site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9060 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is this culture war? I'm not entirely sure anymore. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not, not really, just wearied of it all.

So... list of recommendations of new SF/Fantasy popped up on a social media site (okay, it's Tumblr) and it's a mix of some continuing series (that I've never read but have at least heard of, e.g. Murderbot and the Ann Leckie Radch universe) and new novels. Much what you'd expect, except this one stuck in my attention like a splinter:

We Dance Upon Demons, Vaishnavi Patel (12 May). A reproductive health care worker fights both human attacks on her clinic and supernatural attacks after she develops mysterious powers.

My immediate reaction was "that means abortion provider". And whaddya know?

In We Dance Upon Demons, depressed twenty-something Nisha is the volunteer coordinator at an understaffed and beleaguered abortion clinic. After a strange encounter with an Indian statue in the museum, Nisha is plunged into a strange world of demons and monsters–but in the end, the supernatural may not be as dangerous as the very human threats to her clinic…

So where's the culture war? Well, apart from the pro-life protestors being portrayed as screaming bigots and (of course!) the obligatory raped twelve year old*, it's just that I'm tired. There's not even the honesty of calling this what it is: abortion. No, it's "reproductive health care". That is the new shibboleth, I understand that, it's just... okay, the battle has been lost. Abortion is now enshrined as a fundamental human right, like food and water. We've long moved on from "sadly necessary, safe legal and rare" to "of course you're going to kill the baby, but it's not a baby, it's not a life well technically okay but not a real life, it's not a person, what do you mean murder, now please sign my petition about shrimp and AI are conscious entities that we should give legal rights so they can't be enslaved".

Yeah. I'm tired and I don't know where we're going from here on in, but if AI does turn us all into paperclips, we have no bloody leg to stand on in opposition.

*You think I'm joking?

While the individual scenes are brutal, like a raped twelve-year -old being called a murderer by protesters as she tries to get into the clinic, it’s the sheer relentlessness of it all that stood out to me. Every day, Nisha’s job is to escort patients trying to access basic health care through a mob screaming abuse, and it never stops.

Based on the review you linked, it sounds like the book was written by someone who used to volunteer for Planned Parenthood, and it draws on her experiences from that time (even if she adds supernatural elements.) While it is still probably crap (since 90% of everything is crap), that at least feels like a book that could have some interesting roman à clef-style presentations of real experiences the author had, if it was in the hands of a competent writer.

There's not even the honesty of calling this what it is: abortion. No, it's "reproductive health care". That is the new shibboleth, I understand that, it's just... okay, the battle has been lost. Abortion is now enshrined as a fundamental human right, like food and water.

There definitely seems to be a one reality, two screens effect here.

Pro-life people like you get to claim that the battle is lost, and abortion is now enshrined as a fundamental human right. While pro-choice people can point to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v Wade four years ago, and a patchwork of state laws that look like this and claim that the battle is lost, and women's rights are a dead letter in much of the United States.

I tend to be a federalist on a meta-level, and so I tend to think kicking a controversial issue to the state level to let the voters decide is probably the better choice. Especially since I assume a federal ban, or a return to federal permissiveness will probably continue to have a corrosive effect on American politics.

We've long moved on from "sadly necessary, safe legal and rare" to "of course you're going to kill the baby, but it's not a baby, it's not a life well technically okay but not a real life, it's not a person, what do you mean murder, now please sign my petition about shrimp and AI are conscious entities that we should give legal rights so they can't be enslaved".

While I'm sure much of the grey tribe are more "blue" when it comes to the abortion debate, I actually don't think that the combination of positions you outlined here is a very common one overall.

women's rights are a dead letter in much of the United States.

See, that's my point. Murdering the child in the womb is a woman's right. If you can't kill your baby it's the exact same as being chattel. How the fuck did we get to this point? I lived through it, and I still don't understand it.

I think your framing here is pretty uncharitable, as abortion activists aren’t broadly in favour of infanticide, nor do they frame abortions as such. It’s an issue concerning bodily autonomy, that as an autonomous and free agent women shouldn’t be obligated to provide for a foreign body that demands sustenance from her, just the same as we don’t provide for rights to tumours, ticks or other parasites, even if we understand that their removal from a host body will likely result in it’s death. A fetus passing away after being separated from the host is as such not the moral fault (if there is any to be found) of the would be mother, but rather an “innocent crime”, more of a natural occurrence than anything you could or should hold a person liable for.

A fetus passing away after being separated from the host is as such not the moral fault (if there is any to be found) of the would be mother, but rather an “innocent crime”, more of a natural occurrence than anything you could or should hold a person liable for.

The problem I've always had with this framing, is that it only seems to exonerate rape victims, and perhaps people who never received comprehensive sexual education. Basically everyone else understands that sex can lead to babies, and thus knows that they could be on the hook for that consequence.

To use a slightly whimsical analogy. Imagine a strange lottery, where besides the jackpot and small prize offerings, there is also a widely advertised "downside" of participating in the lottery, where there is a chance your circulatory system will be connected to that of an unconscious, famous violinist for 9 months until they have recovered from whatever disease ails them. The fine print does mention that you can unhook yourself from the violinist at any time, but they are guaranteed to die in that circumstance, as they will have become utterly dependent on you for their continued life and existence.

Unlike the original violinist thought experiment, where a person is hooked up to the violinist against their will, it is not at all obvious to me that it is moral to unhook yourself from the violinist once you have been hooked up in the lottery scenario. You voluntarily chose to take part in a lottery where you knew there was a chance that you would be hooked up to the violinist, and now that their life is dependent on your decision and they depend specifically upon you, I'm not sure that I think it is okay to unhook yourself, purely from an intuitional perspective.

At an evolutionary level, females being able to control which males procreate is generally done after the fact, rather than before. Both men and women can be ruthless about whose genes get passed on.

Every year, six hundred thousand dudes get culled from the gene pool after they got their swimmers in.

As a rhetorical device, anyone who wants to can try to frame something as a right, in order to try and put it beyond the realm of debate and discussion.

As a political reality, unless the government enshrines it in some way, none of the rhetorically claimed rights are truly rights.

I guess I don't understand what you're confused about here. You even cited other non-existent rights in your OP here: food and water. No such right to food and water exists, at least in the United States.

No, she’s saying, “how far did we fall, that the right to kill your own baby in the womb on demand is considered to be the most important right a woman needs, the main thing that distinguishes women from chattel?”.

You may disagree with the framing, of course. Personally, I am more sympathetic to the pro-abortion side than Here and think the Euros (but not the UK or Anglo countries) have it broadly correct. First 8 weeks or so it’s not really human in any meaningful biological way IMO. After that period is ended the right to abort should, aha, terminate.

In anglo countries we seem to have got into this weird maximalist position where if you can’t kill a baby a month before birth then you are a slave, the baby has no rights until literally the moment it’s squeezed out of the vagina, and the whole thing is celebrated and glorified in a way that is very weird from the outside - a miscarriage is a tragedy but a late stage abortion is a beautiful assertion of the right to one’s body. I get the reasoning but it’s a bit much.

Yeah it's just the contradictions inherent to it all.

Miscarriage/hypothetical forced abortion is a tragedy but a willing one it's a clump of cells

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