either. So if the US wants to settle for being the undisputed king of the decimated third world they can do that. But if that's all they can do one has to admit that the shine of the US empire has dampened a little bit.

Many Iranians in America had said to me before the war, for years in the past, that if Trump just dropped a few bombs on Iran and killed Khamenei it would be the best thing for Iran. Let's not totally ignore that things could improve over time even if right now it seems unlikely. The American and French and Russian and Chinese revolutions all seemed certain to fail at different times.

Iranian Americans are extremely disproportionately religious minorities. My guess is that even a lukewarm Shi’ite Iranian would not have this reaction.

I sympathize with exiled Iranians but they don’t know more about regime change than anyone else, many are just clinging onto whatever hope they might be able to go home in their lifetime, if this is it it’s it.

Yeah. I guess I'm just not geopolitically tuned in enough to intuitively understand what 'improvement' looks like or for who. So far the track record of US 'improvement' in the middle east has been lackluster to say the least, so I'd argue some pessimism is warranted.

I pray for my loved ones, unfortunately on both sides of the guns here.

In WWII, the same situation lead my ancestors to become Jehovah's Witnesses.

Are any of them still?

There's an entire half of my family that are Witnesses, yeah. I can go into the religious history of the family FiveHour if you'd like but I'm not sure it's particularly interesting.

I'm not sure your family history would address it, but I've been curious about what keeps people in JW (Where I am, I see recruiting fliers and the pairs standing around with literature frequently, but also "do you need help escaping JW" fliers, too). The organization as whole in the US seems perpetually stuck between cult and major religion with more of the drawbacks of the former than the benefits of the latter. To be blunt about the cost/benefits and not the theology, Mormonism is an obvious set of big benefits, many adherents are some of the happiest, most productive people I've ever met, and the costs aren't all that steep. I cannot say those things about JW and the adherents I know. Perhaps a question for Sunday.

My father, who grew up a witness before leaving the faith when he went to college, would tell you that the poor witnesses get favors off the rich witnesses, and the rich witnesses take advantage of the poor witnesses. It's like intentionally joining an ethnic minority!

My uncles and cousins over the years have stuck us with all kinds of Witness contractors, at varying levels of competency. They make sure their co-religionists get work! But, they would often call my dad and yell at him for paying the Witness contractors too much, telling him if my father paid them that much then they would start expecting that much from my uncle. They exploit the poor witnesses!

It's mostly just like a serious version of any other sect of Prots. There's a sense of community, there's a strong religious set of teachings and morals, there's family. The theology doesn't seem any stupider, really, than most. Certainly less difficult than Mormonism.

And of course there's the missionaries, door knockers will get some people by nature who happen to be at a vulnerable moment. A family friend became a witness when he was involved in some unfortunate dealings with some unfortunate characters, and one day his car was set on fire by way of persuasion. Well his wife told him to clean up his life that very day or she was leaving with the kids. That very day a knock came at the door, and a copy of Watchtower in his hand.

It's sort of like the Taxi theory of marriage in Sex and the City: men are like Taxis, you can wave at them all you want when they are off duty or have passengers, but the moment the light comes on the first woman to wave at them can get in. The same goes for a man looking for a wife, you can date a man for years and if he isn't ready for marriage he won't propose while once he is ready for marriage he will propose to the next woman he dates, or in this case for a religion. If you happen to run into the Witnesses at a time in your life where you need a religion, you will become a Witness, just as surely as you would have become a Mormon or a Baptist or a Muslim. The Witnesses (and the Mormons) stack the odds in their favor by constantly recruiting, they are more likely to run into a person ready to adopt a religion by constantly Witnessing to those around them.

No country plans to have their entire leadership killed

Except, you know, Iran. “The regime has in fact already taken preventative measures to ensure its survival in the event of an attack, including by tapping Ali Larijani, a former IRGC commander and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council, to take the lead on contingency planning. Khamenei has also reportedly named successors for himself and his key military and government appointees to enable smooth transfers of power and ensure the regime’s longevity.”

an international pariah

They already were a pariah and cut off from trade. America even managed to persuade India to stop sending them food. That curse happened to become a blessing for them, as they are insulated from the internal consequences of disrupted global trade. What is perhaps not noted here is that the only thing a Sunni hates more than a Shia is an Israeli. The Gulf Arabs are unlikely to go to war with Iran to increase the territorial expansion and power of Israel. Just two weeks ago Huckabee spilled on the beans on the Zionist conspiracy to increase Israeli territory. So for who will Iran be a pariah exactly?

But those contingencies are contingencies for a reason. Obviously it is not an ideal state of affairs for your entire civilian and military upper ranks to be decapitated! Now the former Ayatollah was an old man getting up in the years, dying of cancer and willing to martyr himself. But his wife? His son's wife? All of his subordinates, too? It's not like Israel or the Americans are stopping with just them. They're going down the entire chain of command, killing anyone who even has a whisper of command authority.

How can you plan for that? You can't. Planning for a war where there is no central leadership and your state is degenerated into regional warlords is a shit plan.

And there is degrees of international pariah: there's being on American's shit list, and there's 'bombing the Strait of Hormuz and being treated as a rogue state by everyone'. The Gulf State Arabs were neutral before this. Now, they're in a coalition that INCLUDES Israel in shooting down missiles and drones. That's a sea change! Iran had no friends before this war. Now, it doesn't even have business partners. (Not that they could pay for anything now.)

Iran casually discarded all that remained of its international clout and recognition to strike a doubtful blow against American hegemony. It will take their neighbors a long time to forget about those attacks, and China and Russia are in no rush to bail them out. All to spike oil prices for about a day before the market settled back down. It wasn't worth it.

Now the former Ayatollah was an old man getting up in the years, dying of cancer and willing to martyr himself. But his wife? His son's wife? All of his subordinates, too?

It’s a good point. The only way this could serve the interests of Iran is if the foundation of their cultural and religious identity revolved around the collective mourning of a massacre which mirrors what happened to Khamenei in important ways. What you don’t want to give Iranians is “a template for the public expression of collective solidarity and moral feeling”. But, like, what’s the probability of that? Thankfully the CIA is advising Trump and not two random real estate developers and a guy with a Kafir tattoo written under his Deus Vult tattoo.

They're going down the entire chain of command, killing anyone who even has a whisper of command authority

Maybe they can, I have no idea, but it’s not a given, as Iran has tons of mountains and Russian / Chinese communication tech.

Thankfully the CIA is advising Trump and not two random real estate developers and a guy with a Kafir tattoo written under his Deus Vult tattoo.

One of those real estate developers negotiated the most comprehensive peace in the Middle East in generations. "Jared Kushner is advising Donald Trump" is not actually a slam-dunk proof that America doesn't have a sense of what it's doing in the Middle East.

Some peace deal if this is what happens a few years later.

Notably, this is a war between the countries that signed the deal to enforce its terms on a country that didn’t.

Yes, I know what jihad and religious martyrdom is. I also think it's stupid. Making the other dumb bastard die for his country has been the American warfighting strategy for over a century now, and if the Iranians want to indulge in dumb sand people strategies they're more than welcome to.

Also... what the hell gives you that impression? If they have Russian/Chinese communication tech, they're not using them. They're meeting in person, for God's sake. They're so thoroughly infiltrated by Mossad they've given up on communication technology altogether.

In previous conflicts they were not able to reign missiles down on Tel Aviv. Also we had other crazy sand people dying for us. Neither Americans nor Israelis are able to sustain consistently high sand people mortality figures. The key questions of this war IMO are (1) can we actually find all the ballistic missiles and (2) how easy is it to make a TEL. I haven’t found any expert even hazarding a guess on these except to say that making a TEL is pretty trivial stuff.

They're meeting in person, for God's sake

I don’t think anyone has a clear idea what is happening. But we have not announced any new leaders being killed after the “trick your opponent into coming to the negotiation table and then slaughter their family” strategy, right?

In previous conflicts they were not able to reign missiles down on Tel Aviv.

They didn't have to because Hezbollah and Hamas did it for them. But they can't now, because we destroyed them.

Hezbollah just launched the largest volley of the war a few hours ago so clearly you've got a funny definition of "destroyed"

If Iran is "destroyed" yet they continue lobbing missiles and drones at every country with an American presence and the Strait remains closed weeks if not months later then clearly being "destroyed" doesn't count for much

how easy is it to make a TEL.

This presumably depends on the technology for your missiles: if they're dumb ballistic things, you probably need to be very confident of where you are launching from and where they're going to point them the right way. If they're liquid-fueled you may need extra targets tanker trucks to fill them once they're vertical. Smarter missiles help a lot with that (see why the Navy now uses VLS instead of missile turrets), but doesn't necessarily solve your problems like precisely initializing guidance systems.

Saddam and his government got pretty thoroughly destroyed too, that didn’t stop the war from becoming a giant black eye for the US.

I'm not going to defend the occupation or the American foreign policy of the time, but Iraqi Freedom was objectively a sweep: Saddam's conventional forces were destroyed in little less than a week. The black eye came from the attempt at nation-building, not the military operation. Turns out the US military is good at blowing things up. Who would have thought?

The Americans can actually learn lessons. They're not going to commit to a pointless ground occupation where mujahadeen can shoot at them. Iran isn't a insurgency which passes off responsibility of statehood onto an occupying power - it's a nation of ninety million people. If Iran is a smoking, sectarian shithole like Syria with collapsed central authority, that good enough. They can hate the Americans, but if they do so impotently, that's a win.

Nobody creates a quagmire consciously, every war is conceptualized at the outset as a quick in and out affair.

Just like the Iranian regime can never just ease up about being the vanguard of Shia islam dedicated to thwarting Israel, it’s in the very DNA of the US’s position that we must dedicate our military to ensuring safe passage on global shipping lane choke points.

Thus we are now fundamentally committed to ensuring the total destruction of Iran’s capacity to choke off shopping in Hormuz, in a similar way that Israel is completely committed to wiping out the ability of Hamas to launch rockets from Gaza. But on a vastly larger scale.

The Iran before the full scale attack may have been an entity that could be negotiated with, and perhaps I’m wrong, but I think this headless group of martyrdom and honor culture infused bomb survivors is now going to hole up in the mountain fortress and commit to fighting until they cannot any longer.

As long as they continue to fight, the US cannot decide to back down. The ball is simply not fully in our court anymore.

If America destroys all Iran's missile bases and ports it doesn't matter if they hole up in the mountains. They can do that forever, it doesn't matter. It would be nice if the Mullahs were removed from power and Iran was a fair and friendly country again. But we don't need that to happen to win.

Shaheds are tiny and there’s a huge border where they can be resupplied, not least through Iraq which is majority Shia and sympathetic. Maybe you can get Putin to promise pretty please that he’s not going to supply them, but come on. So again you’re in an insurgent situation that maybe looks a little less like Afghanistan and more like a cross between what happened in Iraq, the Troubles, and the second intifada, except far larger, more entrenched and on larger territory, and with enemies happy to die.

The chance of Putin supplying some hardened remnant of the IRGC in the mountains of Iran with Shaheds is zero. Why would he? What would they have to offer him, compared with using the drones against Ukraine? They couldn't even pay for them.

Looking at Ural crude prices I'd say that Shaheds sent to Iran pay for themselves in increased oil revenue, though we're nowhere near the point where the Iranians have any need to import Shaheds

Because American interceptors at bases in Iran are ones that can’t be donated to Ukraine, and are worth far more than a few cheap drones?

Now that makes no sense at all. Ukraine doesn't need American drone interceptors for Shaheds. Even if they did, forcing the other side to spend one interceptor for one drone in Iran is no better for Russia than the same happening in Ukraine.

Please explain why it benefits Putin to supply Iran with infinite Shaheds to keep oil from flowing through the Strait. Is destroying China's access to oil all part of his master plan? A minute ago the theory was that Iran targeting the Strait was disastrous for the global economy -- maybe that's good for Russia?

Russia sells oil, reducing the global supply of oil benefits their bottom line.

And there's a big difference between the number of missiles required to make it physically impossible to transit the strait, and the number required to make it too risky to want to transit it.

A guy on his porch with a shotgun can't stop my bicycling club from riding down the road, he can't shoot all 20 of us before we get through! We'd probably change the route, regardless.

Please explain why it benefits Putin to supply Iran with infinite Shaheds to keep oil from flowing through the Strait.

They wouldn't even do that. Shaheds from the mountains would be shot down before they reached the strait.

But going into the mountains and fighting in the hills is fundamentally incompatible with being a functional state. They would essentially abdicate sovereign control of their own country to whoever cared to take it. They wouldn't be glorious freedom fighters, fighting the good fight against the Big Satan: they'd be cowards running away from a war they started and leaving the people they were ruling out to dry. If the IRGC wants to leave the cities and live like the Taliban, how will they control said cities? How will they keep up missile production?

All of those soldiers need to be paid and fed. Jihad doesn't pay the bills. Who is covering the tab of salaries and material?

By mountain fortress, I mean Iran itself, not actually going out to the hills. The cities might actually be the best cover. Either way it’s probably quite hard to figure out where key people are after the initial round or two of bombardment.

Also I’m not sure being a very functional state matters all that much to them while at war. A dictatorship should just need to knuckle down and keep up supply of weapons to its soldiers.

What matters is likely just simply continuing to broadcast that we’re still here while mustering enough attacks on the shipping lane to keep the snake more or less coiled around the neck of the global economy.

Good question about funding, I don’t know enough to answer it. That might become relevant but a war of attrition to see whose finances break down first isn’t ideal for Trump et al. If I were Russia I’d for sure funnel some cash in in that scenario.

Worse than a black eye - the Iraq War was a huge blow to domestic public confidence in US foreign policy, probably second only to Vietnam. One of the reasons why the US public has become so skittish and unwilling to tolerate high-effort foreign policy is the legacy of Iraq.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, not only did the US win the Iraq War, it successfully managed the nation-building part as well. Iraq was not Afghanistan.

The Iraq War directly led to the creation of ISIS.

After decades and trillions of dollars with a country that doesn’t pose any real risks to the global economy while the turmoil goes on.

I'm well aware that the US eventually brought the conflict in Iraq to an on-paper successful conclusion. The problem is that by the time that finally happened, the bed was already shat, and the outcome was not really a flourishing democracy but a messy quasi-democracy that was halfway aligned with Iran. Not really something the American public was likely to see as a 'win'.

(It also had negative knock-on effects for the US military, e.g. contributing to the dire state the USN)

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