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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I have been hearing about the 4B movement from Korea for years, but it's not clear how pervasive it really is. Korea is facing some steep demographic decline, but I'm not sure how much is because of women intentionally signing up to a radical feminist no-men movement. Japan has the same problem and there is no real 4B movement there.
I have been seeing a lot of women posting 4B rage-videos, and they fit right in with all the post-election meltdowns. Women talking about how they're going to "burn shit down," how they're going to harm men, how they're going to go "feral" on any man that looks at them funny... And to be honest, all I can think is, "Honey, try it."
Because it's all performative. Sigma some very small number of genuinely mentally ill crazies, no woman is actually going to lay hands on a man in a situation where she'd face consequences. They know, deep down, that they are not dangerous or scary and they get to engage in these performative Internet Tough-Girl acts because if they scream at a man in public he's probably going to back away and avoid getting physical with a woman. They can get away with it because most men don't like to hit women and also know the burden will be on them to prove self-defense against a crazy woman.
It's also performative because most of these ladies are not actually going to swear off men, because they like sex, attention, and validation. Political lesbianism and lesbian separatism largely failed as a movement because women found out that they can't just decide to be not attracted to men, any more than men can just stop wanting women.
This is exactly the same as the MGTOW movement, who are just as much a gang of performative blowhards who'd crawl over broken glass to actually score, but talk a big game online about how they don't need no woman. They don't care. They so don't care. Can you see how loudly and obnoxiously and convincingly they are not caring?
Women doing the same thing now.
"No one will ever win the battle of the sexes, because there's too much fraternising with the enemy."
More options
Context Copy link
One of the snarkiest and meanest comments under a "I am going 4B" post was - "If you were capable of keeping your legs closed, abortion would not be your top 1 issue", so it doesn't seem that people are bullish on 4B taking traction in the US. I guess you need a whole generation to pass for a culture that values promiscuity less to emerge.
It only works because the counterargument is less catchy than the quip and therefore loses according to Twitter debate rules. I don't think the women who are threatening 4B want, or claim to want, to "keep their legs closed", everything else being equal; their argument is instead that because of lack of abortion access, they can't open their legs safely, and therefore they will abstain from it, to their own detriment and the detriment of other beneficiaries of them opening their legs (men who want to have sex).
Compare something like "if you ban airbags, I will refuse to ride cars". Is it not obvious that "if you were capable of leaving your car keys in the drawer, airbags would not be your top 1 issue" would be a nonsensical retort?
No, but "if you were able to drive sober airbags wouldn't be a top issue" still works as a non nonsensical retort.
If you remove the reckless drivers from the road the value of car safety features goes down substantially
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is a good line, but it fails the ideological turing test.
An interesting dynamic is that some of the strongest advocates for abortion access are women who have never and would never get an abortion. The view, which I do find at least somewhat sympathetic, is that it's necessary to maintain access as a bodily autonomy measure. This becomes particularly significant in the case of conceptions due to rape, which are indeed rare, and most everyone agrees are deeply tragic and awful.
It's precisely the fact that many of these people believe abortion is rare that they believe it's necessary to preserve access to it. "Abortion is so rare, and only used in tragic cases: why are you insistent on banning something to save 30 lives, even if we assume you're right about fetal personhood? Are you just trying to control women?" Actual knowledge on the frequency, stated reasons, and racial statistics of abortion is often rare among young white women like the people who are leaning into 4B.
The abortion rights debate is literally just a mirror of the gun rights one (especially if you accept the progressive framing that "nobody deserves to die by someone defending themselves over property, because all
fetusescriminals areconceived?born innocent and literally couldn't help but being a burden on society"- complete with 'future lawyer or doctor' applying word for word).Are the motives for gun control initiatives primarily conducted with the end goal of controlling men?
They're certainly couched in "protecting innocent children from evil men is worth the violence risk", and so the abortion initiatives have learned to take the same tack (protecting innocent children from evil women is worth the rape risk).
More options
Context Copy link
It’s mostly that low time preference and intelligence are both correlated with each other and almost certainly linked to neuroticism. Affluent PMC women may rarely get abortions, but they probably worry about possibly needing one more than those who actually get them at higher rates.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Korea is uniquely bad and in the running for worst in the world along with various city-states and crowded island nations. Korea is in a whole different league from any actual country with an actual landmass.
Japan's current TFR is on the low side but in line with the rate of other developed nations with stagnant economies, such as Spain, Italy, Canada, etc. They are just noted for being the first to experience serious population decline, since their TFR has been in the dumps before other countries caught up.
More options
Context Copy link
My actual real IRL girlfriend did in fact break up with me over the election. No idea if she swore off men as a whole (probably not tbh). Social media is real. Online meltdowns are real.
I'm reminded of all those species of animal that for whatever reason don't breed in captivity. Some natural impulse or function is being blocked.
How did she find out? Did you tell her outright? I'm sorry either way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Pun not intended?
I might as well reply to your other comment here: I think part of why the 4B Movement has any legs at all in Korea is precisely because the expected "life script" of modern Koreans has become a crushing, zombified shit-show of a rat race for everyone, not just the women (as the men are similarly polarized). The culture war aspect is an unintended veil over the actual rebellion against the establishment, in my eyes.
I’m utterly baffled; what could “sigma” possibly mean in this context? Usually “epsilon” is the mathematician’s Greek letter of choice to denote very small quantities.
"Notwithstanding", but I've never seen "sigma" used to mean that. Sometimes "modulo" is.
More options
Context Copy link
"The sum of"?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link