site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 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.

Why do a lot of women not like acknowledging the practical aspects of dating? By this I mean that women appear to be put off by me simply discussing:

  1. The importance of looks (not just physical but also fashion) and how one might improve that (whether man or woman)
  2. The usefulness of economic concepts such as SMV and the dating market
  3. The biological clock for having kids (more apparent for women, but men also have degrading sperm quality with age)

Of course I'm not discussing these topic with women I'm trying to actually date, I'm not that autistic. But if you're trying to actually find a partner to settle down and have kids with, how do you not take all of these into account? Not only does it reek of impracticality, but on an even deeper level, it appears that any attempt to practically model the dating world at all produces a negative female reaction.

(Maybe it's because some of these women don't ever intend on having kids and therefore don't ever have to be realistic about dating.)

Having to go meta and strategizing means that you are having trouble in the natural way. I think a similar reaction can be elicited among cool guys when the uncool guys are theorizing about how to make friends and how friendship is about transactionally giving each other access to social circles and a friend should be had to the extent of their usefulness and their network and social status, and you have to strategically choose and drop friends to gain social influence etc.

It all sounds like being manipulative and using people as instruments. As a man I would personally find it creepy if some guy is obsessed with books like "How to make friends and influence people" and I spot him trying the techniques recommended in there on me (e.g. ask for small trivial favors first, etc).

The default, high status, correct vibe is not looking for strategies and metagame analysis, but just doing the object level stuff of being entertaining, ambitious, skilled, talented, and being someone other people want to tag along with for their journey.

People are more fine with discussing similar things in more clearly transactional contexts, like job search and hiring, but even there it can be very emotionally loaded and telling someone that they are not good enough for a certain tier of job can be hurtful, and often people just want to commiserate and hear "you were too good for that job anyway".

Being open about these things requires a deeper level of connection. I wouldn't say it's impossible to talk about with women, I would assume they touch on these subjects with their best female friends.

Having to go meta and strategizing means that you are having trouble in the natural way.

There is no natural way. The Chads strategize too; they're just naturally good at it.

Depends on how Chad the Chad is and what woman or women he is interested in getting with at the moment. Chad might strategize if it's a question of how to sleep with a gorgeous woman he feels is out of even his league. Chad might strategize if for whatever reason he has become particularly interested in a given woman, if he has started to think about her in more than just a hit-it-and-quit-it sexual way. But when it comes to just run-of-the-mill getting laid, I don't think Chad strategizes much. He just feels sexually confident, playful, and relaxed. This projects out effortlessly from him in his eyes, facial expressions, body language, vocal tone, and subjects of conversation when he is interacting with a woman. He experiences interacting with women as something fun, pleasurable, and playful rather than like an existentially fraught job interview. This too communicates itself to them. Normally I think the extent of his strategizing is to just come up with some "excuse" to start talking to a given woman or women, if an excuse is even necessary. Once the interaction starts, I don't think he's thinking much about what he's doing at all. This all applies whether he's a Chad who is Chad because he looks great or if he's a Chad who is just sexually confident without necessarily having great looks.

I don't think Chad strategizes much. He just feels sexually confident, playful, and relaxed.

Maybe the difference is in the definition of the word "strategize." You seem to be using "strategy" to mean "thinking," whereas I (and presumably The_Nybbler too) think of "strategy" as "which move to make." For example, complimenting vs negging a girl would be two different strategies. Chad very naturally makes strategic moves. Non-Chad must learn these strategic moves until they too are naturals.

Once the interaction starts, I don't think he's thinking much about what he's doing at all.

Yes. If you're still actively thinking, you haven't internalized strategy deeply enough yet.

My claim is a bit stronger: Not only is Chad making these strategic moves, he knows he's doing it. Compare throwing a baseball. Pretty much everyone when they're a kid or with their off hand, throws a baseball badly. Even pitcher-Chad does when he's starting out. The difference is pitcher-Chad figures out the right way really fast and without explicit instruction, whereas pitcher-Virgin is still throwing with his forearm after 10 years of failure.

Then when pitcher-Virgin experiments with different techniques, tries to get more live ABs with hitters, asks for tips and exercises to improve his pitching, tries to breakdown and emulate pitcher-Chad’s form and grips, and/or wonders if being shorter is a disadvantage when it comes to velo and delivery angles: pitcher-Virgin gets scorned and shamed by hitters and told to just be himself, to stop being such a tryhard and creepy strategizer, that height doesn’t matter for pitching (taller pitchers just have an easier time pitching because they aren’t toxic and insecure like shorter pitchers are), to just focus on respecting hitters and treating them as people, and one day the strike outs will Just Happen.