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 -
If I had some god-given certainty that any population with legal access to birth control would, independently of any soft pressure or incentives other than the force of the law, end up with fertility below replacement, then I would begrudgingly accept legal controls on it to prevent the extinction of the human race.
With anything less than said absolute certainty, I would attempt to explore a number of softer options. You could provide tax incentives and/or literally pay people to have children. You could attempt to increase the social status of good parents and shame childless people. You could attempt to advance technology to create artificial wombs and have the state make and raise babies (not at all an ideal outcome, but better than extinction or forcing people to breed against their will). You could explore the replacement rates of different subpopulations and attempt to preserve and promote cultures with higher fecundity. Maybe all the liberal white atheists voluntarily go extinct as their population exponentially declines, and they get replaced by immigrants and Amish people who keep having babies. I suppose a religion which forces people to avoid birth control taking over the population is comparable to just directly outlawing birth control, but not the same because people can leave. Maybe we end up in a long term equilibrium where 1/5 of the population are strongly religious with a reproductive rate of 3, and 4/5 of the population are atheists with a reproductive rate of 1/2, so the total population remains constant (1 religious person and 4 atheists have 3 and 2 kids in each group respectively), and some fraction of the religious children leave the faith every generation such that the sizes of each group remain constant.
There are a lot of possibilities that would mitigate the effects. Extinction of specific subgroups and cultures via demographic replacement is a valid and realistic concern for people who care about those subgroups and cultures. But I don't think extinction of the entire human species by perpetually lowered birthrates is a realistic threat unless some sort of chemical pollution actually destroys biological fecundity such that even people who want kids can't have them.
More options
Context Copy link