site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   14429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 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.

But what does it matter? Look at it like this: when did the Iranians last bomb anything that mattered? They are totally out of juice. In March they were bombing apartment buildings. They can’t do that anymore. The last time they shot anything, a few days ago, they launched 20 missiles (lmao) and hit a few parked military assets. Causing, essentially, no change in the status quo.

At the beginning of the war they fired hundreds of projectiles and sometimes hit apartment buildings! Now they fire twenty and that's enough to penetrate the most well defended airspace in the AO and hit USAF fighter jets at will (what you call "parked military assets", lol)! Soon, the pathetic Iranians will only need a single missile to hit whatever they want and that will signal their imminent defeat! If you blow up your enemy's fighter jets on the tarmac then they win!

More seriously, the Saudi East-West pipeline was knocked out of commission by, depending on you ask, either the Houthis, the Iraqi PMFs, or the Houthi branch office in Iraq. Once AD has been sufficiently drained the Iranians can let their proxies handle the dirty work. Do you unironically believe that Iran's weakest proxies can cripple Saudi oil production single handedly but the Iranians themselves couldn't hit apartments if they really wanted?

Perhaps most embarrassingly, at the beginning of the war US forces would instantly respond to Iranian attacks with airstrikes. Now they sit there like cucks as Iran rails their assets, infrastructure and allies with missiles, their multi-billion dollar AD systems powerless.

Trump is totally impotent. Iran won.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/9/us-destroys-five-iranian-tankers-iran-retaliates-with-attacks-on-jordan-base

US strikes five Iranian oil tankers, as Iran attacks 10 ships, Jordan base

Iran says it has attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the US announced it had sunk five Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg island after accusing Tehran of launching ballistic missiles at a US warship.

…

In a statement late on Tuesday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had sought to target a US warship twice over the past two days, but that the vessel “successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks”.

“No American personnel were harmed,” it said.

…

The Jordanian Armed Forces, meanwhile, said the country’s air defences engaged 20 ballistic missiles, “successfully intercepting and destroying 18 of them”. Two missiles “fell in unpopulated areas”, it said in a statement.

Iran attacks ten ships, killing no one, and launches 20 missiles, 18 intercepted, 2 allowed to hit empty fields.

America sinks five Iranian oil tankers in response.

I have no idea why you're citing the Jordanian claim when it's been proven that the missiles which hit "unpopulated areas" actually hit A-10 and F-15 jets. How gullible are you? If some tinpot Arab dictatorship announced that they had invented faster than light travel would you believe that too?

So your demonstration of American strength is that when fighter jets are damaged the response is to...blow up Iranian cargo ships?

Putting aside the hilarity of America being so demonstrably incapable of disabling Iranian military assets that it's been reduced to impotently copying the Iranians in cargo cult fashion (see also: the LUCAS drone), what exactly is the benefit of blowing up tankers when Iran is already under blockade? Unless you think those tankers have been running the USN blockade regularly there's no benefit whatsoever to targeting them.

It's pure impotence signaling on Trump's part. The missile cities have proven to be impenetrable from the air so all he can do is throw a temper tantrum.

what exactly is the benefit of blowing up tankers when Iran is already under blockade?

Tankers are used to store and transport oil, which is a major Iranian cash export. By destroying them, Iran's adversaries reduce Iran's post-blockade economic potential.

It also threatens existing oil fields in a somewhat indirect manner. Shutting down an oil well is a potentially irreversible process, so best practices are to maintain an existing oil rich area is to keep pumping oil. But Iran only has so much oil storage, and the blockade was forcing them to store excess oil in tankers. Every time the US strikes an Iranian oil tanker, it constrains Iran's future economic prospects, and my guess is that it squeezes Iran's already tight storage capacity.

One A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft suffered a severely damaged wing and about eight F-15E Strike Eagle fighters were lightly damaged but are considered serviceable after Iran attacked Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on Sept. 8 Eastern Time.

The A-10, by the way, was last manufactured in the 80s. Iran launching a barrage of missiles and failing to achieve anything except destroying the wing of a 40-year-old plane is not very good evidence for your position. If anything it makes your position look more ridiculous.

Putting aside the hilarity of America being so demonstrably incapable of disabling Iranian military assets

This is genuinely delusional

what exactly is the benefit of blowing up tankers when Iran is already under blockade?

What are we doing here. Destroying Iranian infrastructure obviously harms Iran. It harms Iran more than merely blockading it. It's like asking what good it does to put someone in jail when we've already arrested them -- what exactly did you think we were trying to do?

This is how siege warfare has always worked.

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