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.

This seem almost unfalsifiable. I might as well say

No company will ever fire someone for being direct and outspoken, provided he is good enough at his job.

That just seems straightforwardly true to me. If you add enough value to a company, you can get away with being direct and outspoken (and a great deal worse). That's just a true factual statement.

By the same token, you'll sometimes see girls with lines in their Tinder bio like "if you're a Tory, swipe left" or whatever. But in terms of revealed preferences, I think the number of women who would refuse to date a man whom they otherwise found highly attractive solely because he held conservative opinions is vanishingly small.

I think this depends on the woman's social circle and what kind of behavior "conservative opinions" entail. If you have enough queer friends then you just can't be in a long-lasting relationship with someone with anti-LGBT views, for example - something's got to give.

True – and I suspect the population of heterosexual women who would be more than willing to cast aside their assorted gay best friends for the sake of a committed relationship with a smart man with a lucrative profession would be significantly higher than you might think, and certainly higher than one would naïvely expect based on how many women put "swipe left if you're a Tory" or similar in their tinder bios.

I'm sure it helps that that the venn diagram circles for smart men with a lucrative profession looking for a committed relationship and the one for men with such strong anti-gay opinion that they'd force or otherwise cause their girlfriend to break off their friendship with her gay friends likely have so little overlap they might as well be completely separate circles.

I'm not really sure if that's true. There are probably lots of devout Christian men in red states who are making significantly more than the national median and who wouldn't tolerate their girlfriends/wives being friends with gay men.

This some ignorance right here. Just straight up ignorant bigotry.

My folks are super conservative, super religious. They were missionaries for years, my dad has been a lay preacher for longer than I've been alive, and was at Jan 6. Mom's best friend is gay, has been since before she met dad. He stayed in our home for a year or so back in the day getting back on his feet.

My dad thinks old guy is going to hell, so does mom for that matter. Doesn't make him not her best friend. You're projecting your own hatred onto people you don't know.

I think you're taking this far more personally than it was intended.

I think you've gotten comfortable in an atheistic space being specifically bigoted against a group you have virtually no experience with. You have fantasies of what bad people they must be. Conspiracy theories. Imagined hatreds and evil intents.

But it's all just you.

Sure, whatever bro.

More comments