site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24300 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 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.

I was going to write a post about ripples in the pond of social sciences but plans are on hold due to a happening. Shooter kills one civilian and cop in Montreal outside a Hilton.

Officers were responding to a report at 11:35 a.m. of shots fired and a gun protruding from an upper-floor window at a hotel in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood when they encountered a gunman on the ground and exchanged fire, Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher said at a news conference. Dagher said the shootout took place outside a Hilton. The video indicated that the location is the Hilton Garden Inn Montreal Midtown.

Robots Sources say that "the headquarters of Aylo (the parent company of Pornhub) is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec." That might place this shooter in the neighborhood of Aylo's headquarters to target Pornhub, which fits with the general anti-degeneracy notions in a 104 page manifesto that surfaced. It has been so long since we've gotten a proper manifesto, and this is a proper manifesto (PDF). Broadly, we are reading the thoughts of a man who wants to represent, organize, and better the lives of "dispossessed" men-- with many topics familiar to this forum about men and women in Western world touched upon in the first half. Moral decay, Chad-Stacy hypergamy, and unfair, undesirable, or dysfunctional dating/mating norms. He wants to do this by replacing the capitalist "neoliberal hypergamy state" with communism, won and run by those formerly dispossessed, which would not be quite as common here. Some highlights I saw while reading.

To fix modern gender relations and society he wants to place theories of class consciousness to one side (by no means out of the way) while introducing a new biological consciousness so that dispossessed men can organize and act upon. Put those men to work in a revolution.

So, it may be said that the insurgency process of the dispossessed class exists in two main stages. The first of them is the spreading of biological conciousness to the dispossessed on a massive scale. This must be done because, as we know, the vanguard cannot form effectively until the conciousness of the dispossessed reaches critical mass.

The second stage is the seizure of positions of power by the revolutionary vanguard, and the subsequent usage of their newfound power to carry out the liquidation of the hypergamy state. The revolutionary vanguard should operate in a clandestine manner throughout this process however, not presenting their core doctrine as being the elimination of systemic hypergamy. Instead, they should take on the visible forms of a variety of political movements (e.g. conservative socialism, Duginism, communism, Islamic theocracy) in accordance with the social conditions of their respective areas, while keeping their main intentions either hidden or ostensibly marginal.

It'd be difficult to organize the incel vanguard on a good day, it's hard enough to get men to queue up on video games. To do so covertly, under the auspices of established political movements, seems extra difficult. Our author partly recognizes this, so he offers a stage one insurgent phase. First, pay more attention to women who lie about dating preferences and ruminate on it. Second, self-improvement ("body purification") but no weight lifting, because it takes too much time, is a bourgeois scam, and sports are suspect as well. No distraction from the revolution. After self-improvement there are a few paragraphs reminding future revolutionaries to avoid rap music:

I will say that there is one form of music in particular which is and always shall be absolutely unacceptable for any self-respecting insurrectionary of our cause to listen to. This is so-called ‘rap’ music, which is unfortunately the most popular music in the west at the time of this writing.

Finally, become an insurgent, which means killing certain people identified later in the document. In short, he thinks the insurgents should kill pretty much everyone in a position of power or wealth including influencers of all stripes. That makes sense, reforming society and all. He also thinks all the drug dealers, gangsters, and so on should be liquidated. The author features many inspirational quotes by Bolsheviks, as well as other rabble-rousers such as Ulrike Meinhof and Robespierre. Following the insurgency comes the revolution.

The essential political conditions of a society in which capitalism/liberalism, and thereby, hypergamy itself, are not part of the established order of things, have mostly already been laid out by Marx, Engels, and others in works such as The Communist Manifesto. In my view, the most important of these basic conditions are:

The full abolition of private property,91 without compensation, and the subsequent nationalization of this property.

  • Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, with the establishment of a central bank and a planned economy.
  • The establishment of state control over the means of transport and communication

No mention of government issued gf's. I believe the hope it won't be necessary, though I don't think the author would be opposed.

To make monogamy prevalent again, one of the main factors will be to get the female out of the workplace, and to generally stop her from having her own income. One of the ways that this can be done 91 Private property as in bourgeois private property, and not personal property. 95 gradually, without using too much force, is to simply quietly start introducing robots into female workplaces, as robots will easily be able to perform the sedentary and easy jobs that females overwhelmingly prefer.

Without an income of her own, and without unlimited access to an unlimited number of potential mates, the female will simply need marriage in order to live, just as she once did; and thus she will engage in monogamy willingly. With the new order having introduced robots to replace the vast majority of female workers, the remainder of female workers may then be removed from their workplaces through some legislation that can be quietly passed and enforced on ostensibly mundane pretences, and this will serve to make the male-dominated fields free of what few females are in them or should wish to enter them.

Someone has probably made this argument on The Motte before. We aren't missing any communists from roll call, are we? This is boring social engineering in the context of the manifesto which drifts into more fantastical theory, like the cyborg-augmented "extraordinary branch" of the new state to "augment both the bodies and minds" as a kind of Stasi/special forces mixture. Did he forget to mention total war or eternal struggle? No, of course not.

Now, regarding the question of internationalism, it should be said that wherever capitalism survives, the hypergamy state survives, and wherever the hypergamy state survives, it can spread. Therefore we must not allow any liberal or capitalistic enclave, no matter how small, to remain in existence after we take power.

I rate the manifesto 6/10 with significant points given for effort in the context of modern manifestos. Points deducted for my personal revulsion to revolutionary Bolshevism, communism, tangents, and reddit posts. He shares a vision that I don't share with solutions I consider disastrous and/or unrealistic, so I could be unfair. Also, a neoliberal hypergamy state theory is not anywhere as novel or cool as the anarcho-primitivism based vision of Ted K. As an expression of deep frustrations in an atomized world I can understand, though I really think he should have made some money, bought some land, worked it, and entered the BAP-sphere with a Substack via Starlink.

EDIT: "I will go over this methodology briefly here, but for a more complete look at it, see my work The Smile of the Dispossessed; or, Further Instruction on the Implementation of Terror." All I can find by the first title is gay genre fiction, and I get no hits on the latter by a Seth Hatfield or anyone else. AI assisted hallucinations?

Not to be flippant about what is a very sad event, but he really did want State-Issued Girlfriends? I mean, "do away with hypergamy (which I presume he means female hypergamy, and not men wanting to marry high-value women), disseminate biological consciousness to the dispossessed, strip women of any avenues except 'marriage without your choice is the only thing between you and starvation, enjoy being treated as the serf in the domestic sphere!'" all sounds like it would fit neatly beside seizing the means of production etc.

State bureaus to ensure women don't lie about their dating preferences, keep records of single men and women, and start matching them up so no man has to go without sex on demand and the woman can starve (or more likely turn to prostitution) if she doesn't want to marry the guy picked out of the list of "so Bob here is thirty-eight and never had a long-term relationship, it's time".

"Someone has probably made this argument on The Motte before."

Could have been lifted from several past discussion threads: prevent women going into higher education, prevent women having jobs outside the home, make women economically dependent on men again, take mate choice out of the woman's hands and give it to her family, and there will never again be any man without a wife to cook for him, clean for him, and fulfil his sexual needs (her sexual needs? don't be stupid, her role is to do what he likes, sex is not about mutuality).

There is still the problem of domestic violence, does the manifesto address this or is the presumption that once every man knows he is guaranteed a woman of his own as chattel, there will no longer be any impetus to beat and abuse their partners? Wouldn't that be nice if true, but violent men don't need an excuse to be violent.

make women economically dependent on men again

The steelman of that position is that women, by and large, are already dependent on men but that this has been made impersonal and invisible and that men are hence alienated from the fruits of their labour.

The productive professions that enable the machinery to keep running, so the argument goes, are dominated by men while many of the high-status positions occupied by women are sinecures either created or mandated by the state. Care professions are the big exception but one might argue that the outsized need for them is an effect of greater female participation in the labour market.

If men could offer protection and provision directly and personally, their value as mates, and hence their attractiveness, would increase as well.

You are presupposing a difference in attractiveness that has been artificially created by exploiting men. If this exploitation were to disappear, all those yucky low-status men whose contributions women are eager to benefit from (but from a distance, thank you very much) would suddenly become better catches.

Ah, right. Because it's only men who are productive. So what great productive profession was our shooter part of? What amazing high value creating triumphs did he achieve?

This is the problem here: "I'm a guy who should be getting All The Stuff but I'm not, and it's because... women! They're at fault! They should be forced to kiss my feet or starve in the gutter, that will solve all the problems!"

Guy who works as a gas station attendant is never going to become any better a catch than he already is, and that's not to say he's no catch, but making all women desperate will not get him a better mate than he could get now. He may get a low-tier on his level mate, but does he want one at that level, or are men not hypergamous too (just in a different direction)?

Ah, right. Because it's only men who are productive.

You are very smart, so I am just going to assume that your reading of my already hedged statement as absolute is a rhetorical flourish rather than a lack of reading comprehension.

So what great productive profession was our shooter part of? What amazing high value creating triumphs did he achieve?

Irrelevant. Good ol' Karl was hardly slaving away in a Manchester factory either.

Guy who works as a gas station attendant is never going to become any better a catch than he already is

If the money he brings home is what sustains a family, I'd beg to differ. Incidentally, I bet that the reintroduction of literal pay packets would significantly lower divorce rates because it would make the husband's contribution to the household more visible.

but making all women desperate

It's not like there aren't any incels who would want this, but the steelman simply calls for a levelling of the playing field and for stopping the coercive and impersonal wealth transfer from men to women which would open the door for voluntary and personal wealth transfer.

He may get a low-tier on his level mate

Great! That would be a system working as intended.

but does he want one at that level, or are men not hypergamous too (just in a different direction)?

No argument there. But they seem more flexible and more willing to settle (and better able to adapt to lowered expectations). Open to be proven wrong on that last one.

But that's the thing he's glossing over - women work easy, sedentary jobs so they can be replaced by robots, men work productive jobs.

I don't imagine he means every man will work down a coal mine or on an oil rig. Take women out of the workforce, and those white collar jobs are going to be filled by men - or they are just as vulnerable, the white collar men, to being replaced by robots. AI can now do your programming, why do I need you, Joe? What was this kid's degree in, and what kind of career did he hope for? EDIT: I see from one report that he had a degree in philosophy, so very much a non-productive field (by those who measure success in salaries with more and more zeroes).

I don't think he visualised working as an agricultural labourer or on a building site, the non-easy, non-sedentary work that women don't do.

So it's not about economic value, it's about dominance (and soothing his bruised ego over why he's not as successful as he imagines he should be. Women are to blame because society coddles them and devalues men. That's why he's not getting where he should be in life, because women are given an unfair advantage over him.)

We're concentrating on the part of the manifesto about women, but don't forget he also was anti-capitalism and blamed society for a lot of ills:

The manifesto also makes numerous disparaging remarks about the bourgeois social class – a reference to those who are more wealthy or privileged – as well as various types of people he views as swindlers, including proponents of Christianity and cryptocurrency. It also attributes blame for increased loneliness in young men to video games and pornography, while asserting the ranks of likeminded individuals are growing.

The guy does seem to have been socially isolated, feeling left out, probably indeed "university is supposed to be this party time of your life with friends and sex, why am I not getting that? it is the fault of society!"

The 25-year-old Lethbridge, Alta., man named as the suspected shooter in a Montreal attack that left three people dead is being described by neighbours as someone who rarely interacted with others.

...Hatfield graduated from Catholic Central High School in 2019 and went on to study philosophy at the University of Lethbridge, where he made the dean’s list.

Former classmates said he was quiet and introverted.

EDIT EDIT: Armchair psychoanalysis, which is the worst kind, but I get the impression (e.g. studying philosophy, writing a manifesto) that the guy very much valued himself on his intelligence. Maybe going to college and meeting other smart kids, in a field he presumed would be the area he achieved triumphs, showed him he wasn't as smart as he thought/there are other, equally smart, people out there. Maybe he didn't make the impression he had hoped to make. That would sting, and drive him even more inwards to rationalise his failures - it's down to capitalism, it's down to pornography, it's down to women'n'minorities getting unfairly favourable treatment, it's this cocktail of social ills that are not my fault and so I can avoid facing the changes I need to make in myself.

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