site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24460 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.

Also one of the things the Yuddites seem incapable of doing is figuring out that superintelligence does not mean omnipotence. The laws of physics will still work

I call this magical thinking. The idea that AI will discover some magic that makes them easily superior to humans.

I don't say "magic" to crap on this idea. There is the famous quote ~ "any sufficiently advanced techno is indistinguishable from magic".

I think of IQ as leverage over physical forces. But undiscovered physics could amount to a cheat button.

I recall years ago on lesswrong people making this point. That some people are ascribing magical powers to AI when imagining they'd invent super technology very quickly or escape from their hardware by directly manipulating the computer components. I recall the response always being the Yudkowsky followers bowing out of the conversation. Explicitly saying they're bowing out. Which is a thought defeating cliche to prevent themselves from considering contrary ideas.

Not too be too harsh to them, but reciting that cliche to shut down discussion when getting any pushback against Yudkowsky's sillier ideas is a real anti-rational move. Stuff like that is why they had to speak in code avoiding the word "cult" to describe themselves. Asking users to please stop writing the word "cult" or search engines will associate them with cults.

I recall the response always being the Yudkowsky followers bowing out of the conversation. Explicitly saying they're bowing out. Which is a thought defeating cliche to prevent themselves from considering contrary ideas.

I would appreciate receipts on this; there are alternate explanations which I'd need to rule out to believe your conclusion.

(AIUI, Yudkowsky is not a big fan of the "it's not about convincing your debating partner; it's about convincing the audience" school of thought so popular among SJ. Hence, if someone demonstrates that he is not amenable to reasonable discussion, there is no point continuing the conversation - and politeness dictates that one note this rather than simply ghosting. I can't distinguish between these hypotheses from the information you've given.)

Stuff like that is why they had to speak in code avoiding the word "cult" to describe themselves. Asking users to please stop writing the word "cult" or search engines will associate them with cults.

I mean, the Ratsphere as a whole (as opposed to Leverage and the Zizians, and maybe the Vassarites) doesn't seem to meet any of the criteria for a destructive cult. Arguably it's a benign cult, but lol who cares.

What might you imagine undiscovered physics doing or accomplishing?

You are kinda asking what are the unknown unknowns.

Or at least the bigger question of how much of phyiscs have we uncovered?

I don't really know the answer. I will say that nuclear physics looks weird given everything you might be able to learn about the world. And nuclear physics gives us nuclear bombs.

Is there some force of nature we don't understand that is manipulable and offers large amounts of leverage? I don't know. That is the the question in my mind.

That's obviously unknowable, but you can look at what newly-discovered physics has done to get an idea. Going backwards through Nobel Winners, and filtering out any without obvious nearterm engineering applications, I see:

  • Optical tweezers (biomanipulation)
  • LEDs
  • Graphene
  • CCD sensors
  • Fiber optics
  • Superconductors
  • Integrated Circuits
  • Nuclear physics
  • Transistors

It's entirely possible that the next physics discoveries won't be very important, but they might be mid-range revolutions like the CCD and LEDs or era-defining like the transistor and integrated circuit.

There's also no need to stick with physics, such as with CRISPR in biology.

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