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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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.. I was planning to go through the other users one by one, but I actually can't find any others. Could it be that you took a single Motte user who linked to a photo on X, lied about what they said, and then used this as a basis for "many motte users"?

There is an incredibly easy way to see it, TheMotte like similar sites has a mechanism built in! His comment has 6 upvotes at this time meaning at least 5 others are in general agreement. Probably more considering some users might have down voted so it might be +10vs-5 or whatever I wouldn't know.

Does (at least) 6 people count as "many" for you? I can change it to "several" if you disagree what constitutes many.

  • -10

So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?

Or are you hoping that, if you don't address that point, people won't notice?

To check I've got my facts straight: one Motte user links to a photo that they think shows unfair assault of a J6er. Six people upvote this. You choose to lie and represent this as:

The standard of evidence for many motte users that cops unfairly assaulted a protestor on Jan 6th is apparently "this guy on X said so"

This is called lying.

So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?

I am doing exactly that? I explained to you where the many people come from. I was wrong however about it being at least 6 users, someone informed me how to see the upvote numbers and it's at +8/-1 now so it was probably +7/-1 before and someone has added on since my original check of 6.

To check I've got my facts straight: one Motte user links to a photo that they think shows unfair assault of a J6er. Six people upvote this.

Your facts are straight, at the time at least six people (turns out seven but I didn't know I could check the ratio then) had upvoted the comment saying

What about cops attacking nonviolent protestors on video, and then charging those protestors for the temerity of bruising the officer's knuckles.

And the only external evidence provided was a post on X, which also provided no evidence whatsoever that a protested was charged for bruising the officers knuckles. There was a video that maybe the X user believed was of police brutality, but nothing whatsoever was provided of what charges were or were not brought up of the guy.

Now could it be "Well people just upvote anything!"? No, because my comment was down voted where I said the tweet was a still image (I didn't see the video underneath but again it doesn't evidence the claim about charges were brought for what reasons), did a quick double check if there was any other corroborating evidence for the claims (I could not find any nor could the chatbots) and asked

Do you happen to have the charges against him where what they outline is that he blocked his face and that's what was the assault?

So it's not that people are just upvoting anything. What is it then? A form of endorsement. Which would mean that +7 people endorsed "Here's an X user making a claim without any external proof" as a fine evidentiary standard.

In fact you followed up and also didn't find any external affirmative evidence that the X users claims were real! https://www.themotte.org/post/3781/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/449800?context=8#context

You literally went to double check and ChatGPT said it doesn't have any knowledge of that case.

As I said "Random X user just claims it" is F tier evidence in my world. I gave particular examples of evidence I would consider as quality like a Fox News article or court documents.

So to clarify There has been no even semi decent evidence provided that a protestor was charged for blocking his face from police fists and thus causing the knuckles to be bruised. The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened without anything else attached. And yet this evidentiary standard was endorsed by at least 7 people.

@UwU -- this is a perfect example of magicalkittycat just openly fucking with people.

I am doing exactly that? I explained to you where the many people come from.

Dude, I asked you: "So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?"

The "many people" part is not part of that. You know this. Why do you deliberately conflate everything? Do you think people reading your comment are stupid, or are you just so used to lying that it doesn't even register as lying any more?

You lied about the contents of his comment. Then I asked you about it. This attempt to deflect onto "b-but I'm addressing that!" while talking about something completely different is exactly the bullshit you pulled when we were discussing Nowak.

And the only external evidence provided was a post on X

You are lying, again. As I said in my comment, multiple times, the evidence was a photo. Not verbal evidence. Not someone on X "saying" something. A goddam photograph of a situation. You can disagree with his take on the photo; I'm not even endorsing his take. But pretending that the photo doesn't exist is a fucking lie.

Now could it be [extraneous, irrelevant bullshit]

Yeah, not actually relevant to you lying about what other Motte users said, though, is it?

In fact you followed up and also didn't find any external affirmative evidence that the X users claims were real! https://www.themotte.org/post/3781/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/449800?context=8#context

You literally went to double check and ChatGPT said it doesn't have any knowledge of that case.

Oh, go fuck yourself, you liar.

Mods, I'll happily eat a ban for this; sorry, but the gaslighting from magicalkittycat is getting ridiculous.

As anyone who cares to actually follow your link will see, I was explicitly pointing out your stupid, inconsistent use of ChatGPT. I've done this multiple times, and each time you deliberately misrepresent what I'm doing.

I wasn't looking for external affirmative evidence. I was proving that your position of using ChatGPT as a neutral, impartial arbiter is obviously insane and wrong. I look forward to explaining this to you another fifteen billion times, as you don't seem to be interested in ever actually listening to what other people explain to you.

So to clarify There has been no even semi decent evidence provided that a protestor was charged for blocking his face from police fists and thus causing the knuckles to be bruised. The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened without anything else attached. And yet this evidentiary standard was endorsed by at least 7 people.

You are lying.

"The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened"

Again, for the infinity billionth time: there is a link to a photo. I'm not claiming it's good evidence; I really don't give a shit about the object-level claim. I give a shit that you are repeatedly lying on the Motte.

Like, you are just objectively, repeatedly, incontestably saying untrue things. Then, when challenged, you switch to an entirely different thing, smugly conflate the two, and act like that's what you were saying all along. It's absolutely pathetic.

Dude, I asked you: "So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?"

I did contest what he said!

I said that I can not find any even semi decent evidence the claims of the X user he cites as his argument are real.

How about instead of having a meta conversation, we have the actual conversation where someone finally provides semi decent evidence for their claims a guy was charged for bruising and officers fists while blocking beyond "guy on X said so".

It all seems like a way to dodge that maybe said evidence might not actually exist. I couldn't find any! You double checked and didn't find it. So where is it?

You are lying, again. As I said in my comment, multiple times, the evidence was a photo. Not verbal evidence. Not someone on X "saying" something. A goddam photograph of a situation. You can disagree with his take on the photo; I'm not even endorsing his take. But pretending that the photo doesn't exist is a fucking lie.

Where in the photo does it back the claim the guy was charged for injuring an officer while defending himself? Seriously, go look at the photo and tell me how I can glean "This guy was later charged for blocking punches".

There isn't any way. It does not back up the claims at all.

The standard of evidence for many motte users that cops unfairly assaulted a protestor on Jan 6th is apparently "this guy on X said so".

And the only external evidence provided was a post on X, which also provided no evidence whatsoever that a protested was charged for bruising the officers knuckles.

These are different claims, and the former is the one you were originally called out for.

Those claims are related since saying the cops response was unfair is conditional. After all cops subduing someone they believe to be dangerous is expected and desired behavior from cops.

If the only charge is "they bruised a cop's knuckles when blocking" then it would probably be unfair. But there has been no evidence presented that is the case. Why did the cops do that? Why specifically him? Like most accusations of police brutality, it's probably because he actually did something that the police rightfully thought needed subduing.

It is possible to be unfairly assaulted by cops and not be charged for bruising the cops' knuckles, or indeed charged at all. It is also possible to be reasonably beaten down by cops and be charged for bruising the cops' knuckles (though I'd argue that the charge would not be especially reasonable).

Being hit by cops is a physical action in the conflict, and its fairness is a moral judgement. Being charged for dubious reasons is a legal action after the conflict. There is no relation between these things. Both, either or neither could be true for all I know, but half of the reason you're catching so much flak is that you keep arguing against the photo demonstrating the latter when your original claim was that the photo provides no evidence for the former (and a photo of someone being hit by police is significant Bayesian evidence of him being hit unfairly, since if real it rules out that he was not hit at all, whereas it is nigh-completely irrelevant to the question of what charges were or were not brought).

The other half is that you keep saying that he "double-checked" your use of ChatGPT and are using that as evidence. What he was demonstrating there was that ChatGPT contradicted itself (it told you that the claim was false, but later told him that it doesn't know whether it's true or not) and thus its opinion should be accorded zero weight (the explanation for the contradiction, incidentally, is that chatbots are shameless liars and sycophants).

...In case @stoatherd's second explanation is correct, and you are very confused about the meaning of some of these words: the verb "charge" has multiple meanings. The meaning of "charged" assumed in the context of "charged for bruising the officer's knuckles" is meaning 6 ("someone formally accused him of a crime"), not meaning 12 ("someone ran at him with the intent of attacking him in close combat").

Being hit by cops is a physical action in the conflict, and its fairness is a moral judgement. Being charged for dubious reasons is a legal action after the conflict. There is no relation between these things. Both, either or neither could be true for all I know, but half of the reason you're catching so much flak is that you keep arguing against the photo demonstrating the latter when your original claim was that the photo provides no evidence for the former

It obviously has no evidence for the latter claim. But also without surrounding context, it doesn't really have evidence for the former either.

Imagine if a suspect says "I have a gun and I am going to shoot up all the cops here". The cops obviously rush him down and try to subdue them. They believe he is resisting (maybe he is actually resisting or maybe he is just frantically trying to block their efforts but the movements look like resisting in the heat of the moment) so they're hitting at him trying to get him to stop.

Could one call this unfair? No.

The other half is that you keep saying that he "double-checked" your use of ChatGPT and are using that as evidence. What he was demonstrating there was that ChatGPT contradicted itself (it told you that the claim was false, but later told him that it doesn't know whether it's true or not) and thus its opinion should be accorded zero weight

Those are functionally the same thing under it. If someone says "there is a panda outside" and you look and find no panda, you can reasonably conclude the claim as false. But if someone asks "there is a panda outside, do you know if this is true?" then you can't say you know for sure until you have a check.

(the explanation for the contradiction, incidentally, is that chatbots are shameless liars and sycophants).

And that check is the real difference. I went and used both my wording triggers it to search the internet. His wording does not trigger the search. ChatGPT does not look out the window for a panda with his wording.

If you add just three words before his wording, "search the net", ChatGPT says it can not be verified as true and is a meme wording.

No—the specific caption claim is not established as true; without the exact photo it can’t be verified, and the widely shared “charged with assault for blocking a cop’s punch with his face” wording is generally a sarcastic meme rather than a documented charge description.

It looks outside and can't find a panda.

.In case @stoatherd's second explanation is correct, and you are very confused about the meaning of some of these words: the verb "charge" has multiple meanings. The meaning of "charged" assumed in the context of "charged for bruising the officer's knuckles" is meaning 6 ("someone formally accused him of a crime"), not meaning 12 ("someone ran at him with the intent of attacking him in close combat").

Yes I understand that, why do you think I said court documents would suffice as evidence.