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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Women entering the workforce drove down the wages of their husbands and sons.
This isn’t true. The influx of women into the labor market since the 1970s wasn’t really a negative economic force but more of a survival mechanism in response to changes in underlying factors in the economy. What happened in response was banks and the housing market weaponized the transition from single-income to dual-income households to fuel a massive expansion of private debt. The standard narrative we all often hear was that this owed more to a change in social norms (and that’s true to some degree), but it was largely driven by the opposite effect.
The mid-1970s was when you first saw real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) begin to stagnate or fall, and that was due to anti-labor policies and weaker unions. So to keep their families afloat and maintain their standard of living wives entered the labor force in response. If you’re a dyed in the wool traditionalist who wants women back in the household, before you embark on a public propaganda campaign to brainwash women back into the household, shoot the backing sector first.
More options
Context Copy link
Wages today are significantly higher than before the days when women entered the workforce.
LOL. LMAO, even.
Sure, nominal wages are higher than ever. Held constant in something like the oldest, most widely used, and most stable form of money on earth (gold) they're lower than ever. Priced in silver, before the CRA you were paid in money that was real silver, you will see the same thing.
By the way, the price of a good beef cow has pretty much always been one ounce of gold, and guess what, it still is. Houses when priced in gold are reasonably priced and have not inflated like mad. Wages are significantly higher because they're being paid in scrip that's significantly less valuable.
Wages today are higher in real terms, not just nominal terms.
Gold is a bad metric since it's highly speculative these days. The past year especially has seen gold rise at very high rates disconnected from any actual underlying material value. If gold is your metric then Obama, Trump 1, and to a large extent even Biden were great presidential terms, while Trump 2 has been an economic catastrophe. Obviously this isn't really the case.
The idea that people are poorer today than they were 25, 50, or 100 years ago is a popular populist talking point but it's just consistently wrong.
Correct. It's connected to the devaluation of the USD, not to underlying material value. The material value is held constant, that's the point, and that's why we use it to see how real goods have changed cost, not in fake currency, but in real money.
In 1975 you had to work 11 minutes to buy a pound of ground beef. Today it's 13 minutes. How is that richer? If you want real steak, sirloin was ~15 minutes per pound in 1975 and now it's 30 minutes per pound. How is that richer? If you want to buy a brand new Ford F-150 in 1975, it costs you about 21 weeks of work, while in 2025 it costs you 31 weeks of work. How is that richer?
I have not even mentioned housing, health care, child care, or education, where costs have ballooned. You might be able to go without a F-150 or sirloin steak, but you have to live somewhere, you have to get healthcare or die, and you have to get education or you'll be poor. We have not become richer in the last 50 years, not as a whole.
Just because it's a physical good doesn't mean it's somehow "true" value in a metaphysical sense. Physical goods are just as susceptible to speculative price spirals as intangible goods. It was true for tulips and it's true for gold.
Looking at a single good like beef is also bad since it mistakes perennial supply chain issues with long term trends. It's almost exactly like the comparison in egg prices people were making against Biden, which were a short-term issue that were resolved once chicken herds recovered. Beef prices are almost guaranteed to follow a roughly similar trajectory.
Yes, there are specific goods where an hour of work in 2026 might earn you less than it did in 1975. But that's not true of the prices of things overall.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link