site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   24758 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You need money. I think you don't realise how much money there is floating around in the US. I'm working on a startup in the UK that has a clear use case, a major client, a solid business model, and industrial trials agreed next month. It's almost impossible to get anyone to fund the ~50k pounds we need for dev work, equipment and support over the trial, let alone the 200k we would need for stability and to take on a few high quality engineers for a year without them/us taking big salary cuts.

The government refuses to fund anything that isn't 100% up and running and used elsewhere. Venture capital is thin and risk-averse; it's focused on specific and very over-saturated sectors, and requires your stuff to be proven and to have a customer already buying from you, by which time you don't need venture capital. Foreign venture capital exists but mostly focuses at home and is more reluctant to invest the more local and less footloose your operations are. Regulation certainly doesn't help, but it's not the main issue.

Who is paying for Indian Bill Gates' equipment, workers and office space? Who is paying for his food? Potentially for his wife and kids?

Aren't second-tier European countries the worst case scenario for this kind of range? You're looking at high cost of living and salary expectations. Indian Bill Gates can get things done on a comparative shoestring (and living in a similarly-cheap country you'd be amazed how often the initial seed capital will just come out of a family member's small-medium business)

Yeah, people say the UK and Europe are generally bad for startups however the US showers even shitty companies with so much cash that I'd treat a random UK company that managed to raise £100k from UK investors as being more promising than a US startup that's been handed $2 million for their idea. Seems like an allocation inefficiency for humanity as a whole with a corresponding deadweight loss that can be avoided if the US VCs were funding the UK companies instead of Juicero v2.5 (now with electrolytes!).

Instead of getting Trump to sign meaningless promises on data center investment in the UK when he visited Starmer would have been much better advised to get him to make promises on forcing American VCs to invest in UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term. That would genuinely have been a lot better for the country than yet another mega datacenter when we have some of the highest industrial electricity costs in the world.

The amount of cash shoshing around in the US is obscene, relative to basically anywhere else in the world.

forcing American VCs to invest in UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term

Except you can't force them, and American VCs will expect that any successful startup will move to the USA for reasons (we're the centre of the universe, here is where the money is, you need the Silicon Valley/Wall Street connections, etc.)

Instead of getting Trump to sign meaningless promises on data center investment in the UK when he visited Starmer would have been much better advised to get him to make promises on forcing American VCs to invest in UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term.

American VCs aren't going to do that, because UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term are guaranteed not to make money. Although perhaps it wouldn't be worth fighting with Trump over it if they could do it with pocket change like £200K. Still, Trump knows these are losers as much as UK investors and US investors do, so he's not going to do it.

Yeah, there's nothing stopping American VCs from deciding that the funding a UK start-up wants is chickenfeed and they lose nothing by throwing a few hundred grand their way, except the expectations that your start-up wants to make it big and to do that you need to eventually be US-based.

The problem in the UK is actually the opposite. We have startups that have working viable products with actual repeat customers and they still have trouble getting funding a lot of the time, especially Series B onwards (Seed funding is better resourced). These companies are usually already making money, they just need further funding to expand their offering which is unfortunately not available here in the UK for various reasons.

I mean this is just broadly where West Europe, Australia and Canada have landed. You're not getting the cost effective quality of life you would in nicer emerging countries and it's a lot harder to set yourself up for home run money outside the USA

Hasn’t the UK in whole been suffering enormously the last couple of years due to its own self-inflicted policy decisions? It isn’t just a lot of red tape inhibiting new development from taking places but across all sectors there’s a massive national underinvestment in research, infrastructure and basic labor productivity. I’ve heard of the tax system being so punitive over there that it’s choking the fuck out of otherwise ambitious people. I’ve read of cases of doctors getting taxed in excess of 60% for taking on more shifts (there were other qualifying factors as well), but it would kill my motivation too. University graduates are also no longer the golden ticket to success they once were. That’s increasingly having an impact here in the US too.

All of these things are true, but they hit much harder and are more difficult to avoid when there's less money in the system overall.

You said it yourself: the tax system is punitive, and there's massive underinvestment. So either you have to raise taxes to pay for investment, continue to underinvest, borrow to invest, or explain to the pensioners and the disabled that the government is going to significantly reduce the support they receive in order to give the money to posh boys like me so we can become rich(er).

That last has to be followed by looking for your genitalia because the mob has cut them off and nailed them to a tree in Rutland haha.

They could cut the 'import Afghans and house them in hotels secretly with gag orders' budget... Or refrain from giving Mauritius money and land.

There's no shortage of money in the UK, the British government just knowingly allocates it towards bad ends.

import Afghans

Come on, you know it’s not that easy. I have no love for our current government but the Afghans are coming of their own accord.

The options are:

  • Shoot them
  • Force them to turn back or have their boats tipped over
  • Kidnap them and fly them to Rwanda at great expense and hope this starts putting people off.
  • Keep putting them in hotels and try to figure out a way to stop them coming.

The general public won’t stand for 1 and 2, the left and half the right won’t stand for 3, so we get 4.

——

Edit: the Mauritius stuff really is unforgivably stupid. Stopping it certainly won’t save Britain but spending the 10bn it’s going to cost us on 50m small business investment per year for 20 years would certainly be nice. Doesn’t change the fundamentals though. Britain isn’t poor because the government is wasteful, it’s poor because the alternative is letting people freeze/starve/die of illness while we could save them and choose not to, and we aren’t prepared for that.

No, it's not merely the random Afghans that make their own way that I'm talking about but the ones that the government went out of their way to resettle in the UK, ostensibly because some idiot leaked some data. It was thought the Taliban might do recriminations against Afghans that worked with British forces there. Realistically the Taliban have other concerns.

The government launched a covert £6–7 billion resettlement scheme (Operation Rubicon), relocating over 16,000 to 24,000 Afghans to the UK in military accommodation and hotels without public consultation or parliamentary scrutiny.

That's what I'm talking about. I think the UK should have spent those billions on British people, not Afghans.

I'm sorry, then I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about 'asylum seekers' in general and using Afghans as shorthand.

Force them to turn back or have their boats tipped over

Turn backs worked extremely well for Australia. And I really doubt that the public would erupt into anger that these poor defenceless 25 year old men were getting sent back to the hellscape that is...France.

Also, the government did literally import Afghans in secret, in addition to letting them come across in small boats.

The turnbacks worked in Australia because they towed the boats out into international waters, and left them with enough fuel to reach only Papua New Guinea. I guess we could technically do the same with France - and would even be up for trying - but the French have a lot more tools to make their displeasure known.

but the French have a lot more tools to make their displeasure known.

If Britain didn't make their displeasure with France known, why would it go the other way around? If the French are so displeased, they can stop letting these people into France to begin with.

Come on, you know it’s not that easy. I have no love for our current government but the Afghans are coming of their own accord.

They're coming "on their own accord" because they know they will be welcomed by the government.

The general public won’t stand for 1 and 2

If the general public can tolerate how the rape gangs were being handled, surely they can handle either of these two. At the very least it's worth a try.

the left and half the right won’t stand for 3

What's the logic here? Too expensive?

Also what happened to "send them back directly where they came from. Don't ask any questions, don't bother with process, just send them back"? There's no way a plane ticket costs more than these hotels.

What's the logic here? Too expensive?

Violation of their human rights to be sent to a potentially unsafe country. For some any country bad enough to deter people from showing up and making asylum claims is too bad to send potential refugees to. Rwanda is either too bad or too expensive for not being bad enough.

Also what happened to "send them back directly where they came from. Don't ask any questions, don't bother with process, just send them back"? There's no way a plane ticket costs more than these hotels.

The home countries may not want to receive them back, assuming they didn't burn all identifying documents. Which they do.

Violation of their human rights to be sent to a potentially unsafe country.

I don't think this would apply to "half of the right" like he said.

The home countries may not want to receive them back

Afghanistan is willing, from what I understand.

assuming they didn't burn all identifying documents. Which they do.

There's always genetic analysis, I suppose.

I don't think this would apply to "half of the right" like he said.

The right wing electorate was always the most favorable (a quick glance at Yougov had it ~70% approval). At best you can maybe say that the right wing elite were the ones split on doing what it took to confront the judiciary and activists. But even that doesn't seem to be true anymore. I don't think I've ever heard anyone spit the common cliches and platitudes like Jeremy Hunt and even he suggested simply leaving the ECHR and changing the law

There's always genetic analysis, I suppose.

There'll be internal resistance to it too, going by past evidence on the grounds that it doesn't work perfectly I'm sure.

And, of course, a country will likely feel it easier to reject someone whose citizenship was verified in some speculative way than if you caught them with passports and all.

the left and half the right won’t stand for 3

What's the logic here? Too expensive?

Broadly my model is that 95% of the Labour party and 35% of the Tory party don't want restrictions on 'refugees' no matter what, so they're a dead loss. 3 is therefore viable but very difficult to get through Parliament in its current configuration.

The public does want something done, but balks if it's visibly violent or leads to deaths. So 1 and 2 are out.

"send them back directly where they came from. Don't ask any questions, don't bother with process, just send them back"

is difficult practically. There are three questions: how do you get them on the planes, how do you make the planes carry them, and how do you make the destination let the planes land / take them off the planes?

Mostly the relevant countries don't want these people back and / or it would be unpopular to be seen to take them back. So dedicated transports are unlikely to be permitted to land. For weaker countries you could always start landing unapproved somewhere, but that is difficult and expensive and technically an act of war. If you can't do that, you could put them on passenger jets, but that's expensive and you need a minder to supervise them and passengers / airlines are likely to protest or grandstand.

Not saying it's impossible with enough will, but it's not straightforward. By and large it doesn't beat the Rwanda plan.

The public does want something done, but balks if it's visibly violent or leads to deaths. So 1 and 2 are out.

I'd like to see some evidence that this is an organic property of "the public", rather than a media environment imposed top-down. Again it would be a bit odd if their reaction to it would be greater than the reaction to the rape gang scandal.

how do you get them on the planes, how do you make the planes carry them

The same way you do with every deported individual.

and how do you make the destination let the planes land / take them off the planes?

In the case of Afghans, the Taliban is perfectly happy to take their people back, it's the western governments that don't want to do it.

Yeah, and that's the problem I was alluding to. Because these policies failures compound among one another. I can’t imagine immigration is helping this along either, unless you’re relying on them as a permanent underclass to finance your way out of crises. Good luck resolving that problem. There’s even been an exodus of people out here where I am in the US, moving into other states that are less socially and economically hampered by bad policy.

Agree on all counts. My initial post was more responding to @WhiningCoil by explaining a little bit of why sometimes systemic context means that Indian Bill Gates can't drop out of his obviously pointless schooling and start achieving great things. A lot of things have to go right in your country before 'drop out of school, change the world' becomes an option even for the best of us. In a landed aristocracy things are different - you gate your geniuses by accident of birth but those of them who are lucky get the resources to do something useful with their time.

Unless his suggestion is that Indian geniuses should drop out of school and apply immediately for emigration since that is their ultimate goal anyway, but AFAIK visas are gated on credentials not IQ so that doesn't work.

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