site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   10806 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.

Nearly two years ago, I wrote:

Being pro-immigrant does not mean pro-immigration

After listening to a recent interview of Carlos Odio, a pollster focused on Latino voters, I truly do believe that the stance above represents the message the broadest number of Americans can agree to and/or might tolerate. American politicians, leaders, and statesmen ignore this and they will make mistakes in one of the ever salient topic of US electoral politics. What was really clarifying for me though is the terminology, which unlocks my thinking of what it means to "support immigrants" and "not support immigration", bolded mine:

But I think the best way to simplify to take all these dimensions and narrow it down. It's a framework that comes from a pair of academics is stock versus flow. [Stock] is how people think about immigrants who are in this country, established in this country, already arrived. Versus flow, those who want to come or are coming.

And attitudes across lots of national contexts towards stock versus flow are very different. People tend to be much more sympathetic to people who are already in the country versus allowing large numbers to come in into the future. Those attitudes are very different. Latinos are not unique in that regard. Latino attitudes, [regarding] the border, are, can, or can be, very different from the ones that they have about something like a pathway to citizenship.

So what you have is big big immigration fights in a uh 2008 and uhh 2012, to some extent in 2016 because the conversation Hillary Clinton wanted to have, were really about stock: "What do we do about immigrants who are already here?" you know. In the second Bush term, the focus had been on workplace raids, deporting people who had been working here for a very long time. The fights of this whole period of time tended to be about stock. And on stock, Latinos are very very much on the pro-immigrant side of things. It is a place on which they tend to be more distinctive from the rest of the electorate.

In fact, even amidst everything else we're going to talk about, Latinos have remained very pro pathway to citizenship. Even Trump voters have remained very pathway to citizenship favorable, toward pathway citizenship. That has not changed. They have stayed pro-immigrant when it comes to the stock conversation.

The pair of academics mentioned, based on my research, are Yotam Margalit and Omer Solodoch who wrote on Against the Flow: Differentiating Between Public Opposition to the Immigration Stock and Flow. They are among the first to really separate people's attitudes towards stock vs flow. What Odio mentions about Latino Trump voters supporting pathway to citizenship I think is referring to this poll.

What is especially important, I think, is by looking through the lens of stock vs flow, we can very quickly figure out the problems and mistakes that both the left and right makes on immigration.

Biden's and the left's failure with immigration is because they confused supporting immigration as also supporting immigrants. There was a perception after 2012 and 2016 and 2018 that Latinos was on the side of the Democrats and are a loyal and committed base. And by handwaving the national debate on immigration as a Latino issue, Democrats, especially under Biden, made moves that they think Latino voters would like. But we can see those moves are actually pro-flow instead of pro-stock and that's not what the people wants, bolded mine:

And in fact, a lot of the resentment in the in the Biden era, as people were crossing the border, was saying here are people who are coming today, who are in the perception of these voters receiving permits, work permits, might be getting other additional benefits beyond that. In New York, you get housing benefits. Some other people were getting some sort of cash benefit if you were an asylum seeker. And [voters] saying, "Well, hold on. Not only is my family struggling, but even my undocumented family, right, my undocumented aunt who's been here for decades, hasn't gotten anything and she's been waiting her turn in line". Which by the way, there's actually no line if you've been undocumented for 20 years. There's no way to regularize it at this point. And so there's a resentment towards that actually is not just about like, oh, I'm just anti-immigrant, but is about a feeling of unfairness that's not about where you stand overall in immigration, but rather what's the sequence in which of events in which these [things] should happen. The fight that we then have in 2024 was about the large numbers who were coming into the country.

If the above sounds familiar to you then it's because it echoes the chump effect that has been linked before on this forum.

On the other hand, Trump's and the right's failure with the ongoing deportation campaign is because they're confusing attacking immigrants with attacking immigration. Trump best issue is with regards to immigration and securing the border. Trump even went on Univision and talk about immigration in 2024 and laid out his case about criminals and illegals. Latinos shifted for Trump in 2024. Yet once in office, one can see how the mistake Trump makes is the reverse of Biden, where anti-stock moves are being confused as anti-flow, which is also not what people want, bolded mine:

There was a way that the Trump administration could have done immigration that would have retained incredibly high support. If they if they had very narrowly focused in on criminals and they had been trotting out criminals that they were deporting, support would have stayed very high for those policies. It has remained high for the border, right? I mean, it's remained high for the border generally viewed by [people], even despite literally every single area of Trump's presidency policy area falling off a cliff. You ask people: "what about the border?", he still gets either neutral or approval. And when you ask Trump versus Democrats, it's like not even close. If you want to see the stock versus flow in effect, you could see that among Latinos, Trump's best issue area is the border. And one of his worst is when you just ask about immigration that people when they're asked about immigration today are thinking in terms of stock of people in the country now, but when they're thinking about the border, they're thinking about it in a very different plane. Just the border is not very salient.

I think Odio was referring to this poll back in April 2026, where Latinos (and All Voters) highest approval is on Trump's handling of "Border Security" (versus "Crime and Public Safety", "Immigration", "ICE in American Cities", "The Economy"). But anyway, what Trump is running afoul of what's called "Ethics of Proximity" or "Moral Distance" (couldn't find a good link for this). These concepts overlap, and one could imagine there is a spectrum in which one can put individuals closer to stock or close to flow, with higher in stock means closer in moral distance, and therefore rules that might seemed harsh but fair from a distance becomes cruel and unjust up close.

In summary: if the thesis of the Biden era is "pro-flow is pro-stock, we are pro-stock, therefore we must be pro-flow", and the anti-thesis of the Trump era is "anti-stock is anti-flow, we are anti-flow, therefore we must be anti-stock", then hopefully the future (successful) synthesis on the immigration debate is one who is able to say and do "stock is not flow, we are pro-stock but anti-flow, therefore we will do just that".

I agree that it's important to understand this distinction as it exists in people's minds, but think that once you factor in incentives, most of the distinction is mental/bias/illusion and trying to be pro-stock but anti-flow is largely pointless and hypocritical. That is, I agree with your assessment that most normal people are pro-stock anti-flow while most politicians are either pro-both or anti-both, but I consider the normal position to be the fallacious one.

People respond to incentives. Millions of illegals flock to our shores because they expect a better life here. They expect a better life here because they we have implemented policies which will enable them to have a better life here even if they cross illegally. Every dollar of welfare, every dollar earned under the table at a job, every anchor baby, every forgiven crime, is another reason to come. If people who spent months making their way to the border, taking risks and spending their last money to sneak across it, were met with immediate detection and expulsion, they would not come. If people who managed to avoid detection had to spend their entire lives living in fear because the instant anyone found out about them they and their entire families, including children would be immediately deported back to their home country even decades later when they had no property or connections there anymore, they would not come. I admit that doing this to actual families would carry with it a high cost, so does dropping nukes on someone. But once you do that and people see you do that, they wise up and do whatever it takes for that not to happen to them. It's status quo bias to look at all the illegal immigrants and imagine us being ruthless to everyone like this forever, but the long term outcome of anti-illegal immigration policies is that we will almost never have to do it because people will stop crossing illegally in the first place. We don't have to punish anyone for crimes they don't commit, but it requires punishment when they do, and more importantly it requires consistency. We can't have half the presidents being harsh on illegals and half being lenient, they have to all actually enforce the law.

It is not economically feasible for us to perfect police the border with no leaking. We have to stem the tide at its source: the incentives. You cannot meaningfully be anti-flow while dangling the carrot of American Citizenship to anyone who thwarts you, even if it feels bad to take the carrot away after they've stolen it. Suck it up and do the right thing, and stop letting superficial proximity biases distort good policy.

Is anti-stock, pro-flow a coherent position? It seems like many countries (Singapore, UAE) manage a stable equilibrium with something that could maybe be described as that. The anti-stock makes the pro-flow more manageable.

Is anti-stock, pro-flow a coherent position?

It's the Berchtold Brecht "dissolve the people and elect another" position.

So after reading the various discussion. I realize that if we go further in the definition of flow as "those who want to come or are coming and stay", we can further separate policies as "pro/anti-inflow" and "pro/anti-outflow".

The example of Singapore, UAE can therefore be classified as "anti-inflow, pro-outflow".

That doesn’t fit Anglo culture. Anglo cultures openness to work with others, view towards freedom, and sense of fairness would never allow an anti-stock pro flow policy. They would end up wanting to let “good ones in the flow” get citizenship etc. Saudis never think about giving their Indian slaves a share of their princes oil inheritance.

The anti-tribalness of Anglo culture is a huge problem when travel became cheap and fast.

You will notice that these countries are non-democracies.

I suspect that this is the sort of technocratically correct policy which democracies cannot implement due to the words of a soft spoken MemriTv guest- democracy is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. But the people, are retarded.

It seems coherent enough on its face, at least as coherent as the inverse. Anti-stock, pro-flow would look something like: accommodate transient immigrants to contribute to the economy, but do nothing to assimilate them to the local culture and disregard most requests for permanent residency. I think that would work well for smaller economies (especially those defined by a primate city where the immigrants could be siloed), though I don't know if a country as large as the US could write sensible policy with this in mind.

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