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 -
Middle income families likely disagree, it is a dice roll not in their flavor, they can still go with their snp500 index fund and command the poor people, then you got the historical interesting norm where most successful revolutions were started by nobles or individual with higher wealth, they certainly aren't lossing in the current capitalism system
A lot of the big successful revolutions were started off by the downwardly mobile and/or somewhat relatively-unsuccessful children of nobles, merchants and landlords. They had the education and the resources to dedicate themselves beyond subsistence, but also the motivation to take shots at the established order.
Suddenly the world has a lot of those.
Education I agree, but I disagree on resources. If they have the required resources to take a shot, isn't it better to just invest in a diversified index fund like SPY or VOO, compare to shooting the shot and gamble?
Well most historical communist revolutions predate access to index funds, and 'My rich parents/family paid for my education but I'm one of many children and I'm going to have to wait for 40-50 years old to get my inheritance isn't uncommon'
I agree with you on this, my comment on index fund is focus on modern time, where normal rich people rarely have more than 3-4 children, and index fund is a thing.
My disagreement is that given the 2026 circumstances, it is a lot harder to convince these people to break the current system
I think there's plenty of people in the spot where their parents are solid upper-middle/lower-upper class in 2026 and they're despairing of getting access to a meaningful inheritance in any time period that'll let them meaningfully change their own life circumstances.
If you're the only child of a Doctor or two (in their 30s at the time) in the mid 90s, most of their say 5-10M net worth is tied up between retirement accounts and their PPOR and they're from a culture of self-reliance then you're likely going to have had access to a great education but you're not going to be able to meaningfully touch an inheritance until your 50s or 60s and you're dealing with the employment market of today...
And I'm sure the above describes a lot of Mottizens and the current dissatisifed, especially those who took that great education and turned it into something other than skills or connections that the market values.
I agree that this is a common demographic and a revolutionary one, but also your two doctor parents can usually make a pretty generous contribution to a house, for example.
They're definitely capable of it, but it's not a given in most modern Anglo-descended cultures IMO. Maybe I'm overindexing for people complaining about boomer parents on social media since my own upper-middle class parents have generally been lovely and supportive to me, personally, but I don't think that's necessarily universal.
In most of these cases I think the bitterness is usually from people whose parents have chosen not to be ungenerous but not to indefinitely fund their kids’ delusions, so there is a big difference between a child getting an average $70k a year white collar job (certainly not enough to buy a decent house in much of the US today) and a child in their mid-30s still begging for $4000 a month to rent in Williamsburg and doing essentially nothing / DJing / failsonning. Intelligent upper middle class parents, especially those who have worked hard, are usually much more sympathetic to the former than the ‘failed to launch’ from what I’ve seen. The kid who works but who doesn’t have access to maybe the same kind of housing as the parents did at that age is often supported.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link