site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   23109 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.

Again, your model is gravely mistaken. You would do well to abandon it and start fresh.

I have genuinely tried. I've read dozens of Christian blogs, about prayer specifically. I know it doesn't work, but the fact that some people do forms a mental itch I can't seem to scratch. What I've found is that there are a bunch of different excuses. One is that 'God isn't a vending machine that gives you what you want', which surely cannot apply to benevolent intercessory prayer. Another is that 'prayer is about building a relationship with God', as if one-directional begging is how relationships work. Another is that prayer is about 'understanding God's will', which suggests you shouldn't be asking for anything at all, because God's will is perfect and predetermined. Another is 'God answers prayers with yes, no or not now' which of course covers literally every possible outcome regardless of what it is.

This is not a model of the world, these are arguments as soldiers, pulled out defensively to explain the unexplainable on an ad-hoc basis. You see the same thing when it comes to the problem of evil or the problem of hiddenness. I would love to see a consistent, logical model of God that corresponds to the actual world. Of course, if you do that, what you get is Deism, which is just atheism while doing spooky hand gestures.

So I'm forced to come to the conclusion that the word 'belief' should not be applied to religion and to observations of the real world. Whatever it is religious people are doing, they don't believe in God in the same way that I believe in the existence of the sun.

Whatever it is religious people are doing, they don't believe in God in the same way that I believe in the existence of the sun.

Pretty clearly not, since you can see the sun and do engineering off its presence.

What's your understanding of traditional marriage vows?

"to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part"

Does such a vow make sense to you?

Would you take such a vow, and if you did, would you really mean it?

Would you agree that such a vow is best modelled as a bet, which resolves only on death? But what is the point of a bet that you can only "win" when you die?

What I'm trying to gesture at here is that there exists a class of decisions which humans make based on incomplete information, and about which one might uncharitably claim they are resistant to evidence-based assessment, but which nonetheless are meaningful and at least plausibly positive-sum. Belief in God, and prayer and other elements that go along with it, appear to me to be a member of this class.

You can pray for a community of young people full of children (and a future) and God will lead you to the correct Church.

Or you can pray to the AI god and perhaps be rewarded with riches and the unparalleled thrill of pinning the weasel.

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