site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10766 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 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.

it’s extinction or utopia

We shouldn't have mocked the people from the "What's your job on the leftist commune?" Twitter thread. Seems like they might've been right after all. If we survive as a civilization and do not get made redundant via a BNW-like transition to a tiny humanity.

There's no "we" when you and all your children didn't make it through the cull.

I'm sorry, I don't get it.

Wrong reply, my mistake.

I don’t think mass automation AI future proves communists correct. Not only because the timely invention of AI required capitalism (yes we don’t have the counterfactual, but I’d say it seems likely) but even more importantly because the only way any kind of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ economy can work is if unlimited ‘ability’ is provided by AI and unlimited ‘need’ can be absorbed by it.

Well, communists did often say that capitalism would bring about its own destruction. Communists also often said that far from capitalism being useless, it is in fact the necessary precursor for communism.

It's hard to give them full props for these ideas given that originally these ideas did not envision something like AI being the mechanism.

However, communists did think that increases in production would play a major role in the transition, and they were aware that technology is key in increases in production.

Marx: "This “alienation” (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an “intolerable” power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity “propertyless,” and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced;".

Engels: "Only the immense increase of the productive forces attained by modern industry has made it possible to distribute labour among all members of society without exception".

Right, they envisioned it being because of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall - ie capitalism being so maximally efficient that it turns in on itself - which is actually untrue (capitalism is more efficient than the alternatives but not maximally so; rates of profit ie margins are actually quite high in historical terms right now).

I'm not saying it proves communists correct. I'm saying the jobs the kumbaya-adjacent leftists envisioned themselves having might be the only source of meaning left in a post-singularity utopia.

I don't think that any kind of work is necessary for meaning. There are other sources of meaning, such as curiosity, philosophical exploration, and social connection.

The supposed connection between work and meaning is, I think, largely just humanity making the best (meaning) of a bad thing (work).

People of the ruling class in societies like Classical Athens would have been shocked by the idea that productive work is necessary for meaning. They thought of work as something for defeated people, slaves, inferiors. Yet they did not lack a sense of meaning in life. But AI is coming for some of their sources of meaning, too, such as the feeling of being on top compared to other Earthly beings.

There is meaning in a sense of pride and accomplishment, but as that infamous post suggests, that can be fully simulated.

'Work has meaning' is a coverup for simian greed. People who say they get meaning from their work really mean they enjoy the power it affords them as measured in wealth and status, and that it would sadden them to see their dreams torn to bits owing to a turning of Fortuna's wheel. That is at the heart of what I see in all these salarymen, men who boast about their portfolios and talk in big, drunken voices about their vaunted careers. The reddit normies. Underlying all their grown-up chatter is nothing more than the humblebragging of narcissists who thought they were winning the darwinian game.

If you have a device which allows you to read the minds of other men, by all means, share it with us so we can all use such a useful tool. But for my part at least, you are wrong. I derive meaning from my work because of the satisfaction of a job well done and making the world around me a tiny bit better, not because I'm a narcissist who secretly glories in being better than others.

What do you draw meaning from that cannot be sneeringly explained away in unflattering terms?

Nothing. I've evaluated my own goals, values, and notions of what I'd like to accomplish and realized they all came down to either direct egotistical buttressing or else buttressing for secondary layers. @SubstantialFrivolity above notes he gains satisfaction from making the world around him a tiny bit better, but that reeks of a secondary layer of buttressing, while even his talk of jobs well done sounds like he's glorifying perfectionist urges latent in certain 'engineering-minded' individuals rather than, necessarily, true results.

True results would reveal that, for instance, slop-programmers earn more not only in commercial terms but also in terms of social praise in many cases than perfectionists, so that external signals would seem to validate their proclivities to a greater degree. Many of the world's most successful people operate on a haphazard basis. The proclaimed principle of doing a job well done would seem to be entirely removed from objective measurements, and so its validity can only be attested by its own proponent, whose benefits in promoting social acclaim for urges he inherently possesses cannot escape notice.

Unflattering terms cannot be avoided because the underlying human animal is unflatteringly conceived. A species born of darwinian struggle, embedded in social structures encouraging egotistical self delusions and self-promotion of their own worth and validity, all the while chasing means to further darwinian success. The instincts for biological selflessness and charity, in comparison, are very little.

In this case, we can write off the category of "coverup for simian greed" as useless, as all categories that include everything are, and proceed to categories that are useful for more than nihilistic grandstanding.

I suspect that the main sources of meaning will continue to be things like religion and family / childrearing / marriage that code as trad.

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