site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   24592 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.

But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move.

Is this what the LLM is doing or is this what the agentic software harness around the LLM is doing? You previously pointed out how colloquial information pollutes and poisons understanding of the technical process that is actually occurring. You just tripped over that yourself. The LLM is not doing any of this.

I admit I couldn't find examples of people testing LLMs' ability to continually update e.g. a FEN representation of the board. However, I did find that (certain) LLMs have actually been able to play chess just given the moves made so far (no actual visualization of the board, no harness) and make legal next moves since 2023. If you have an explanation of how it's doing that with no internal model of the board (as shown in this paper for a toy model), I'm all ears.

I'm making a very restrained comment, nothing in regards to whether or not LLMs have an internal model of the board, just that the agentic harness is not the LLM and attributing features of that harness to the LLM is adding to the overall level of confusion about what LLMs are doing by the lay folk.

I'll look through the paper, I owe someone a LLM-world-model answer based on technical understanding of what a world model actually is, sounds like the findings are related.

You don't need agentic harnesses to play chess with an LLM.

I don't care about chess,

But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move.

This is just incorrect, and you know it. Stop muddying the waters.

I don't care about chess,

Really? Then why are you talking about tracking the state of the chess game?

This is just incorrect, and you know it. Stop muddying the waters.

I already said:

I admit I couldn't find examples of people testing LLMs' ability to continually update e.g. a FEN representation of the board.

There's really no need to get so touchy.

Nah, my bugbear is the muddying of the tech terms colloquially, and the ascribing functions to the model that is actually related to the software harness. I think its causing a large amount of misunderstanding among lay-folk.

There's really no need to get so touchy.

I'm getting touchy because you are trying to start your chess debate with me, and I very much do not care about it. I responded to something very specific, and when you wanted to start chess talk, I pointed out I didn't care, then you continued to try and start chess-talk, and I am once again pointing out that I am un-interested.

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