site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25193 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

“Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise” link

This is trending on Twitter so might as well discuss it here anonymously.

I know more than a few people say it’s just vibes and the data is good but I think this article makes a strong point that a real loss of social capital has actually made younger people poorer. And I believe this links into the fertility debate because the goods that you could buy before with social capital are especially needed with children. Having kids has gotten very expensive. I think everyone knows education, housing, and health care have boomed in costs. Being single means you don’t need to take on these costs. You can have kids if you are poor and live off government resources or you can have kids if you are rich but it’s a financial disaster for the upper middle class.

I largely come down to diversity (mass migration) and the Great Migration killing American social capital that the boomers had. Before these things occurred we had cheap urban housing because people weren’t afraid of their neighbors and cheap public schools. And homogenous urban environments have a lot of social capital for their residents. Also you had cheap babysitters because your neighbors were like you and you trusted them. Your kids could just go to the park alone. So childcare was free. I feel comfortable blaming diversity on rising housing costs (zoning the poor away from good communities) and for rising educational costs (falling public school quality).

So yes I think today’s generation is poorer in a lot of ways that really matter due to less social capital (but richer in other ways). And I do think the ways we are poorer today are especially bad for fertility where you now need to buy those goods in the market but they were free before.

Me ex left me about 5 years ago.

Previously we were splitting mortgage and utilities that came out to (for ease of calculation) $2000/month.

When she left, she got an apartment that cost (again, ease of calculation) $1500/month. I kept the house/mortgage/utilities and pay those fully out of pocket.

So I'm spending $1000/month more than I would be in the counterfactual where she stayed (was paying $1000 for housing, now $2000). She'd spending an extra $500/month (and I didn't even count utilities and such for her). We'd cumulatively have $1500/month 'extra' if we stayed together. Over a year that's $18,000. Over 5 years, that's $90,000. So I would, individually, be $45,000 richer (probably more! I could invest more!) in that counterfactual. That's several vacations, a new car, that's a new roof on the house or other major renovations.

I am doing well for myself. Salary is fine, debt is manageable.

I would be doing much better if I could find a reliable partner to shoulder either part of the bills or the housework or, ANYTHING really. Financially the 'hole' I'm in compared to the one where I'm happily married is getting deeper by the month.

And there are millions of people in similar situation, could be partnered but are not. Those folks don't, strictly speaking, show up in the economic stats as 'struggling.'

And that's before we talk covid-induced inflation and the attendant increase in prices of housing, vehicles (and insurance, and repairs), and medical care.

So yeah, there are some feedback loops out there that can make someone doing fine 'economically' still be struggling. Big one: difficulty finding affordable housing means more living with parents which means harder to find a partner, which makes it harder to afford housing, AND means there's more housing demand (if people start moving in together, that reduces demand on housing and lowers prices!).

And being clear, I'm not angry at her about it. I've processed and moved on. But I'm acutely aware of the price of being single, if for no other reason than to help me calibrate how much I should 'compromise' to bring a new woman into my life.

Having a partner can also be very very expensive. I'm easily $500k+ in the hole from paying all my ex-girlfriend's costs, who refused to get a job for 15+ years. (I'm extremely low-status in the dating market. I finally got out of the relationship, so at least I'm alone and miserable rather than paying through the nose and miserable.)

What's funny is that I wouldn't even have minded a trophy-wife situation where I at least got decent sex out of the deal. I know suggesting that makes me the worst kind of misogynist. We're supposed to pretend that relationships aren't transactional. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/communication-2

My ex was not the most frugal person.

Racked up student debt paying OUT-OF-STATE TUITION for reasons that read to me as asinine.

But at least it was a decent major. She had a tendency to just assume if you pay a lot for something it must be the best/high quality. Also had a tendency to throw out old things and buy new when something broke. Which, uhhhhh in hindsight was probably a warning sign.

I've made it a hard limit that the next GF has to be 'financially aware" if not thrifty. i.e. they actually consider the cost of things, consider repair vs. replace, and don't assume the most expensive option is always the best.

This winnows out a LOT of the field very early. I was dating a girl the last few months who apparently liked to select fancy restaurants just to see if I'd blink at paying the bill. At least, that's the game as I interpreted it. She would also cook for me so I was curious to see where things went. A few hundred dollars later and I can't even get a text back now.

Getting $500k in the hole is an outcome I'd truly want to avoid, though. I think I would pull the chute when the costs hit $100k.

I've made it a hard limit that the next GF has to be 'financially aware" if not thrifty. i.e. they actually consider the cost of things, consider repair vs. replace, and don't assume the most expensive option is always the best.

Good luck with that. Your best option is to look among new immigrants, preferably from some Asian country, modern US people are raised with attitude of temporarily embarrassed princes and princessess who feel any hint they should count money and consider the costs as mortal insult to their noble status and honor.

Imagine how Marie Antoinette felt when hubby told her: "Honey, you have enough palaces, you do not need another!"

The age of bourgeoisie counting every penny is over, the age of aristocracy is back.

modern US people are raised with attitude of temporarily embarrassed princes and princessess who feel any hint they should count money and consider the costs as mortal insult to their noble status and honor.

Sadly true. There was some significant reee-ing in the lastest doordash discourse on twitter (which kicked off with some guy saying you shouldn't be eating lunch out every day when you're making 70k in the US) with too many taking the position that taking a lunch to work was living worse than a medieval peasant.

I find the guy's point regarding eating out to be so trivially correct as to be unobjectionable, which proves I'm old and out of touch.

I mean, it is Twitter. Bringing lunch to work is extremely normal in the USA.

too many taking the position that taking a lunch to work was living worse than a medieval peasant.

These people, of course, were overwhelmingly self identifying as left, with bios full of symbols of correct current year, month and day causes.

Black lives matter! Trans women are women! Free Palestine! Cooking your own food is ableist, Doordash is human right!

But America is still land of opportunity, just follow teachings of the great guru Shagbark the Hobo King, and you too can find true frugal wife happy to live in shack and eat roadkill.

True trad Christian one, ofc, the atheist would want to do ..umm... nasty things to the roadkill, see the other current xitterstorm.

Usual example in "no god no morals, atheists owned!" eternal discourse is rape and murder, the xitter apologists recently upped the ante.

But America is still land of opportunity, just follow teachings of the great guru Shagbark the Hobo King, and you too can find true frugal wife happy to live in shack and eat roadkill.

I enjoy occasionally reading something by Shagbark because he is great at doing just what he did in that tweet: starting with a generally good point (many women are attracted to a man who has a vision of some kind and mission in life) and then taking it in a totally insane direction. "You should live where costs are low... so move to wasteland upstate New York, eat roadkill, and get by on $10k per year!" Etc.

I realized a while back that a lot of women were raised in McMansions with parents who basically paid for everything, from cars to clothes to fancy knick knacks, and of course university education, from the time she could walk.

And inherently, they will expect the same from their spouse. But that's impossible for a normal guy in early-adult stages to procure.

By becoming as wealthy as we have, we've now made it so that the general norm of "you, a dirt poor peon, marry another dirt poor peon, and gradually build your life up to a higher standard" a thing of the past.

Women who came up in prosperity would inherently have to accept a (temporary!) standard of living hit to marry a guy in his early-mid twenties, unless his family is massively wealthy. Women are generally wired to never, EVER accept a loss in status and standing and so this thought is probably vomit-inducing.

And there's now ample evidence that women, when given economic/financial advantages, tend to opt against having families/kids.

Again the solution is to economically boost men, or at least, stop the policies that are economically de-boosting them.

I realized a while back that a lot of women were raised in McMansions with parents who basically paid for everything, from cars to clothes to fancy knick knacks, and of course university education, from the time she could walk.

If only such support ended at HS or college. One occasionally meets a girlboss in their 30s who spends every dime on travel and clothing and eating out because her parents are still providing the apartment, car, and maybe even spending money. And she expects the future husband to be able to provide that level of living. Made for some entertaining first dates.

"Oh, I love Paris. I try to visit twice a year. How often do you travel abroad?"

"I've never left the US. My idea of travel is hiking and camping for 10 days without a shower."

Some Noticing from Capital One supports the online wrongthinker hypothesis that young women are racking up debt and/or are getting subsidized by boyfriends/parents so they can have the rightful FUN they deserve.

In one month, the average single American male consumer spends $4,114 or 85.8% of his income before taxes.

The average single female spends $3,862 in one month or 101% of her income before taxes.

Before taxes!

I can only imagine the spending to income ratio would be even higher for young attractive women, all else equal. Like Daniel Tosh remarked, being an ugly chick is like being a man: you’re going to have to work.

From what I’ve seen of a lot of young women, stuff like make-up, nails, new clothes are non-negotiable monthly expenses like food or rent, in addition to other FUN expenses like restaurants, festivals, and traveling.

Please note that this report conforms to terminology used in source data. In most sources, sex and gender terms are not clearly defined and may be used interchangeably. For example, both “male” and “men” may refer to cis-males or male-born consumers.

Tiresome status: It’s all so.

Before taxes!

Putting aside the female numbers (which confirm my biases and thus are obviously correct), how does that even work for the male numbers? 86% before taxes would still seem to be over 100% once taxes are included.

More comments

On the one hand its a natural thing. If the parents are doing really well, making sure their kids are comfortable (and, more directly, making sure their beloved Katie never has to do porn or shack up with a drug dealer) is what they would do as an extension of their established role.

The second/third order effect of "Katie now expects to live in a 5000 square foot house and drive a late-model SUV and will reject anyone who can't offer that" is a little harder to see.

The very SECOND I hear that a woman has left the country on vacation more than once (with the exception of Mexico travel, I guess), I pretty much know my chances have dropped to negligible.

I guess maybe this is another thing where my background influences what I've seen, but as far as I can tell I've never been on a date with a woman who had this kind of lifestyle. Especially the "looking for a man to offer that almost seems like looking not only for a provider who can add meaningfully to the dual household income, but looking for a man who can bankroll an entire lifestyle, and I've genuinely never encountered that. Together we can afford these lifestyle choices is familiar to me; marriage after all has financial advantages. But this is the sort of thing that appears deep into a relationship, not up front.

Is this a lower-middle-class/upper-middle-class split thing? Regional? I've tended to date people who come from modest households.

More comments

Imagine how Marie Antoinette felt when hubby told her: "Honey, you have enough palaces, you do not need another!"

Marie Antoinette was not responsible for the opulence of Versailles, and probably hated it. Her palace at Petit Trianon is the least blinged-out part of the whole complex.

I've made it a hard limit that the next GF has to be 'financially aware" if not thrifty. i.e. they actually consider the cost of things, consider repair vs. replace, and don't assume the most expensive option is always the best.

Seems reasonable. Though, try not to get a new GF that just has a slightly different set of horrible traits! "This time I'm putting my foot down, arson is a hard no." Nobody's perfect, but as long as you're willing to consider "alone" as a viable option, it really does let you be more selective.

Getting $500k in the hole is an outcome I'd truly want to avoid, though. I think I would pull the chute when the costs hit $100k.

Yeah, most people would (and should). I've made a lot of bad choices.

This is kind of the problem. I'm familiar with the concept of 'tradeoffs' and accept that. If I somehow land a smoking hot redhead with DD's, I can accept she might be a bit profligate in spending, which I will corral as best I can.

But the women are generally lacking so many of the desirable traits I'd look for that there's not much to trade off against!

Reading you guys makes me realize I am significantly more of a naive or fatalist romantic than I would have credited myself as. Romance is something that happens, dammit, not the synthetic end result of a deliberate, cold-blooded process.

I mean, we don't live in the best or the worst of all worlds. There are some genuinely beautiful, selfless relationships out there. But not everyone gets one. My cynicism applies only to me and my future prospects (or lack thereof).

From "Unspeakable Bargains" by Eliezer Yudkowsky:

Once upon a time there was a man named Simon who was a successful junior trader at a financial firm in New York City, who was heterosexual and liked conventionally pretty women. Simon used to take attractive women out to swanky restaurants, and fancy theatres, and amusement parks on weekends, and buy them jewelry and clothing; and then they would go back to his place and have fun. One day, Simon decided to stop spending money on women.

Immediately after, women decided to stop spending time on him.

Simon was very depressed by this. "So they never liked me to begin with?" he bemoaned, clutching his hands against the lapels of his $4000 business suit. "They were just stringing me along for my money all along?"

"That's admittedly a possibility," said Noelle, a well-known author who wasn't conventionally attractive and could therefore go to expensive restaurants with Simon without sex entering into it. "But considering the sheer weirdness of what you just tried to get away with, we can't even conclude that much. I don't even know how to describe the exact mistake you're making. Why on Earth did you try that in the first place?"

"Numerous movies and TV shows have told me that if girls really like me, they'll like me for myself rather than my money," explained Simon.

"Honestly I sometimes find it a bit hard to really, deeply understand from a first-person perspective what it's like to make that mistake," said Noelle. "Admittedly, I'm privileged, because I attract people by being a famous author, and therefore I identify strongly with the aspect of myself that I market sexually. Like, anyone who only sleeps with me because I'm the famous author Noelle Smith therefore does like me for myself, as I define 'myself'. So it's hard for me to imagine the existential horror of needing to market oneself sexually using only wealth, physical attractiveness, sexual skill, and other characteristics that ultimately fail to distinguish you from millions of other people. But then I know that there's other famous authors who attract people and that doesn't seem to upset me. For that matter, I know that there's centillions upon centillions of perfectly identical Noelles elsewhere in our spatially infinite universe, and that doesn't upset me. I seem to have lost track of the thread of the conversation, where were we again?"

"I was being sad about the fact that all of those girls turned out to only be attracted to me for my money," said Simon. "Honestly, it wouldn't even disturb me all that much, except for the fact that all the movies and TV shows have told me that this is an inferior quality of love, which means that somebody else is doing better than I am."

"Oh right, that," said Noelle. "Yeah, and I was saying we couldn't even conclude that much, though there is a certain prior probability in play. Look, it'd be one thing if you were poor, but honest, and also extremely handsome. But if you're visibly wearing a $4000 suit and still trying to take the girl to eat at McDonalds, that sends another message entirely. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that at least Wendy, of all the women I was dating, said that she liked me for myself and that the restaurants had nothing to do with it!" declared Simon. "I'm genuinely disturbed that she turned out to be lying!"

"Oh, Wendy? Yeah, her I liked," said Noelle. "Simon, I don't think Wendy was lying. I think she was making a deep-seated error about how her own psychology worked, like, she was having trouble interpreting reality in a way that didn't seem horrible to her, so she slipped sideways into a nearby universe instead. Look, Wendy's model-level beautiful, right? She can date in the big leagues. 'Don't marry for money, hang around rich girls and marry for love,' as the saying goes. Wendy's pretty enough that she can afford to hang around with a hundred people in your rough category of socioeconomic status, and pick out one that she likes. She could still have been attracted to you more than other rich guys, because of the fine details of your personality or something. Like, she found it cute the way you snort in the middle of laughing, or whatever the hell it is you think it's acceptable for women to be attracted to."

"Yeah, but it's not okay that Wendy also cared about the money!" said Simon. "That makes her a horrible person, right? Or at least shallow. A woman with real depth to her wouldn't care about my money at all."

Noelle thunked her head against the wall of the restaurant booth they were in. "You know," she said, "even if we concede that this hypothetical quality would earn a woman 2.3 virtue points, which could in itself be debated, my mind is still going: 'But why would somebody that virtuous need to end up dating somebody poor and unattractive? Shouldn't she be able to score a wealthy boyfriend who's attracted to excessively virtuous women?'"

"I'm starting to wonder if I've gone to the wrong friend for consolation here," said Simon.

"Possibly," said Noelle. "I mean, I'm having trouble imagining a universe whose mating market ends up that far out of equilibrium. Like, I can't believe in the implied alternative to mating markets for long enough for me to become emotional about it, or something like that. But even so I feel you're being unfair to Wendy in calling her shallow. If you hang around 20 guys whose personalities attract you, and then you marry the one who takes you to the most expensive restaurants, there's nothing wrong with that. There isn't even anything shallow about that. Deep women can like Kobe beef too. There's nothing wrong with wanting to go to expensive restaurants at the same time as being with someone you like."

"Of course there is," said Simon. "Let's be realistic here, if you like 20 people for themselves, there's going to be some quantitative level at which you like them, and if you pick the wealthiest person from among those, you're going to end up sacrificing 0.3 liking points so you can get 10 wealth points. How is that not shallow? I know, I know, you think everyone just is shallow, and maybe that's true, but it's still sad."

Noelle thunked her head against the wall again. "See," she said, "I don't think of myself as being cold-heartedly cynical when I reject that way of looking at things. I don't think that kind of exchange is bad when it happens alongside everything else in life. I don't think that optimizing your own life and reaching up for things is selfish and bad. I don't think it's wrong for a woman to want jewelry and for that to influence her dating life, so long as that one consideration doesn't take over her life at the expense of everything else. And aren't you the guy who never asks out any woman he doesn't consider to be at least a 9 out of 10?"

"That's not the same at all!" Simon said indignantly. "I can't control who I'm sexually attracted to. It's not like I try to score women on the same scale that everyone else uses, the way that wealth is objective and measurable, and then I only try to score with women who score at the 90th percentile. I just can't control who my brain is attracted to, that's all--there's no choices involved."

"Well," said Noelle, "I have to admit that I'd feel a lot more sympathetic if you said that you were willing to date 6-out-of-10s in exchange for them being okay with you being frugal. As it stands, I can't help but feel like you're trying to be a barista who insists on still getting the $4 but not giving people the coffee. It seems to imply an asymmetry in how your mind sees people--that you see them being 'selfish', but not yourself trying to 'just live a better life' or however you'd put it."

"I didn't think sex was supposed to be this cold-blooded exchange!" said Simon. "And maybe it is, maybe there's no escaping it--but then it's okay for me to be sad about that, right?"

"I'm not sure exactly how to describe what mistake you're making," Noelle said, "but it has something to do with it being really horrible for some reason that something matters, and that thing clearly does matter in the real universe, so you don't want to live in the real universe anymore. And also something to do with you having trouble really taking on somebody else's perspective, maybe because that would force you to acknowledge that the thing is allowed to matter."

"Would it kill you to say that my feelings are valid?" said Simon.

"I'll say it if you pay me $50," said Noelle.

Simon shook his head. "I wonder if the reason we have a taboo against greedy women in the first place is that women like you ruined it for everyone else."

"No, see," said Noelle, "I feel like I'd want $50 in exchange for saying that, and my feelings are valid too."

Or, as Alpha Centauri put it:

"Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant."

– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"

This is why God gave us cats, so you could have a genuine meet-cute with a creature that will love you forever.

Cats? Those shameless, opportunist egomaniacs without a shred of loyalty?

The allergenic ones?

Well, God did not make the world to suit everyone.

More comments

I am significantly more of a naive or fatalist romantic

My Brother in Christ (said completely without irony), that is who I am on the deepest level.

I fully expected I was going to marry my high school sweetheart. But we went to different colleges so you can guess how that turned out.

My entire relationship history is me trying my damndest to wrest a romantic happy ending from an increasingly cynical world. Each time I fail, I make some adaptation that hopefully improves my odds, and each time the reality of the situation proves I wasn't cold and calculating enough. So I become more strategically machievellian with the instrumental intent of finding someone to partner with and then GTFO of the toxic pool.

I've done everything I can in the past three years to maximize by 'social surface area' so I can have that chance encounter with the love of my life.

And unfortunately all this has done, now, is expose me to every single variant of dysfunction you can imagine. I've observed other people's relationships fail for the silliest, most avoidable of reasons, I've seen the very depths of toxic female behavior. I'm still fanning a small, candle-esque flame inside of me that believes a romantic happy ending is possible. But the stats are what the stats are, I won't look away.

If I were able to acquire the necessary power, I would radically restructure the social order enough to allow the sensitive young man to once again be competitive enough in the sexual marketplace that they CAN have their organic, fated encounter with their soulmate and expect the "live happily" to actually last "ever after."

I fully expected I was going to marry my high school sweetheart. But we went to different colleges so you can guess how that turned out.

happy_padme.jpg: She was fiercely loyal, regularly visited you, steadfastly refrained from partying or entertaining male attention, and you two eventually got married and lived happily ever after, right?

More comments

Each time I fail, I make some adaptation that hopefully improves my odds, and each time the reality of the situation proves I wasn't cold and calculating enough

Do you think you may be overfitting here? If every time a relationship fails, you make an adaptation that would have ensured it worked, that does not necessarily mean you are becoming overall more desirable to the women that you want. Meanwhile, you are slowly giving up on something you value deeply.

I agree with the overall gist of it; Being the sensitive young man is endlessly disappointing, but that does not imply that meeting cynicism with cynicism of your own is a good solution that increases the odds of landing the relationship you want.

More comments

I wouldn't even have minded a trophy-wife situation where I at least got decent sex out of the deal

500 k$ ÷ (15 a × 365 d/a) = 91 $/d

That's comparable to the cost of legal prostitution in Australia. But, unfortunately, prostitution remains illegal in the Land of the Free™.

Indeed, Canada went whole hog on marijuana legalization, but sex work is still quite illegal (and thus dangerous). Straight-up prostitution is probably TOO transactional for me, but I don't outright reject the comparison.

I'm almost afraid to jinx myself, because I have such a good thing going, but I'm eternally grateful my wife and I made it through so many trials and tribulations. We survived losing jobs, lockdowns, health issues, values drift, relocating. Then the usual things like having kids, buying a house, etc. I truly don't know what I'd be doing with my life without her and the life we've built together.

All that said, somehow, I'm making 50% more in take home pay than my last job, and yet with a stay at home mom and two kids, my budget is stretched thinner than it's ever been stretched before. I heard some random anecdote/joke on a woodworking channel. Dude knew some guy who had 6 kids, and he asks how he can afford so many. Guy says "Well 6 kids costs the same as 3 kids". Dude just goes "WTF?!" and guy responds "No matter how many kids you have, they cost everything". And that's about right. No matter how much money you make, there always seems to be something the kids "need", or in many cases need. Like being kept out of public schools run by fucking machines.

It’s because there’s a lot of talk about the devaluation of the dollar, and everything’s more expensive, etc., which is all true to some degree. I’ve continued noticed the cost of food prices steadily creeping up in ways that have caught me by surprise; because they haven’t plateaued yet; and likely won’t come down in the future. Input prices are becoming more expensive. What’s almost never acknowledged though is lifestyle inflation. Just consider the way people live today and what they expect from the world.

When I reflect on my life growing up, my sibling and I were spoiled pretty rotten early on by our extended family and especially grandparents. My father did quite well and made enough money for my mother to stay at home. She never had a job in her entire life. Taken care of by dad and then by husband. But my father was pretty tight with money and what he considered a “necessity.” Not really when it came to his own personal habits the way I saw it, but definitely where it concerned my sibling and I. Car needs to be fixed? Did it himself. Including changing the head gasket by himself. Home cooked meals every night. No eating out. I went to public school (hated it). We can get by without a fancy private school. Networking to move us into a place leased by a family friend. Rent was lower than the market rate. Across the board. How many people would you say on average operate with that kind of mentality today?

But my father was pretty tight with money and what he considered a “necessity.” Not really when it came to his own personal habits the way I saw it, but definitely where it concerned my sibling and I. Car needs to be fixed? Did it himself. Including changing the head gasket by himself. Home cooked meals every night. No eating out. I went to public school (hated it). We can get by without a fancy private school. Networking to move us into a place leased by a family friend. Rent was lower than the market rate. Across the board. How many people would you say on average operate with that kind of mentality today?

Lots about that life is now illegal or made impossible. Car needs to be fixed? Modern cars now transmit real-time diagnostic data wirelessly directly to the manufacturer. If you have an issue that needs to be fixed, you need to take it to an official shop because the manufacturer will not tell you what the diagnostic data says. Also, car electronics and machinery have been intentionally made difficult to repair without highly specialized knowledge.

How many fights broke out at your public school a week? My high school had about 3-5 fights a week in in the hallways and cafeteria. From my understanding, that number only goes up depending on where you live. And that was actually a pretty good school, where I was able to attend mostly AP classes and learn real things (though the graduating senior class was 2/3 the size of the freshman class due to dropouts.) A decent public school where your kids actually learn to read beyond a third grade level without being in physical danger is expensive. It costs a house that might be 2x the median home. Private school or homeschool is often cheaper these days.

It is hard to overstate the effects of enshittification on everything over the past 20 years. Would people have put up with a car that couldn't be repaired at home when you were a kid? But somehow today there are few options for cars without these electronic contraptions intentionally designed to make it hard to repair.

I fully acknowledge all of this, and I’m not suggesting that the world hasn’t become a more complex place than it was decades ago. What I’m saying is even back then, we weren’t a family that lived to the maximum of our income (and we could’ve lived quite a luxurious lifestyle in our immediate family alone). Not many people that I meet today who aren’t my age and don’t come from that kind of background assume the same mindset. Of course everyone’s case is unique, but the attendant, generational inflation in lifestyle is something that’s undeniable across the board.

I grew up in a place that was solidly middle upper class, with one side of my family who came from fairly rich and prestigious career driven background with a strong military footprint, and the other which came from grinding poverty but was extremely ambitious and self-educated, almost like something you’d see out of Good Will Hunting, and very unassuming from the eyes of other people. You’d never in a million years suspect they were that way, but they practically haunted the libraries every day of their lives. And when my father ultimately moved into the big cities, he climbed the career ladder during the dot com boom like it was a cakewalk. They just simply didn’t have money. But when our neighborhood defunded the local police stations due to budget cuts and we ultimately moved to the adjacent next city over (which still ended up being affected by things), there was a near instantaneous and overnight shift from an upscale community into one that’s made national headlines due to narcotics trafficking. I lived in a hood and on a cross street that was violently contested between two competing gangs, where there was violence almost every day and a reported murder practically every other week. My father was in a bind because he didn’t want to uproot my sibling and I from our deeply entrenched family connections and all the friends I had whilst at the same time, didn’t want us living in the kind of hood he grew up in.

I fully agree with most of what you’ve said here, but I’d implore most people who look at others who complain about their financial situation and just ask yourself, “Based on what I know about this person, how much of what they spend would I characterize for purposes someone should regard as desirable.” You’ll find for yourself they could downgrade and cut back on quite a bit.

Lots about that life is now illegal or made impossible. Car needs to be fixed? Modern cars now transmit real-time diagnostic data wirelessly directly to the manufacturer. If you have an issue that needs to be fixed, you need to take it to an official shop because the manufacturer will not tell you what the diagnostic data says. Also, car electronics and machinery have been intentionally made difficult to repair without highly specialized knowledge.

I think you either have a definition of 'modern' that's like ten years in the future, or are just wrong -- the newest car in my stable (wife's) is three years old and I can work on it just fine. In particular, engine-related jobs (eg. head gasket) are basically no different than they were in the sixties. (or the Grapes of Wrath, for that matter)

On-board diagnostic computers, while not without their foibles, actually tend to make life easier than in the past so long as you are prepared to spend fifty bucks on a scan-tool; furthermore Youtube + brand specific forums mean that the chances that someone somewhere has done the exact job you are contemplating and documented it in detail online are very near to 100%. (unless you are driving something really weird or it's been altered from the factory state previously)

On the whole, fixing your own car has never been easier -- and I've been doing that since high school in the 90s, dealing with vehicles produced ~1969-2023 and resources ranging from dusty manuals in the physical library to youtube and pirated factory literature from shady Russian sites. (most recently a full engine-out rebuild on my kid's 2016 -- precipitated by enshittification of engine design due to EPA fuel-efficiency standards, but I digress)

If you can get a scan tool it's not the same situation I'm describing. Lots of auto manufacturers now send data to their own servers instead of keep diagnostic information on the car. Then if an auto-repair shop wants to access it, they can't just scan the car, they need the auto manufacturer to provide it. EV manufacturers do not even have OBD ports. Other manufacturers like Nissan have blockers that keep you from clearing codes or running bi-directional tests. https://dobkinlaw.com/trapped-by-the-tech-why-congress-is-battling-automakers-over-your-right-to-self-repair/

I've also had a car where everything is poorly accessible, and that accessing certain parts of the engine require specialized tools or taking the whole thing apart. Increased safety measures have made crumple zones bigger and bigger, which means the engine, transmission, turbochargers, and emissions equipment need to be packed into a tinier and tinier footprint. The smaller the footprint becomes, the more things you have to remove between you and the alternator you're trying to replace. Audi designed many of its vehicles so that the entire front clip of the car must be unbolted and slid forward into a special "service position" before anything could be replaced up there.

Other manufacturers like Nissan have blockers that keep you from clearing codes or running bi-directional tests. https://dobkinlaw.com/trapped-by-the-tech-why-congress-is-battling-automakers-over-your-right-to-self-repair/

"it’s the fast-approaching reality of vehicle ownership" (from the article) -- maybe, but I can't see anybody saying that this is happening now? (A quick google on "nissan blocks clearing codes" doesn't turn anything up, for instance)

A standard OBDC tool will still do most reasonable things on most cars -- whatsmore, it's actually way easier to get a factory-equivalent bidirectional tool than it used to be due to bootleg Chinese stuff that plugs into a laptop. For GM, you've needed a Tech2 for bidirectional communication for about 30 years -- these used to cost $10k, now you can get a $100 dongle from China.

EV manufacturers do not even have OBD ports.

Not sure this is true (a light googling seems to suggest that North American manufacturers use a standard port), but if so it's another good reason not to buy an EV (or that EV, if it's limited to (say) Tesla)!

I've also had a car where everything is poorly accessible, and that accessing certain parts of the engine require specialized tools or taking the whole thing apart.

This has been a common bitching point since sub-compact Japanese cars started replacing enormous American boats -- I don't love it, but the existence of drawling hillbillies on Youtube who show you the real way to do these jobs (as opposed to what the service manual tells you) has improved the situation immensely.

I'm going to display my ignorance for all to see but it serves a point. If this is so difficult for someone with the intellectual curiosity of the average Motte-goer, imagine how much harder it is for the the average schmuck.

About a year ago my 2017 Chrysler Pacifica started overheating after about 15 minutes of driving . We took an overheating problem pretty seriously so my husband brought it into the local mechanic. He's good, the best in my small town as far as everyone is concerned. He went over it, used a diagnostic thingy, did a couple tests, said it was one thing. Ok, he replaced that one thing and my husband drove it home. It worked ok for a while.

After about a week, it started overheating again. We took it back, mechanic did another look around, said something else needed to be replaced. That probably both things needed to be replaced to start, but the second thing didn't show up on the diagnostic tool until after the first one was replaced and the error cleared. Ok, we let him replace the second thing, all we had to pay was parts, he did the labor for free since he didn't get it right the first time. A week later, it started heating up again. We took it into the official dealership and a couple days later received back a car that hasn't acted up since.

Maybe we were taken for suckers by the most trusted and competent mechanic in town. That's a possibility. But the thing that seems more likely given the close-knit nature of our community is that the problem was too opaque and difficult to diagnose for someone in the top 1% of car mechanics in my town. And if that's the case, average schmucks have very little hope. Why should I bother trying to learning how to work on my car when someone who works on cars full time couldn't figure it out?

There's some factors about additional kids that are merely additive vs. multiplicative, I've heard. So whilst two kids is approximately twice as hard as having one, a third or fourth is adding less marginal complexity.

Obviously you can hand down clothes, toys, etc. Once the older ones are old enough to be responsible, they can supervise the younger to some extent. Once you have a minivan you just need proper seating.

I've got a buddy who has two kids... and a buddy who has FIVE. I hang out with both of them at the same time, and last time all the kids were there. It was wonderful controlled chaos, 4 kids playing Mario kart whilst 2 others cheered them on and a third was playing with the family dog. They keep each other entertained and they're all mostly toilet trained and know how to eat properly. In a certain sense, I could absolutely see myself raising 7 of the buggers simultaneous (no, not really, but aspirationally sure).

And both buddies live fairly comfortable lives, its just all free time is consumed by the kids' needs.

So yeah, I expect every spare red cent will go into the family, and I'll have to give up most of my bachelor ways, but I do not fear financial apocalypse.

You are talking about it’s cheaper to have essentially a roommate - a childless relationship.

I was highlighting how it’s much more expensive today to NOT be single but have a child bearing relationship. Costs sky rocket in that situation because you need to live in areas safe for families with good schools or pay for private school. Family health care is expensive.

A childless relationship is really just being single with a roommate. And yes that’s cheaper.

But I'm acutely aware of the price of being single, if for no other reason than to help me calibrate how much I should 'compromise' to bring a new woman into my life.

I have to work to remain silent when some of my longtime married friends complain about money. Several couples I know have been married since law school (so 20 years now, sigh), they have been sharing rent/mortgage/expenses since then, they bought houses during the 2015-2020 3% interest/lower prices sweet spot, the ones working for governments got some loan forgiveness during the Biden jubilee, etc. They are $300k plus ahead of people who married later and bought houses later (to say nothing of being way ahead of chumps who were foolish enough to pay off student loans). The world's tiniest violin is still too large when they complain about money.

My ex is the one who convinced me to buy a house, which turned out to be EXCELLENT timing. Closed in November 2019, right before Covid arrived and locked us all indoors and shot housing prices through the roof. Miraculous timing. That's a silver lining in the whole situation. Without her I'd probably even now be stuck without a house! Drastically different life course.

She also left right as interest rates were at their lowest, so I refied into an even lower interest rate (with the help of a good friend).

I am exceedingly lucky in this regard. My youngest brother just bought a house with his wife (and kid!) and his payment is twice what mine is. Its a good spot, though.

There's like six times in those previous 5 years where I might have ended up having to sell the property if things had gone differently, due to sudden expenses or dips in income. The immediate aftermath of a hurricane was a rough one for me. But I pulled it out each time.

It is only recently, like the last six or so months that I've felt like I'm not constantly 1 bad month away from a serious lifestyle downgrade.

It really sucked at the time.

DINKs get no sympathy from me.

I bought my first house in July 2008, so basically the top of the market before the housing bubble burst. Sold it 5 years later for basically the same amount, which considering the overall housing appreciation trends of the past 30 years is REALLY sad.

Part of why people are single is that women expect a provider in a marriage. If they are asked to pay half the rent they will naturally leave much more. Dual income marriages are not really an option under normal human nature and so being dual income is not the solution to the problem. It's more like a huge part of the problem itself, that people think it should even be needed.

I absolutely love to take on the provider role, but there's some additional authority that I expect to come with that that a lot of women ALSO don't want to grant. I.e. I will make final decisions on any big spending, I will dictate how the house is used, I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself.

I have had a life insurance policy in place for the past two years on the off-chance I met someone worth keeping, because its just the responsible thing to do while I'm healthy. I embrace the job of ensuring she is never left destitute.

In 'exchange' I abjectly refuse to have a 'man cave.' The whole house is indeed my castle, she can have a "woman cove" and do whatever she wants with it.

I see this arrangement as utterly fair and equitable for any woman willing to help raise my kids.

At the time we split, ex and I were making probably about the same amount of money. She went on to a pretty high-paying job so I know she's doing fine in the abstract, but I've managed to build things up to the point I'm certain I make more than her now. Or, more to the point, I can easily afford to keep a SAHM if she's got "realistic" expectations as to how often and where we vacation and the level of luxury we can maintain.

The real problem is that many, many women are fully inculcating the expectations for wealth that they received either from their parents/upbringing or social media.

I generally agree that the two-income expectation has created a lot of the exact problem we're seeing.

I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself.

I know probably two handfuls of couples that engage in trad gender roles, where the man is the provider, both lefties and righties. I think this is probably the biggest dealbreaker I've ever heard. There is a charitable interpretation that is barely acceptable in regards to a joint physically fit lifestyle or jointly modest/religious lifestyle but I think this is going to be a huge constraint for you. People just don't like others having control over their bodies. You are better off looking for values a partner should have that would lead them to converging to your "final say" rather than explicitly trying to exercise the control.

I see this arrangement as utterly fair and equitable for any woman

I'm sure, most people think they are giving folks grand ol deals.

Does it make it any better that I'm willing to reciprocate in that regard? I don't ask for standards I can't reach, myself.

I don't know how else to describe "don't go out and get any tattoos, drastic hairstyle changes, or plastic/cosmetic surgery without my approval somewhere in the loop."

The whole problem is that objectively speaking, a huge majority of women have chosen obesity, wacky haircuts and hair colors, and tattoos and ever increasing numbers of piercings.

All are factors that make them look horrible.

And all this whilst marriage and relationship rates are in the toilet.

Why do you suppose that is?

Here's the deal. Your wife will put on weight when she's pregnant. This weight may take time to come off, especially if she gets pregnant again within a couple years. She might spend most of her child bearing years overweight. If you try to control this or punish her, you put her health and the health of your children at risk. This comes across as really severe.

If all you mean is "Don't get tatoos or medical procedures without telling me first" then that's fine. But there's a spectrum between that and "I will track what you eat, how much you exercise, and select your wardrobe" which is how it kind of came across the first comment.

I've said it before (though I can't find the link at present), if she's willing to bear and raise my children, she will receive my reverence eternally even if her looks slide.

Indeed, that's part of the point. If she is willing to accept the travails of pregnancy, I will dig in deep to my provider role, and will accept the tradeoffs to her personal appearance because the outcome we're achieving is SO mutually beneficial I can't imagine deciding against it. My consent to her gaining weight is both implicit in the act of getting pregnant and I will happily make it explicit and praise her to the heavens for the sacrifice.

I'm mostly seeking the parts of a good and compatible personality that happen to correspond with keeping oneself healthy and aesthetically pleasing... while not overindexing on that measure.

Because guess what, those are traits I'd like to pass on to and inculcate in my kids! Its all tied up in the same ultimate objective.

"I will track what you eat, how much you exercise, and select your wardrobe" which is how it kind of came across the first comment.

Yes, and I'm suggesting you should interrogate a bit why you jumped to THAT interpretation from the rip rather than asking clarifying questions. "I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself," to me, means closer to "she's making decisions independently (or with my counsel), but I hold veto power when I think it necessary." Tracking how much she eats and exercises sounds like a freaking DRAG, man. Although maybe more possible with AI agents. She wants to get ice cream for dessert I will provide without blinking. She wants to eat ice cream for every meal... imma put my foot down.

I try to be as specific as I can and avoid ambiguity in my language, and don't always succeed, but man, if I wanted to say "I WILL CONTROL ALL HER FOOD INTAKE AND WILL PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN HER FROM GETTING A HAIRCUT" I would have said that.

And whilst I can SEE how you could get to that interpretation, I would suggest that isn't the most charitable or straightforward takeaway unless your priors suggest any signal of wanting some control in a relationship indicates being a micromanaging overbearing control freak.

Hopefully I've given sufficient clarity now.

A lot of the language you used implied very strict control against a woman's wishes.

"additional authority... that a lot of women ALSO don't want to grant" "I will make final decisions...I will dictate I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself"

So yes, control over her physical appearance, which would require control over her food and exercise.

"The whole house is indeed my castle," good luck with that when you get small kids. It's clear that you think of yourself as a benevolent dictator, but your still describing a dictatorship.

"fair and equitable for any woman willing to help raise my kids." Language imply that this control persists after she's had kids, and that the kids are yours (singular) not yours (plural).

I'm glad to hear that your expectations are not quite that severe but the language you used did encourage a more severe interpretation.

More comments

will accept the tradeoffs to her personal appearance

It doesn't work like that. I mean, maybe you're the level of advanced autism where it does, but for a psychologically healthy man, you'll see those changes happen so continually and slowly that it'll barely even register. By the time you really notice she'll be the mother of your children and the reverence will come naturally.

More comments

a huge majority of women have chosen to be obese

I wouldn't really consider it 'choosing', at least in any sense narrower than that in which the victim of a mugger 'chooses' to hand over his wallet.

I use that term more deliberately in the age of GLPs. I myself am down quite a bit of weight, because I didn't like where the number on the scale was headed, and technology to address the issue was easily available.

So obvious steps were taken. I wouldn't hold anyone else to standards I myself can't adhere to.

Now that's an insult to anyone who ever got mugged.

The reason it comes across as weirdly controlling is that women in happy relationships don't suddenly dye their hair and get a new tattoo that they know their husband will hate. That's already a sign that the relationship is on the rocks, without any control rhetoric. This is true of most things (getting fat less so, especially after some children). If you say "wow, those huge pants that are trending sure are ugly!" And she goes out and buys the ugly pants you hate, that is already a sign that she doesn't respect you. That's less the case with things like getting fat and cutting her hair after bearing your children, because small children really do like pulling hair with surprising intensity, and all things cooking and exercise related can become harder.

The reason it comes across as weirdly controlling is that women in happy relationships don't suddenly dye their hair and get a new tattoo that they know their husband will hate.

Except when they decide the relationship ISN'T happy and, rather than actually discuss the matter with their spouse, they opt to listen to their local divorced friends or tiktok or a feminist podcast crew and just go full "my body my choice" and dares the husband to object.

Which, legally speaking, there's not much he can do but bear it, or divorce.

The risk exists, and men are not ignorant of this.

I will flip your point to its obvious corollary.

If the woman expects that the relationship will remain happy and trusts her husband's decisionmaking, then THE THOUGHT OF CHANGING HER APPEARANCE WITHOUT ASKING HIM SHOULDN'T CROSS HER MIND.

If the marriage is happy then why should she ever feel the need to challenge his authority on this point! It shouldn't even be an issue to start with! It can just be two parties who have mutually agreed that they are made better by the others' presence, and thus neither feels the need to disrupt things for the other party without discussing it. The woman going behind his back to change herself is a failure mode.

The only reason the man needs to exercise control in that fashion is that the woman has, for SOME reason, decided to test it! You say the control would be unnecessary in a happy marriage. I say that the acting out and drastic changes is also unnecessary in a happy marriage.

Basically, I find your logical construction of the situation incomplete.

See, this is what I mean by reciprocal. I CONSTANTLY hear that men who have expectations, standards, and want to exercise control over their local environment (i.e they one they acquired through their efforts/money and are charged with maintaining) as abusive or narcissistic.

And in some cases this may be true. But as per usual you never hear critiques of women who randomly decide to flout expectations and reject standards and act out of control when they had no actual reason to do so. If the woman finds herself in a good situation, it behooves HER to not act out in ways that demolish the status quo.

But this implies that she has to accept correction from SOMEWHERE.

So I just put the question to you: If a woman starts to act out and threatens to upend an otherwise happy, successful marriage... WHO aside from her husband, should be tasked with corralling her behavior?

Or is the thesis that nobody is authorized to correct such behavior?

I'm doubting the premise that 1) a woman in a happy relationship would disfigure herself in ways she knew would piss off her husband, or 2) if she did, whether him going on about Authority and Correctness and the he's got to corral her behavior, would do anything except make the situation worse.

Do you know many conservative women? The main danger is that they'll start wearing frumpy t-shirt dresses and let all their makeup expire, such that it become very difficult for them to dress up nicely, which is what I thought your initial comment was pointing to. If they're going full midlife crisis, I don't know what the solution is in that case, probably a change of social group. Perhaps an internet free religious retreat?

Mostly its a sign the husband forgot to block social media sites on the router, as is his patriarchal responsibility.

All that shit is a social contagion and not a sign of anything except gas lighting.

Lol. Controlling the internet settings is a more reasonable and trad position than controlling your wife's fashion choices, anyway.

You are supposed to look for women who value their husbands opinions, and they themselves don't value those things. Then give your opinion, but leave the ultimate decision authority to the individual. The problem is that what you've stated in this comment and the previous comment around "control" aren't really the same thing. This is pretty much the same thing as women who date abusive deadbeats, it's about vetting. You need to vet women for a propensity to do the above, and even if you have this meager dating pool, toss out the ones that would... have some standards.

Authentic choice is the most costly signal of all.

Authentic choice is the most costly signal of all.

Ain't that the truth.

This is more of an aside, but it’s tangentially related to signaling problems.

Women who are trad lifestyle oriented are looking for signals that predict convergences to negative outcomes for their specific locality’s. Global red flags are a thing but local, contextual red flags are more tightly watched for. When you talk about control you evoke that local contextual red flag for trad behavior. Even if you never say it out loud those sort of ideas have a way of leaking into social responses that women are far more intuitive at picking up. I’d recommend you change your mindset about around it, let go of your own desires for control and converge to value-basis belief.

More comments

That part stood out to me as well. I couldn't imagine what it even meant. Sure, he could divorce her is she got too fat or something, I guess, but otherwise I'm simply confused.

Right but that would violate the sanctity of marriage that I am assuming he values. It's a rock and a hard place. I've observed he feels powerless about it. Leading to control issues creating a negative feedback loop. The ironic thing is that this would easily be resolved by just filtering for women that already have a similar outlook/values system. No need for the control if they already agree with and value your opinion.

I feel obligated to point out that a person can share a house with someone who is not his romantic partner.

There was a period I was renting out one room to a friend who was thankfully a good roommate.

Just understand that living with roommates is undeniably a reduction in living standards, which still appears as 'struggling' (relative to the previously-expected norms).

I enjoy having my living space to myself, I enjoy a big yard, garage, etc. So I'm just not inclined to share the space with someone I'm not banging and raising kids with. I am willing to pay for this solitude, and thus far can afford it.

I'm also the ONLY one of my local friend group in my age range who owns a house at all.

In my experience once you age out of college/grad school finding new roommates is hard. It's like dating but with a harder cutoff. After 30 they either can't pay or are intolerably insane.

I live by myself in a big two bedroom apartment and wouldn't mind a roommate but my luck with the last few has been bad and rent has gone up so much in the last 5 years (I'm grandfathered in with an old lady landlord.) that I wouldn't save any money downsizing to a smaller place (plus I'd have to spend time and money moving), so I have a spare bed and bath that collects dust.

Bingo.

I wouldn't let someone who didn't come vetted in my house with access to all my stuff.

Sure an extra grand or so/month would be nice. But I've done enough landlord tenant law (read: ONE CASE is all it took) to realize the downside risk is appreciably large.

I like how being poor is referred to as house hacking.

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