site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think you missed my point.

The arguments brought up above against immigrants apply every bit as much to children. All those kids are going to be taking up jobs, housing, etc. People should have just one kid at most to ensure that the good times keep rolling and the CEOs have to keep paying more and more.

Is this supposed to be a gotcha? Are you implying that you can't see any functional difference between the two options? Or are you just trying to bait them into saying something that you can label as racist/eugenicist?

I don't really care about baiting people on a pseudonymous Internet forum for wrongthinkers.

My question is simply, what is the distinction? You mention eugenics, but smart immigrants are actually much worse for the housing market because they earn more money and can pay more for housing.

If a population could mutually agree to all have fewer babies, while pensioners agreed to stop collecting to make way for new generations, it might be good; if that's somehow easier than the rich all agreeing to build as many houses as possible, and so on. But if your rivals/enemies/the lowest-functioning are having lots of kids, you don't want them to be the only ones. All those kids are going to be taking up jobs, housing, etc., but at least your kids are in that group, and having more kids means more success chances for your family overall. Importing a bunch of foreign competitors doesn't benefit you even genetically.

Or maybe I went off half-cocked, and I'm missing the point just like you say Kulak did. Seems kind of rude of me to have butted into the exchange and demanded an answer, really.

it might be good

I really don't think so.

But if your rivals/enemies/the lowest-functioning are having lots of kids, you don't want them to be the only ones. All those kids are going to be taking up jobs, housing, etc., but at least your kids are in that group, and having more kids means more success chances for your family overall. Importing a bunch of foreign competitors doesn't benefit you even genetically.

This doesn't really add up.

  • my neighbor having kids doesn't benefit me even genetically, no more than a guy immigrating from Nigeria

  • people making arguments like this against immigration are rarely in favor of something like open borders for e.g. law abiding 110 IQ immigrants, which leads me to think that the quality of immigrants is not the crux of the issue

  • If you want your family/clan to thrive, they need other people to have kids with. Who if not your neighbor?
  • Didn't you just say that smart immigrants are worse?
  • If you have a growing internal population, why do you need immigrants?

I don't actually have a problem with TFR > 2.1 or immigration. I certainly didn't say that smart immigrants are worse. My point is, all the anti immigrant arguments above apply to people having kids. They take jobs, they take housing, some I presume are good people. Yet the people making these arguments are probably not against people having kids.

Do you think that they have reasons other than the ones mentioned; or are they just stupid?