site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

but the USA has (correctly) determined that a world with less nuclear proliferation is very good for the USA

This is a great justification for attacking a country which (1) has leadership which regularly leads chants of "Death to America;" and (2) maintains uranium enrichment facilities in deep underground bunkers. Agreed? (I am aware that for a lot of people, it's hard to agree with this since damage to Iran is a win for Israel, but still, come on.)

Constantly drags USA into conflicts with basically 0 upside for the USA

So I can understand what you mean by "constantly" and "drags" can you please name the three most recent conflicts into which you believe Israel has dragged the United States?

This is a great justification for attacking a country which (1) has leadership which regularly leads chants of "Death to America;" and (2) maintains uranium enrichment facilities in deep underground bunkers. Agreed?

Yes*

*The load bearing assumption is you can actually finish the job and permanently prevent this.

*Also that other latent nuclear countries don't see this and decide they need nukes asap to prevent this from happening to them.

*Also, there's a very credible argument that Iran was actually quite happy playing the game of "ooooh just you wait were totally gonna make a nuke any second now, ooooh baby it's coming" while never actually doing it. Iran could get 80% of the benefit of nukes (so they thought) for 20% of the cost by always being close but never quite getting there. Or at least that was the most rational move for them, although they're religious fanatics so hard to be 100% certain.

So I can understand what you mean by "constantly" and "drags" can you please name the three most recent conflicts into which you believe Israel has dragged the United States?

  1. shit the bed so hard on security you get Oct 7th'd, resulting in the USA spending large amounts of money and things that go boom to keep you from getting MRBM'd

  2. decide to 12 day war Iran last year, USA gets involved to sucker punch Iran with a (really cool) stealth bomber strike during negotiations. But this was worth it because we destroyed their nuclear program!...

  3. deicide, again, to blow shit up in Iran, sucking in the USA even harder this time, resulting in the current quagmire.