site banner
PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   32052 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Many people hate the "stroads" of America for example

Nobody uses that term but fans of Strongtowns. Hating "stroads" for their appearance, though, is like complaining about the interior architecture of a factory. Their priority isn't visual appeal, it's function. Quaint medieval (or in the US, imitations of same) town centers with narrow twisting alleys and hipster shops are very picturesque, but if you want to get some serious shopping done, not very practical. Bringing your SUV to your nearest commercial area, bisected by a "stroad", and hitting the Home Depot, Target, and then the grocery store... now that's more like it.

Hating "stroads" for their appearance, though, is like complaining about the interior architecture of a factory.

I also would not enjoy spending a significant fraction of my life staring at the ugly bowels of a factory and would be willing to pay a premium to avoid it. The problem is there is nowhere in this country where I could get that even if I wanted to (and the thought of moving to Europe disgusts me).

I also would not enjoy spending a significant fraction of my life staring at the ugly bowels of a factory and would be willing to pay a premium to avoid it.

As long as you don't work in one, you don't have to. As for commercial areas... there's usually not that much housing there and what housing there is, is on the lower end of the market, so you can pay your premium and not look at them all the time. Here is a pretty good example. Ugly, yes. But this is the suburb it's in. Don't want to stare at a "stroad"? Don't live on Route 10. There's lots of other space.

tfw your fellow forum-dweller posts a road that you have walked down multiple times as a "pretty good example" of an "ugly" "'stroad'"

On a serious note, I think you mixed up your links, as the first one and the second one are not in the same area.

Sorry, I have no idea why that link goes to Lexington Avenue now. I checked before I posted and it went to the right spot. In fact, when I cut and paste the link from the source it still goes to the right spot. I've replaced it with a Google Maps link to the same place.

The original version of the first link pointed to an unintended location (which apparently varied depending on who clicked on it) because it included multiple tildes, which were misinterpreted as strikethrough formatting by this website's broken formatter.

Yeah, when I hover over the "ugly" link the url says it's in New Jersey, but when I click it takes me to my own neighborhood. Which is several states away from the Garden State.

I figured it out. The first link points to an unintended location because it includes multiple tildes, which are misinterpreted as strikethrough formatting by this website's broken formatter.

I, who have never had a driver's license, find stroads a real pain in the ass. I don't want to think about how many hours of my life have been wasted just walking through 20-acre parking lots. God forbid anyone actually put the parking lot in the back, with the store right on the sidewalk like in a real city, and have the main entrance on the sidewalk, and a separate entrance in the rear (supermarkets used to be built like this in the thirties and forties).

Putting parking lot in the back makes little difference. It only matters if you’re already on the street with the front entrance. If you’re a block away, you need to cross the parking lot anyway.

More generally, without a car you are effectively disabled, in the literal sense: not fully able to participate in society in the same way the majority is. Most societies make some accommodations to the disabled, but there are real limits and trade offs involved. For example, people who have trouble walking (which in US is I suspect a bigger group than people without access to a car) typically appreciate a lot being able to drive right to their destination, and park right at the entry.

Point is, it is not clear to me why we should cater to your disability, to the detriment of the majority.

People don't use that term, but that doesn't mean that people like them. The problem is when people have to spend significant amounts of time looking at the visual equivalent of, as you say, a factory interior, whenever they need to commute or go to the store.

Why do you even need an SUV to buy things? You could just walk a few blocks in a sensible city and get whatever you need. The SUV solves the problem the stroad created. The issue is that people live in suburbs that have the greenery and freedom of a city while having the services of a rural area forcing people to drive places.

The car based city layout makes people obese, is ugly as sin, and isn't functional as it is incredibly demanding to maintain.

Because all of that is expensive. Expensive in your own time because you have to go to the store every day instead of once a week; expensive because the shops can't be megastores on relatively cheap land, and instead have to be studio apartments that sell bread or parsnips; expensive because the stores have to get their food delivered somehow, and if there is no road, that has to be done with some alternative, slower, more expensive implement than a truck.

You could just walk a few blocks in a sensible city and get whatever you need.

Let me see you pick up two bags of 25 kg each rice and flour on foot. Or fill a bottle of propane.

No issue on a cargo bike. Also I prefer fresher food that buying tens of kg of food that is meant to be stored for years.

"Sensible cities and walkable environments" is code for "we want to force people to use public transportation because cars give you too much freedom". And you really do not want to be forced to use public transportation in America.

It's not that way in Scandinavia, or wasn't when I visited. It's just too bad the US doesn't have the demographics of Denmark.

(deleted and reposted because I posted one level too deep)

There isn't an inherent reason that public transportation has to be a mobile insane asylum. If we're fantasizing about tearing out stroads, we can throw that into the bargain too.

Cars don't give freedom. They are the most regulated form of transport. They require licenses, insurance following strict rules on the road and high costs. Most of the time a driver is stuck in traffic. Police spend more time controlling drivers than any other mode of transport.

The issue in the US is a black crime issue. Instead of solving that issue the US has revamped its cities to socially isolate people by wasting vast sums of money on cars. The result is urban sprawl with low social cohesion with fat people driving around in cars with cops controlling them.

The cars came before the crime. Crime on public transit is a deal-breaker in many cases, but public transit has plenty of disadvantages before that. It's not door-to-door or even garage-to-parking lot, so there's a longer walk at each end. You have to wait for it. It has to stop all the time to pick up passengers. Passengers who aren't criminals are still often annoying, talking loudly or playing music or (usually children) crying and screaming. To make bus routes efficient, they tend to be circuitous so they take not only more time but more distance than driving. The target in transit is a "3-seat ride", which means changing vehicles twice with an additional wait each time; lesser destinations either are not served or require even more changes. When ridership is low they cut routes or limit hours; when it's high you end up standing for a long time or waiting for the next bus/train or both.

I occasionally visit my parents for brunch.

How would you recommend I exercise my supposedly-increased freedom to travel without a car if I wanted to make a 100 km trip to a rural location that isn't on the route between two cities?

Cars give convenience , which is close enough. Public transportation is slow and a waste of time even if it saves a small amount of fuel. Time wasted waiting for the bus, bus stops, and then walking too and from the stops.

In many cities it is as fast if not faster. Also for most things people don't need public transit, a short walk is faster than being stuck in a car. The mindset of a car being convient because it allows people to travel far comes from people living in a dead suburb.

In many cities it is as fast if not faster.

Which cities?

I just checked my daily commute, and I'd have to leave an hour earlier and get home 45 minutes later if I had to take the bus. I could cut that down to half an hour each if my boss let me change my shift to match the busses, but that's still an hour a day on top of getting that accommodation.

Also for most things people don't need public transit, a short walk is faster than being stuck in a car.

A short drive is faster than a short walk. I've driven to the store literally 400 meters away (280 m as the crow flies) because I was in a rush and driving is faster than running.

You can criticize me for my poor planning, but I confirmed that it was faster by timing my next few trips. It wasn't a lazy misconception or a naive assumption.

The mindset of a car being convient because it allows people to travel far comes from people living in a dead suburb.

That's literally the majority of Americans, so I'm not sure where you're going with that. Are you saying they have a distorted mindset and are factually incorrect? That it's true for them (due to their bad circumstances), but the idea has spread to people it doesn't apply to? Is it a moral judgment?

In many cities it is as fast if not faster.

Not in any Canadian city, unless you happen to live right next to the trunk. A commute that would take 15 minutes by car ultimately ballooned to an hour by a combination of bus, train, and being on foot.

I would rather commute an hour by car. I can buy a car that is nice (I could even get one where the roof comes off), I don't have to worry about belligerent drunk people, schedules being offset so that the bus departs right before the train arrives for whatever reason, or worry about being stuck out late once the transit system has shut down for the night.

Cars don't give freedom. They are the most regulated form of transport. They require licenses, insurance following strict rules on the road and high costs.

Cars are both more regulated than other forms of transport, and still give more freedom than they do. The ability to go directly where you want, at the time you want, with the cargo you want, is that significant that it far outweighs everything else.

Most of the time a driver is stuck in traffic.

This is just plain false.

being stuck in traffic is offset by time waiting for the bus/train to come, stops, and so on. Except for maybe BART during heavy congestion, it is not faster.

it is not faster

I'm skeptical of this, and even if true, it doesn't matter. Economists have been wrestling with this issue for a long time, and the conclusion they always find is that people would rather be stuck in traffic in their own personal conveyance than stuck in public transport, as they value the privacy and control personal conveyance gives.

then how does this explain flying? maybe people choose flying because its faster at the cost of loss of control

Individual planes have been made practically illegal for safety reasons.

People loved them to the point of fascination back when they were realistic to own though. Flying is miraculous after all. And they still love them in places where they're a logistical requirement.

Ask yourself, if you had the choice between your own private plane and airlines, would you pick the airline? I can see that people rich enough to be allowed to own planes certainly prefer them to airlines.

More comments

Flying is so much faster that it can tip the scales. For me to drive to visit my parents would be a 15h drive, whereas it's a 2.5h flight (figure 4h total time with the waiting at the airport before the flight and all that. And I only live halfway across the country from my parents, not even on the other side! If the 4h flight was replacing a 5h drive then I would definitely drive. But I'm not going to choose to drive with how extreme the time savings from flying are.

More comments

That’s an entirely circular issue. “We chose to cede our cities and public spaces to the underclass and mentally ill drug addicts, so now public transport is scary and unsafe” is a political choice, not an inevitability. There are many countries in which public transport is clean, safe, well-policed and used by all classes except the super rich, even where those very same people have cars or can afford to drive. Long road trips are tiring, and on public transport you can read, work, or relax instead of performing the labor of driving.

That assumes that crime and vagrancy are the reason Americans don't embrace public transport. But these aren't problems everywhere. Pittsburgh transit doesn't have these problems, at least not to the degree that anyone has expressed concern about them. I used to rely on bus lines, including some that served bad neighborhoods, when I lived in the city, and the worst thing I had to deal with was poor people listening to shitty rap music with cheap headphones that didn't contain the sound well. While this may be one of the reasons that some people say it's relatively easy to live here car-free, most people still use their cars to get around, despite the fact that narrow streets and a dearth of easy parking doesn't make driving particularly easy, either.

If all of the policies that would reverse this state of affair are firmly outside the Overton window, then unfortunately it is an inevitability rather than a choice. The choice was made a long time ago.

What Overton window? If DOGE can dismantle executive agencies at will and we're discussing undoing birthright citizenship and annexing Greenland and Canada, then surely "let's put mentally ill drug addicts in rehab programs against their will so they don't piss or stab people on the subway" is back on the table?

Mainly because crime is a local issue, not a federal one, and nearly every metro area is firmly under local single-party rule.

then surely "let's put mentally ill drug addicts in rehab programs against their will so they don't piss or stab people on the subway" is back on the table?

That would be logical, but logic doesn't have much power in the culture wars. Have you seen any evidence that's actually the case?

If DOGE can dismantle executive agencies at will and we're discussing undoing birthright citizenship and annexing Greenland and Canada...

We are doing at most one of those things. It may yet turn out to be zero of those things, once the courts have their say. So there's not much reason to believe "let's lock up mentally ill drug addicts" is back on the table.

And they also are denser or in other ways optimized for public transport. America , except for some cities, has never been optimized in this way.

Additionally, if most people could walk to their local pub, drunk driving injuries/deaths would be almost nonexistent.

Only if all your friends also live within walking distance, which is unlikely in any case.

For what it’s worth, Japan did not have the issues with vagrants and crazy people on their trains - instead, we were packed in like sardines with people so close that I couldn’t hold my arms flat against my sides without touching someone (and I was noticeably a foreigner and a man - my sister had it far worse). I’d take time spent in traffic over the subway any day of the week.

It is a circular issue. But the ceding of America’s public spaces to the Visigoth marauders is something no municipal administration will ever, ever fix. So when sensible Americans hear “we should abolish cars for walkable cities and public transportation” they correctly hear “please step inside the rape tube”

No, this is a code for: "we want traditional European urbanism without traditional European rule of law"

Close. The issue is that they think they can have European urbanism without a European population.

It’s not the population. Public transport in Addis Ababa is literally cleaner and safer than in LA. It’s solely the rule of law and harsh (or not so harsh) treatment of the vagrant, violent underclass.

Why do you even need an SUV to buy things? You could just walk a few blocks in a sensible city and get whatever you need. The SUV solves the problem the stroad created.

Do you have children? How many people do you need to buy groceries for? Have you ever needed to buy one (or multiple!) sheets of plywood? Do you own your own home, or do you rent an apartment?

Car/stroad haters seem to overwhelmingly be young, childless, apartment-renting city-dwellers. If you somehow aren't, then your critiques make no sense.

I lived in Europe as a missionary for two years. Carried all my shopping by hand either walking or on public transit. It sucked then, and I was 19 to 21 at the time and extremely physically active and only shopping for myself (my companion was carrying his own groceries). It would suck far more now.

Car/stroad haters seem to overwhelmingly be young, childless, apartment-renting city-dwellers. If you somehow aren't, then your critiques make no sense.

lol, on Reddit there is a nearly 1-1 overlap between childfree/fuckcars subs

I have three sons, do practically all the shopping and I have been doing just fine without a car for the past 4 years. If I lived in a suburb it would probably not be fun but I live in an urban area with a medium sized shop between me and the subway station. An alternative is of course having your groceries delivered, which is still far cheaper than owning a car.

On the rare occasion we actually need a car we just borrow or rent one. We found owning one was excessive for our current needs.

An alternative is of course having your groceries delivered, which is still far cheaper than owning a car.

Not always. in the long-run a car is cheaper. You pay a huge premium for delivery.

Not that big a premium. I'd have to buy groceries in excess of $5000 a month for car to just break even with home delivery.

You need other frequent or important uses of the car for it to be remotely economical.

That probably depends on location? Where I live grocery stores will deliver to you for free if you order more than €40 of food.

Yes, but how much do they charge for smaller orders, and how much do you pay each year to own a car? In the UK we pay £2–4 for delivery of a £40+ order every few weeks (buying the rest of what we need on foot, typically once a day on the way home from the station). Let's say we spend £150/y on delivery (certainly an overestimation). No car can be owned for so little, even if you could get insurance and fuel for free.

In my big city (indeed the biggest) in Europe, what most people in the middle class and above do is order groceries 1x per week online. Because the city is so dense, the truck makes like 20 stops over a couple of hours and delivery fees are therefore very cheap. I pay $5 a month for unlimited deliveries, and all the groceries are the exact same price as in the store with no additional service charges or fees.

This accounts for all heavy items like detergent and bottled water, bulky bags of potatoes etc. Then for the rest of the week I either walk to the grocery store, deli/butcher or farmer’s market on Sunday (all a maximum of ten minutes’ walk) and get fresh meat/bread/pastries if I want them. This works pretty well and I never feel overburdened.

I could buy all my groceries every day in person with little additional nuisance, because there are multiple grocery stores in the five minute walk between my subway station and home and in the four minute walk between my destination subway station and my office. In that case, like many people, I’d just buy items in smaller purchases instead of once for the week or fortnight. But I prefer planning my meals.

I have family who live out in the suburbs in New Jersey and Connecticut. Walking from the parking space to the store, around the huge and not very dense grocery store (since space in big warehouse stroad strip malls is cheap), and then back to the car likely covers a greater distance than many trips to and from (and around) the grocery store in dense cities on foot.

Walking from the parking space to the store, around the huge and not very dense grocery store (since space in big warehouse stroad strip malls is cheap), and then back to the car likely covers a greater distance than many trips to and from (and around) the grocery store in dense cities on foot.

LOL, no. The distance to the furthest spot to the store entrance in my suburban NJ grocery store shopping center is 600 feet. Nobody ever has to park that far away; those particular spots are only used by employees and other far spots are used by people going to other stores that are closer. More typically it's less than half that. Most places in Manhattan are more than 600 feet, never mind the typical lesser distances, from the grocery store. 600 feet is just over two short blocks in Manhattan, and less than a long block.

But I prefer planning my meals.

I thought i did too, because that was how my mother taught me, but when i stopped it was as if a massive weight came off my shoulders. Now i just shop every other day, buy what's on sale and make something from that. If me or the family happen to crave something specific I can adjust on the day. I plan like 1 meal a week and I love it.

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