site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 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.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang caught having affair with Chinese spy.

There was some discussion of this in the Sunday thread, but I think this is a big deal worth a top-level post.

The woman, Alice Huang (no relation), is an executive at Singapore-based cloud computing company Megaspeed. The official story from Nvidia, up until last week, was that this was a totally normal nothing-to-see-here business relationship with a client. Jensen himself now seems to admit this is not the case.

Jensen has been strongly opposed to chip export controls for some time. No doubt prosaic conserns about margins and market expansion were a major factor, but now we have to wonder how much corruption, blackmail, and CCP blackops might have played a role. There have been rumors of... irregularities regarding some Nvidia chip shipments to Asia. There is new reporting today that Nvidia itself intervened to squash a Commerce Department investigation into Megaspeed.

I feel like the board has to fire him after this, but on the other hand it seems almost unthinkable. Imagine Apple firing Steve Jobs. There might be pressure from investors to keep him on. It will be interesting to see how the National Security apparatus responds to such a massive persistant vulnerability if it comes to that.

So, I'm mostly just seeing a lot of jokes and memes about this. Which, understandable, it's a juicy scandal.

But one semi serious response that I saw on Twitter got me thinking. Is this just an inherent weakness in all men? An unpatchable security flaw? We're already vulnerable to just normal human temptation. What are we supposed to do when foreign governments target us with professional seductresses? Should all men in critical positions get castrated for national security?

I love my wife. But these days she only speaks to me to push more tasks onto my plate, complain, or complain about how I performed the task she pushed onto me. Often she doesn't even speak to me. She just sends mispelled and unintelligible texts from the bedroom while she nurses our baby. My days are long and thankless, and I die a little inside every time my phone beeps and I know it's never anything good.

If my friends and coworkers are any indicator, this is not atypical. I doubt even being the most powerful CEO on the planet changes that dynamic much. Most men just aren't important enough to have women who's entire job is being nice and pleasant hunting us down.

Sorry man. I was once in a bad marriage myself. Eventually got divorced. You have my deapest sympathies.

I didn't read this as this as a description of a bad marriage. It's just a "parenting a baby" slump, which is practically unavoidable. Babies are demanding little shits that eat and sleep and shit and monopolize mom's attention, but they grow out of it.

Yes - there is a period where your wife is overloaded with being a new mum and the only lovable thing about her is that she is the woman nursing your child. I was lucky enough to have three adults in the house for the first two weeks (I had paternity leave and my MIL moved in for the duration) but I can't imagine how tough it is being the second adult (grandparents are absent or acting like entitled Boomers) in a house with a newborn while also working full-time.