site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23691 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 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.

Drinking bleach leftist rant actually costs lives. Trump did butcher the science but what he was actually referring to were things like disinfecting nasal sprays which were very effective on Covid since Covid starts in your nasal system. Blasting yourself with non-toxic disinfectants gave your body significantly more time to build up antibodies to Covid where it causes real problems.

By that logic, the fact that Trump chose the word "bleach" instead of "disinfecting nasal spray" is what cost lives.

https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/mnOqITkvEK1KScAILD2noDKpF9qngCthSkSGP3U4STiWF9U387_taOigvnKGkgH2_o-WZB8OEApoouMghl_8CGmHdR8?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=2045.52

He did not utter the word bleach at any point in that conference, the science guy from Homeland Security mentionned they tested multiple disinfectants, including bleach, then Trump made some noises about how cool science and UV light and disinfectants are and expressing the hope that they find a way to use it internally to kill viruses. Then later in the Q&A a journalist (Jim; Acosta maybe?) implies Trump suggested to inject bleach and the media ran with this complete and utter fabrication.

mm'kay, you are correct he did not talk about bleach specifically, but "noises about cool science" appear perplexing.

Donald Trump (29:39): A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting, right? And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it'd be interesting to check that so that you're going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we'll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That's pretty powerful. Steve, please.

"Light inside the body" "is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside" "it gets in the lungs" I have trouble understanding what he could possibly mean, but it's not like the headlines were a total fabrication as Shades is insinuating. Like, BBC reporting here seems to stick to the facts

I never read this transcript before, so if I am feeling charitable, my interpretation is that he was rambling and made a brain-fart because he heard Bryan use the verb "inject" in a difference sense and he jumped to thinking of injections as medical procedure. But I don't think high-IQ people make that sort of, uh, connections.

Iirc, "light inside the body" was an experimental ventilator that was clear, with an effort at disinfectant UV light emitters on the inside. The idea was to reduce the rate at which the vents themselves gave people infections in hospitals. Never heard anything else about them afterwards, so I guess it didn't pan out.

IMO, there are 2.5 possible interpretations of what he said:

  • He asked the scientists whether they were going to test injecting disinfectant as a treatment (and implicitly suggested that they do so); or

  • He described how the scientists already were planning to test injecting disinfectant as a treatment.

IMO, that makes the BBC headline of "Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment", where the suggestion implicitly is directed at laymen rather than at scientists, pretty close to "total fabrication".

(The second "IMO" is intentional, since there are two separate opinions here, the second contingent on the first. Wasn't there some arguing on this website a zillion years ago regarding how much a person should clarify that he is merely stating his opinion, rather than "building consensus" by pretending that his opinion is just a fact?)

He described how the scientists already were planning to test injecting disinfectant as a treatment.

Sorry about a very late reply (I check my inbox twice a month), but in the interest of truth, you should watch the whole thing or at least Bill Bryan's part starting at 23:27. He describes study of UV light and disinfectants as disinfectants are regularly used: in the context like in air or on surfaces like door handles at different temperatures and humidity. He uses the word "inject" while talking about lines appearing in a powerpoint graph, at 26:09:

Bill Bryan (26:09): So, the virus is dying at a much more rapid pace just from exposure to higher temperatures and just from exposure to humidity. If you look at the fourth line, you inject the sunlight into that, you inject UV rays into that, the same effects on line two as 70 to 75 degrees with 80% humidity on the surface and look at line four but now you inject the sun, the half-life goes from six hours to two minutes. That's how much of an impact UV rays has on the virus. The last two lines are aerosols, what does it do in the air? We have a very unique capability, I was discussing this with the president prior to coming out, he wanted me to convey it to you on how we do this. I believe we're the only lab in the country that has this capability, but if you can imagine a five gallon Home Depot bucket, we're able to take a particle, and this was design developed and designed by our folks at the NBAC. We're able to take a particle of a virus and suspend it in the air inside of this drum and hit it with various temperatures, various humidity levels, multiple different kinds of environmental conditions to include sunlight. And we're able to measure the decay of that virus while it's suspended in the air. This is how we do our aerosol testing

Cue Trump a couple of minutes later asking a question of bringing in the light and disinfectants inside the body. Yes, I agree it was more of a suggestion to the scientists by Trump, not a suggestion to citizens that they do it. Yet, here we have word-by-word quote of Trump, which is, coincidentally, apparently a suggestion to get a disinfectant inside the body. Which is not a very intelligent question to ask, it was a gigantic gaffe. Yet everyone is acting as if it is unreasonable ask to understand that is the reason why penicillin was revolutionary: it could enter the body and kill bacteria without dissolving the body. Bleach kills everything biological because it is corrosive oxidizing agent.

Yet, for some reason, it is me who is downvoted at -5, and the Motte users acting as if Trump never said anything about bleach or at most asked some "noises about cool science" are at +dozens.

UV light

That was an actual product currently in R&D, and I recall the youtube video by the research hospital working on it -- which predatex Trump's press conference mentioning it -- being triumphantly taken down as misinformation on the report of a journalist. I think from one of the big rags, too, but I don't want to slander when I'm not sure which.

Wow. This has shades of Trump's speech where he explicitly said he "condemned totally" the neo-Nazis ... only to have journalists spread the meme that he called them "very fine people". Normally he's very sloppy in his speech, but even in cases where he's uncharacteristically precise, he'll get widely misquoted anyway. So where's the incentive for him to clean up his language?

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