site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   22819 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

the more convinced I am that the way human minds work are less exceptional than we would like to believe.

While I don't quite trust LLMs for high-stakes work-related tasks without carefully checking the output myself, whenever someone shits on LLMs for hallucinations or being stochastic parrots or whatever, I'm just like "bruh, have you met the average person?"

At this point basically the only thing I'd trust a random person off the street for over an LLM is if I were being held at gunpoint and uttering a racial slur would be the only way to save my life.

It's like the "who would you rather babysit your kid for a weekend, Hitler or a randomly selected person from the Bronx?" question. Who would you rather help you pass an undergraduate exam, assist you with filing taxes, offer disease diagnoses given a collection of symptoms—an LLM or a randomly selected person off the street? I know which I'd go with.

Who would you rather help you pass an undergraduate exam, assist you with filing taxes, offer disease diagnoses given a collection of symptoms—an LLM or a randomly selected person off the street?

For disease diagnosis, not an LLM. Not right now, not with the current state of the art. There are so many things that have common symptoms that, without further testing, you can't say for sure "yes you have uterine cancer". It's an old joke that medical students start to self-diagnose with every disease in the book once they gain a little knowledge, and I sure as hell wouldn't trust my health to something that is looking it up on the Internet. As an indicator that "it might be X and not Y"? Yeah, okay. As "you for sure have X, demand your doctor send you for treatment"? No.

Considering LLMs can approach, match, or even outperform the diagnostic capabilities of MDs—much less the average person—it’d be unwise to trust the average person over an LLM for disease diagnoses. But you do you.

It would be quite bad if this became the majority view regarding how we see our fellow humans. Whatever makes humans have dignity cannot be found in these sorts of capabilities. This direction is poison. When one's rational deduction is leading this way, it's a sign that a better foundation is needed.

It would be quite bad if this became the majority view regarding how we see our fellow humans.

Can you elaborate, because I don’t see how having a more accurate impression of other’s cognition could be bad long-term.

Perhaps you’re afraid it’ll lead to dehumanisation of other people - but if LLMs are showing us that that’s what other people really do deserve, then it’s a good thing not a bad thing.

Short hair don’t care about sanctimonious wailing over “dignity” and “a better foundation” to cope with the average person being useless compared to LLMs for knowledge-based tasks.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats