site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 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.

Elon musk might have alot of haters, but he has a ton of rabid superfans going to war on the internet trying to squash anything negative about him.

Sam Hyde's Dear Elon video goes into this quite a bit. Right-wingers don't care that he's a weirdo obsessed with electric cars and who has tons of children he doesn't actually raise with a dozen different women. So long as he is willing to side with us on the core issues we care about (like immigration) or at least not be actively hostile against it (like he seems to be with religion), the right is willing to accept and love him, warts and all. It's when he sided with Vivek Ramaswamy's overtly anti-white and anti-American views on immigration that a lot of the love the right was showing for him evaporated overnight.

Personally I've never loved (nor hated) Elon, I've always seen him as a rich, sometimes entertaining weirdo who finally fixed the space industry. But his interests aren't mine, and never have been. When our interests align I'll gladly accept the help, but I will never expect him to be a reliable ally.

Personal opinion: I don't give a damn about Elon's opinions either way, he makes cool stuff happen and I'm glad he's around. World would be less interesting without the guy.