site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15312 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

As per Wikipedia, Russia maintained control over the weapons in Ukraine. The situation was probably analogous, from what I can tell without having gotten into the weeds.

The hard-to-replace components (the fissile material and the polonium initiators) were physically in Ukraine and under Ukrainian control. The Russians controlled the codes needed to arm the nukes, and if the PALs worked as advertised this means that the Ukrainians couldn't arm or detonate the nukes.

Disassembling the nukes for components and building a Ukrainian bomb was probably beyond the capabilities of 1990's Ukraine, but would be well within the capabilities of a functioning middle-income country. The N-th country experiment suggested that building a working nuke with access to the required materials and 1960's technology was a "two smart guys in a garage" level project.

They definitely were in Ukraine, but I think, from my limited poking around, that it might be an overstatement to say they were under Ukrainian control. From what I understand, parts of the Russian and Ukrainian military didn't disaggregate until at least 1997 (when the Black Sea Fleet was split), and Ukraine agreed in 1991 that the nuclear weapons would be controlled from Moscow under the auspices of the CIS. Furthermore, the troops that physically controlled the Ukrainian nuclear weapons were...not necessarily loyal to Ukraine:

In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, the rocket armies, missile divisions and bomber commands were led by Russian generals, operated and maintained by Russian officers and men. They were controlled from higher headquarters in the Russian capital for their personnel, funding, communications, nuclear safety standards, security systems, even their operational targets. Their professional loyalty was to Russia, but their armies and commands were located in another nation’s territory. Consequently, the commanders of the air divisions and rocket armies stationed in Kazakhstan and Belarus faced conflicting pressures, just like Colonel General Mikhtyuk and general officers in the 43rd Rocket Army in Ukraine.

According to the DTRA report, Mikhytuk and most of his men refused to take an oath of loyalty to Ukraine in 1992.

The above is from a 2014 Defense Threat Reduction Agency report ("With Courage and Persistence") about US disarmament programs. It's also something I found by reading the Wikipedia page on the Budapest Memorandum – so this isn't something I know a lot about, and I'm certainly open to counter-points on the matter. This is all somewhat new to me – I had kinda thought the weapons were stranded in Ukraine with Russia holding onto the PAL codes until I noticed that Wikipedia insisted the weapons were never under Ukrainian operational control.

Agree on the ease of building atomic weapons.

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