site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4522 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 25, 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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

"It’s very clear science, evidence-based conclusions that the brain isn’t fully developed in young men until roughly around the age of the mid 20s,” Borrello said.

Hasn't this been pretty thoroughly repudiated by more recent studies? Yet it seems to live on in legal activism circles and anti-drug PSAs.

What does "fully" developed mean? Does it matter? It's not like people are useless potatoes until one day in their mid 20s the switch is thrown and everything lights up. Young adults can and do function in the knowledge that serious crimes are serious crimes. These are not complex abstract concepts, certainly not as complex as deliberately not cooperating with the police is.

What does "fully" developed mean?

My cynical interpretation is "it's only downhill from there".

Yep, I think there are two points at which the brain could be said to no longer be developing -- one is when it begins to decline as you suggest. And the other is death, as indicated by the aphorism "Biologists have a special word for 'stable': dead".

I mean medically that's definitely a thing - but it's variable and diffuse and complicated and 100% should not have legal ramifications.

I think 21 as legal age of majority should have been kept, reducing it to 18 for "you're an adult" was bad decision because at that age your bones are still not set (as the saying goes in my country). But the modern tendency to go to the other extreme and declare that people in their mid twenties are still not fully adult and can't be held responsible for any mistakes they make, because their brains are still developing, is rubbish.

18 year old does stupid and criminal shit? Okay, maybe give him a chance.

He's 24 and still doing stupid and criminal shit? Old enough to know better, throw the book at him.

I’m fine with 18 as the age of adulthood mostly for practical reasons— if you wait until 25 or more, the average person would have been living independently for at least 5-7 years by that point, they can join the military etc. and so it makes no sense to say “military, sure, renting a place or living on your own in a dorm is fine, but no contracts and no beer.” If you’re able to live on your own, you should be treated like an adult.

I think 21 as legal age of majority should have been kept, reducing it to 18 for "you're an adult" was bad decision because at that age your bones are still not set (as the saying goes in my country). But the modern tendency to go to the other extreme and declare that people in their mid twenties are still not fully adult and can't be held responsible for any mistakes they make, because their brains are still developing, is rubbish.

Bones are not fully set in men at 21. You can see it in the face quite easily. So, given that fact, and the weight you place on your folk saying, would you like to re-evaluate how rubbish the modern consensus is?

Why are we constantly raising the bar and treating adults as children? They are not so underdeveloped that they should be lacking this much in the sense and good judgment department. In my parents heyday, young children were doing very complex tasks (no they weren’t doing hard labor, thank God) and learning on the fast track. There’s been a great coddling of people in the 21st century.

People I work with at my current job think I’m some kind of magical worker for no other reason than the fact that I do my job. It has nothing to do with that at all. It’s a product of the culture I was raised in. Young children are adults in training.

They are not so underdeveloped that they should be lacking this much in the sense and good judgment department.

I think the argument isn't really "this 20-year-old is so young he couldn't understand the severity of what he was doing". It's more about how we shouldn't punish his future 30-year-old self over what he did at 20, in the way that we would feel comfortable hampering a 40-year-old's freedom over crimes he committed at 30, because a 30-year-old is much less likely to repeat his 20-year-old self's mistakes than a 40-year-old is likely to repeat a 30-year-old's.

(I'm not impressed by the argument as it pertains to 20-year-olds, but I think that's the basis on which we don't try, say, 9-year-olds like adults. 9-year-olds are not inherently "lacking in the sense and good judgment department" in the sense of not being responsible for their own actions; they know that killing is wrong and they shouldn't do it. But you aren't in any realistic sense keeping people safe by keeping a 9-year-old murderer off the streets for forty years, the likelihood of someone committing murder aged 9 is basically apples and oranges to their likelihood of committing murder aged 40 unless genuine mental illness is involved.)

Why are we constantly raising the bar and treating adults as children?

Because the gerontocracy has a massive incentive to pull the ladder up behind it. Gerontocrats favor increasing conservatism and fear of... well, life in general[1] so as the balance of power (being a zero-sum game) in society is stretched thinner, it's inevitable that the law protects but does not bind the old while binding but not protecting the young.

It's basically just racism, but for age; complete with the exact same skull-measuring behaviors.

The problem with modern society is a failure to reinvest with "but muh risk" as the excuse, one would expect that to impact its most vulnerable members first, which it has. And this happens all the way up the honor roll, so to speak; as we punish parents who the aged don't judge sufficiently risk-averse for that reason as well.

[1] New advancements that nullify their stores of value for retirement are inherently threatening, so 'just being able to go do things' inherently conflicts with their class interest. Which is exactly what we have seen since the '80s.

It's also a ridiculous world if we're gonna be saying in some cases that like a 24 year old isn't adult enough to be held responsible for crime, while also in other cases charging 15 year olds as adults..

And for bonus points, getting charged as an adult for a crime that can only be committed by a minor.

The system is broken, and the young are too weak to purge it.

I heard that one of the major problems with 21 was that 18-20 year old males are really really useful in war, and so drafting them was too useful to get rid of. And it seemed rather unfair to them that they don't have all the same rights as those of majority age. Perhaps they could get the rights but not the responsibilities? Perhaps 18-20 year olds should have the option of of opting out of selective service but then they lose the adulthood rights until 21?

Of course, the fact that the US still limits alcohol consumption to 21+ is another quirk. Then there's also the fact that 18 is likely not the lowest age at which males become really really useful in war; would 16 be more reasonable? What about 14? 10-year-olds have smaller fingers which could be really useful for some things in life-or-death situations involving machinery, and not to mention much lower calorie needs, and they could probably follow orders well enough...

Of course, the fact that the US still limits alcohol consumption to 21+ is another quirk.

It's not just alcohol. It's also handguns, and tobacco, and we are now at the point where hotels refuse to check you in unless you are 21. Combine with the increasing expectation that everyone goes to college, and it seems like the modern age of adulthood has effectively become 21-22. If you do adult things at 18, like working full-time, getting married, having children, or serving in the military, you are considered low class.

At the limit, the only thing considered high class by a gerontocracy is death, and the forced worship thereof crowds out everything else, including the concept that men should expect to live at all.

And it seemed rather unfair to them that they don't have all the same rights as those of majority age.

Old enough to fight, but not old enough to have the alcohol/smoke part of your ration.

Old enough to fight, but not old enough to have the alcohol/smoke part of your ration.

Why are Americans so insane about alcohol? In my country it's easy to buy beer at 16 years old.

We just break the law. Mass disrespect of the law and youth alcohol consumption are common. Starts in high school for most. College is awash in alcohol.

Used to. Between state capacity increases, parental helicoptering, and the gentling of youth through chemical means, a lot fewer high school students drink than used to.

Used to be even worse... the old Prohibition movement/amendment. Which honestly might be related: the legacy of some of the Baptist denominations/influence.

I thought the United States was a „free country?” Lol. I guess what that meant was no freedom for normal Europeans, but freedom for heretical cults who think alcohol is a sin to establish a tyranny, and freedom for the 3rd world to move in and loot, and of course freedom for progressives to establish a cultural tyranny.

It also matters what the stupid thing in fact is. Violent robbery is different from petty theft.

Not just recent studies, even one of the main guys behind the original studies that started the myth has no idea where the number 25 came from.

Steinberg is a giant in the field of adolescent development, well known for his four decades of research on adolescent and young adults. The passage YourTango quoted accurately describes the science, but it’s definitely a stretch to imply that it explains Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history. When we spoke, I told Steinberg his work had been referenced in this way. “Oh no,” he said, laughing. I then asked whether he had insights about where the figure 25 came from, and he said roughly the same thing as Cohen: There’s consensus among neuroscientists that brain development continues into the 20s, but there’s far from any consensus about any specific age that defines the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. “I honestly don’t know why people picked 25,” he said. “It’s a nice-sounding number? It’s divisible by five?”

Yes the brain continues development later into life (some suggesting it keeps on till the 30s at least if not even longer), but the whole idea of it actually stopping at 25 or that 18 year olds suddenly aren't mature enough to be doing the things they've been since the dawn of time or that such continued brain development even reflects maturity benchmarks just came out of nowhere.

but the whole idea of it actually stopping at 25 or that 18 year olds suddenly aren't mature enough to be doing the things they've been since the dawn of time or that such continued brain development even reflects maturity benchmarks just came out of nowhere.

The idea probably found fertile ground because people were staying in education longer than ever before and delaying marriage until later than ever before. When a lot of 18 year olds are married, provide for their families, and have babies, 25 as an age of adulthood will be received as silly. When almost all 18 year olds think they are too young for marriage, and almost of them are in school and most of them will consume several more years of broad education, people begin to be more receptive to the claim that they really become adults around the age they expect to get married and have a serious job, as opposed to them being late to those things.

I wouldn’t say he’s repudiating it. This is the same thing as puberty. It occurs in people at different ages. For me it was late and I had a growth spurt over 18. Others it occurs at 12.

The law though needs a specific age. Theoretically we could someday do brain scans that can declare “X process in brain development occurred” and thus he’s an adult. I don’t know if the tech is there yet but it’s probably expensive if it has. 25 is good enough for the law.

The law though needs a specific age. Theoretically we could someday do brain scans that can declare “X process in brain development occurred” and thus he’s an adult

I'm not sure why all of those are linked. Societies throughout all of time have shown us that the time between roughly 16-20 is good enough for maturity in a society that expects actual maturity. Often younger, midshipmen were often like 11-12 when they joined (David Farragut being a famous example of 9). They skewed so young that being over 18 made you an oldster. A young boy in the medieval period might begin working as an attendant as early as seven years old.

The idea that legal adulthood needs to be set at a point where brain development of all forms stopped, and that point is into the 20s-30s just doesn't match up with what society already knew, teenagers especially the older ones are mature enough to be accountable for their choices.

What exact age we pick for easy legal schelling point reasons doesn't matter too much, but it should generally be in the 16-20 range at most so we don't unnecessarily take away too many years of freedom from mature enough people.

Potentially true. I am not expert here.

But if we are basing adulthood on brain maturation the biological won’t occur at a specific age for everyone. Picking a legal age would just be an age where most people have done the thing biologically.

basing adulthood on brain maturation

Which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People think this process occurs magically, like some sort of "everyone's born black but they lighten gradually over time, and are granted rights at a specific shade of white", but people who maturity isn't expected of do not mature.

Set the age and expectations at X, and you'll see development delayed to match. The soft bigotry of low expectations is a thing.

I 100% think there is a cultural component to behavior.

You would agree right that if expected me to be full height earlier it would not have made me grow at a younger age? I hit my growth spurt at age 17-19?

I think there is almost certainly a biological component with the mind too.

Would you agree that assuming you want to play basketball, it would be better to teach you how to play basketball before your growth spurt hit, rather than wait until you're the tallest you'll ever be?

Sure.

But on maturity. I think for any given standard of maturity a society enforces a 15 year old will break that standard more than a 25 year old.

More comments

Depends on whether you think the mindset behind success at basketball is good or not.

If you don't, you'll say "it's not worth the time/resources to teach these people before it is physically optimal, what about the risk of injury to self or others?". If your social position is threatened by people better able to play this game, you will generally be in this camp. This is the "conservative" position.

If you do, you'll likely be in favor of encouraging young people to play basketball, and you accept the fact that some of them will play poorly, break bones, etc. If your social position is not threatened by people better able to play this game, you will generally be in this camp. This is the "liberal" position.

Well yeah, the point of the legal age isn't to pinpoint for everyone it's just to make our lives easier.

How many other studies have been repudiated and yet live on in the public mind? There's certainly no shortage.

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