site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37129 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I disagree. Money being involved is important because it creates incentives. It's the reason prostitution is not morally equivalent to casual sex.

i.e.: congratulations you now live in a society where some women will be forced to bear other's children against their will

Doesn't matter if all you wanted was voluntary exchange.

I don't see a problem with financially incentivizing people to have more babies. If the government was doing it rather than gays, most people here would clap and cheer.

as long as they don't use my money for it, I don't care what people choose to spend their money on. the problem is that those financial incentives from the government are funded by unwilling taxpayers such as myself who would rather keep that money and spend it on something else.

Right, but I think in this case gay parents are ponying up the money for surrogacy and IVF themselves. Social conservatives are objecting specifically to this dynamic - paying someone to have a baby.

Given the discussion here in the past about this topic, I'd guess most people would cynically posit that the government financially incentivizing people to have more babies couldn't possibly work and would just add needless bureaucracy.

As far as I can recall, the usual point is that it is observed not to work.

Is it observed not to work, or do people just assume it doesn't work without checking? My impression is that it totally works but we don't do it anyway (relevant graphs are on on page 67). The upshot is that the Swedish government changed a policy from providing benefits if children were born within 24 months of each other to the same benefit but within 30 months instead, and the number of children born with a between-24-and-30-month gap roughly 1.5x'd while birth rates by age gap stayed pretty much the same for every other age gap. It was not a subtle effect.

They might be referring to Communist Romania, though Ceaucescu mandated rather than incentivized.

Plenty of regimes incentivised having a big family: Jus trium liberorum of Ancient Rome, Battle for Births of Mussolini's Italy, "Médaille d'honneur de la famille française" of France, "Cross of Honour of the German Mother" of Nazi Germany.

The medals probably came with some cash reward.

Your recollection is probably correct. I should have it worded it more like "has never worked empirically and as such is almost definitely not going to work in this case" rather than "couldn't possibly work."

Well I'm certainly not among them. Despite being concerned about birth rates.

i.e.: congratulations you now live in a society where some women will be forced to bear other's children against their will

You now live in a society where a desperate woman has this as an option, as opposed to simply starving to death in the streets with no choice at all.

I am once again failing to see the downside.

Literally nobody is starving to death on the streets, so to put is as the only available alternative to renting your womb and selling your baby is fundamentally dishonest.

In practice I’m doubting that surrogacy will be used by the poorest of the poor, but rather by the lower working class. These are not in danger of starvation.

In which case it's a choice, and handwringing about being forced holds no water. Shrug.

The downside is that there are forms of extortion which tend to take all of the value you can get your hands on (blackmail, kidnapping for ransom, etc). If surrogacy becomes the largest amount of money that some women can obtain with their time and body, a nonzero number will be extorted into it.

I think the upsides far outweigh the downsides here but the downsides do exist.

To note that very high percentages of prostitutes are not doing this voluntarily, and that’s a similarly totalizing commitment to surrogacy.

We disagree on what is worse or better than death, I presume.

Perhaps so, but if your contention is that 'some women will be so desperate for cash that they will bear a child just to earn some', the bad thing there seems to be that a woman might ever be in such a situation, not that circumstances have now changed such that they can actually follow through on such a preference.

I hate this argument. "Why don't we just fix all of the problems of society and I can be totally free" is Rousseauan bullshit. We are animals and establishing rules to prevent ourselves from doing evil regardless of our intentions is the essence of morality.

Eliminate misery and I'll maybe consider whether behaviors that exploit it might be allowed, but I'm not considering it fine just because of an hypothetical.

All those Ukranian women and assorted orphans are not hypothetical.

Oh sure I'm not suggesting that one cannot talk about surrogacy until poverty has been abolished, my point is rather that restricting surrogacy would not actually make things better in a society where such desperation and poverty does exist, because while not a decision to be taken lightly there are clearly some women who think that going through childbirth is worth it for the reward, and while it makes me squirm too isn't hasn't actually made anything better about the situation 'women might be forced to choose between surrogacy or deprivation' since you've just made everyone choose deprivation, a deprivation apparently bad enough that they're willing to bear a child to alleviate it.

I understand, but people may also choose to kill in order to escape deprivation and still I feel justified in punishing them for this immoral conduct that endangers everyone by undermining the sanctity of life. This is not exactly similar, but my motivations are not different.

You also ignore the other core part of my argument, which is about the incentive. If you allow this and the demand outstrips the supply, generating misery great enough to provide for it becomes the necessary conclusion. Which is exactly what happened with prostitution and why human trafficking is a thing.

If you are a leftist and buy into the concept of wage slavery, sure. If you take a slightly less negative view of exchanging money for labor, then they aren't "forced against their will".

I read somewhere that fiscally right conservatives become leftists when it comes to all matters reproductive.

Well this is where ancaps lose me. I hold to certain things being more sacred that voluntary exchange, and sex and child-rearing is most definitely on the list.

The horror of such a situation is not something I see as allowable, even if Moloch says it's a-okay because everyone consented.

But then of course, the libertarian solution is that you're free to have such horrors in your community so long as I'm allowed to bar you from mine.

"it's against her will, even if it's consensual!"

This is basically the argument made in every spurious me too case.

That’s because the reasons that actually motivate people’s response in those cases are not what they are allowed to argue for in today culture, so that they are forced to make argument in the accepted framework, that is, framework of consent.

I wrote about it at the previous place:

What happens here is the conflict between traditional norms of sexuality, and the ones that have arisen during sexual revolution. This is really simple: a guy who uses his fame and status to pump and dump naive girls is seen as morally repugnant, according to traditional norms of sexuality that most people still hold, either consciously or subconsciously. That’s because traditional norms focus on stability, responsibility, and equity. However, in modern liberal take on sexuality, the core value is individual choice. Ability to choose is what empowers humans, and choosing is ultimate way to express sexuality. The confusion stems from the fact that people laud the norms of the latter, but make moral judgement based on the former set of norms. Hence, the guy is wrongdoer, because he wasn’t supposed to just pump and dump them: instead, he was supposed to validate them, by expending his efforts to signal she has high value. That she chose to do it and consented to the act is irrelevant: that’s not the deal she had in mind when consenting. She was hoping to get traditional deal, but instead she got the modern one.

The context was slightly different, but the point is the same.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats