site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   15436 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.

Thuletide on Fertility

According to Thuletide, the age gap «pedophilia» moral panic, spawned by feminism and kicked into overdrive during the #MeToo era that began circa 2017, is a potentially civilization-ruining phenomenon. He is, of course, not referring to very real problems, like grooming gangs in Britain, but the fact that 18-year-old boys are frequently accused of being an "Epstein diddy blud" merely for talking to 17-year-old girls. If you wanted to vaporize our already plummeting birth rates, stigmatizing any age gap larger than that between identical twins is a great way to do it.

From Thuletide's Telegram:

Girls typically reach physical sexual maturity (adult secondary sexual characteristics) between the ages of 15 and 17, while boys mature a couple of years later. Yet, it is disturbingly common to conflate an 18-year-old dating a 16-year-old — a relationship between two biological adults, legal everywhere in the West aside from a handful of deranged US states — with a 40-year-old raping a 9-year-old. Apparently, the people who do this have no problem with trivializing actual pedophilia (the sexual abuse of prepubescents), which causes immense and long-lasting harm.

The crux of this issue is that healthy male heterosexuality — the preference for younger but sexually mature women — has effectively been criminalized. Meanwhile, older-female age gap relationships are constantly celebrated by the Gynocratic World Order (see e.g. the safe-horny "dommy mommy" phenomenon), to the extent that female teachers who sleep with their male students are routinely spared jail time and socially excused: "Where was she when I was a student?!"

For all of human history until very recently, older-male-age-gap relationships were regarded as normal and good; the average age gap in America from 1850 to 1950 was 4.5 years. Even today, in face of widespread moral hysteria, the average 23-year-old white man and woman in the West prefer partners who are 2 and 3 years older than themselves, respectively. The evolutionary theory is simple: Men prefer fertile women, women prefer men who can provide for offspring; women are most fertile when young, men accumulate resources with age.

From his Twitter, he cites the following. Older-male age-gap relationships produce more children, with total lifetime fertility peaking at +7 years (although the variation from +3 to +13 years is very small). The negative fertility effect of older wives begins immediately at +1 year and declines linearly; at +3.5 years, couples produce 0.5 fewer children, on average. Obviously, this is due to women's limited fertility window, which is much smaller than commonly believed: by age 31, around 10% of women are sterile and around 50% are subfertile (they have difficulty conceiving, decreased egg quality, etc).

He concludes on Telegram:

To increase birth rates and reduce dysgenics, early marriage should be encouraged, particularly among the intelligent. Ideally, both husband and wife should be in their late teens to very early 20s. Older-male relationships between young adults (~16-25) should also be destigmatized. Society should be restructured to ensure that intelligent couples can have as many children as possible before age 30-35; reduce time spent in education, prioritize youth for high-paying jobs, give intelligent young men huge lump sums per child (funded by e.g. abolishing welfare), and so on.

Sounds like a better plan than complaining about phones to me.

Girls typically reach physical sexual maturity (adult secondary sexual characteristics) between the ages of 15 and 17, while boys mature a couple of years later.

His argument would go down much better if he did not say this. It may be objectively the case, but holy shit does it make him sound like a pedophile. It generally reflects quite poorly on people when they sexualize those who are legally and popularly regarded as children.

"An 18 and 16 year old having a sexual relationship should not be discouraged" is one thing. "It is ephebophilia not pedophilia"is quite another and makes it sound like what he really wants is for himself to have sex with 15 year olds without risking punishment.

holy shit does it make him sound like a pedophile

Let's be kinder (and more precise), it makes him sound like an ephebophile. Generally 17 year old boys are not crying about age discrimination with regards to their 15 and three-quarters year old girlfriend, and guys who like to quote stats and ages are a lot older than the "persecuted 18 year olds" used as the example here.

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