site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5381 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There was a time and place where Communists genuinely believed that central planning and the socialist economy were genuinely superior to the capitalist mode of production, and their victory would come about through increased productivity and a greater standard of living. That did not come to pass, and nowadays the only people who flog that are ivory-tower intellectuals that retreat into decades old data and tortured misinterpretation while ignoring the mountainous piles of lived, subjective experience.

Cuba was always poor, relatively speaking. Communism has made it even poorer. Today's communists don't even try and sell you on the idea of a centrally planned economy anymore, instead degenerating into standard Maoist and third-worldist fare on how American is the originator of all imperialist evil. Even their fellow communists in China have criticized them for their lack of reforms. Defenders of Cuba now mostly do it out of habit, and not out of any genuine belief in a imminent revolution by materialist praxis.

Even their fellow communists in China have criticized them for their lack of reforms

It's very funny that China is generally trying to lead fellow communists into the sin of market socialism, and failing. Lee Kuan Yew, in One man's view of the world, 2013:

Q: How much influence does China still have over North Korea?

A: The survival of North Korea depends heavily on China. From time to time North Koreans were almost starving because of the way they run the economy, and China gave them food and succour.

Q: Do you see this status quo prevailing even over 20, 30 years? Is there a risk of North Korea imploding?

A: No, I don’t think so. Why should it implode? It reached near starvation at one time, the Chinese provided the food, the world also helped.

Q: Is it in the interest of China to encourage North Korea to open up its economy as Deng Xiaoping did to China?

A: Well, they took Kim Jong-il around to Shanghai and so on to show him how he could improve his economy without losing control, but nothing came out of it. There is some speculation that the regime may carry out economic reforms under its new leadership, but it is too early to tell if young Kim will be bold enough to take that route.

Seeing reports from Russian tourists in North Korea today, though, I guess young Kim did eventually grow willing or capable of some liberalization.

Hard to really know what the situation is like in North Korea. There is a very developed black market that is in many cases broadly tolerated, but the same has also been true in similarly unrepentant Cuba since the early 1990s and they also resisted most liberalization (seemingly until at least this year).

From what I've read, selling their ammunition stockpile to Russia gave DPRK a massive economic boost. They have to pay double to import advanced technology, but since Russia paid double as well, it wasn't a problem this time.

Most of my knowledge of pre-revolutionary Cuba is various forms of 'wah they took our casinos' punditry. How affluent was it relative to Caribbean norms? I'm assuming it didn't have the oil riches that help the richest states in the nation, but I also assume it wasn't Haiti.

Seems that pre revolution it had 1/3 of USA gdp per capita. That is quite nice starting point and Cuba was destined to be rich. It had all the potential of Mexico without any of the problems.

How did Cuba have the potential of Mexico? The latter has had a large amount of industrialization and drug money. Did Cuba have something ability to more than a tourist economy or basically Florida? I also would assume some of their main cash crops that kept them at 1/3 US income pre-Revolution would be less true going forward.

Cuba being right next to the USA brings in lots of investment, they’re mineral rich, and they were probably destined to have at least some shipping income.

Cuba has an estimated 5.5 million tons of nickel deposits (for reference, Indonesia has the most in the world, at 21 million), but produces less than 50,000 tons a year. They have the third largest deposits of cobalt in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if they have more minerals I don't see on a cursory google, since the Caribbean is a mineral-rich region. They also have chrome, copper, gold, zinc, etc. and possibly offshore oil. Not enough to fully bootstrap your economy off (Jamaica might get >80% of export value from bauxite, but you want to do better than Jamaica), but a good start for developing domestic industry in a non-Communist context.

They would have always struggled with high fructose corn syrup undercutting sugar and the globalized economy undercutting everything else, but Cuba was the jewel of the Spanish Empire and their primary administrative center in the New World for centuries. That, combined with its close relationship with the US upon independence, should have set it up for success in the 20th Century. Modern Cuba (both pre and post revolution) had A LOT of European and American infrastructure and investment but pissed it all away.

I could easily imagine Cuba becoming one of those wealthy tax shelter/tourism islands, but large enough to have something of a real economy as well, if only a handful of things had gone differently.

HFCS didn't undercut cane sugar at world market prices until Chinese sugar demand picked up in the 21st century. HFCS replaced cane sugar in the US because massive sugar tariffs and subsidised corn created an artificial market. If that policy had involved crippling tariffs on the main export of a client state with a powerful lobby, it is not clear that the US would have done it.

If you remember the period when bringing back allegedly better-tasting Coca-Cola from Mexico was a thing, the reason for the difference was that Mexican coke used cane sugar and American coke used HFCS. In both cases, the Coca-Cola company unsurprisingly used the cheapest sweetener available.

One does not ‘bring back’ mexican coke, one pays a price premium for it in any store. It doesn’t make enough of a difference to really be worth it, but for those who would like to, you can simply pay more from normal mainstream retailers.

So you're telling me that in an alternate timeline with capitalist Cuba, all coke would taste like Mexican Coke? Yet another reason to hate communism.

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