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.

Women are not treated better, they are treated far worse. Huge numbers of women are in situationships, used for sex and losing out in other ways. A hypergamous dating market and hookup culture is deeply damaging to young women. The amount of women who have negative experiences is genuine and largely the fault of certain men who are over-represented in the amount of harm they commit.

That sexual revolution thing didn't turn out so well for women, did it?

As I said before.

Huge swaths of men don't even have the OPTION to enter a situationship. (hate that term, personally).

Women can practice celibacy if they want, they can stay off dating apps, they can avoid hookups and demand commitment before sex (or, marriage, if they're trad enough).

Some percentage of them do, its just far smaller than it used to be.

How much agency do we ascribe to the rest of them?

The amount of women who have negative experiences is genuine and largely the fault of certain men who are over-represented in the amount of harm they commit.

The question, of course:

In what way are those men forcing, coercing, or otherwise cajoling women to act this way? What we learned post #metoo is that a LOT of women will retroactively claim they were forced or coerced when in fact they just folded to the most minute amount of pressure or even enthusiastically accepted advances from a more 'powerful' male.

And if women are unable to resist a minute amount of pressure, or can't be trusted to make good decisions around powerful males... what else might we need to protect them from?

And more importantly. If women are having bad experiences with a small subset of men, then why does that justify negative opinions about all men?

Why are men expected to tolerate bad behavior (and as seen in the stats, maintain a positive view of women as a whole) or be labelled misogynist, whilst women can base their opinion of the whole male gender on the conduct of <10% of them?

This is where we find ourselves. Unable, as a society, to police womens' behavior (in part because the men who would do the policing benefit too much from the current arrangement), but far, far too ready to go after males for the smallest misstep, and to heap all blame on the men for things they ultimately have no control over. And unable to shift out of this equilibrium because any proposal that might inconvenience ladies is politically nonviable. Nonviable, that is, while the Boomers are in charge.

There are no non-loser first world men who are involuntarily celibate, you can passport bro if it comes down to it(and even if you have strong ethnic preferences, very poor countries with lots of white women exist)- but it usually doesn't. I don't know if it'll stay at that point forever, but most men can get themselves into a long term relationship, even if they're pretty average(and average is a broad term). Yes, this might entail lowering your standards, you're probably not that much of a catch either.

you can passport bro if it comes down to it

'Just be rich enough to fly to another country and find a wife' is not the stirring rebuttal you think it is.

I understand the Motte is weird, but you do realize that this is outside the price range for most men, yes?

You know I am not a tech worker, right?

Affording a mail order bride/passport bro wife(I don’t quite know the difference between the two, and I suspect there isn’t one) is doable for a man earning mildly above median(which is a very reasonable expectation in a high opportunity society), because there are many such men who have done it. And most men don’t have to, thé average 35 year old man is married. The point is that unmarried western men who are genuinely above average in desirability are unmarried because they choose to be, perhaps by priority- not because there are no options.

I'm reactionary enough to suggest that an average male shouldn't have to leave the country of his birth to have a prospect of finding a wife. That's a major social failure.

And now you've just exported the externality. What of the poor males in the countries where the women are being plucked from? Now they've got to compete with wealthy foreigners and THEY can't passport bro it up.

And it all leaves the fundamental, core problem. Men have no stake in the continued maintenance of their future if they don't expect to be able to form a family. Why would they throw in their lot with their home country at that point? What's their buy-in?

And of course, all the single cat ladies will continue to cast votes in their country too.

However, if we were to implement an immigration program specifically to allow scads of young, nubile, single women to attain citizenship if they marry and pop out some kids, I think the incentives overall would get aligned REAL QUICK.

Of course, it appears that a huge excess portion of the ACTUAL immigrants we get are young males.

And it all leaves the fundamental, core problem. Men have no stake in the continued maintenance of their future if they don't expect to be able to form a family. Why would they throw in their lot with their home country at that point? What's their buy-in?

It seems to me that modern society, and this goes beyond just issues of sex, works by honestly demanding very little of people. I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but I'm a pampered tech worker who works in a climate controlled office. When it comes down to it, I live a very comfy life even if I'm taxed a lot and culturally disparaged. The closest thing I've done to sacrificing my comfortable life is having a kid, and even then I still either work in a climate controlled office or live in a climate controlled house. I'm still comfy. The men and women who become NEETs are in a similar boat. The middle class too. Not much is demanded of most people.

It remains to be seen how modern western society would function in a crisis that does demand broad sacrifice from its people. We are not currently in that state.

I’m not disputing that something is broken in a system where guys who round to average and aren’t doing anything wrong need to go to foreignstan to find a wife often enough for it to be a discussed phenomenon(to be perfectly fair, this system isn’t great for women either). Just saying that ‘incels’ aren’t an actual thing- they don’t ’just Want a wife’, those are available assuming these guys aren’t just, giant losers, and basement dwellers wouldn’t have been married in 1955 either(there were just fewer of them). The craving for validation from a specific kind of woman is a different phenomenon entirely, and while it’s not entirely unprecedented it’s also… look, these guys want to be rock stars. It’s not a totally natural response to circumstances, thé history of loveless men is pretty long and it tends to look like broadening thé search pool, not like endless public whining about the need to restructure society completely.

There are no non-loser first world men who are involuntarily celibate

This is just a tautology.

And more importantly. If women are having bad experiences with a small subset of men, then why does that justify negative opinions about all men?

Because the men the women are having bad experiences with are the only men the women have any interest in, in the first place. And they have that interest in them precisely for the same qualities that result in the bad experiences.

Yeah, which is indicating that there needs to be some policing of that subset of men too.

But the logic of the sexual revolution is that women get to choose whomever they want, so ipso facto restricting the access of those top tier men to the wider female population is verboten as it directly restricts female's 'choice'.

Like imagine a rule that, say, banned professional athletes from hooking up with random girls they see on Instagram in their hotel room while they're in town for a game. I'd go ahead and guess that the women would howl harder about this restriction than the athletes would.

They are treated worse, by men they choose. Yet it's a choice. I reject the idea that women as a sex are so stupid they can't help themselves, or that the hookup market is a force that acts upon them with no recourse.

Maybe in the 90s the memeplex around dating was "go grrrl", but today there's plenty of wisdom in the air that men [that they notice first] are not out for the women's best interest. One needs but listen and learn.

All humans are so stupid they can't help themselves. Thankfully they are never truly alone.

This is why wise leaders create institutions so that everyone helps each other reach higher Nash equilibria and we avoid the tragedy of commons.

One of these institutions is marriage, which among its many benefits (the thing is truly so neat it is rightfully associated with the divine) solves the problems we are talking about by taking top men out of the market and enforcing monogamy and certainty of paternity.

However marriage has sadly been abolished and forbidden by no fault divorce. This has evidently turned us into savages.

The simple fix is to allow people to marry again and encourage them to reenter civilization.

...Tune in next time, where we will solve rampant crime with wooden beams, rope and a wig.

<De Maistre Hat>The authority of marriage collapsed before the no-fault was the law. Before no-fault was the law, people would get around the fault rules by perjuring themselves. Only through the organic growth of successful subcultures will no-fault divorce once again be the social norm. </De Maistre Hat>

I'm glad to see I have some followers around here.

In practice, a truly no-fault divorce free marriage in the modern world requires a subculture in which every single one of your friends and acquaintances testifies against the spouse who wanted the divorce. The only successful ones so far have been religious.

Maybe in the 90s the memeplex around dating was "go grrrl", but today there's plenty of wisdom in the air that men [that they notice first] are not out for the women's best interest. One needs but listen and learn.

Well, listening and learning is hard enough for anyone, but I think there's a catch-22 here that's specific to this situation, in that the people they need to listen and learn from in order to avoid these pitfalls are people that they, almost by definition, don't respect or even notice. I do agree with you that it's entirely the personal responsibility for someone, woman or man, to avoid people who are romantically harmful to themselves, and the negative treatment of women in this context is the responsibility of the women who choose to tolerate or even reward such treatment. But I don't think they can help it any more than men can help being attracted enough to skinny, youthful women that they enable awful behavior from that set.

The issue is that it is far harder for a woman to compete when other women are engaging in that type of behaviour. If all other women are doing things to grab attention it is difficult for women who don't

If only it were illegal!

The issue is that it is far harder for a woman to compete when other women are engaging in that type of behaviour. If all other women are doing things to grab attention it is difficult for women who don't

I totally disagree with this. With so many women chasing so-called "Chad" it's become very easy for a woman to find a guy who has solid morals; a decent job; and genuine desire for a long-term committed relationship. Provided she is willing to overlook the fact that he is short; or balding; or mediocre in facial attractiveness.

With so many women chasing so-called "Chad" it's become very easy for a woman to find a guy who has solid morals; a decent job; and genuine desire for a long-term committed relationship. Provided she is willing to overlook the fact that he is short; or balding; or mediocre in facial attractiveness.

In other words, it hasn't gotten any easier for women to find a mate who has solid morals; a decent job; and genuine desire for a long-term committed relationship.

They don't all have to compete for the top fuckboys. And seeing as we appear to have established that actually attracting the attention of the fuckboys then getting used in a situationship is bad for them, it should be a relief to quit the attention whoring race and get herself someone more her speed.