site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Well, at least you can take comfort in having been right (even if it was kind of obvious if you were paying attention). But this does seem to be one of the many dependable aspects of society that will be mostly gone in the AI future - you really won't gain much relative status from being right/talented/hard working. The playing field will be leveled for everyone, which means no incentive to truly excel, except for personal satisfaction. (EDIT: Assuming that smart models remain accessible to the masses, rather than hoarded by elites.)

Yeah. it's just been aggravating to have people call me a slop peddler or whatever all of this time until finally and very recently elite programmers have begun to admit they use AI tools and the attacks have died down. Mostly it's from the neo luddites who refuse the tools on anti-capitalist or climate worry reasons and they've retreated to mastodon and lobster.rs

I'm still having a bit of a personality hit from this super valuable skill that I know turning into a commodity as cheap as water before my eyes but it's also fun to ship like 20x faster. Every side project: DONE

I am seeing some colleagues descend into a form of light AI psychosis. For satire, this Kai Lentit video hits very close to home: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WV6A1Zf3F2Q