site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   23540 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Two things:

  1. The purpose of and design of the social safety nets were never to boost fertility but to boost female labour force participation, something that people usually think depresses fertility.
  2. I don't know what people consider impressive but Scandinavia maintained a 10-20% higher fertility rate than the rest of western Europe despite having a 15-25% higher female labour force participation rate.

Something was clearly working to some degree, what exactly was unclear. Was it culture? Was it the social safety net? Was it the lower housing costs compared to income? Was it a bit of everything? Who knows.

It is a bit curious that the fertility collapse coincided with the proliferation of smartphones though, but it also coincided with a massive financial crisis and rapidly rising housing costs as well.

The safety nets still exist. Maybe they do have some effect. It makes sense that people wouldn't want children without the means to properly care for them. However, if money was the main reason then fertility rates in Scandinavia would not be as low as they are since the safety nets still exist.

Or they had an effect until something changed in the 2010s.

One materialist explanation is that this has to do with housing, which has increased by some 5-600%, which the safety nets don't help with at all unless you're truly destitute.

Or there is a non-materialist explanation. Or some combination.

One materialist explanation is that this has to do with housing, which has increased by some 5-600%, which the safety nets don't help with at all unless you're truly destitute.

This is kind of like saying the house collapsed because there was a stronger than normal wind. I mean, sure, that may be the proximate cause, and if the wind were a little lighter that day then the house would not have collapsed. But, fundamentally, the problem is not really the wind but the extremely poorly built and fragile house. Until yesterday, human fertility rates were incredibly robust across time and place under myriad different circumstances such that everyone agreed that overpopulation was an impending catastrophe, but then suddenly it all collapsed because the wind changed direction.

Most of these policy wonk discussions set the implicit frame as "the last domino fell, so how do we prop it back up?".

I don't think so. Housing is by orders of magnitude the biggest expense of a person's life. It has also tracked wage and inflation as far back as we have kept track but suddenly 30 years ago it started rapidly decoupling from wage growth and inflation.

If this didn't start breaking things then that would be a far bigger surprise than if it did.

It didn't start breaking things. It doesn't even correlate.

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