site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   24124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Maybe I'm expecting to much, but when you're hashing stuff out with an actual medical graduate on managing their college loan payouts and they're more than a little clueless while a friend of mine and I are just going 'No... this is easy', it kind of makes you re-think alot of things.

Gellmann's amnesia comes to mind (possibly not quite the right term here). Most people have only studied a select few things in any depth at all, but we still assume that the smart doctor will know a lot about many things for some reason. Status and authority confers construals of wider credibility and competence in the observer's head. The actual polymath or renaissance man is rare, it seems.

Granted, you seem to be less talking about financial acumen and more market management strategy. I would say they're a little bit different, and good market management strategy is alot harder than learning finance. IMO, and from my observations.

Do you mean facts and foundational knowledge versus applied action here? Financial acumen = knowing what EPS means and how to read a balance sheet, the difference between price and value, etc etc?

What most people miss is how much of investing is a mental game, requiring an adoption of new beliefs and discarding many old ones. The person born into a family of highly successful investors would know this, while most of the rest of us chumps seem to pick up more misinformation and limiting beliefs than any sort of solid mentoring.

Do you mean facts and foundational knowledge versus applied action here? Financial acumen = knowing what EPS means and how to read a balance sheet, the difference between price and value, etc etc?

What most people miss is how much of investing is a mental game, requiring an adoption of new beliefs and discarding many old ones. The person born into a family of highly successful investors would know this, while most of the rest of us chumps seem to pick up more misinformation and limiting beliefs than any sort of solid mentoring.

Pretty much. I've seen a bunch of egregious attitudes in regards to, for example, day trading, where alot of people fall into the attitude that they have to trade, despite the market not matching thier models, which turns what should be good tactics into basically betting on the market.

Or, for another example, people who flock in after a boom has occurred, asking if they should invest in your material of choice. (Looking at you, gold.)

Much like in comedy, timing is everything. That's a thing most people think can't be done. They'll parrot platitudes like "time in the market beats timing the market" and talk about how it's basically impossible to do it.

'Sitting out strength' is part of the mental game. I've come to believe that having patience before placing a trade is perhaps even more important than having the patience to wait for the flower to bloom afterwards. Trades are like farts: if you have to force it, it's probably shit.

Much like in comedy, timing is everything. That's a thing most people think can't be done. They'll parrot platitudes like "time in the market beats timing the market" and talk about how it's basically impossible to do it.

And much like comedy, most of them are right that they can't do it and neither can their audience. Timing is difficult. I don't think I could do it consistently, which is why I don't day trade. I DID buy as much as I could scrape up (which wasn't much) during the 2008 crash, but that was kinda playing on easy mode.

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