site banner

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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Believe it or not, many talented Indians stay back in India because they want to, not because they're forced to. I know medical peers who are simply better doctors than me on every single front, and they're happy living and working in India. That is the norm. Only a minority of doctors, engineers or programmers try to leave, even considering those who have the resources and credentials to leave.

India is not Somalia. It is perfectly possible to have a decent life there.

But that just takes us right back to the big obvious question. If India has so many great engineers, doctors, scientist, etc, why can't they achieve great things in India? Why do they need to come here with all the externalities they bring with them?

I won't deign to answer this question. It's beneath me.

India is not Somalia. It is perfectly possible to have a decent life there.

Honestly in today's world, as somebody who bailed from a top-tier Western democracy to a 'mid tier' economy, this is a large part of why I find a lot of desperate migration pushes to be silly. If you're capable of getting into the upper-middle class of like 80% of the world's countries you're probably gonna be broadly fine. Urban development has largely plateaued for a decade or two now, especially in the West where the sheer expense of construction and associated red tape means that the nicer parts of the mid-tier countries are on par/better since they can actually develop things (and keep the homeless out). I'm in Malaysia now after leaving Australia, and from what I can see a lot of white collar quality of life outcomes are essentially equal between here and Australia. You might be earning 40% the wages you would in Australia, staying in Malaysia, but large portions of your expenditures (especially housing) are about 30% the price they would be in Australia.

The Malaysian Chinese demographic have historically been prone to emigration since they're filtered hard from University placements inside the country and therefore go overseas to pursue higher education. 20 years ago they were a lot more prone to just staying in the UK/Australia/wherever else they went, but now the perceived gap in quality of life has shrunk immensely. Same for Chinese. And like I have no doubt that the Somalias of the world still exist where every day is suffering and a battle for survival, but also there's a correlation between immigrants from those places and being unlikely to actually contribute to their destination country.

The answer is that Indians are, for all their many positive traits, not a martial people, and have largely given up on exercising any real control of their domestic underclass. Indian elites live in their pristine multimillion dollar apartments in Mumbai skyscrapers while the street outside (literally right outside) is squalid, covered in garbage and has a random cow or three walking around it - and this really is the state of the most expensive neighborhoods there, it’s not an exaggeration as you probably know. What can you do with that? It’s unclear if it can be fixed. No other major civilization has this issue to the same extent.

elites live in their pristine multimillion dollar apartments in skyscrapers while the street outside (literally right outside) is squalid, covered in garbage

But enough about San Francisco.

And I'll take the cows over the junkies. I know cows shit a lot, but they'll shit less in public walkways than the junkies do. They're animals but they're not animals.

The San Francisco situation is different. Not only because most of America isn’t like it, and because the truly wealthiest areas of San Francisco have it but less so than eg the tenderloin or whatever, but because we know why San Francisco has its permissive attitude towards the homeless and public squalor. It’s not a mystery. It is, in fact, the core conflict at the heart of the existence of this forum itself. If you ask a progressive San Franciscan elite why they let junkies piss and shit on the street they will tell you. If you ask an Indian elite why they will shrug, maybe mumble something about ‘village people’.

SF has shitting junkies but India doesn't?

I doubt the Indian ones are drug addicts or that they're allowed to shit anywhere near rich people. Designated vs non-designated, etc.

It's hard to exaggerate the very worst I've seen in San Francisco. Having personally seen human shit on the ground right outside comically expensive condos is too obvious a observation.

Not a martial people? That term is so poorly defined that I don't know what to with it. It's not like it's that different in Punjab, which is full of Sikhs, who are as martial as it gets.

Nepal? Full of Gurkhas. Similar grime levels.