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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Fairly easy. You do naval blockade on Somalia until they accept them. Their welfare is none of our concern. You arrest Somali politicians. If needed military strikes. You change the constitution that only Swedes have human rights in Sweden. You go with the least amount of cruelty to achieve your goal, but you shouldn't let the cruelty itself distract you.
Actually someone on X did a post on it. The gist of it is that right now, the ECHR considers (dubiously, but so it is) refoulment to be akin torture.
To do this, Sweden would have to
In practice, there is no way for Sweden as a national unit, to accomplish this.
Assassinate the judges. The next will be more reasonable. At some point drastic measures will be needed to solve europe's problems. The pan European bodies are most at fault for them anyway.
Ya know, Ken White, of Popehat fame, just posted a lengthy, whiny screed about how ridiculous it is that Bluesky(!), of all places, gave him a timeout for saying someone should kill Elon Musk.
Must have been shocking to him that even Bluesky balks at calls for murder of your political enemies (when your enemies are, after all, objectively evil people who need to die to prevent more evil).
The Motte is not Bluesky. However, we still tend to draw the line at explicit calls for assassination. And no doubt if someone called for assassinating Elon Musk here, it would get lots of reports and downvotes.
We give people a long leash-- you can even Kulak-post about how violence is good, actually-- but specifically saying "kill these people" is getting pretty close to the sort of thing that could get Zorba served with a warrant, or whatever they do in Europe.
Don't do this.
More options
Context Copy link
Can we not do this?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
...or leave the ECHR. The Brits are already floating the idea...
Which would trigger an immediate shitstorm.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Even putting aside that not everyone is the US with a ton of materiel sitting around*, why would you do this? This risks destroying already fragile states, and then there's nobody to negotiate with. There are ways to pressure nations like Somalia - no aid, cutting off remittances - that don't rise to this level.
And, of course, if you are cutting out human rights law (the real problem) there's nothing stopping you from dumping them in whatever third country will have them (e.g. Rwanda) and then turning a blind eye to how they handle them (most likely drive them back home with "incentives").
* Remember Libya? And those were countries that maintained some military capacity.
I would change how deportations works then. It is not a country's job to care where people go or aid them. You order them out. If they stay after the deadline you remove protection of the law from them. Compliance is their problem, not yours.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sweden is going to have to rather decidedly alter its armed forces if this is the plan. Time to start building nuclear-powered supercarriers.
Problem solved.
Manchus and Mongolians more or less did this to China. Armies of conscripted (enslaved?) Chinese assaulting Chinese fortifications under the leadership of foreign conquerors. Mongols who don't know how to build seige weapons motivating more technically inclined Chinese people to make and deploy them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
So they get drone industry too. Everyone wins. With modern warfare humans are optional.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link