site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33441 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The fertility crisis is in some sense a fake problem. It could be solved tomorrow with common-sense birth control control. Make it illegal to give hormonal BC to a woman with less than 3 children (number adjustable as needed). All the proposals to increase fertility with tax-breaks and other incentives feel like responding to the lead crisis by increasing access to chelation therapy. Just take the lead out the fucking gasoline.

Make it illegal

You won war on alcohol, you won war on drugs, you won war on guns, war on contraception will be walkover.

Bring it on.

Are you talking about it not being feasible in America or it not being feasible at all? All of these policies have been succesfully implemented in other countries at one point in another.

Contraception was illegal in Ireland from 1935 until 1980, most Western countries outside of the US have strict controls on guns and there's no desire to reverse this, drugs are much harder to get in Singapore and far less people are addicted to them in East Asia than in North America and Western Europe, alcohol use is much less prevelant in Islamic countries.

I mean, technically, you don't need to make contraception unavailable, you just need to reduce it's typical use efficacy to the point where the average woman has an extra half a kid, which seems doable if unpopular by holding a war on contraception.

For this to have any effect, you would need to ban condoms too. This means you're not only increasing fertility, but also STDs.

"alcoholism is in some sense a fake problem, it could be solved tomorrow with a ban on alcohol"

this was tried in america in the early 20th century and did not work. how do you expect a ban on birth control would fare any better in practice.

not to mention, such a ban would be a terrible violation of human rights, but I guess the only right people here seem to care about is freedom of speech.

how do you expect a ban on birth control would fare any better in practice.

It's much easier to distill booze on a farm in the middle of nowhere than it is to synthesize Progesterone

not to mention, such a ban would be a terrible violation of human rights

When Griswold v. Connecticut was decided, the US fertility rate was 3. We were coming off the baby boom. There were too many people.

Perhaps such a move literally tomorrow would be premature. There are still plenty of off-ramps the future could take, AI being the most obvious. Still, it would be prudent to start thinking about contingencies now. Think about what a society with a fertility rate of 0.5 would look like after 30 years. What if the whole Earth was at 0.5? What if it was 0.2?

It's much easier to distill booze on a farm in the middle of nowhere than it is to synthesize Progesterone

People would just fall back to other forms of contraception.

It is very difficult to synthesise meth too, but people still manage to do it and distribute it in a way that anybody not completely incompetent can get their hands on it pretty easily.

If a society is sufficiently opposed to birth control that banning it becomes feasible, the ban would probably not even be needed under your standard, because birth rates would likely be higher than they are today, yet alone 0.5.

Possibly, but possibly not. I can easily imagine a world where everyone agrees that there need to be more children being born, but nobody wants to have children themselves. In such a scenario, the pro birth-control coalition is women 15-35 and the dudes that are fucking them, and the anti birth-control coalition is everyone else. You should be able to tell who wins politically in that situation.

its easy for you to say as a man that banning birth control is no big deal, but imagine you were a woman seeking to avoid the problems of pregnancy and childbirth, you would probably have a different perspective. but even from the man's point of view, pregnant women are less enjoyable to make love with because most men find big pregnant bellies to be unattractive, also giving birth stretches out the vagina making sex less pleasurable, young children cry a lot disrupting your sleep, stubborn ones can test your patience, and other problems that im not aware of because i dont have experience with them lol. forcing people to make babies by taking away their birth control is a form of enslavement and i would hope that former birth control users would have the moral integrity to not take away from younger folks what they themselves took advantage of during their time.

forcing people to make babies by taking away their birth control is a form of enslavement

Every single person in history was created by growing inside their mother for ~9 months. It’s not slavery, it’s paying forward your debt to society.

I am also amused that you seem to think that non having sex simply isn’t an option, as though this were some impossible thing, and that life without sex is hardly worth living. I assure you, from personal experience, that it is possible. It sucks in certain ways, but it is nowhere anywhere near slavery. If consequence free sex in enshrined as a human right, then please tell me where I can find the nearest STD-free government funded brothel?

Every single person in history was created by growing inside their mother for ~9 months. It’s not slavery, it’s paying forward your debt to society.

There is no legitimate debt that somebody did not choose to accrue.

If consequence free sex in enshrined as a human right, then please tell me where I can find the nearest STD-free government funded brothel?

What liberals mean when they say that birth control is a right is that following from the principle of self-ownership, it would be immoral for another entity to penalize people for the mere act of providing or consuming it, not that people are obligated to fund its free provision whether through taxation or elsewise. In general, if an act is not violating somebody's rights, imposing penalties for that act constitutes a rights violation.

It's much easier to distill booze on a farm in the middle of nowhere than it is to synthesize Progesterone

My understanding is that certain hormones are actually much easier to make than you'd think, there is a popularly imagined concept of "Bathtub estrogen"

The pill made very little difference

Birth control has been available for a long time; condoms and natural family planning have existed for centuries, ancient cultures like the Greeks and the Romans practiced infanticide, and anyone who understands where babies come from can make use of sodomy, fellatio, and coitus interruptus.

The sexual revolution did not happen because some asshole invented the contraceptive pill. The sexual revolution happened because we lost control of our women. Civilizations die of feminism; they don't die of birth control.

To fix the problem, make women property again.

No? Historical birth control, whether mechanical, behavioral, or chemical, wasn't very consistent - and with ~one attempt per month, a 10% failure rate is still high enough to maintain pregnancies. Cheap and engineered condoms and hormonal birth control are much more effective. The 'pull-out' method is not too effective for modern couples who solely use it.

It's true that birth control didn't precipitate the sexual revolution on its own - a natural hormonal contraceptive from a plant wouldn't have doomed ancient egypt to feminism. And contraceptive use would be lower if people believed having children was more important, or that contraceptive use was immoral. But feminism != birth rate, effective contraception does help lower birthrates.

Also, the sexual revolution didn't happen because men lost control over women, modern liberal values were held by both men and women. Men enjoyed and supported casual sex and easier divorces as much as women. The problem isn't women being property, because modern men don't really want more than 2 children (on average! individuals vary a lot) either. How did you icome to the conclusion of 'women must be property again'? How would it help for women to be property of men who remain the same?

Wasn’t France below replacement for most of the 19th century, before reliable contraception?

No?

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