site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 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.

The JCPOA wouldn't have done anything about Iran's arming of terrorists, and we can extrapolate that it would have actually made that problem worse since nuclear sanctions would have been removed on Iran, and they would have plowed some (perhaps most) of that money into more proxies, terrorists, missiles, etc. That's the primary vector people criticize the deal, and it's true there would have been a tradeoff. Israel and the neocons were extremely negative about the deal because of that.

But in terms of blocking Iran from getting a nuke, it would have indeed been very effective. That was the whole point.

Your 5 step plan would have required a full invasion and probably a lingering ground presence to enforce it. The UK and France wouldn't have anywhere near the capabilities to do that. America could probably do it, but it would be a huge investment of military resources and political will.

But in terms of blocking Iran from getting a nuke, it would have indeed been very effective. That was the whole point.

How? None of the parties were willing to do enforcement. All it did, realistically, was enrich Iran and make gas cheaper in Europe.

If Iran went on to use all that money to enrich Uranium...what? Sternly worded letter from Paris London and Berlin?

It would have done it through monitoring and snapback sanctions that were severe enough to get them to come to the table in the first place.

Sure, it wouldn't have been enough if Iran was willing to become a permanent pariah state like North Korea, but they didn't want to become like that. The only foolproof method would have been regime change and another forever war, but the political will for that didn't exist.