This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm assuming the numbers are birth rates per 1000 people
Doesn't the data provide some evidence for Botond's point though? Black and Hispanic teen birth rates were raising the average to 30-50% above the white birth rate. It also doesn't break down the white population any further, so while his hunch about the "presence of large numbers of Scots-Irish with low impulse control" isn't proven, it isn't disproven either.
We'd have to consider what would have been an acceptable rate for the birth rate to not be an "embarrassingly high" number for the early 2000s. Birth rates for teens have been on the overall decline since 1955 except for a bump from 1986 to 1991 and minor bump from 2005 to 2007. (The source for their data is the same source you linked). I don't know exactly what the early 2000s conservatives were arguing regarding the birth rate being too high for teens, since it has been declining. My guess is they were considering mostly the black and Hispanic population, considering it's 2-3x the white teen birth rate. Their numbers in 1991 seem to put them close to the national average rate in 1955, and the numbers from 2002 to 1965. Since the overall rate has been declining for decades, the rate would be only embarrassingly high if it was much higher compared to other modern first-world nations, or if they were talking about a specific group. We'd also have to consider if they were thinking about specific areas of the United States, like cities versus rural areas or specific states.
What Botond didn't mention but probably meant was that the concern in the early 2000s was more about out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancy than just teenage pregnancy. If you look at the source I linked earlier it shows that by the early 2000s, more than 75% of births for teenagers were to unmarried mothers, and that the percentage is even higher the younger the age of the mother. That number has only gone up since then. That being said, the total number of births to unmarried mothers has declined even if the percentage of births that are to unmarried mothers has increased.
Could be. I guess I was parsing “largely explained” as referring to totals, because the rates are definitely concentrated in black and Hispanic populations.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link