site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 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.

Underdetermination is exactly why reversing stupidity doesn’t get you intelligence.

I agree, that is why I wrote:

Also I agree that reverse stupidity is not intelligence, but stupidity is at least a hint of lack of intelligence.

I also agree, I'd say that in my Christian worldview there is not only lack of ontological substance of evil but also of a lie, Steresis aletheias. There is infinite way of how to be wrong, but only one way to be correct in my theology. In other theologies there is only infinite ways of being wrong without any metaphysicaly objective way of aiming toward truth, as this objective truth does not even exist.

That gets you back to a state of Cartesian doubt

Carthesian doubt was not deep enough. He did not doubt time or language for instance. His cogito ergo sum should in proper sceptical tradition be something like sgdsjvfdngfd lshgfk h lsng, only even more stupid, as he should doubt meaning of very language.

The most information you can get by rejecting paradigms is zero.

This cannot be true as there should be way to doubt your paradigmatical grounds, otherwise it is just pure dogma. In other words you are just asserting grounds of your paradigm as correct without any justification, thus basically creating a new fairy tale.