site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

She could choose not to have sex.

That's exactly what's been happening: the trend among young people is to have sex less. It's even possible that the political divergence between young men and women will contribute to this trend.

While I, of course, support adoption infinitely over abortion, we have to face facts and realize that foster systems and adoption have statistically significant higher rates of abuse etc. It takes a lot of love and effort to raise a child, it takes even more to raise someone else's child.

I agree that the ideal is for both parents to raise a wanted child. In case of an unwanted pregnancy, the best outcome is for it to somehow become wanted.

Healthy babies are in high demand for adoption, and don't last in the foster system. Normalizing the option of carrying the pregnancy to term and then giving the baby up for adoption not only would reduce numbers of abortion but would help satisfy this demand. I doubt that adopted healthy babies are more at risk of mistreatment than babies who stay with their mother, and a quick online check bears that out.

The other advantage of normalizing giving-baby-up-for-adoption option is that a woman goes through massive biological changes during pregnancy which increase the likelihood of her wanting to keep the baby after all. That's the unwanted-pregnancy-becomes-wanted-baby scenario.