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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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So.. the Straits of Hormuz are actually open and Iran is just talking shit? There is no threat to shipping, nobody is paying tolls, insurance rates are not being jacked up, oil prices are not being affected, a US military presence is not necessary because the Iranian military no longer exists, and this is all fake news, we can go home and declare victory and ignore anything Iran says about shipping?

That is fantastic news!

I think it's a bit of both. Going by the data here: https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a1730 the number of cargo ships crossing the straits are still far below pre war, but also significantly above the zero where it was at the start of the war. Iran can still significantly threaten traffic, but they can't shut it down entirely like they claim. The US also has the power to escort individual ships though, but it comes at a great cost. For what it's worth, oil futures are now back down to roughly what they were before the war.

You're going to have to look closer at your source next time. It's data only goes up to the fifth of july.

I did see that. It's just that, for obvious reasons, there aren't any sources with up-to-the-minute data on an active war zone. You''ll have to be patient for the data to arrive.

If you did see it then I don't understand why you presented data from a week ago, when iran wasn't shooting at tankers, as if it were representative of now, when iran is shooting at tankers.

Even if they weren't actively shooting a week ago, there was no permanent peace treaty and the risk was still very real. https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/ says there's also some shipping in the last 24 hours. No idea how accurate that is though.

I feel like you're trying to worm your way out of the fact you presented week old data as if it were representative of now.

Alternatively, you're trying to quibble over a span of data where extending the data span doesn't actually change whether it supports the point being made.

It certainly seems like whether iran is shooting at ships or not would have a substantial effect on how many ships are transiting the strait. Surely you understand this right? Surely you understand why it's dumb to use data from when it isn't to infer about transits when it is?