site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13644 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you thread the needle between not banning/algorithmically deprioritizing people for supporting Trump (sounds good), QAnon, holocaust denial (uh...), kiddie porn? I grant that it's probably feasible to separate out kiddie porn, actual terrorists and criminals from the rest, but you're left with a broad spectrum of shit that most normies just don't want to deal with.

There's long been an argument that social media companies cannot be held legally liable for the content that appears on their sites, as they're just a facilitator, not a publisher: it wouldn't be fair to hold Facebook legally responsible for Rohingya massacres, any more than it would be to hold a telephone company responsible for a bank robbery which was planned over the phone by two of their customers. Fair enough. But if that social media platform then starts banning people for legally protected speech, they ought to lose this protection: they are explicitly making judgement calls over which content they will and will not host, which is publication.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know it's not fair that Facebook gets to act like a publisher, but only gets treated like a utility provider in the eyes of the law. Can't have it both ways.

Even themotte has to crack down on holocaust denial, HBD and other topics from time to time.

Does it? Certainly mods have handed down bans to posters who talk about these topics, but generally because they violated other rules in the process of doing so, not for the mere act of bringing the topics up in the first place. I'm not aware of someone being banned simply for bringing up Holocaust denial or HBD.

But if that social media then starts banning people for legally protected speech, they ought to lose this protection

I don't care about big social medias, but repealing Section 230 altogether would be a bad idea because it may affect smaller forums like this. Every half-decent forum has to ban some users: spammers and generally obnoxious.

I wish people were more tolerant to other opinions and more willing to join smaller or federated platforms. In the meantime, we can encourage the latter, even BlueSky. I honestly don't think being heard by everyone is necessary or even reasonable, there are too many people online and some want their echo chambers, but small forums you at least get heard by some, and the best can be amplified; whereas large social medias' ability to promote decent posts (by my standards) are questionable at best.

but repealing Section 230 altogether would be a bad idea because it may affect smaller forums like this

I don't think FtttG was saying it ought to be repealed, merely that it ought not to apply to any platforms that censor content on particular topics.

Doesn't every website / forum do that? If not they'd be flooded with spam.

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm coming around to believing that this would be a tricky law to write. I thought the easy fix would be to have the protections only apply to smaller fora, but then H.L. Mencken rose from the dead and slapped my around with the printed out text of the EU's Digital Services Act.

Doesn't every website / forum do that? If not they'd be flooded with spam.

Yes, but most old-school Forums - and, of course, subreddits - are modded by volunteer users, not by the domain holder. This would be the equivalent of specific Facebook groups policing themselves, as distinct from Facebook itself stepping in. (I suppose all it would take for even the Motte itself to comply with such a paradigm would be for Zorba to agree not to take any conventional mod actions, and I don't think he makes a habit of it anyway.)

I don't know what the solution is

Banning all social media, obviously!

There is no solution that would work. That is a big reason why the culture war is never ending.

You could argue for nationalization and turning these places into public spaces, but don’t even ask me what the plan for things would be going forward. In fact that’s a conversation currently taking place with OpenAI and Anthropic and if the market rejects them then these entities should become nationalized by the government.

Does it? Certainly mods have handed down bans to posters who talk about these topics, but generally because they violated other rules in the process of doing so, not for the mere act of bringing the topics up in the first place. I'm not aware of someone being banned simply for bringing up Holocaust denial or HBD.

They ban those people for doing the same «violations» as everyone else. For example someone will post a wrong topic, will get insulted, if he posts back with half the vigor he gets banned and the other one doesn't. They've been doing it to me, I got banned for being right about marriage statistics and posting about a visual novel. Obviously amadan and netstack don't like my views.

Does it? Certainly mods have handed down bans to posters who talk about these topics, but generally because they violated other rules in the process of doing so, not for the mere act of bringing the topics up in the first place. I'm not aware of someone being banned simply for bringing up Holocaust denial or HBD.

I'm old enough to remember the moratorium on all HBD posts on reddit, which I think never officially ended? It just sputtered out sometime in the last 6 or 7 years as virtually all the anti-HBD people left and the problem solved itself.

As for holocaust denial and Jew skepticism in general, you can ask @SecureSignals if he has more he could say on the topic or if he's been muzzled by the mods.

Ah, by themotte I assumed you were referring to the current iteration, not the subreddit. Obviously Reddit is its own thing.

But this is my point: SecureSignals is free to post here.

100% agree that if FB acts like a publisher then they should be liable like a publisher. And in the past I think they’ve crossed that line.

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