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 -
Love it or leave it, but woke.
This weekend, The University of Texas played The Ohio State University in Austin, TX. A screen shot went viral on Twitter showing a crowd of Indian students celebrating the victory.
"Heritage Americans", the dissident right, the Woke Reich, or whatever you want to call them went crazy, pointing out the massive demographic changes in Texas that are happening. This is true. Anyone who has been to Texas knows whites are a minority here in any medium sized and larger city. The changes have been stunning and within 30 years, it is unrecognizable.
Critics rightfully pointed out that they were pretty much just being racist. You talk about integration, and here are immigrants and children of immigrants celebrating a victory in football wearing cowboy hats. What is more American than that? You clearly just don't like Indian people.
An Indian politician said that this is what Texas is. If you don't like it, LEAVE! There is some truth to this. This is what Texas is now, but historically the South Asian population has been tiny. This is a very recent development. Is 20 years all it takes for Texas to become something new? If you are 30 and above, you probably grew up with almost no Indians. Now this is what Texas is and you have to leave if you don't like the changes?
This reminds me of the UK. Pre-Windrush, the UK was 99.9% white. As recently as 1991, it was 95% white. Now though, if you complain, you are going against British values. For thousands of years, the UK was essentially 100% white. Within a few generations, it is a multi-cultural country and if you don't like that, LEAVE! We are not a white society, and actually never were. I could go on and on, but with the exception of Reform, that is the general consensus now.
Back to Texas. It's crazy how quickly this can happen. Mass migration can happen and within one generation, this is seen as the new default and any complaints about this are seen as against the new values. Of course, the biggest gatekeepers of this isn't the left. They really have no control over their outgroup other than canceling people and social pressure, but if you don't care what they think, what can they really do? The center-right has also rushed to condemn people criticizing the massive demographic replacement in Texas. People like Dan Crenshaw rushed to condemn the racism and call out this anti-Indian racism and essentially sided with the left, who hates them. They have essentially said the same thing as the left and that these aren't Texas values to be racist. So basically, love it or leave it, but woke. If you don't like the new Texas, leave.
But where will they go? You basically have to live in a state like Texas for access to the best jobs. schools, dating, etc. It's insane to me how fast we can accept something new that is unprecedented as the new normal without considering the consequences. Only weirdos and disagreeable people point this out, and by the time people start to see the consequences, it will be too late (assuming there are negative consequences, which should be obvious is my POV).
A personal anecdote that lines up with the timing.
As part of a contract I'm on, I had to do some interviews with various CEOs of small / mid-size businesses. Several were Indian-American and one was very much an Indian-Who-Now-Lives-In-America.
The Indian-American CEOs were very much like all of the other CEOs (largely white, a few asian-americans, none block, one mixed white-hispanic. Probably 70/30 male-female).
The Indian-Who-Now-Lives-In-America CEO was repeatedly lying about all of his financials. I know this because as part of this contract, we get to review the financials of all these companies. That's how fucking strange this experience was. We're not at the beginning of the engagement. We've been around for a little more than a month. The NDAs and statements of work were signed, sealed, delivered way before all of that. This CEO - all of the CEOs - know that we've been reviewing financials and other docs and now it's interviews.
And he would just make shit up.
"Yes, that client will deliver us between $350,000 and $500,000 this year"
Billed services thus far in 2026: $64k
"We've got a 100% renewal rate on contracts. No cancellations."
25% annual customer churn. It's a problem
"[Redacted large corp] Is a client. Yes"
Fucking NOPE.
We confronted him about this, gently, during the interview process. We'd point to printouts and highlight that what he was saying didn't match their documented (and audited) numbers.
"Yes, well, I think maybe these are outdated reports"
Just a constant denial of reality.
The company is a little shaky, but is making real money. Like, somehow, this CEO was doing more or less ok. *
This is "Izzat." The Motte had a discussion about it a while ago and there's a bunch of online discourse about it. This CEO was going to say whatever he needed to say in the moment to "win" the interview. Presenting your company as amazingly awesome is the whole point, the facts be damned.
And this is what, I think, the online
racistsHeritage Americans are reacting to so viscerally. It's not the skin tone or melanin content, but the signaling of a culture (not the whole culture, of course) that is so incompatible with western judeo-christian social ethics. You don't see the same hate (or, do you?) for Asians in, say, the Bay Area because those ancient Confucian-influenced ethics line up a lot better with western ones.It's not "the thing" that's being despised, but the the other thing that "the thing" points to. Hyderbad, Texas isn't bad because Texas should be only be white, it's bad because Hyderabad is awful because of these cultural specifics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link