site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Being successful in sports — especially a sport where being tall at Mings level was highly predictive of playing in the pros — is an example where intelligence clearly is orthogonal to “success.”

My point exactly!
American electoral politics is the same. Basically it's a beauty pageant sponsored by pimps. Your political culture, at the moment, does not reward intelligence, indeed it's detrimental to be smart because demonstrable smartness offends the anti-elitist (status-anxious) instincts of red tribe Americans. You are not ruled by exceptional people, the system works despite the morons' vice grip on the ballot, by virtue of institutions, Deep State, general productivity of the population and depth of capital, etc. You can cheer for Trump "defeating the establishment" but the establishment is also senile and doesn't hold to power, like look at their out-of-touch priorities, their retarded self-defeating commitments to stuff like BLM, the way the DNC flailed impotently and coped in the Biden-Harris fallout (or we could go back to "it's her turn" Hillary, who was clearly disliked enough to rule her out as a liability). Were they somehow outmaneuvered cunningly? No, they're just that bad at Power. Few players, incestuous court politics, everyone important is old, the staffers have woke brainrot, a decrepit system going through the motions.


This is all pretty low IQ territory, very fitting for Trump's history of failure, limited vocabulary, absence of "nerdy" interests or competences or coherent political beliefs, childish tantrums, performative renamings of bodies of water, embarrassing brags about him being the greatest President in history, ill-conceived hostilities that get awkwardly walked back and billed as "winning" once retaliation comes, and his animal instinct for spiteful nicknames, vibing with the crowd or picking on the weak. He wouldn't last a week administering a 100K city in China, he's just not smart enough to be a professional official; but politicians are not held to the same standard as officials, just like basketball players. There are more biological factors at play. Longevity, stamina, body size, skull shape, voice, hormonal balance, sexual function, aggression and dominance displays, instinctual deference to actual resource allocators, etc.

re-inventing yourself three times

Sasha Grey is vastly more impressive in this regard.

Miserably failing at your core business ventures (repeatedly) only to get bailed out by Russian-Israeli oligarchs, then whoring yourself out to conservative Zionist donors on merit of a good family track record in Philosemitism and compliance, is not really invention nor reinvention. His competence is consistently that of an entertainer that American voters will like, a particular recognizable televised character, the Stern Boss who doesn't shake hands and drops "you're fired", a natural foil to liberal pantsuit girlbosses with annoying laughter; his talent is, at its purest, demonstrated in The Apprentice. I don't deny that he's exceptional at this job. This package is, evidently, what is required to be a great President in a true Democracy. It's just not about intelligence per se. You guys could have elected a Ronald McDonald and he'd function fine as a Caesar, so long as enough non-elected people keep doing their jobs.

I think that is patently absurd.

Yes, it is patently absurd that this system works. And yet it does. You have not pointed to a single thing Trump did that demonstrates that he's smart, you only point to results. Black box approach is fine to a limit, but past that limit we need to reconsider the correlation of results and inferred measure.

I guess we will agree to disagree.