site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28892 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ultimately, the author appears most affected by how his hopes/expectations wrote a check that reality couldn’t cash when it comes to living in red-state country, especially for dating. This is something often seen in men who travel abroad looking for love/sex, but leaving disappointed that they only seem to attract bargirls and prostitutes—or nothing at all (or worse, they leave blissfully unaware that their “girlfriend” is but a bargirl or prostitute).

Sure, your greater wealth, worldliness, credentials, and especially height (in the international traveling case) will give you a leg-up upon the local men when it comes to female hypergamy and polygyny. Your status as an outsider might even stir up some additional curiosity and intrigue. However, girls will be coy and passive regardless of locale, so you must put in the… leg-work. The local girls, particularly the attractive ones, much less the ones who are both attractive and chaste, will hardly line-up to suck your dick and join your harem upon your arrival like a more explicit Axe commercial.

However, I give props to the author for putting his money where his mouth was, and giving it a go at living in red state country (at least for two years). Some other thoughts:

We’ve also passed Peak Woke, and cancel culture is on its last legs.

Yes, and Hunter/Trump will surely go to prison this time.

It turns out safety is mostly achieved by cultivating a boring and risk-averse culture optimized to meet the needs of smallminded and gossipy people who get don’t get excited about much other than college sports and weddings.

Former White Nationalist reinvents the hustle and bustle meme.

And the people who rise to the top of the food chain are never quite as inspirational as they are in places where things are actually happening. They stop being sharp or hungry really early on in life—it’s like they universally have “big fish in a small pond” energy. They work hard until they can coast off a sinecure, at which point they become totally unremarkable and function on autopilot for the rest of their life.

Well yeah, working hard until one can coast off a sinecure is a large motivation for working hard in the first place. Hence #fatFIRE, #chubbyFIRE and whatnot, all the way down to #leanFIRE and/or gasp a normal retirement (the horror).

Of course this revelation won’t come easy to an inexperienced young buck who’s only been with a handful of women. That hipster chick’s tattoos or stripper past or body count of 17 will likely intimidate you. But once you’re nearing 30 and have come into your own as a man, the same girl will seem an ingenue compared to your own triple digit past, while the churchy trad girls you once idealized as innocent little angels will instead seem like frigid judgmental viragoes who could never understand you.

This reeks like cope. Or perhaps: as you amass more sexual and life experiences, you cherish and appreciate the churchy trad girls all the more, and the thought of wifing up a tattoo’d hipster, former stripper, or a girl with a body count of 17 fills you with all the more disgust as your options widen and your desperation decreases.

In fact, many of them seemed hostile toward the very idea of someone moving around in the first place. When I first arrived a lot of people were genuinely incredulous that someone from another state would ever choose to live there, and thus regarded me with suspicion. Midwesterners seem not to like people who move. Many of my new social circle had never lived outside their immediate area and still were geographically very close to their parents.

*shocked pikachu*. People who are self-selected temperamentally and/or perhaps genetically to prefer their way of life and staying amongst themselves, and regard interloping outsiders with suspicion. Someone hasn’t read their Cochran and Harpending on the Amish.

To put it bluntly, most of my White neighbors and coworkers basically resembled hobbits. They had no ambition to them, nor any aspirations of greatness. Nor did they think about the world in a dynamic way—the more educated among them certainly stayed informed about the wider world, but they largely took it for granted that their immediate universe was a static place where nothing would ever happen.

Don’t these stupid midwestern hobbits know how much better life would be with elves telling them what to do and orcs providing some vibrancy?

Agreed, though, that a lot of white Americans are kind of like hobbits, in their lack of antibodies against general blank slatism, outgroup preferences, and progressive American culture. They might make a stink face at the young white male cosmopolitan who arrives in town for an extended study abroad program, but will root for outsiders and people that hate them when it comes to college football/basketball, the NFL, the NBA. Quokka would be the rationalist sphere term of art, here. “Cucks” might even apply. Relatedly, this has been touched upon in the Norf FC series of memes with regard to whites on the other side of the pond.

the same girl will seem an ingenue compared to your own triple digit past

I think this is the salient bit here; oh sure, when you were green and just starting out on your sexual odyssey with more experienced girls, you thought 17 was a lot. But (worldly chuckle here) when you're an International Man of Mystery at age 30, you'll have racked up so much poontang that those girls will be like innocent fawns next to your sexual kill-list.

I cannot roll my eyes hard enough at this because they'll bounce off the floorboards, but sheesh. Worst of both worlds: you want to boast that you can hit that stripper who begged you to do her, and you want to come away with a (relatively) fresh woman when you're ready to start thinking about marriage and a family. Meanwhile, the girls who correctly pegged you as a wannabe man-whore are all frigid prudish bitches. Uh-huh.

This is something often seen in men who travel abroad looking for love/sex, but leaving disappointed that they only seem to attract bargirls and prostitutes—or nothing at all

Another black pill; if you can't make it "here" (wherever that is), you can't make it anywhere; moving or traveling just means your failures move or travel with you.

I do think most young Western men, ranging from the sexually unsuccessful to the already successful, can (further) improve their lot—even substantially for some—by moving/traveling. However, expectations need to be managed and some work may be required to adapt to a new environment, such as learning the language.

This is true to an extent but sometimes it really is just the place. Personally every big move in my life has changed things up a lot (sometimes better sometimes worse).

Lol too true. The complaints seem universal. There is also very little more low status than having a mail order bride. At least in my circles. But it is very waspy stuff and apparently doesn't apply if you're Trump (like most things).

Trump didn't mail-order any of his brides. Both Ivana and Melania met Trump in the US; Marla Maples was born in Georgia (the state, not the country).

Most mail order brides meet their husbands in the us.

Trump is low status in his own circles and always was, but he doesn’t really care, which is kind of his superpower.

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