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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32275 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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I fail to see this as a particularly compelling argument.

You could say that modern feminism is also as equally dependent on "corporate sponsorship" because in the absence of birth control the sexual freedom they desire is impossible.

Sure, but "feminism" is not a demographic group, and I consider there to be a qualitative difference between "doesn't have sexual freedom without corporate sponsorship" and "will literally die without Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD)".

Well no, it isn’t. Women desiring sexual freedom could sterilize themselves, or have abortions, or just abandon their babies, or insist on condoms. Or be good enough at counting to statistically not get pregnant very often.

In that case gays who are absolutely adamant about avoiding AIDs could insist on screening partners and using condoms. You can go by revealed preferences that they care less than really ought to, albeit AIDs is no longer a death sentence in the civilized world.

"Corporate sponsorship", a basic facet of modernity, makes things easier for almost all of us, barring the dearly departed Ted.

Well sure- and I think this is your point here- it depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Personally I’m quite comfortable with drawing the line at ‘necessary to avoid the normal consequences of your own actions’.

That's a form of sexual freedom, but perhaps not the sexual freedom "they desire," which seems to include (among many other unrelated things, of course) the freedom to have sex without committing to being a mother without having to sterilize themselves, or getting an abortion, or feeling the guilt of abandoning a baby, or using a condom, or having to count.

Well yeah, but ‘do whatever I want with no constraints or work involved and I never have to feel guilty’ is simply not how the real world works.

Perhaps so, but I think it's clear that modern feminism is largely about changing the real world so that it does work that way, with no constraints or work involved or feeling guilty or facing undesired consequences, at least in certain preferred topics for certain preferred people. Given that the real world doesn't and, AFAIK, has never worked that way, changing the world to do so even within just this limited scope is the kind of hugely difficult endeavor that requires corporate sponsorship.

You could say that modern feminism is also as equally dependent on "corporate sponsorship"

I mean... yes? That's certainly an argument that's been made before. I don't think it's prima facie unreasonable.

In another reply, I stated that a good chunk of the populace depends on the kind of industrial machinery, seeds and fertilizers required for agriculture. That counts as corporate sponsorship required for staying alive too, so it's a rather diffuse argument to make.

I think it's a claim about what sort of lifestyles and practices could exist in principle in the absence of corporate sponsorship, not whether any of us in actuality are free of it in 2023.

We know that people can survive in the absence of corporate sponsorship. They did it for millennia. Granted, gay people have existed for millennia too, although perhaps not with the level of promiscuity we see today.

Our civilization is much more dependant on corporate sponsorship than gays are. 99% of people would die without it due to mass starvation, while the percentage of gays who'd die without meds would be much lower.

What's true is that gays are more dependant because they depend on the medical industry in addition to depending on modern agriculture/ logistics like everyone else. But it seems to be an arbitrary line to draw.

Will feminists actually die if they don't get birth control?

Is it unreasonable to say women who derive a sense of purpose from caring for their children are less likely to be active feminists ?

It's certainly harmful to the political movement.

A good chunk of humanity would die if we didn't have industrialized agriculture relying on machinery, fertilizers and seeds produced by a relatively small number of companies. I'm suitably thankful for that kind of "corporate" sponsorship.

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