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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   33390 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Sam Altman and his husband had a kid.

Let me say outright I wish him, him, and the child well. Certainly growing up in a wealthy family affords a child many benefits that would not be had without that wealth, so good for the kid. Let me also say I am, as a person tangentially involved in medicine and medical science, not adamantly opposed to IVF, personally, though admittedly I have not spent a lot of time poring over the moral aspects of it. It seems like one of those things that generally contributes toward the good, inasmuch as it is creative, in the most literal sense of the word, and not destructive. My mind might be changed by a persuasive argument.

What irks me though, is that in the linked article there is no mention whatsoever of the mother of this child, the woman who carried the child in her womb, from whose egg the child generated (whether you view this as the mother or not is of course up to you.) It is as if the two men just somehow had a child, as if that is the most natural thing in the world, and there should be no questioning of it by anyone for to do so would be, I don't know, wrong or backward-ass.

Yet here I am, wondering. Should there not be at least a rhetorical nod toward the woman, a phrase in some sentence saying that the child was brought into the world via gestational surrogacy--a good way to introduce the term into people's vocabulary, the regular working men and women among us who may have never thought of the term. Yet there is nothing. Nada y pues nada. Can anyone steelman this beyond the assertion that it is a required newspeak in our Brave New World?

If I were to be dramatic, I'd say a woman has been literally erased here-- a maternal unpersoning. I know at least one woman (white, American) who "had" a child via gestational surrogacy--she is now both divorced and living about 4,800 miles (7,725 km) apart from her daughter. Life's a bitch. I never outright asked her about the woman who carried the child to term, though I know that this was a so-called "commercial surrogacy" and the woman who did carry the child was from India, probably without much financial means, and the whole affair was generally unpalatable to me. But I loved the (egg) mother as a sister, though she is unrelated to me, and still do, though she is a little nuts.

But Altman and Mulherin are both men, and thus the egg came from neither of them. I don't know, I just wish the goddam media would throw me a bone sometimes.

I've actually seen this more with female/female couples in the media - I'll see them reported as talking about "our child" or "having a child with [my female partner]" and so on, and every time I wonder to myself, "That's not actually possible. I wonder who the actual parents are?" A child, after all, is not something willed into existence by a couple, but something that comes into being through a very particular bodily action.

What are the long-term consequences of separating out our claims of identification or relationship with children from the bodily, material context of those children? Are we cleaving matter from spirit more than we should?

Well with female couples one of them conceivably (cough, I keep doing this sorry) is the biological mother, with the seed of some guy. True enough the male part is erased in that case, and there is much to be said about dads also getting wiped from consciousness.

much to be said

Page not found.

dads also getting wiped from consciousness.

A tangent: I often overhear conversations my wife has with other women on the topic of little children losing their mothers, and it always goes the way of "the poor child, all alone in the world". As if fathers did not do any parenting and would rather leave their kids to the wolves than change a diaper. The female self-image seems to equate parenthood with motherhood to a large extent and allows for no concept of fatherhood at all. Even while a father who does all the same parenting the mother does is in the same room. But apparently that doesn't make for sufficiently dramatic conversation.

Link fixed, thank you.

This is a very much an aside, but I find it intriguing that Sam’s sister is essentially a stoner / OF girl with plausible schizophrenia. If you go through her old YouTube videos, she was sane enough to write creative Bo Burnham cover songs, so I think she might have been one-shot by marijuana that activated psychosis. Which is quite sad and a testament to American decay; she would probably have been reasonably successful without a marijuana encounter.

Apparently almost any recreational drug can trigger schizophrenia. Even alcohol! Also, those predisposed are also drug seeking by disposition as well, so it’s a hard to solve problem.

I thought there was some evidence that nicotine suppressed it?

Do you mean temporary alcohol induced psychosis or permanent schizophrenia? Alcohol can induce psychosis like symptoms since it blockades NMDA receptors and this reliably induces psychosis like symptoms. I have never heard of it triggering schizophrenia though.

Yeah maybe saying it triggers permanent schizophrenia is too far. But I’ve met individuals for whom they reliably go psychotic and start hallucinating if they get too drunk

Apparently almost any recreational drug can trigger schizophrenia. Even alcohol!

I would be interested in statistics on relative rates & hazard ratios.

(Although I understand for various reasons this sort of statistical data is rather difficult to gather reliably.)

You can be allergic to water on the skin; this does not mean that it is a common allergy.

I would presume psychedelics have the worst track record for triggering psychosis (apparently marijuana counts as a psychedelic as well)

(apparently marijuana counts as a psychedelic as well)

[citation needed]

I personally generally agree with that categorization. If the alternative categories are stimulant, depressant, deliriant, pain killer, etc - then psychedelic fits best to me. Mild compared to a typical dose of more classic psychedelics, sure, but I think the comparison of strong pot to low (but not micro) dose shrooms (~.5g) is particularly good.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37947321/

I would also presume so offhand.

The grandparent comment came across as attempting to trivialize the subject by mentioning something mundane that can - technically - trigger the same effect.

It reminds me of the gay marriage debate if those arguing against gay marriage opposed marriage for straight people too.

I might take that stance, in a way. Say marriage could well be trated as an purely private affair, without laws concerning it, it being entirely between the people getting married, the state having no say in the matter, reeee no step on snek. I could live with that.

Or else demographics is destiny and the state, the superorganism that we are but humble cells of, must take destiny by the horns, and gay marriage is then a simple farce that has no place in the world.

The intermediate stance of "the state should have extensive legislation concerning marriage including gay marriage" just strikes me as nonsensical.

I am so tired of all this gender talk. Is this really the great Culture War battlefield of our time? Men playing at being women in some ways? Let them. Let them and damn them. I wish we could just ignore the lot of them and move on.

I did and still do oppose marriage as an institution of the state where they act as gatekeepers. It was originally used to prevent mixed race marriages.

Legal contracts between consenting adults are not something I think the state should be able to veto. I'm admittedly pretty libertarian in my beliefs.

It was originally used to prevent mixed race marriages.

...which is why only the US and a few other post-colonial nations have it, right?

I believe he was referring to the Romans, actually. Who are as far as I know the inventors of civil marriage (in the West) and had limitations around who could legally marry who that sometimes forbade intermarriage.

Then in the middle ages it became an affair of local custom, then a church sacrament, and only recently (during the religious wars and to allow protestants to marry, among other various reasons depending on the country) has it become an administrative ceremony once again.

Then I doubt the original use was about race, as opposed to being used that way at some point.

Legal contracts between consenting adults are not something I think the state should be able to veto. I'm admittedly pretty libertarian in my beliefs.

As an aside, bankruptcy is a notable exception to this with a long historical pedigree -- the State gets to abrogate perfectly consensual contracts and has had that right for centuries.

Somewhat understand this. At least one party is usually financially aware and responsible. If that can be priced into the product then the end result is that unreliable borrowers just don't get to be able to borrow money. If people are willing to accept that then so be it. My understanding is that they tend to complain about this result: "Banks wont lend money to the underclass"

Yup, and I totally understand this.

The weird thing, in my view, is that bankruptcy is an impairment on the fulfillment of a consensual contract that all parties actually want, in some sense. Lenders like it because it provides for orderly and final disposition of insolvent creditors. Creditors like it because it means they won't be on the hook indefinitely and can get another chance.

As such, it's a (small) thorn in the side of libertarian theory. I'm still broadly a squishy-libertarian, but it's an interesting theoretical topic. And it's certainly interesting to think about in a forum that isn't dominated by people trying to drunk using shitty internet gotchas.

If, as you say, all parties want it, then, were it not the law, it could simply be written into the contract. Contracts often have exit clauses or explicitly defined penalties for noncompliance. Loans generally don't because they're written in the context of a legal environment that guarantees exit via bankruptcy; it's implicit.

I'm not sure all parties do actually want bankruptcy protections, but either way I don't see how it threatens the theoretical basis for preserving the sanctity of contract.

I'm not sure what the clause "were it not the law" means. In any case, it's not implicit, but explicit, that a bankruptcy court has broad authority to modify or set aside any contract or part of a contract necessarily to achieve the objectives of bankruptcy law.

I also don't think it threatens the theoretical basis of sanctity of contract! This is a small thorn in that basis that is readily explainable and proves nothing about the general case. Again, this isn't the internet gotcha-game.

Legal contracts between consenting adults are not something I think the state should be able to veto.

What is your definition of coercion in this context?

I have personal opinions and covering all the edge cases and minutia would be a lot of effort, but I'm fine with it being defined by a common law court system.

I'm fine with it being defined by a common law court system.

Ah, here's our disagreement. Or a disagreement, at least.

My prediction of such a system is that the hole of vetoing contracts by way of declaring them coercive would grow over time until the state regained full control.

It is competition with the state, which cannot stand without support for the reasons @MaiqTheTrue highlighted.

Some did. Much of the homosexual opposition to gay marriage was on grounds of abolition. Certainly a minority position, but it was there.

I can't speak for all of them, but I am opposed to straight people getting gay married.

A lot of surrogates don’t want to get wrapped up in the bullshit, especially surrogates working with higher-profile parents. Many states and surrogacy orgs require the information about biomoms to be available to the kid, and I’m pretty strongly in favor of that. But publicizing the mom* without her permission is inviting a massive amount of public attention onto someone who near-certainly doesn’t want it.

(*or moms, though I doubt Altman bothered with that)

In the more general case, I’d prefer a world where surrogates were closely connected to their kid(s), and there are a lot of policy changes that could make that more accessible — unfucking a lot of the parental rights clusterfuck, reducing the often-serious stigma, employment policies less heavily incentivizing the three-year in-and-out. There’s some awkwardness to a family relationship of dad, papa, and ‘aunt’, but it’s probably better for the kids.

But as a revealed preference thing, there are a lot of women who find a year of surrogacy a lot easier (or even net-enjoyable) than a dozen years of child-rearing. And I’m not sure they’re wrong to think it that way, or that it’s really a solvable problem.

For at least some portion, the question isn’t going to be surrogacy or convention family (or single motherhood); it’s between kids or no kids. And I’d rather push to improve the situation on the margins then close off the entire category.

Points taken, but I'm not so much asking for the woman's identity to be unveiled (any more than a birth parent would need to be identified if an adoption were referred to in such an article) just the fact that a woman was involved in some way.

A lot of surrogates don’t want to get wrapped up in the bullshit, especially surrogates working with higher-profile parents.

I'm having a hard time believing this is all that common. A woman having custody rights to a rich dude's baby seems like something that would pretty straight-forwardly benefit her.

It's less the custody and more the public attention. You could quite imagine someone signing away custody as part of a surrogacy agreement, their name and address leaking, and them getting a ton of media attention.

I would assume that any surrogacy contract is fairly explicit about the surrogate not having custody rights.

The fact that these contracts are enforceable says a lot about the extreme power imbalance between the people who pay for surrogacy and the ones who carry the child.

Could I make a contract with a rich person to cut off my arm?

Assuming no, then I'm not sure how even a fully informed surrogate can make a contract that always results in physical pain and loss of a child, and may additionally cause bodily harm or even death. Pregnancy and childbirth is no picnic.

To me, this stretches the extremes of what should be allowed in a contract. Perhaps surrogacy should be limited to altruistic volunteers as it is in many places.

results in physical pain

Many manual labor jobs pretty predictably cause physical pain and damage if you do them for your whole career.

loss of a child

No more so than voluntary adoption? Which similarly gives up custody rights, and isn't something that's generally illegal.

There are also some jobs that have a moderate risk of bodily harm and death, and while we regulate these and require clear warnings, we don't ban them if alternatives aren't available.

I don't think surrogacy is an exceptional job by the neutral/lib values you are appealing to. Maybe it is from conservative ones, but you should argue from them directly

I mean there's countries (most of them?)where those contracts wouldn't be enforceable or even constitute criminal conspiracies still.

Serious question; could I write a surrogacy-style contract for a woman I am married to so that, when we have a child, she gives up all maternal rights to that child?

If I could find a woman willing to sign such a contract - even though we are married - could any state conceivably allow such a contract to stand?

If the answer to both of these questions is not "yes", then I cannot see how all surrogate mothers do not still possess some sort of maternal benefits claim over their surrogate children, despite any contracts signed.

Under the law marriage changes the status, though. Generally this makes things fairer to the man, but in situations like this is makes it fairer to the woman.

Yes, I'm saying that I have trouble believing this is done for the benefit of the mother.

What is the benefit supposed to be? The opportunity to turn fame into some kind of influencer money? I think it is easy to see how this would be unattractive to many (and also is somethiny that can be solved with money), especially since being in the position to need to accept a surrogacy contract is potebtially embarrassing.

I am more interested what sperm was used. My guess is Altman, as he is more ambitious, but also I would not think he has a big family wish, so maybe it was a concession by him to his partner?

Maybe they used a mix cocktail so they'd never know whose it is?

This does not work in the presence of coerced paternity testing.

Yeah I don't think it was going to work for those hot cops either.

I've heard plenty of people, including over here, condemn Altman for not having a stake in the future, for being a disinterested devotee of Techno Capital without any real skin in the game. Him being gay and childless was pointed at to shore up their claim.

Now, I still think Altman is an untrustworthy snake, but that particular line of argument seems hollow.

My accusations weren't this strong, but I've made similar points.

Altman having a child changes things. I welcome Altman to the 'pseudo-visceral stake in the future club'. Congrats to him and his husband.

I'm in support of gay men adopting children and adopting rituals of traditional marriage. Yes, they're only nominally monogamous, but that's good enough for me. I prefer an effort to maintain optics of normalcy, instead of forcing the culture to accept a public lifestyle that's way outside the overton window. Don't care about what happens behind closed doors. I've seen a few twitter dog-whistles accusing him (and gay men in general) of being pedo groomers. Real unsavory stuff.

It doesn't change that Altman comes across as a uncanny-valley predator (in a lizard person sort of way), but that's par for the course for billionaire tech CEOs. Can't exactly fault him for that.

I certainly don't disagree that Altman shouldn't be trusted further than you can throw him, but I do appreciate you being able to say that you that one (of many) reasons to distrust him no longer count. Most people, once they've made up their minds, are content to let arguments be soldiers and always count them as MIA even when the body was dropped off with the dog-tags attached.

So we went from him having no real skin in the game to him having skin in the game in an unreal way.

Yeah it was a regular argument made during the OpenAI coup attempt, that he was some kind of sociopathic misanthrope who had a deep ambivalence toward humanity. Seems less likely now.

P(misanthrope) less

P(sociopath) unchanged

I disagree.

The threads around the OpenAI coup attempt highlighted multiple inside sources who have stated that Altman is a unique kind of sociopath. He's a non-technical non-founder. He is the networker's networker.

Him having a child, unfortunately, points to one of two pretty extreme scenarios; either he's in the midst of a pretty big change of heart about Techno-post-humanity and does believe in the future in a "people should have kids an invest in them" sort of way. Or...

He's had a surrogate child (who he can easily support as a billionaire) as a magic talisman to deflect precisely these "you don't care about a human future" attacks. "Sure I do!" Sam says, "Look at this human infant that I now pay for! Is this not our culturally agreed upon signal indicating my allegiance to the future of humans?"

Ask yourself if a billionaire sociopath is capable of this.

I don't disagree with your assessment, but it seems pretty unfalsifiable; it's a conspiracy theory writ small.

Yep. This has been directly addressed

I guess? But at the same time it is at least evidence that he is less the way some people feared.

How so?

To be explicit; I think it is probably (further) evidence he is a sociopath who will use people and deceive people to further his own ambitions.

So if he didn't have a kid, you would think it's less likely that he's a sociopath?

Yes!

Although there is still a body of evidence before the kid that would point in that direction.

Because you are assuming that he had the kid merely for optics.

It would be like saying “I think Person X is a sociopath. He did something that generally would not be sociopathic but because I think X is a sociopath he must be doing it to hide his sociopathy.”

Well sure if you already assume the sociopathy. I’m more willing to suggest that maybe your initial assessment might be off.

I would say aesthetics rather than optics.

This sort of behavior seems to me to attempt to wear the skin suit of natural normal male desire.

To see the consequences of your union, your wife swelling with your child. New life brought forth as you participate in the continuing glory of God's creation.

This is not that. This feels more like a sacrifice to Molach or a grotesque distorted simulacra of normal healthy desire

I do think it is reasonable to question whether gay men ought to be able to use surrogates. It is one thing to adopt where a kid wasn’t going to have any family. It is another to intentionally set up a situation where a kid will not have a mom.

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Well sure if you already assume the sociopathy.

I do.

It would be like saying “I think Person X is a sociopath. He did something that generally would not be sociopathic but because I think X is a sociopath he must be doing it to hide his sociopathy.”

This is a good point. It made me think of my own post on conspiratorial thinking and I think that I might be a victim of that in this Altman case. I'll reconsider.

Rejoice, ye mods! The spirit of the Motte lives.

Cool!

"Surrogacy" is a classic bioethics problem for a reason.

The question of the 21st century, and (hopefully!) beyond, is what role humans will play in the future. We are accustomed to using the word "dehumanizing" as a pejorative, as we treat pretty much everything else in the world worse than we treat one another (which is often saying something...)--so to be not human is by definition to be less than human. But "dehumanize" can be a purely descriptive term.

(This is also a big part of AI anxiety, I think--if there's something higher than us on the intellectual food chain, doesn't that make us food? See e.g. The Matrix as an early example of taking this somewhat literally...)

For hundreds of thousands of years at least, maternal affection has been a matter of life and death for our species. There is basically nothing more fundamentally human, except perhaps the act of heterosexual coupling that creates infants in the first place. And (perhaps contra some other commenters) I think there are fully human roads to practices like adoption (women have often shared the task of breastfeeding with other women, e.g.).

But artificial reproductive technologies--even as basic as your IUI "turkey baster" techniques"--head down a slippery slope. By applying technological progress to ourselves, we objectify humanity itself. We step outside our species, however slightly, and subject ourselves to egregorian evolution (usually, Moloch).

So my own perspective on this is that the problem isn't the womb rental (so to speak) per se. It's the fact that we don't approach it with a clear and widespread understanding that it is in fact transhumanist to do. That the resulting relationships are transhuman relationships. That the mother of this child has been used, for a time, as (spoilers for Dune): an axlotl tank (e.g.--mildly NSFW)

Is it wrong, to "rent out" the human body? Is it wrong, to deprive a human child of a mother? I'm open to the possibility, and doing such things has historically been closely associated with monumental evil, in the details even if not in the act itself. But I think the problem in the case of surrogacy for same-sex couples is precisely that we insist on pretending that there's "nothing to it," rather than observing that this is transhumanism in action, the activity of reducing our bodies to the level of chattel--to the level of moveable property, of mere technology. Philosophers have long observed that the body is mechanical in nature!

I consider myself fairly pro-transhumanism. I would like us to be more than we are, and I would like us to approach that in a careful and thoughtful way. But we don't actually have the technology to make that happen, yet, and if we ever do I think it will be an extinction-class event for our species. People who do transhumanesque things now--employ surrogacy for same sex "reproduction," have their sex organs removed to fulfill a personal aesthetic, etc.--are like small children "playing house" in alarmingly sexual ways, doing grown-up things without adult supervision or a mature understanding of what they do. It is a form of arrested development; unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the world they live in, gay men buy children so they can play house. But matters are not so simple, and the resulting child will be raised without some historically central human experiences. It is not nice to say that makes them "less than human," but in the fully transhuman sense, it clearly makes them less human. I hasten to add--there are many experiences we may all have, in this sense, that make us "less human!" But even so, it seems like a terrible thing to deliberately inflict such things on biological humans who have not chosen transhumanism for themselves.

I still think parents in some form or another are necessary for psychiatric health. It seems like just observationally a lot of social pathologies and mental health issues went through the roof after the widespread use of institutional daycares and preschool. We’ve essentially been kenneling our kids for much of their waking lives, and im becoming much more convinced that, especially if it starts young, it has a lot of negative impacts on the mental health of the child as they can’t form the strong family bonds that existed for most of human history. It’s actually a pretty odd social experiment that we did to ourselves without thinking about it.

If you think about a child in daycare maybe a good one will have 2 adults and 8-10 kids. That child is a number. Not the caregiver’s fault, but she’s not the kid’s parent and she can’t care as much as a parent could. And even if she did, she has other children to worry about. Now this starts in the USA especially in infancy maybe 8 weeks or so, depending on the leave offered to the mother (fathers rarely get leave). And because it covers the working hours of parents, including commute, you might have a child in daycare from 8am to 6pm and be putting the baby to bed soon after. The child gets weekends with mom and dad, and spends most of the time in institutional care.

Going further to deprive future children of any parental bonding at all would likely make that situation much worse. I suspect that it would create sociopathic behaviors in most children in that situation. How does a child learn to care about others if they never received the same care themselves? Could they feel the pain and suffering they cause another human being? If they could, would they care?

"It's the fact that we don't approach it with a clear and widespread understanding that it is in fact transhumanist to do."

Who's this "we" here? I assume you're talking about the United States, a country of crypto grifters, tradthot inflooencers, transgender mixed martial artists, strip club owners, obese Alex Jones fans, feminists horrified by male sexuality, white nationalists with Asian wives, bible thumpers predicting the return of Jesus that never happens and elderly Jews still mad they got blackballed from the country club in 1972. Are "we" supposed to come together and have some reasonable, rational "conversation?"

If you don't think kids should be raised by two male homosexuals, you don't need "bioethics" for that. You could have gotten that from an illiterate peasant in Guatemala. "Bioethics" has not done a single good thing since it was thought up and belongs on the railroad tracks.

a country of crypto grifters, tradthot inflooencers, transgender mixed martial artists, strip club owners, obese Alex Jones fans, feminists horrified by male sexuality, white nationalists with Asian wives, bible thumpers predicting the return of Jesus that never happens and elderly Jews still mad they got blackballed from the country club in 1972. Are "we" supposed to come together and have some reasonable, rational "conversation?"

And what about the other 90% of the population? The existence of fringes doesn't undo the centre. Also this is a great argument against all democratic/discussion everywhere, including on this forum.

Bioethics is generally done badly but it's not inherently a bad idea. We could have bioethics where good, decent research is permitted and 'let me make some lethal bioweapons for no reason' research is restricted. Who wants complete laissez faire in this area? I am confident that you have a bioethics stance, just that it is in conflict with the bioethics community. You, I and many here are likely heretical bioethicists.

I am very amused by this collection of Transmetropolitan-influenced caricatures.

Please, do go on.

Wow that was my thought exactly. Is that a well-known comic book in the US?

Sort of? Back in the late 00's I went on a torrenting binge of some of the big series: Transmet, Preacher, and Cerebus. Already read Sandman in the early 00s, and wanted more DC/Vertigo-themed stuff. They were some of the big ones talked about back then.

Are they still recommended? No idea, not my scene any more.

In the comics scene for sure, but in a "here's the 6 classic graphic novels you have to read" sense where most people have maybe read the first issue for the cred then nothing else. Although Ellis got cancelled a few years back, so he has been downplayed in normie spaces.

I read all of it, but I always thought it was a niche (not a comic book guy, it was recommended to me by one). Also I missed his cancellation, what did he do?

The short version is that he is/was attracted to a certain sort of woman highly represented by his fan base, is famous enough to take advantage of it, and managed this lifestyle poorly. His status in the comics/nerdy interest world was sufficient to allow him to form a sort of rolling soft harem of young (younger than him anyway) women around the English-speaking world. His particular approach (game?) seems to have been to make these women feel special and unique, and that they had a special and unique relationship with him.

Based on the hit-site (https://somanyofus.com/) that his "victims" made, he seems to have made at least 60 or so young women feel that they had a special, unique relationship with him, many simultaneously. The Pick Up people call this “spinning plates”, keeping multiple, limited commitment, relationships all going at once. His particular approach seems to have really made these damaged women think that there was more of a future to the relationship than there really was, and he seemed prone to ‘ghosting’ them without warning. Some famous men are able to manage something not unlike this, but they usually do so through honesty about the limited future of the relationship, where these women seem to genuinely feel to have been strung along then unceremoniously dropped without notice.

Reading some of the statements in the above website, it also gives a bit of a soft cult leader vibe too. He had a rather large online presence in the 00s and interacted with his fan groups a lot, more than I’ve seen with a lot of popular artists who tend to keep a more distant approach through an agent or assistant etc. He seemed to be personally running the Warren Ellis fan forums and appointing admins/mods etc. I was very active online then, but was never much of a comics reader, though many of my friends were. I don’t remember any other artists/authors being this directly involved in their own fandoms. He paid a lot of attention to his forums, fan groups, and the events they held, always keeping an eye out for one of his "type" of woman, who he would then begin to directly message.

The hit-site is worth reading, I think, at least for young (and maybe not so young) men. Particularly the “Testimonials” (https://somanyofus.com/testimonials)

It’s an incredible collection of the wide variety of red flags they may encounter interacting with modern, western women, and object lessons on the dangers of mishandling your interactions with the same.

Thanks for the exhaustive reply. What's the type of woman you're referring to, though? Should I be able to infer that from context? (Aside from "young, attractive") Sorry if that's on the website you linked, I haven't read it yet

How many others just saw this post in the comments feed and went "Wait, why would Neil Gaiman be moderating Warren Ellis fan forums?" before clicking it?

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It appeared to me to be the typical 'guy who likes kinky things who got consent before engaging but isn't handsome enough to retain consent in the face of metoo' thing, but he apologised for it and who, aside from The Shadow, knows what lurks in the hearts of men?

What did you think of transmetropolitan? I might be disappointed in him, but that doesn't affect his work and Ellis is one of my favourite modern authors. Transmetropolitan was the last work of his I read though (it was basically impossible to get here for a long time) and I found it a bit of a slog. His later works are a lot more editor friendly.

Wrote a whole post on it:

https://alexanderturok.substack.com/p/somewhere-in-america-2

Agreed that we don't need bioethics to answer generally applicable questions like 'Should a pair of sodomites buy a child from a desperate woman to raise themselves?'. But in specific cases like priority for organ transplants it still has a use.

"Bioethics" has not done a single good thing since it was thought up and belongs on the railroad tracks.

But what if I don’t pull the lever?

and subject ourselves to egregorian evolution (usually, Moloch)

Why is it egregorian and not just normal evolution? Of course, some have considered even the normal kind to be Moloch, but I dont think thats why youre saying.

We step outside our species, however slightly

It is human nature to have no home in this sense.

if we ever do I think it will be an extinction-class event for our species

The lesson of many x-risk discussions is that actual extinction is on the table much more rarely than it seems. It certainly will be very euessentialistic though. I agree that in the rationalsphere, the people who like transhumanism and the ones who should dont overlap all that much.

Why is it egregorian and not just normal evolution?

Biological evolution gives us individuals. Egregores are (roughly) patterns of collective action. The latter is emergent from the former; this is not metaphysically uncontroversial, but I don't think reductionism is useful in this particular context. YMMV!

Yes, but humans are also biologically selected for certain patterns of collective action - thats part of normal evolution for a social species.

The most interesting questions arise from the idea of the memetic immune system. What pressures does natural selection exert on the memetic immune system?

An egregore is in competition for minds with other egregores, much as a fox is in competition for rabbits with other foxes, but with a twist. Human minds are not its food, but its substrate. Call an egregore fertile if it encourages the women it occupies (cordyceps?) to have many children. Call an egregore barren if it discourages this. Natural selection works on egregores to improve their own reproduction, we might call this their infectivity, but also to be fertile rather than barren so that they have more substrate to infect. Meanwhile natural selection works on the human genome, hoping to generate subtle memetic immune systems that are vulnerable to fertile egregores, but resistant to barren egregores.

You could go all in on reductionism and say it is just natural selection, but this will be an obstacle to understanding the tangled mess when people and egregores are evolving a subtle mutualism.

Another more subtle selective pressure in this scenario is for egregores to encourage other woman to pass around barren egregores, and to discourage other woman to pass around fertile egregores.

One might suppose that this also results in selective pressures on the human genome to be asymptomatic carriers of barren egregores (i.e. pass them on to other woman, but to not be actually affected by it themselves). And the opposite for fertile egregores - i.e. to be heavily affected by them but not pass them on to others.

Again, all of these are more subtle effects in the presence of limited total resources.

Yes, but humans are also biologically selected for certain patterns of collective action - thats part of normal evolution for a social species.

...did you even look at the link, maybe? Or read what I wrote about reductionism not being useful in the context of this conversation? You're not saying anything I don't know, but perhaps more importantly, you're not saying anything you shouldn't anticipate me knowing. In the end, we're presumably all just subatomic particles doing what subatomic particles do! Your question was "why is it egregorian and not just normal evolution" and my answer was "because evolution describes biological patterns and arrangements, while egregores describe social patterns and arrangments." Your response appears to be "nah those aren't different things" but they are at least as different as diamond and graphite, for which we have different words despite their consisting of the same atomic substrate.

Maybe it would just be simpler to point out that British-descended humans in Britain, America, and Australia clearly share "normal evolution" in common--but not egregorian memespace?

Or maybe I just don't understand your question at all.

You said that transhumanism is "subjecting ourselves to egregorian evolution". Im saying that biological evolution already has egregorian emerging things. My point is not whether the egregorians reduce or anything, its whether "Now with transhumanism, we are under the influence of egregorian evolution, whereas previous evolution didnt have that".

I did not understand your question at all!

I think the answer will depend on where one draws a number of lines within important continua. Not everyone agrees (as far as I know) on the extent to which human civilization (and related egregore(s)) has or has not guided human biological evolution, so I didn't want to hinge my argument on prior agreement on that particular point. But I'm sure there is more than one way to usefully conceptualize the problem; if you prefer, for example, it wouldn't be incompatible with the substance of my post to suggest instead that competing egregores are at issue.

Not everyone agrees (as far as I know) on the extent to which human civilization (and related egregore(s)) has or has not guided human biological evolution

Right, because the part thats old enough that were sure it has is not called "civilisation". We certainly have some adaptations to language use for example, and its development was an emergent social thing.

it wouldn't be incompatible with the substance of my post to suggest instead that competing egregores are at issue.

You mean like this?

euessentialistic

Please explain.

Well its not eugenic in a strict sense, because uploads or whatever dont have genes, and even if genes do stick around, rewriting means that they live according to the mind now. And yet, there will in many ways be persistent tendencies that are selected upon - the principles of evolution dont need any specific theory of inheritance.

This made me think a lot and I broadly agree. I think by applying technology to ourselves in unthinking ways we make ourselves lesser, somehow.

Personally I think we need to incorporate technology into sacred ritual, especially when it treads on things so fundamental.

Praise the Omnissiah.

I really don't see this as a compelling concern.

The 'Human Experience' is incredibly diverse, to say the least. Is an orphan, someone raised in an institution and lacking any parents, less human because of it?

I find that impossible to entertain.

Orphans do poorly mostly because of selection effects, especially if we consider extend our consideration to those who were abandoned by less than scrupulous birth parents but had the misfortune of still inheriting their genes (the only thing they got out of that bum deal).

Another illustrative case is that comparative studies show that most of the harms of not being raised with a father in the household arise from deadbeat dads, those who lost their fathers to sickness or accidents come out as normal as anyone else.

I have great contempt for most so-called ethicists, and as far as I'm concerned, mutually positive sum transactions between consenting individuals should be accepted, if not celebrated. Humans are finicky things, and the idea of surrogacy doesn't mean that the woman who bore the child escapes the hormonal and emotional consequences despite knowing on an intellectual level that the baby growing in their wombs isn't genetically related to them. But if they signed a contract accepting this, then that's that. I understand surrendering the baby might be immensely painful, and is an entirely legitimate feeling. After all, nobody is particularly surprised by adoptive parents being fond of their adopted children.

If this woman agreed to birth the child, even if it was her eggs that were used in the process, then I do not see any room for her to complain about handing the baby to Altman and his husband. Not that there's any evidence of this, I'm not aware of someone weeping and wailing on television, bemoaning that a cruel near-billionaire has snatched a waif away from her breast. She might not even want any publicity.

I fail to see much reason to care if future humans are gestated in the 'ol biological 3D printer, or in an external replica of such. At the very least, it's a technology with massive positive potential in a world with declining birth rates, and anything that makes the process of reproduction less of a hassle has its merits. I don't see the downsides as being worth much airtime in this case.

I have great contempt for most so-called ethicists, and as far as I'm concerned, mutually positive sum transactions between consenting individuals should be accepted, if not celebrated.

Would you say the same about the sale of heroin between a dealer and a buyer?

If your answer is anything but yes, doesn't that suggest there are at least some cases where making the option of something available is a net negative to at least one of the individuals in question, even when they are able to consent?

Yes. I'd legalize the sale of heroin from a buyer to the seller. I'd be okay with heavy taxes on it, and would absolutely be for imposing strict penalties on all the negative externalities it would cause.

If someone buys heroin and does it in their home without hassling anyone else, that's their business. If they become addicted and commit crime, then they should face punishment. If they lose their jobs and need to be bailed out, that should be conditional on a good faith attempt at seeking medical treatment and adhering to the treatment regime prescribed.

You won't catch me going on the street protesting for it to be legalized, because I have better things to do, but I wouldn't stand in the way.

After all, I am in the business of occasionally needing to prescribe fentanyl and morphine, and given that the patient pays for it directly, or indirectly through taxes or insurance, that counts as selling it. Doctors are, among other things, fent dealers. If that can be done without causing society to collapse in flames, other alternative arrangements might well work.

Both doctors and society in general has a duty of care that extends in not providing people heroin. Now there is a balance to this that means that fredom tm and other considerations might matter with certain less harmful substances enough, but there is a line.

I think we had a discussion about this before, but that you don't care about the line doesn't mean that you aren't breaking clear good ethical norms here that a doctor especially shouldn't break. Doctors are especially the kind of people who ought to think about what is their patient's best interest and not what their patient might be requesting at the moment.

It is in fact immoral and parasitic to profit from selling what is harmful to others. There can be a debate about some more grey areas, but there is a line above which it becomes pretty clear that you have activity that is just harming people.

But aren't addicts morally culpable on a significant level? Of course. Although there might be some more sympathetic stories. But so are people selling heroin and to a lesser extend those allowing them to do so. You discourage and condemn all three to get a society without the malaise of significant drug addiction and death due to it. While you allow, encourage, and side with all three to get the society with these problems. It is a choice that will end with the different outcomes with a clear right and wrong side.

I think we had a discussion about this before, but that you don't care about the line doesn't mean that you aren't breaking clear good ethical norms here that a doctor especially shouldn't break. Doctors are especially the kind of people who ought to think about what is their patient's best interest and not what their patient might be requesting at the moment.

I'd like to point that there's a distinction between a random person selling someone else heroin, and me doing the same thing. I would, of course, hold myself to a higher standard and not disburse it if it wasn't a necessity. That's what I would do if ever had to prescribe diamorphine, the term used not to scare the hoes.

Even in a setting where the usual legal and ethical constraints I'm obliged to follow (if I wish to keep my license) were waived, if someone came up to asking heroin, and it wasn't in the context of overwhelming pain in a hospital, I'd politely tell them I'm not comfortable doing that, and that they should look elsewhere.

I am okay with letting other people do things that might harm them, especially if they know what they're getting into, that doesn't mean I want to make things worse myself.

It is in fact immoral and parasitic to profit from selling what is harmful to others. There can be a debate about some more grey areas, but there is a line above which it becomes pretty clear that you have activity that is just harming people.

Sure. I'm happy to concede that. I don't think that changes my overall stance that blanket illegality shouldn't be the means of regulating this.

If I'm allowed to daydream, everyone old enough to vote takes a Rational Adult exam, potentially one that's subdivided into multiple ascending tiers of difficulty. The more you pass, the more you are allowed to do, because the presumption is that you've proven yourself intelligent enough to be responsible for yourself. For an existence proof, look at driving tests.

Maybe have people pay for bonds. Maybe allow insurance companies to charge them more for risky behavior. Tax negative external ties and strongly punish anything that spills out of personal bounds.

But aren't addicts morally culpable on a significant level? Of course. Although there might be some more sympathetic stories. But so are people selling heroin and to a lesser extend those allowing them to do so. You discourage and condemn all three to get a society without the malaise of significant drug addiction and death due to it. While you allow, encourage, and side with all three to get the society with these problems. It is a choice that will end with the different outcomes with a clear right and wrong side.

I don't really care about moral culpability, at best I consider it an occasionally useful fiction. You get a pass if you've got a brain tumor or something, that's the way people look at things.

I don't condone giving heroin away to school children. I am willing to look away when an adult buys it off another adult with no coercion involved. If it's a situation where coercion is the default assumption, have them sign a legal contract first. I see liberty that extends only to doing things that society deems are Good For You a pale imitation of the real deal, and I accept the consequences.

If I'm allowed to daydream, everyone old enough to vote takes a Rational Adult exam, potentially one that's subdivided into multiple ascending tiers of difficulty. The more you pass, the more you are allowed to do, because the presumption is that you've proven yourself intelligent enough to be responsible for yourself. For an existence proof, look at driving tests.

Maybe have people pay for bonds. Maybe allow insurance companies to charge them more for risky behavior. Tax negative external ties and strongly punish anything that spills out of personal bounds.

So, you don't like "blanket illegality" for heroin, but you are totally ok with a kind of authoritarian state evaluation (with follow on coerced financial behavior) of your intelligence, psychology, and ability for self-determination.

Yes?

Have you ever had to take a driving test? Do you want to legally prescribe heroin? You'd have to sit for a medical licensing exam after med school. This isn't a massive deviation from normality.

Nowhere does it say that these have to be particularly onerous exams, except potentially at the most extreme end. Basic franchises should be accessible by someone who doesn't have a learning disability, a reversal of the situation where we extend blanket permission for non-illegal acts, and only then restrict freedom for those, such as the mentally retarded or grannies with dementia, who can't be expected to take responsibility for their own safety and well-being.

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I'd like to point that there's a distinction between a random person selling someone else heroin, and me doing the same thing. I would, of course, hold myself to a higher standard and not disburse it if it wasn't a necessity. That's what I would do if ever had to prescribe diamorphine, the term used not to scare the hoes.

Surely the same duty that applies to you, applies to others. Doctors are probably going to be a source of the drugs.

Even in a setting where the usual legal and ethical constraints I'm obliged to follow (if I wish to keep my license) were waived, if someone came up to asking heroin, and it wasn't in the context of overwhelming pain in a hospital, I'd politely tell them I'm not comfortable doing that, and that they should look elsewhere.

It isn't just something that you simply aren't comfortable of doing but a moral obligation that extends to other doctors and people in general. It is a duty not to do it and such an important duty that they ought to be restricted from selling what is essentially addictive poison.

I don't really care about moral culpability, at best I consider it an occasionally useful fiction. You get a pass if you've got a brain tumor or something, that's the way people look at things.

It is not a fiction however but central to morality. Someone who is selling heroin to others is a terrible person who engages in what is correctly treated as a criminal activity.

I see liberty that extends only to doing things that society deems are Good For You a pale imitation of the real deal, and I accept the consequences.

In this case, it isn't about what society deems to be good for you but what is genuinely good for you.

Which heroin definitely is not. The freedom to take and sell heroin is not a worthy one. It also hardly the case that liberty is enshrined here when the end result is someone who becomes an addict. There is a higher liberty that is satisfied by not selling and not buying heroin, morally condemning the practice, and restricting it as well.

It is also about what kind of society you want and will get. Your hiding a refusal to do the pro social duty behind liberty.

Another analogous case would be making it illegal to put poison in food even if there is a willing buyer who is unaware.

Allowing selling your self or one's dependents to slavery, or selling your eyes, would also be the kind of thing that reduces liberty, and doesn't enshrine it. I don't see liberty but slavery when looking at drug addicts.

I would agree however that any moral obligation and any paternalism towards addicts and others who make poor decisions should be limited or else it becomes pathological altruism and parasitical at expense of more productive citizens.

Noblese oblige and paternalism only so far but it does include having a society that tries not to take advantage of these kind of people.

If I'm allowed to daydream, everyone old enough to vote takes a Rational Adult exam, potentially one that's subdivided into multiple ascending tiers of difficulty. The more you pass, the more you are allowed to do, because the presumption is that you've proven yourself intelligent enough to be responsible for yourself. For an existence proof, look at driving tests.

What you are proposing would be a betrayal to the principle of no regulation = liberty.

Plus smart people even though less than others, do stupid self destructive things too. Having a country that restricts heroin and has policies that lead to less drug abuse would result in a country that some of the people who were to become addicts would have lead successful lives. Avoiding having places that are notoriously filled with "zombies".

Maybe this makes sense for something like crypto but makes less sense for heroin. Your proposal would surely lead to more restrictions than just banning the worst things.

It does make sense for some industries to limit them in some capacity when it comes to gambling, porn ,etc. Still, the fact that you are willing to support something much more restrictive does undermine the claim that liberty to sell and buy heroin is an important principle. It is not. The duty of caring about the end result of heroin being sold and bought is a much more important consideration.

Surely the same duty that applies to you, applies to others. Doctors are going to be a source of the drugs.

Why? If we're restricting ourselves to what seems to be a rather minarchist AnCap Utopia, why is it that only doctors would be licensed to sell it?

Once again, my own views, and not representative of current reality:

Anyone can get a license to prescribe anything. They go to a government body that makes them pay a recurring sum that is a fair estimate of expected negative externalities, or what would have come out of the public purse. For highly addictive drugs, this would certainly be an enormous sum. It might even be legally required to buy insurance on the free market. Think of this as a more generalized form of malpractice insurance as paid by doctors, if you don't show proof of funds then too bad for you.

It might be framed as a bond, due to be returned with interest after X years, but any violations would be deducted from it. If they sold to someone with an Adult Card, then they'd be cleared of much of the liability.

It is not a fiction however but central to morality. Someone who is selling heroin to others is a horrible person.

Good luck on getting people to come to a true consensus on what is "good for you". A stable equilibrium is allowing people to choose for themselves, as long as they don't abuse the privilege by hurting others.

As far as I'm concerned, the State should not be in the business of being a nanny, and if it insists, then people should be allowed to opt out or form enclaves of like-minded people.

What you are proposing would be a betrayal to the principle of no regulation = liberty.

I re-iterate that I'm not a monomaniacal zealot. This counts as a concession, a mild step back from Absolute Freedom (or outright anarchy). I think your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

I am willing to trade away a non-zero amount of freedom for other terminal values I have. I just value freedom more than most.

Plus smart people even though less than others, do stupid self destructive things too. Maybe this makes sense for something like crypto but makes less sense for heroin. Your proposal would surely lead to more restrictions than just banning the worst things.

I disagree. We currently do something maybe sorta kinda like what I propose, but in a half-baked manner without underlying guiding thought more than the whims of the Current Year.

It does make sense for some industries to limit them in some capacity when it comes to gambling, porn,etc. Still, the fact that you are willing to support something much more restrictive does undermine the claim that liberty to sell and buy heroin is an important principle. It is not. The duty of caring about the end result towards one fellow's man is more important here.

That is your opinion. I express my love and sense of duty towards my "fellow man" by hoping I can treat them like intelligent adults who can decide for themselves, and ask the same in turn.

Would do you think of the ability to bring back to life basically people who overdose? I forget the name of the drug but it starts with an N if memory serves. Maybe Narcan or something like that.

You're correct, though Narcan is a brand name.

What about it? I mean, I feel like most people have no objection to its existence, and consider it a very good thing to have around. You might have a few junkies start whaling on you because you ruined a perfectly good high as far they were concerned (they don't care about the fact that they stopped breathing).

You talked about making junkies internalize their costs whilst narcan seems to be the opposite.

I'm not a zealot, you won't see me holding a copy of Atlas Shrugged while putting a padlock on a public park.

In the UK, I've never seen Narcan dispensers in public. I presume only paramedics would carry them.

In the US? I've heard of them being in half the stores, people carrying them just in case, and so on.

If someone feels morally obliged to whip it out when they see an addict ODing, why on earth would I condemn the kindness of strangers? If they weren't carrying anything, and didn't do more than call 911 and walk away, I won't condemn them either.

Don't get me wrong. I think the opioid epidemic in the US needs addressing. I'm all for rounding up junkies and making them take their meds and go through a rehab program, but because they're criminals, a public nuisance and causing social chaos, not because they're drug-users.

I also think that in countries with publicly funded healthcare, states should have the right to deny coverage to those who refuse to address behaviors that impose exorbitant costs. You might be saved and treated free of charge the first time, but if you don't comply with further advice, then I don't object to the public washing their hands of you as a lost cause.

Some diseases are unavoidable, it's not like anyone asks to develop Type 1 diabetes or schizophrenia. I'm far more sympathetic to such cases, but not sane people who know the risks of addiction and show no signs of stopping, while expecting the rest of us to pick up after them.

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The 'Human Experience' is incredibly diverse, to say the least. Is an orphan, someone raised in an institution and lacking any parents, less human because of it?

I think so, yes, but I think you have already used the phrase "less human" in a way that I was trying, however perhaps poorly, to move away from. I mean it in the same way that is meant when someone, after a long day of grimy work, emerges from a shower and says, "Ah! I feel human again."

Consider it this way: is it a tragedy, to be orphaned? Like--if there was a shortage of orphans, would it be okay to deliberately make some?

Because yes--yes, of course!--it is better for a child to be raised by loving and involved adopted parents (of whatever kind) than to be institutionalized, "raised" in the absence of intimate family relationships. Adoption is a little bit (if you're willing to limit the metaphor) like chemotherapy, or post-trauma limb amputation. You do it to save people from greater harm, but it's not the sort of thing you would do absent the initial tragedy. You don't adopt children because adoption is totally cool and we should make more orphans so more people can do it, you adopt children because something tragic has occurred that can't be perfectly fixed but maybe we can mitigate the harm.

If this woman agreed to birth the child, even if it was her eggs that were used in the process, then I do not see any room for her to complain about handing the baby to Altman and his husband.

Well, sure, probably she can't complain, at the personal level: she agreed to be used. She rented out her womb. But whether it's good public policy to let people rent out their wombs is not just a question of personal liberty. If we let people sell their organs, or become prostitutes, or replace their brains with digital machinery, that doesn't just change the lives of those who have consented to the change. It changes the cultural landscape. (If we allow people to sell themselves into slavery, this would be bad for society even if each individual involved was fully consenting.) Hence my reference to egregores like Moloch--everyone can individually be doing what is actually best for themselves, given the circumstances, and this can give rise to horrifying circumstances that no individual within the system can, or would even choose, to change.

I would like transhumanism to be deliberate, in other words, rather than allowing it to emerge accidentally.

I fail to see much reason to care if future humans are gestated in the 'ol biological 3D printer, or in an external replica of such.

I'm not saying you should be mad if future humans are bio-printed. I'm saying bio-printed people won't be humans, so it's a better future where our decision to bio-print transhumans fully accounts for the differences that will emerge between evolved beings, and designed ones. Especially if (when) the designed ones become noticeably superior in every way, given our own tendency to use as commodities those beings we regard as beneath us. If transhumans share this tendency, such future humans as may remain will be in some trouble.

Consider it this way: is it a tragedy, to be orphaned? Like--if there was a shortage of orphans, would it be okay to deliberately make some?

Obviously not if the only way to manufacture orphans required their parents to be put to the sword.

But even today, that's not the case. Let's consider the entirely plausible hypothetical where someone's preserved eggs and semen outlasted them. There are couples who are entirely infertile, and unable to have biologically related children. Would I object if they wanted to create a child by going to a gene bank and getting a surrogate to birth a child whose biological parents were no longer alive?

Not at all. I see nothing wrong with that, everyone wins. Even the kid, because as far as I'm concerned, it's far better to be alive than not, and that's while grappling with severe clinical depression. Life is good! More lives are good!

Would anything change if instead of a surrogate, the couple seeking to adopt used an artificial womb? Not as far as I'm concerned, assuming mature technology with no deleterious effects on the child.

I hope that it illustrates that its possible, and good to at least sometimes create orphans when demand exceeds supply.

Well, sure, probably she can't complain, at the personal level: she agreed to be used. She rented out her womb. But whether it's good public policy to let people rent out their wombs is not just a question of personal liberty. If we let people sell their organs, or become prostitutes, or replace their brains with digital machinery, that doesn't just change the lives of those who have consented to the change. It changes the cultural landscape.

And I'm entirely fine with this change in the social landscape, or at the very least, I won't seek to oppose when it conflicts with my desire to maximize human liberty. I understand why people might disagree, I just consider it none of their business what I or other sane adults get up to in our spare time, of our own volition.

If someone tries to stop me from enhancing myself, with my own funds and my own body and mind at stake, then I'm not a man easily moved to violence, but I'd be looking for a gun.

The alternative to radical transhumanism is growing old and infirm, my brain rotting away and becoming riddled with holes like cheese gnawed by microscopic rodents. If the alternative is the same death that murdered the 97 billion anatomically modern humans before us, I am willing to fight to live. There is no way that is feasible without transhumanism.

Fortunately, as far as I'm concerned, this unlikely to come to pass, and the bio-chauvinists and luddites are unlikely to stop all progress.

Hence my reference to egregores like Moloch--everyone can individually be doing what is actually best for themselves, given the circumstances, and this can give rise to horrifying circumstances that no individual within the system can, or would even choose, to change.

I acknowledge Moloch as the Great Enemy. I do not think surrogacy or artificial wombs feeds it, and certainly doesn't strengthen it more than it strengthens us.

I would like transhumanism to be deliberate, in other words, rather than allowing it to emerge accidentally.

This is sadly a lost cause. But even I want transhumanism to be optional, and I have no issue with people who don't seek to embrace it. If people want to cling to the baseline human form, let them. I'm for being generous to them, giving them food and shelter, outright UBI. All I ask is that they don't get in the way of those with higher ambitions. And if their excuse is that they can't let me do as I wish, when it doesn't directly harm them, then the only option is war. I don't want that, but I'll do it if necessary. The tree of liberty might need regular watering.

I'm not saying you should be mad if future humans are bio-printed. I'm saying bio-printed people won't be humans, so it's a better future where our decision to bio-print transhumans fully accounts for the differences that will emerge between evolved beings, and designed ones. Especially if (when) the designed ones become noticeably superior in every way, given our own tendency to use as commodities those beings we regard as beneath us. If transhumans share this tendency, such future humans as may remain will be in some trouble.

I disagree that such people aren't human. I do, however, think that they are a better class of human than we are. Smarter, stronger, likely more moral and less prone to our failings. I seek to become them, and if that's not an option, ennoble my descendants.

Are baseline humans quite rightly concerned by the possibility of such a superior clade? Hell yes.

If they're not slightly anxious about potential replacement by beings smarter and more powerful than you, then they're a moron. You will inevitably find yourself at their mercy.

I, however, think it is possible to carefully engineer such posthumans, being they biological or otherwise, to still have empathy for their precursors. To actually extend us mercy, when we're at theirs. Any who can join them, should. We should also coordinate to prevent a Molochian tragedy where the universe is colonized by ever spreading swarms of minimally sentient Von Neumanns. But this doesn't stop me from being ready to fight to be better, and more free.

Surrogacy is unpalatable, it is only legal because users of surrogates are mostly wealthy and influential. Should it be illegal? I’m less certain there. Plenty of unethical things aren’t illegal.

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in pretty much the entire Europe, and altruistic surrogacy is illegal in most of it.

Lots of things done by low-class people are unpalatable but not illegal, such as being obese, having kids out of wedlock, smoking cigarettes, having tattoos, etc.

These things are, however, strongly stigmatized by tastemakers.

Smoking is probably the only one of those that's actually stigmatized today. Body positivity has normalized obesity. My PMC female friend is considering having kids with her boyfriend without marriage. 20% of high income people have tattoos.

Body positivity has normalized obesity.

Has it actually, or do people just pretend that?

I never found false consciousness arguments convincing and I'm not about to start.

Of course, with the advent of ozempic, this question is going to be completely moot in the near future.

You'd think so, but there is that one famous case of a husband who sued his wife for fraud because she had such extensive amounts of plastic surgery that his children came out ugly and he felt betrayed. We toy with natural selection at our own risk.

Best case scenario this ends up like toothbrushes and glasses. Worst case scenario it ends up as diabetes.

Given that the obesity epidemic almost certainly has approximately nothing to do with genetics and obesity is not even selected against (do fatter people have fewer kids? I doubt it), I'm not sure I see the connection to natural selection.

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I don't find it unpalatable in the least, and it would be a stretch to call me wealthy or influential. I'm not even a likely customer.

I find the instinctive flinch away from it as sheer stupidity, especially when countries like India now ban surrogacy for pay.

I look to such people, and think: You're telling me that it's legal and widely accepted for someone to work in a sweatshop making textiles for a year and only maybe make a few thousand dollars at best, and them having to undergo pregnancy for 9 months for potentially several dozen times the sum is somehow worse!

We all sell our bodies and limited time under the sun to make ends meet. And we all pay an emotional toll for it, unless you're lucky enough to have a job that you'd do for free. The only question is if you're being paid enough to make that worth your while, and a childless couple offering ~$50k to poor woman in the Third World represents a sum that will set up both her and her future children for life.

I contend that it is neither unethical nor illegal in the least, and that the world would be a much better place if people didn't let their innate disgust reactions or severely miscalibrated notions of fairness lead them around by the nose.

Well I feel you're being consistent here with your belief system based on what I understand of it, so I won't necessarily argue with you, and I certainly won't say your view is "sheer stupidity," but from my point of view there are many points besides the purely materialist view of conception and birth as simple physical acts.

If one subscribes to a purely materialist view (as possibly you do), your argument makes a certain sense--though your analogy of surrogacy as just another job collecting a big paycheck for work done seems pretty thin to me. There is no equivalent to motherhood for a man that comes to my mind, and you and I as men are therefore just in our heads here. Going out on a hypothetical limb, what if you could saw off your own leg and donate that to another person, who was for some reason one-legged? Would you make the argument that the mendicant who did so would be in no way being exploited, that hey we all work for the man one way or another, this is just a logical and acceptable extension of that? It's a weak analogy and to my knowledge this isn't quite possible, but a similar (again, not exact) principle applies.

You write:

especially when countries like India now ban surrogacy for pay.

Do you think this law is equally stupid? If so, why?

There's something metaphysical (in the most literal sense of that word) about motherhood, much that we do not understand about maternal bonding to children (or paternal bonding, for that matter). I am not sure that we are yet at the point where we are as a species ready for gestational surrogacy, or if that point will ever come.

I appreciate you extending charity and noticing that my worldview is, to the best of my understanding, consistent, even if it's unusual.

Going out on a hypothetical limb, what if you could saw off your own leg and donate that to another person, who was for some reason one-legged? Would you make the argument that the mendicant who did so would be in no way being exploited, that hey we all work for the man one way or another, this is just a logical and acceptable extension of that? It's a weak analogy and to my knowledge this isn't quite possible, but a similar (again, not exact) principle applies.

I think paid organ donations should be legal, though a leg would be a difficult one to pull off.

So yes, I think it should be legal, and if the donor had capacity to make decisions, and was being compensated at a rate he was happy with, I see no other reason to disagree.

If they wanted my leg, I wouldn't say there isn't a sum that wouldn't buy it, but it has a lot of zeroes in it. Someone elsewhere would probably do it for much cheaper. And there are people who'd pay for the privilege, either as a fetish or because of a weird disease that convinces them that their legs shouldn't be attached to them.

Do you think this law is equally stupid? If so, why?

I've elaborated elsewhere in the comment chain, but the gist of it is that I consider it a transaction at the end of the day, it might be an expensive one, but I consider most things fungible, and I think there are easily sums of money that leave the adoptive parents and the surrogates happy about the arrangement.

There's something metaphysical (in the most literal sense of that word) about motherhood, much that we do not understand about maternal bonding to children (or paternal bonding, for that matter). I am not sure that we are yet at the point where we are as a species ready for gestational surrogacy, or if that point will ever come.

I mean, you do see that I disagree on the metaphysics here, and I haven't heard of most surrogacy arrangements ending badly, not that I know any personally. Definitionally, the ones in the news are either because they're celebs, or because something went wrong. I think that's not true for the majority.

We all sell our bodies and limited time under the sun to make ends meet.

I've never had an employer or customer put something inside me for even a moment, let alone nine months.

And we all pay an emotional toll for it, unless you're lucky enough to have a job that you'd do for free.

I wouldn't do my current job for free. But I also enjoy talking about it - and find no shame it doing so - with my friends, family, and other acquaintances. Sometimes I have stressful days, but I don't end every day or week thinking, "A what a fucking emotional toll I had to pay!" In fact, I'm quite excited about my job because it lets me do all these other cool things with friends and families - and I feel like I really am creating some tangible value on a day to day basis.

I've never had an employer or customer put something inside me for even a moment, let alone nine months.

And this matters why? What qualitative difference does it make? Has your employer ever needed you to put in earphones? Or go through a health checkup?

If you don't like the terms and conditions, don't sign the contract.

I wouldn't do my current job for free. But I also enjoy talking about it - and find no shame it doing so - with my friends, family, and other acquaintances. Sometimes I have stressful days, but I don't end every day or week thinking, "A what a fucking emotional toll I had to pay!" In fact, I'm quite excited about my job because it lets me do all these other cool things with friends and families - and I feel like I really am creating some tangible value on a day to day basis.

Jobs vary, from the fulfilling to drudgery, from the stressful, to the relaxed. Mine certainly has its ups and downs, and it isn't all things I currently do for free online if someone were to politely ask. Getting pregnant and making $50k in 9 months strikes me as a much better deal than having to break your back laboring for the same sum, or have it represent life-time earnings, as would be the case in the Third World for many surrogates.

Someone having to work at McDonald's after their PhD in Underwater Basket Weaving failed to net them the jobs they dreamed of is obviously unhappy about it, and probably embarrassed to disclose it to friends and family. There are many low prestige jobs out there. Some of them even pay a premium to account for the fact it's not most people's first choice.

There is a categorical difference between an employer requesting you put in ear phones or get a health check up (both of which you can refuse) and agreeing upon incubating a human inside of you for nine months in order to receive payment. If you're saying "No, it's just a difference in degree" then we have an intractable disagreement.

Regarding job quality and relative value, my response was when you asserted "we all pay an emotional toll" - which I think is incorrect. Some people do, absolutely. All of us do not.

I can't quite follow your thread on McDonalds PhDs etc. It seems to me your argument is roughly "find the best mix of compensation / perceived labor / emotional stress" and go from there. Valid enough, but I'd argue there are jobs that may in fact be pay well, be low in labor requirements, and have limited emotional stress that you shouldn't take - drug dealer, pornstar etc. (although, I'd also argue that those "jobs" specifically have high emotional stress - those that do not feel emotional stress in those "jobs" are perhaps demonstrating dissociative or anti-social mental states)

There is a categorical difference between an employer requesting you put in ear phones or get a health check up (both of which you can refuse) and agreeing upon incubating a human inside of you for nine months in order to receive payment. If you're saying "No, it's just a difference in degree" then we have an intractable disagreement.

I mean, outside of obvious coercion and indentured servitude, the surrogates can say no. I'm perfectly fine with coercion being illegal, I just don't think the usual argument that the difference in wealthy is necessarily coercive is worth a damn. I don't have a womb, but for the typical sum quoted, I would say I'd at least be interested.

Let's say you have a physically active job, and you've got clapped out knees. When you protest at being assigned field work, I see no reason why the employer can't ask you to get surgery to fix your knees, if a desk job is not a mutually acceptable option. You have the right to refuse, and find another job. That is, technically, something being put inside you for the purposes of work. At any rate, I don't see the qualitative difference between something in or outside you, as long as you agree to it.

This got me thinking a bit about surrogacy laws and how this plays out in the culture war. In my own country, the Netherlands, specifically commercial surrogacy is banned, but if you can find someone who wants to do it out of altruism, it is legal. This runs into some complications where people go to countries with laxer laws (usually poor third world countries) and get a commercial surrogate there. My impressions is that while this touches on a lot of culture war issues, it somehow is a rare issue that does not always follow established culture war lines. What I mean is that while conservatives are generally opposed to it, I have seen progressives both ardently in favour from a perspective of support for LGBT people but other leftists ardently opposed because they view it as something which in practice often amounts to rich white men exploiting poor brown women in third world countries. I suppose there is also probably a libertarian line where you don't care about it as long as everybody involved consents.

This leads to the strange result that when I look at a map on wikipedia concerning surrogacy laws, it appears at least commercial surrogacy is banned throughout most of the world, but it is legal in for instance California, Vermont, Texas, Florida and Russia. California and Vermont being on the same side as Texas, Florida and Russia on a controversial medical-ethical practice which touches on LGBT culture war stuff, with places e.g. Norway, Germany, Michigan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on the other extreme, is pretty remarkable to me.

I'm afraid I won't be able to provide your steelman for you though, because as far as I'm concerned, at least if Sam Altman and his husband paid for the surrogacy they ought to be jailed for human trafficking.

Surrogacy is mostly opposed by religious interests(who are a perpetual junior partner in red state politics and have far less influence than commonly believed in Russia) and actual radical feminists, of the sort who have more influence overseas. Pro-business types and less radical feminists and LGBT supporters are generally in favor.

(Not directed at OP, just a general statement).

I cannot adequately express how vile I find this practice. To buy a child, to pay a woman to bring into this world a baby that (presumably) she doesn’t want so that you can take it from her breast forever, is to my mind one of the worst crimes that you can commit, and I can’t fathom why we don’t punish it accordingly.

It’s not much better if the buyers are an infertile male/female pair. Yes, at least the child will have a mother figure but you have knowingly taken it away from its actual mother, forever. As for the mother, a woman abandoning her child should be a tragic and rare fact of life, not a business practice.

And no, fucking around with eggs and sperm so that the child isn’t even related to the woman in whose womb it rests for 9 months doesn’t make it better. It’s a base practice designed to obfuscate the nature of the transaction.

Some people can’t have children. That’s just the way it is. ‘Solving’ it with prostitution and (from the child’s perspective) kidnapping is supremely selfish and from my perspective absolutely unacceptable in a society with any pretensions to morality.

Funny. I have the complete opposite problem. To me, the adopter is obviously the “actual mother,” and merits all the accolades and judgments we heap upon a woman who raises her own child.

I can see how the transactional part is unsavory in the same way that I might find an imperial harem objectionable. Commoditizing anything reproductive gets my hackles up. But that’s still not an objection to the legitimacy of adoption.

This does not seem like the right counterfactual to compare against.

In the absence of a gay couple doing this, what happens? The surrogate and egg donor (same or otherwise) don't have a kid. Neither does the couple.

In an actual kidnapping, the alternative is the kid actually living with his family. Here it's the kid not existing in the first place.

I just want to echo an agreement here. And also: what the hell is wrong with these women? You have a child. It grew inside of you for 9 months. It shares your DNA. It will cry until you come to feed and hold it.

I just don’t think it’s possible to explain to people who haven’t experienced it the bond that a child has with its mother (substantially different than its father). This woman had a kid, then sold it to two men, one of whom is the father.

This is so vile. I agree that I struggle to find something as vile as this. This is equivalent to severe child abuse, and is by all measures child trafficking.

Yes, at least the child will have a mother figure but you have knowingly taken it away from its actual mother, forever.

Such an utterly bizarre statement.

I don't know why this is bizarre. My understanding is that motherhood is a biological reality - children begin to bond with their mother in the womb, and it is distressing for them to be separated from their biological mother.

Now, obviously there may be some distressing scenarios where it is in the best interest of the child to separate them from the mother at birth. But that's a case of enacting a minor harm to prevent a major one, not a harmless move of convenience.

motherhood is a biological reality

This is correct. And Corvos would say that the person who shows up on a DNA test as the child's mother, and who raised him for eighteen years, isn't really his mother in favor of the surrogate. It's a bizarre attempt to retcon the English language in the service of the Online Right's pregnancy fetish.

Note that this is not the situation in the OP (two gay men). The child has been removed from the pregnancy-mother and from the genetic-mother. Most of the time I come across surrogacy it’s in this context.

And Corvos would say that the person who shows up on a DNA test as the child's mother, and who raised him for eighteen years, isn't really his mother in favor of the surrogate.

Although I do think that DNA (and other factors) probably plays a role in parent-child bonding, it would play no part in bonding with the mother in the womb, where the mother and child share a direct biological link and the child learns to recognize its mother's voice.

If someone kidnapped their identical twin's child as a newborn and raised them for 18 years, everything you said above would be true (and in fact, more true since the identical twin would probably have the voice of the mother), but I think most people would agree that they were not the mother's child. That's probably the direction Corvos is coming from.

It's a bizarre attempt to retcon the English language in the service of the Online Right's pregnancy fetish.

Typically the mother of a child is the one who gave birth to the child. There's no retcon here, it's just that technology has moved past what the English language originally contemplated.

As with a lot of this stuff, there's a crypto-class element to it. The low-class crack addict who gave up the baby hours after birth is a "mother" while the upper-class woman who raised the child for eighteen years isn't.

I don't see the relevance of your comment (adoption of existing children that would have gone unwanted / uncared-for) to this thread (surrogacy, commissioning a child that would not have come into this world “naturally”).

Are you trying to argue that the “muh trad”-posters in this thread are only secretly jealous of the rich gay jews commissioning the existence of children — that their sentiments here actually stem from class envy and their waxing on “playing Taboo”[colloquialism] around the word naturalism is just a front?

Some people can’t have children. That’s just the way it is. ‘Solving’ it with prostitution and (from the child’s perspective) kidnapping is supremely selfish and from my perspective absolutely unacceptable in a society with any pretensions to morality.

I know at least one woman (white, American) who "had" a child via gestational surrogacy--she is now both divorced and living about 4,800 miles (7,725 km) apart from her daughter. Life's a bitch.

Speak plainly please, what are you suggesting here?

stands awkwardly in infertility

In which case, you have my sympathy. As I said:

It’s looking like I won’t be able to have one myself, which tears me up inside. But that doesn’t mean that anything you do to have a child is right or justified.

It’s not what I’d hoped for either, but there are other ways to contribute to society.

I appreciate your sympathy, but I will not appreciate the sentiment that it “is what it is” and one of my options is a moral stain on society and I should go to jail or something. The sentiment of this “sanctity” between a birth mother and child is completely lost on me. My mother gave birth to me, I suckled on her breasts and came out of her womb blah, blah, blah, and there was not a single maternal aspect about her and no amount of biological relation did anything to help that or my proceeding siblings; if anything, I had a better shot of being raised not like a dog with literally anyone else. And observing this pattern repeatedly among my friends and even my boyfriend makes the notion of biological motherhood being superior above all else a joke to me. I’ve seen enough mothers give birth to children they have as much maternal attachment to as a toddler does to their toy to be rid of the notion there’s something special made between a biological mother and her children that can’t be replicated in any other parenting situation.

You say youre not a troll, but this is a very wordy version of "Conservatism is bad because I hate my family.".

…how so?

It looks more like someone giving a counter example to a proposed definition. Nor does it say anything about the general principle of conservatism.

What definition? Im pretty sure the disagreement is substantive. And yes, she doesnt say anything about conservatism in general - various ways of hating your family are deployed against various parts of social conservatism, and this is one of them. Maybe it would have been clearer to say "instance" instead of "version"?

Yes, at least the child will have a mother figure but you have knowingly taken it away from its actual mother, forever.

I figured they were fighting over that bit: whether or not giving birth is enough to get the special status of “actual mother.” It’s a substantive disagreement but also a definitional one.

Okay, I see what you mean by “instance.”

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Honest question for religious conservatives here, why shouldn't secular people just straight up make your religion illegal, shut down your churches, burn your bibles, etc? Sure, advocating that would lead to a politically damaging public backlash. But is there a principled reason why they shouldn't do those things?

But is there a principled reason why they shouldn't do those things?

Yes. My religion is correct. Accordingly, doing any of that is evil.

But ignoring that, as hydroacetylene says, a classical liberal might think that it would be morally wrong to do that. Further, it's not like everyone will stop if you just ask nicely. You're going to have to kill a bunch of people. What benefit do you have that's worth killing a bunch of productive citizens?

Further, it's not like everyone will stop if you just ask nicely. You're going to have to kill a bunch of people. What benefit do you have that's worth killing a bunch of productive citizens?

This is correct. You should always consider that the people you try to repress might retaliate against you violently. Religious fundamentalists should likewise consider this before trying to force their religious morality on secular people. Some people here have said that physicians in Texas are refusing to treat pregnant women as part of some pro-choice political agenda. I doubt this, but if it's true I say, what'd you expect? You think they're demonic, well, the demonic people don't feel like giving you medical treatment.

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I wonder why you wrote this here?

Under a classical liberal framework? Yes, the same principled reasons that it shouldn’t violently repress dozens or hundreds of other groups.

Under an NrX framework? Because we make good citizens and have demands compatible with flourishing societies. This doesn’t necessarily apply to other religions, but it seems to for Christianity.

Under a one-truth exclusivist framework, that reason would be ‘because we are right and you are wrong’. Obviously, you disagree. But that disagreement goes both ways.

Under a progressive move away from classical liberalism, even Scandinavia and the Netherlands prefer to tolerate their fundamentalist Christian minorities. I suspect a society willing/able to repress Christian fundamentalism is one you do not wish to live in; it probably takes China-tier totalitarianism.

I suspect a society willing/able to repress Christian fundamentalism is one you do not wish to live in; it probably takes China-tier totalitarianism.

This slippery-slope objection never seems to stop religious fundamentalists from demanding their morality be the basis of state policy, so you'll forgive me if I wonder whether it's being put fourth in good faith.

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We're several years past Blue Tribe presidential candidates running on taxing religions they don't like. And of course, Japan successfully suppressed Christianity in the 1600s, Russia in the 1900s and China in the 1950s. In the more limited context of this forum, one of the things that beat the liberalism out of me was the multiple iterations of the circumcision argument, where my opposites argued that religions have conformed themselves to society before, and therefore there's no reason not to use state power to force them to conform arbitrarily in the future. Nor is my opposition to this attitude principled; I'm happy to argue on behalf of the Jews, but I would not be willing to extend the same toleration for the more extreme forms of female genital mutilation, much less Aztec blood sacrifice.

It is entirely obvious that there is no secular, materialist reason not to ban a given religion. We ban harmful things all the time, always have and always will, and there is no objective definition of "harm" for people to resort to in situations of disagreement. It is trivial to generate a definition where conservative Christianity (or drinking alcohol, or playing video games, or teaching women to read, & etc) are serious threats that require the power of the state to suppress.

More generally, tolerance is not a moral precept. There are many good contingent arguments why suppressing conservative Christianity would be a poor idea; Christians are pretty near the core of good citizens, at least under a standard of "good citizen" that has prevailed until recently, and also they are a very old and thus fairly well-understood phenomenon, so there's an argument to stick to the devil you know, as it were. Ultimately, however, toleration is a question of value, and values observably change over time. If your values have changed sufficiently that toleration of conservative Christians no longer seems like a good idea, that's sorta the whole ball game, isn't it? It's sort of like architecture: at the point where you have to expend constant effort to keep the building from falling down, it's probably coming down one way or the other.

Liberalism was built on the assumption that the values held by its founders were something approximating a universal constant, that all humans would hold something approximating those values more or less indefinitely. This assumption is false, and once that realization settles in, Liberalism becomes completely incoherent. Moreover, it is likely that its development and influence were necessarily path-dependent, that it only worked as long as it did because no one had really tried it at scale before, and so the results were unknown. The results now being known, it seems unlikely that it will persist, much less revive.

There are many good contingent arguments why suppressing conservative Christianity would be a poor idea; Christians are pretty near the core of good citizens, at least under a standard of "good citizen" that has prevailed until recently, and also they are a very old and thus fairly well-understood phenomenon, so there's an argument to stick to the devil you know, as it were. Ultimately, however, toleration is a question of value, and values observably change over time. If your values have changed sufficiently that toleration of conservative Christians no longer seems like a good idea, that's sorta the whole ball game, isn't it?

This assumes that Christians are the ones standing still and others are the ones whose values are changing. This does not fit with the last few years, where people who previously didn't know what IVF was have made opposition to it central to their politics. As you say, the question of whether a religion should be tolerated depends on what it's actually doing, and that can change over time.

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I'm not a religious conservative, but of course there is - people need ways to maintain and improve their spiritual health. Is there an atheist materialist reason? No, because religious people aren't atheist materialists.

And more simply, the suppression of true religion is opposition to God himself. That is bad.

Atheistically, if you care about modern liberalism, that would suffice as a reason, what with tolerance being worthwhile and all.

There are a lot of ways you could have rebutted an argument from personal experience without taking cheap shots like this.

If you just mean you get a bad vibe, then fine, but I dont see which rule it breaks. There are other rebuttals that could be made, but I dont want to make a rebuttal - my point isnt even that its right or wrong, its a) this comment is 4x as long as it needs to b) if it wasnt plushed up, you might notice its an extremely klischee point and try to do more than reenact arguments weve seen a 1000 times.

It’s a legit point. The conservative project relies on an idyllic view of the past and of conservative families, which can be hard to maintain when you’ve seen it from the inside. My grandparents ‘s generation were all very religious, and so it was common for spouses to hate each other all their life.

Plus, a lot of straightforward claims conservatives make like ‘all mothers love their children’, ‘all men feel the need to protect women and children’, ‘all people have a god-shaped hole’, etc, can be refuted through a single anecdote.

The conservative project relies on an idyllic view of the past and of conservative families, which can be hard to maintain when you’ve seen it from the inside. My grandparents ‘s generation were all very religious, and so it was common for spouses to hate each other all their life.

But certainly not all families are like that. I was raised in a happy family, and, to my knowledge, have mostly encountered happy families at church and so forth.

Do conservatives usually say that these things just happen by default? I'm more used to conceptualizing things as natural tendencies or roles, which we then have a responsibility and a duty to actually carry out.

The conservative project relies on an idyllic view of the past and of conservative families

Well, no. I don't know what you mean by "conservative project" but conservatives don't simply register the past as "idyllic" as a rule. There's plenty of bad stuff in there! Communism, Nazism, the origin point of modern conservatism was Burke's response to the French Revolution.

The point is that conservatives point to pro-social behaviors, practices, and traditions that over hundreds and thousands of years have repeatedly shown themselves to be unquestionably beneficial to humanity and society. These are the very concepts, ideas, and traditions we seek to conserve. We don't believe in radical and accelerated experimentation with these. Within living memory, we went from "boys shouldn't hit girls" to arguing that more boys should be allowed to pummel girls for money.

My grandparents ‘s generation were all very religious, and so it was common for spouses to hate each other all their life.

Then I'd argue they weren't people of genuine faith, but scrupulous virtue signalers who used organized religious practices - and voiced adherence of them - to assuage their guilt for being shitbags. This is extremely common in evangelical circles and in the online RadTrad and OrthoBro spaces. It is astonishing how people who truly, deeply live the principles of their faith come across as intensely normal, pleasant, and happy people.

‘all mothers love their children’

This is not a core conservative claim unless you add in "should" between "mothers" and "love"

‘all men feel the need to protect women and children’

See above.

‘all people have a god-shaped hole’

Ah, well, credit where it is due. I think this is probably a core conservative claim and one of the big wedges between conservatives and "libertarians" (although, personally, I find the term "libertarian" to be close to meaningless.) For instance, one can't help but smirk at the fact that the "Rational" community has re-invented the concept of Satan as Moloch....when Moloch is literally a Biblical demon.

I'm not saying those are core claims, just what garden-variety conservatives frequently say at the dinner table. I don't consider anecdotes like justawoman's to be refutations of serious conservative thought. But they are not "trolling".

It is astonishing how people who truly, deeply live the principles of their faith come across as intensely normal, pleasant, and happy people.

I'm trying to avoid debating the entirety of conservatism, but that's obviously a No True Christian fallacy.

Other ideologies have their own idealizations of an imagined past or an imagined future, of course. And simplistic stuff they say at the dinner table.

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Its legit to the extent to which you agree with the complainer that it was the family rather than them that was at fault. Obviously, it is hard to provide evidence for this without doxxing yourself, but that comment didnt even make an attempt, it doesnt even describe any concrete event, only how she feels about things generally.

Say it again, that made me tickle.

Okay, look, I get that you get dogpiled a lot and it's tempting to respond with taunting and snark, but don't. I am demanding that other people stop with the cheap shots, and I'm demanding that you stop responding to cheap shots with "Nyah nyah didn't even hurt me!"

I appreciate your sympathy, but I will not appreciate the sentiment that it “is what it is” and one of my options is a moral stain on society and I should go to jail or something.

I don't expect slavery enjoyers to appreciate my opinion of slavery being a moral stain on society either, but that too is what it is.

The sentiment of this “sanctity” between a birth mother and child is completely lost on me.

So all this Handmaiden's Tale "they just see us as incubators" talk was projection all along? Why are you even bothered by not being able to reproduce, if there's nothing sacred about the mother-child bond for you?

Huh? What Handmaiden’s Tale talk has there been where?

I’m not exactly bothered by it and I like the idea of having children related to me.

Huh? What Handmaiden’s Tale talk has there been where?

You haven't seen any Handmaiden's Tale memes? At all, ever? Not even during MeToo?

I’m not exactly bothered by it and I like the idea of having children related to me.

Well, in that case I find you bringing up your infertility a bit manipulative. The reason people feel sympathy for your situation is that they believe you're deprived of something sacred - literally in case of religious people, and effectively in case of secularists. If you don't see anything particularly valuable about that bond, and it's just a mere "liking" for having biologically related children, the "it is what it is" will commence at an even higher intensity.

No, I don’t spend time on reactionary Twitter lol.

I bring up my infertility not because I want your sympathy but because when you’re talking about women raising surrogate babies you’re talking about me, and there’s this rule where you have write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

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The question is simple: do you want people to exist, or not to exist? The bond between mother and child is a sacred thing yada yada, the problem is, modern mothers, left to their own devices, don’t have any. No bond, no child, and no mother. And that’s a sadder outcome than some blemish on your idealized view of motherhood.

Kids are resilient. You can just pump them out, hand them over to some strangers or an institution, and they’ll turn out fine. Well, they’ll complain in adolescence, but they’d do that anyway. Even life under suboptimal starting conditions is still well worth living.

The question is simple: do you want people to exist, or not to exist?

That’s not the simple question; starting there sneaks in the contentious axiom that the ends justify the means. You’re arguing past the actual objection.

By reduction to that simplistic question, you can justify any that produced a loved child including rape, infidelity, incest, and more.

Maybe that’s a conclusion you come to, but it’s built on a mountain of disagreed assumptions that you can’t simply assume past

I do agree that the end can justify the means in certain cases. But here, the argument that these means, based on voluntary exchanges, are morally wrong, has not been sufficiently defended. I'm not arguing for rape-and-kidnapping-based natalism.

But here, the argument that these means, based on voluntary exchanges, are morally wrong, has not been sufficiently defended.

But if this is your issue, then the ‘simple question’ you posed is irrelevant or insufficient. Of the moral argument comes down to whether there is a valued life at the other side, then we have to include consideration of those other scenarios. If it’s more complex than that, then your premise that it’s a simple question is one you don’t even agree with. So which is it?

It's a simple question for me because bringing more life into the world is an unalloyed good, and I fail to see the negative in this situation (aside from vague religious and personal feelings). But overall it’s a complex issue. Not the place for blind moralism.

I too can set up a neat dichotomy that totally ignores your point: is it moral to buy children, or is it not?

But moving on to your actual objection, there are all sorts of unethical things that you could do to make children: you could kidnap women, keep them underground, perform IVF on them, take the baby away, rinse and repeat for 20 years and that’s 20 babies per woman. Who are you to tell those babies that their lives aren’t worth living? Maybe you can give the 20 babies to 20 childless cat ladies, and bump up the utilons some more.

I think children are hugely important. I’m on record as saying so. It’s looking like I won’t be able to have one myself, which tears me up inside. But that doesn’t mean that anything you do to have a child is right or justified.

is it moral to buy children, or is it not?

Well, the market's supply of children only stopped exceeding the demand in the Western world around the 1950s.

You could legitimately just stop by the human[e] society and inspect the merchandise. They were usually no-kill shelters, but naturally, any healthcare an inmate received would ultimately be palliative. Resources tend to be very limited under these conditions.

Haiti is the closest non-Western country where this is still true, which is why it's a popular choice for Western women- inspecting the merchandise is important in all transactions. Scratch and dent domestic models (prenatal drug exposure, abuse, etc.) are also a popular choice in the Western world and come in a much wider variety of colors, should that be a consideration for you.

Of course, then you have to make the other decision- imported child, or domestic cat?

there are all sorts of unethical things that you could do to make children

[Insert debate around contraception here.]

is it moral to buy children, or is it not?

In some cultures e.g. rural China this is or was a common practice, where poor parents with too many children would sell one to a wealthy family (usually an older and therefore less fertile couple) to improve the standard of living of both the exchanged child and the remaining members of the birth family. This happened to my grandmother, who seemed perfectly fine psychologically, and to several other members of my extended family, some of whom definitely seemed to carry lingering resentment over it (the older they were when it happened, the more problems they had, as one might expect). I suppose all I have to say on the morality of it is that it's better than the whole family starving to death, which was often the alternative.

TLDR: if the parents are unable to take care of an existing child, and take painful measures to make sure the child grows up ok, then I understand. What I object to is creating a baby for profit, knowing in advance that this is going to happen.

I talked a bit about adoption here:

Women sometimes give up their children, of course. If they do so out of desperation and in the sincere belief that it will be better for the child, then it’s a tragedy but I understand.

If such a woman does so repeatedly, premeditatedly, knowing in their heart of hearts how each pregnancy is going to end up, then again she is wilfully using her children and abusing her role as a mother to fuel her lifestyle and I believe she deserves to be condemned.

But moving on to your actual objection, there are all sorts of unethical things that you could do to make children: you could kidnap women, keep them underground, perform IVF on them, take the baby away, rinse and repeat for 20 years and that’s 20 babies per woman.

The unethicalness of that comes not from the 'babies not being raised by their biological parents' part but from the 'women being coerced' part. Forcing a woman to be a surrogate is no more a general argument against surrogacy than agricultural slavery is a general argument against agriculture.

The argument given was that producing new life is an unalloyed good that far overwhelmed any ethical issues that might arise from the manner in which that life is produced.

To disambiguate “surrogacy in and of itself is morally fine” and “producing new life is so good that it automatically justifies any means” I contrived a new scenario in which the means were unambiguously bad (kidnap and rape). Does that make more sense?

is it moral to buy children, or is it not?

Of course it is. It's immoral and selfish to deny them life. Do you accept this consequence of your stance?

What is your actual justification? A vague appeal to sacredness("not a business practice.")? Personal feelings of disgust ("I cannot adequately express how vile I find this practice.")? "Objectification"? Forced acceptance that life sucks ("That’s just the way it is.")?

You cannot deny life to something that does not exist. If you think it’s selfish to not have as many children as you possibly can, by all means make your case to the childless and I’ll help as best I’m able.

In the meantime, I justify my position both innately and consequentially:

  1. Sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and the relationship between a mother and her child is one of the most ancient and holy things that we as humans do, and profaning it in this way is deeply, deeply evil. I know that you won’t find this convincing, but I’m putting it first because it’s true and to get it in the open.
  2. I strongly suspect that a child created in this way will suffer compared to one that isn’t. The bond between mother and child is at least partly chemical and hormonal, established during pregnancy. A woman who has not bonded with her child in this way, but instead ordered it from a service, is likely to be a worse mother and also to be unable to offer the child the unconditional love it needs to grow into a healthy adult. @George_Hale’s anecdote bears this out. On the child’s side, babies are sensitive to their mother’s odour, touch and voice (learned in the womb), which helps to soothe them after the incredibly stressful process of birth (which we know from measurements of adrenaline). Having a baby’s first experience be that of permanent separation from the mother is very unlikely to be healthy. We still have very little idea how modern ways of living help and harm us; widespread Frankensteining of the most important relationship we have at the most important developmental stage of our lives for convenience is really, really stupid.

I understand that it's somewhat tangential, but for some perspective, the number of children born by surrogacy anytime soon will probably be dwarfed by the number of children whose mother died in childbirth or shortly after in the ancestral, "ancient and holy" environment.

  1. You must have a low threshold for what you consider ‘deep, deep evil’. Most people probably don’t realise all the ways in which they’re ‘profaning’ your preferred norms on “Sex, pregnancy, childbirth,  and the relationship between a mother and her child ”. Is almost everyone deeply deeply evil then?

  2. Wrong comparison. I don’t consider surrogacy as an alternative to normal child-bearing, but to normal non-child-bearing. A surrogate child is not pulled from the set of normal comfortable children and thrown into an orphanage, he's pulled from the aether. He's thankful he even has a mouth to eat old bread with.

Do you have scientific evidence for your position? And if the available evidence was against you, what about the ‘ancient and holy ways’? It would be a waste to debate this if it was never your true objection.

Ancient and holy things? What about atheist mothers? That’s not true for them then, so your assertion “it’s true” is false.

Those mothers are wrong. There are paedophiles who honestly think that sex ennobles children, but I will not legalise it for those people on that basis.

I feel like just saying “atheists are wrong, God exists” isn’t much of an argument for anyone who isn’t religious, and I’m failing to find the connection between legalizing child sex and…the existence of atheist mothers?

More comments

That you reject sanctity and natural law does not make them incoherent.

Neither does asserting your belief in them make them coherent, or persuasive. Leaving aside whatever "natural law" is supposed to be (I gather that for people living in an Anglo common-law system it is one of those terms that sounds inherently authoritative, but to my ears it just seems like a nicer way to say "law of the jungle"), our best understanding of "sanctity" is that it's a qualium that people can experience about anything, if the right neurons are stimulated. Between epileptics having mystical experiences because their sanctity circuits got zapped and various Austronesian tribes assigning sanctity to random words and objects every few years, why would one see it as reflecting anything about the world independent of the reporting subject, or relevant to any subject other than the reporter?

Maybe not, but "sanctity" is not an argument.

Maybe you can give the 20 babies to 20 childless cat ladies

It is not actually possible to create catgirls that way.

Ha. Thanks for the chuckle, I needed it.

As for the mother, a woman abandoning her child should be a tragic and rare fact of life, not a business practice.

So you think if, say, a random Malian woman has the child of two random Swedes, she is now - rather than one of the actual, genetic, biological parents - the mother? This is pure fantasy, no different to a stepfather saying he’s the dad because he’s “the one who stepped up”. (Adoption and step-parenting can be very noble, but the adoptive and/or step parent is never the real / biological one).

the adoptive and/or step parent is never the real / biological one

I disagree with your assertion¹ that the the biological parent is necessarily the real parent. If we are to extend respect to the title of 'father', a man who spends eighteen years consoling a child when they have nightmares, teaching them how to care for themself, attending their events, &c., &c., is far more worthy of that respect than someone whose only contribution was spending five minutes naked and horizontal.

¹Remember, when you assert, you make an ass out of the Emergency Response Team.

This argument can easily go either way. Since before humanity the mother supplied the egg, the womb, and archetypically the nursing and parenting too. Now technology means that we can take an egg from one woman, implant it into another, and then pass the baby to another after delivery. They're all doing parts of mothering but none of them are doing all of mothering, and so there's always room to say they are or aren't a "real" mother, it's a matter of how pedantic you need to be.

To illustrate by inversion, would you say that the random Swedish woman is the mother? Because there's a trivial counter that she had no part in a biologically fundamental part of mothering. But does that mean that the child doesn't have a mother? Or two? If two, why are they different? I don't know the answer other than it seems the word is inadequate to properly describe the novel situation. Metamother? Metasexual reproduction? Egg mother, womb mother, and breast mother? Fractional mother? I don't know. Just that if you draw your line too rigidly you probably have to conclude the child doesn't have a mother, which doesn't sit well with the drawing of rigid lines. Relaxing those lines though opens up an argument that anyone who can claim a part of the label is entitled to the whole, and we all know where that goes.

Perhaps we could sweep the whole argument aside and ask why does it matter, what matters is knowledge of the underlying facts. But then the argument rears up again because the label implies a set of facts that ought to provide knowledge, otherwise what use is the label?

Just some thoughts.

The baby has spent 9 months in her womb, literally sharing components of her blood through the placenta. It has grown up listening to her heartbeat, immersed in her amniotic fluid, breathing her. There will almost certainly be consequences of this, and of permanently removing it from her. At the same we know that pregnancy has a huge effect on the mother: hormones and neural changes that prepare her to nurture her child. On both sides, pregnancy is a huge part of the mother-child bond!

The procedure has been set up so that the child will have no natural, complete mother. There is a woman who donated her genes but did not go through pregnancy physically or mentally (with what consequences we do not yet know) and a woman who carried the baby in her womb but is not genetically related to it and will never see it again.

Is it your position that the surrogates are criminals, too, or that they're willing victims who are just too stupid to know what's good for them?

The former: I believe that selling your child should be a crime. I have more pity for them than for the buyers, because they are almost certainly in worse straits and they may be hurt by the separation in ways that they didn’t foresee when signing the contract, but it’s still wrong to use your child in that way.

Women sometimes give up their children, of course. If they do so out of desperation and in the sincere belief that it will be better for the child, then it’s a tragedy but I understand.

If such a woman does so repeatedly, premeditatedly, knowing in their heart of hearts how each pregnancy is going to end up, then again she is wilfully using her children and abusing her role as a mother to fuel her lifestyle and I believe she deserves to be condemned.

To buy a child, to pay a woman to bring into this world a baby that (presumably) she doesn’t want so that you can take it from her breast forever, is to my mind one of the worst crimes that you can commit, and I can’t fathom why we don’t punish it accordingly.

Here's a hint for why there's no mention of the mother in the article, as OP wondered. It's controversial!

Not all women get paid for this, FWIW. And some find the process of being pregnant and birthing joyful in and of itself.

Why isn't participating in bringing a life into the world into a well resourced home seen as a moral good? If one is cynical enough, anything can be made to sound like a trashy business transaction.

Because, again, the woman is giving birth to a child she intends to permanently separate from its mother, to satisfy her own purposes. She’s doing so because she finds “the process of being pregnant and birthing joyful in and of itself” instead of for money but that doesn’t make it better.

I would make an exception if she were willing to truly fulfil the role of a mother for the child in some sort of weird 3-parent relationship, but my understanding is that this doesn’t usually happen.

She’s doing so because she finds “the process of being pregnant and birthing joyful in and of itself” instead of for money but that doesn’t make it better.

I just mean it is not an immense sacrifice to some people that they might only consider because they wanted to get paid or had some other kind of illegitimate gain from it or wanted to pervert the social order in some way.

Some people, friends or family, see a loving couple that can't reproduce on their own and want to help.

Anyway, are you similarly against giving children up for adoption?

What about the people doing the adopting?

I would make an exception if she were willing to truly fulfil the role of a mother for the child in some sort of weird 3-parent relationship, but my understanding is that this doesn’t usually happen.

As an aside, the legal process is quite explicit that the surrogate has no rights to a relationship with the child. And again, it's controversial. People don't necessarily volunteer to strangers they they have done this.

Re: adoption, I discussed in another thread. Please forgive the copy-paste:

Women sometimes give up their children, of course. If they do so out of desperation and in the sincere belief that it will be better for the child, then it’s a tragedy but I understand.

If such a woman does so repeatedly, premeditatedly, knowing in their heart of hearts how each pregnancy is going to end up, then again she is wilfully using her children and abusing her role as a mother to fuel her lifestyle and I believe she deserves to be condemned.

TLDR the stereotypical desperate woman who gives up a child she can’t care for is doing the best she can for the child and I sympathise. Beyond that it depends.

Anyway, are you similarly against giving children up for adoption?

For the most part, yes!

One look at the actually-existing adoption industry will make all the hairs on your body stand on attention. We only look at adoption as something good because historically it implied parents dying a tragic death, and someone else picking up the slack out of charity. There are cases where giving up kids for adoption is understandable, but they're mostly a product of another era, when, for example, a mother could not ensure her own survival, so she'd give up her kid on the assumption someone else could take care of it. Barring such extreme circumstances, this shouldn't actually be allowed, and the only reason we don't means-test it, is that we assume most women have extremely strong maternal instincts, and would do whatever they can to avoid giving the child up.

My wife and I have had a decent number of kids. I can’t imagine any woman finds carrying a baby for 9 months a joy. That doesn’t mean there aren’t joyful moments but on the whole it sucks per my wife.

My own wife describes it this way when she considered being a surrogate during a single period between her first husband and kids and me and our kids.

You're right and the process is vile and it need not extend further than necessary. I expect iterated embryo selection to force this in a dangerous direction. Adoption usually looks a lot like buying... It's not particularly evil looking, for the parents or kid if the parents don't suck. I know a family that spent tens of thousands USD in bribes to buy adopt an HIV positive Ukrainian orphan 2 decades ago. Everyone is quite happy about her marriage and that she gave birth to 2nd kid (she doesn't test positive for hiv at this point, nor do kids).

Then we must invest in artificial wombs. This is a case where technology can clearly solve a moral problem.

I'm not opposed to artificial wombs as a technology, but shudder to think about what the worst percent of humanity might do with them. That said, the worst percent can and has brutally enslaved women so the artificial side is more convenience factor.

I found myself withholding judgement, but foolishly so, for as I say she is divorced and the husband took custody of their child (probably for the better for everyone.) In gestational pregnancy the ovum of the donor woman and sperm of the donor man are implanted into the womb of the surrogate woman, complicating who the mother is. As I say for me this is unpalatable, less a technological breakthrough as much as a dystopian realization of how morally bankrupt our world has become (well probably always was). Others may disagree.

Sorry, I edited before seeing your message.

less a technological breakthrough as much as a dystopian realization of how morally bankrupt our world has become

I agree with you.

It is as if the two men just somehow had a child, as if that is the most natural thing in the world, and there should be no questioning of it by anyone for to do so would be, I don't know, wrong or backward-ass.

Old joke - a question to radio Yerevan - Can a man get pregnant? No, but in Turkey they keep trying.

I am all for surrogating pregnancy. It is not a big deal. But equalizing same sex couples with infertile straight ones irks me. It really requires some exceptional doublethink from all participants.

How far should this go? Could women sell their 1 year olds? 2 year olds? Could a woman sell her 12 year old boy to a man who really want to have one?

It can't go this far since she is only selling 9 months in the womb for someone else's kid.

Could someone who does not like another person's culture buy all their offspring and raise them in a different culture?

I probably very idiotically did not even consider infertile straight couples, but that point is well-taken. I don't even know if we should be thinking in terms of equality or equity here, just a willful blindness to how woman + man is what makes babies. I don't care what technological breakthroughs have in store for us.

willful blindness to how woman + man is what makes babies

It is not 'wilful blindness' to reject the axiom that '"is" implies "ought"'.

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