The discussion centers around whether C string literals should be treated as 'const' by default. Participants highlight that string literals are generally stored in read-only sections of memory on various platforms, making modifications to them ineffective and potentially problematic. Some contributors express surprise that string literals are not already treated as 'const', indicating a consensus on the notion that enforcing constness would prevent unintended modifications, which have historically led to undefined behavior in C programs. Overall, treating string literals as const seems to be a logical step to improve code safety.