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 would be interested to see a social experiment where group A does as you suggest, and group B commits to pay men more in relation to women, gets the men to dress well, work out more at, gives them more slack in their jobs so that even the ambitious ones have time to socialize, organizes dances and parties with light drinking for mid twenties men with actual jobs, not just college students, give extremely low social status to men who abandon their children, and other things along those lines. Ban the apps!
I would bet a small amount on the latter being more effective.
It's coming from both sides. Women who spend their childhoods longing for children have about average success at it. Most women want to have children with their husband when they have one who's supportive of that, it's just taking an unreasonably long time.
An interesting three I saw: https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1hvotgr/should_i_have_children/
I think all of that would help too, but the reason I don’t think it will help that much is because very attractive women with perfect eligibility are not marrying at 22 and having six kids. Do we see every attractive female Harvard graduate do this? No. The most eligible of women at least from my intuition also have low TFR, though they ostensibly have access to —
Whereas 200 years ago these were the exact women who would have a dozen kids
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link