site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   3271 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 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.

But there is a whole treaty there preventing such things, the ECHR. Which is from 1950's and that makes me think, if those sort of treaties existed at that time, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say, since we are further left now than in the 50s, that we are now full blown communists, or at least, the policymakers are.

I do not get this argument. The ECHR prevents you from directly deporting someone who makes a claim of asylum. Or summarily executing them for entering your country illegally. When the UK signed that treaty, they were very much not "full blown communists". How does the continued adherence to that treaty make them commie today?

Practically, the ECHR does not say you can not deport anyone ever. Even us Germans are deporting people ... to fucking Taliban Afghanistan no less.

--

Of course, mid-2026, being worried about immigration feels like being worried about palace intrigues in Constantinople in 1453. I am a software developer, so I am first in line for getting replaced by the machines, but I certainly will not be the last. All white collar work is up for grabs. Blue collar work might still be around for a decade (present rate, no singularity and all that), but even before demand might crash. Unlike the PMC, the data centers will not need a lot of people to fix their cars.

Against this background of "the economic value of the median citizen will be marginal to nil in the near future", sprinkled with x-risk and visions of God Emperor Altman to taste, "OMG whites will become a minority" does not sound like an urgent issue, to put it lightly. Frankly, I observe that the people who get elected on anti-immigration platforms are mostly buffoons and grifters and rarely wise statesmen. History might not judge Trump by the spectacles he holds on the lawn of the White House or in Iran, and more on how he dealt with AI.

(I realize that this is a fully general counterargument. "How can you care about $X when literally $Y is happening right now.")

You've posted a reply to a post that was removed. I didn't get to read it, does anyone have a summary of it, or at least a reason why it and a handful of comments below were removed by @Amadan?

I am not a fan of censorship/posts being removed especially without any context, but I'm assuming it was done because the post had some call to violence or something.

I don't recall any calls to violence and thought the post was appropriate, though I only skimmed it.

Short summary: OP asked whether there is any hope of 'the right' (which he defined in detail, though questionably; really I think he meant something more like 'ethno-nationalism') has any hope of organizing and asserting itself anywhere in the West before it's 'too late' and demographic change makes it impossible to achieve its ends through democratic means.

Certainly an interesting and timely question.

I concur that I did not anticipate someone getting banned, much less deleted for the top level post.

The top level comment reads:

Removed by @FCfromSSC

I don't think @FCfromSSC is an admin, so it might be that he/she/they just deleted their own comment?

The other posts were indeed removed by @Amadan, which is a bit strange. Normal admin MO (from my observations) would be to just ban the poster (and be transparent about it, writing a reply with admin-hat on). I think removal would mostly happen when required by law (e.g. copyright) or excessive spamming.

In theory, it could also be that @Amadan wrote the removed posts and later deleted them, but this also seems unlikely.

@FCfromSSC is an admin. As for the removed posts, the poster is a ban evader who slipped through.

Banning him is fine; removing the posts is not.

There were some other things going on, but yes, we don't normally remove posts like that. Mea culpa, I will take the blame for messing up the threads.

Agreed. That makes it harder to understand modding decisions, and also turns potentially valuable comments downthread into incomprehensible orphans.

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