site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 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.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I apologize for the rambly, incomplete post. A few things came to mind after writing, and a more polished draft on my blog addresses some of them.

But since you ask:

The risky texting with multiple men (or boys, or women, or LLMs, I'm not sure to 100% certainty) was somewhat suggestive. Also, I think I had some reason to think that a potential partner had been the perpetrator of abuse, but don't quote me on that.

I promise that we would not have admitted on the basis of such scanty evidence, it was merely discussed, a mistake because I was listening and I love writing. The safeguarding after sexual abuse was probably the necessary and sufficient cause behind the admission.

But people are conservative enough that just the idea of a young teen girl watching porn and wanting to screw (even an age appropriate) boyfriend would have a few psychiatrists here diagnose hypersexuality. I would disagree with them, dismissing them as out of touch old fogies who did not see genitalia of the opposite sex till med school, if that was all the evidence. Right now, I mostly suspend judgement.

(My parents were annoyed when I first dated a girl. Naturally, it was someone I met at private coaching outside of high school. Naturally, their primary concern was that I was distracted from studies. Unfortunately, they were correct: That bitch deserves blame for making me so depressed that my grades suffered and I didn't get into a very good med school. They did not accuse me of hypersexuality, at least not till much later, and that too tongue-in-cheek, mostly because I had another bad breakup and was processing it by bringing too many women home since I was too cheap to pay for a hotel. Don't judge.)

All experiences are relative to their cultures, just saying that I think lots of people stroke out on the spot if they saw my local equivalents.

I have seen and heard some very concerning things in the UK, from people of what I expect come from a comparable background. I'm glad that I'm too young to be subject to too many vascular risk factors other than a poor diet, but my eyebrows did hurt from the exercise.