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 -
That's my conclusion.
Rough as it sounds, the evidence is that giving women what they've said they wanted is becoming an albatross and we've sacrificed a lot of theoretical children on the altar of a false god. That's a melodramatic way to say "TFR has cratered", of course.
When I say "pressure women to actually settle" I DO NOT mean "force them to accept men they find unworthy, bar them from academia, mandate pregnancies, etc. etc.".
I literally just mean "Stop granting uncapped, unrestricted optionality that is subsidized mainly by the males they're refusing to settle for."
Women have been handed the unrestricted ability to pursue academic degrees, careers, travel, sex with anyone they want (and nobody they don't), raise kids or don't (irrespective of getting pregnant! She can abort if she wants, or adopt if she wants), imbibe whatever illicit substances she wants, associate with whomever she wants, and in many cases, inflict social ostracization and legal consequences on anyone she can gin up plausible enough allegations of abuse or sex pestism against.
In the case of attractive women, it isn't exaggeration to say that if she wants anything, literally anything, she just needs to broadcast that desire to the world (trivial thanks to social media) and it is all but certain someone will run out of the ether to give it to her.
The one thing that they don't get guaranteed for them in this life is "commitment from a high value male."
Which, irony of ironies, is basically the one specific thing they're actually wired to want. The very basis for all the intrasexual competition, the 'hypergamy,' the makeup, the social climbing, the degree-getting. Almost all else (except child-rearing) is arguably secondary to that evolutionary drive to lock down the male with the highest status in her vicinity.
So all that optionality and many of them are just cut off from the thing that nature programmed them to actually covet. Whoops.
My concern now is that between the women themselves who are wont to give up this optionality, the cohort of men who are wont to ever upset women, and the small cohort of men who are massively benefiting from the status quo (until it all crashes), there's no way to muster any political will to even adjust the current policy reality.
We've basically got some sub-majority portion of men, including the hardcore trads and the incel brigade, who would possibly be on board with any platform that includes "possibly telling women 'no, you can't have that.'" So as some on here have been saying, it seems like a "coup-complete" issue.
More options
Context Copy link