site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

We don't know that they are more tasty, because species segregation has banned any investigation into this question. You have that privilege. Now imagine if you had to fight tooth and nail not having the privilege, and if there were no species segregation police force you didn't invent, organize, or sufficiently fund that was willing to enforce your species privilege. Your existence would be much more precarious in such a world.

We have some reports of the taste. And we do know from evidence that it is not enticing enough to even fund a decently-sized black market. Criminals widely trade in weapons, drugs, sex, slaves, children, sex slaves, child slaves and sex with children, yet human meat remains an afterthought for the very few depraved.

Even if I lived next to a cannibal barbarian tribe without any protection, my existence would not be substantially more precarious than living next to a non-cannibal barbarian tribe.

This whole exchange, you have struggled with distinguishing descriptive and normative statements, redefining my normative statements as different descriptive statements and then claiming that those descriptions are not true. For example, I say I want an aristocracy. You then define an aristocrat as any person that gets some social authority, and remark that you don't think I have any. Then you say I'm not an aristocrat.

There is no objective definition of aristocracy or aristocrats. When I deny you being an aristocrat because you do not rule, this is me being charitable, conceding the implication that if you were higher on the totem pole, I would not question your status as an aristocrat.

Less charitably:

  • You are not to my knowledge a descendant of any hereditary privileged ruling class
  • neither appointed as such
  • neither evidently possessing any virtues commonly associated with aristocrats at a high level, other than intellect (taking your claims of high IQ at face value)

For all I can see your self-designation of an aristocrat is mostly according to a definition you have custom-made to fit yourself but not the people who you are bitter about losing status to.

This is indeed not a productive discussion. There have been other posters who combined high opinion of their own virtues with low tangible evidence of such. This is not a good combination. You want someone to care about your high IQ without asking for what you have accomplished with it, join MENSA. I heard it's a dull community precisely because it attracts the people who have the measure of intelligence but not the virtue of it, but perhaps you'll find it different.