site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

When it comes to high TFR, there are only a handful of successful interventions in the modern period:

  1. Georgia and their 'mothers blessed by the Orthodox Patriarch' thing
  2. Amish/Jewish/Islamist highly religious subpopulation
  3. Caeucescu's banning of abortion and state pro-natalism
  4. Imperial Japanese biopolitics: women have no rights

These don't seem very applicable in Sweden.

The post-WW2 Baby Boom is perhaps more plausible. But that required a cultural foundation that we don't seem to have, rising prosperity amongst the middle class... The 1950s are nearly as far away as Afghanistan or Imperial Japan.

The most realistic path is mass cloning and artificial wombs, I think. And what's even the point? Why are more people needed, from a policy point of view? A child born today will come of age in 2044. Add another 4 years of university, 2048. Is Sweden going to need infantry digging trenches? Is Sweden going to need lusty youths bringing in the harvest? Industrial proletariat in the steel mill? Is Sweden even going to need universities? No, Sweden should and will mechanize all that. Even the production of ideas will likely be mechanized by then.

For all of human history, more children in your state was usually a good thing, there was no substitute for people, especially high-quality people - Swedes have a good history of achievement and ability. I think our logic is fundamentally wrongfooted by modernity here, people will point out the high youth unemployment in China and then the low TFR... how is low TFR a problem if there aren't enough jobs for existing youth? Even if one's not a singularitarian, why are people so unwilling to look at the general trend of a declining number of legitimate jobs? We can just predict the trend will continue, right?

If Sweden really needed more children, wouldn't they have a 'firm handshake and you're in' labour market? But they don't, no Western country does, they all want a bachelor's degree minimum and plenty of interviews. There is huge demand for 140 IQ agentic innovative dynamic agile 10x engineers with great communication skills and a flourishing Linkedin... not so much for 100 IQ Sven I think.

And yet, even without all that, Sweden had nearly replacement rate fertility (both as a whole and among native Swedes, anticipating a potential objection) as recently as 2010 without any of that.

The problem I have with that sort or argument is that societies have a good deal of inertia, so it's easy to find yourself debating how the dude that fell off a tall building was in perfectly good health just prior to hitting the ground.

The most realistic path is mass cloning and artificial wombs, I think.

If my understanding that the real obstacle to people having children is the hedonistic opportunity cost of raising children is correct, I think there is room for a lower-tech solution: state-run nurseries/orphanages that are actually optimised for quality rather than to dump undesirables without making everyone feel too guilty about it, and a flat cash benefit on the order of 4 of the mother's yearly salaries for delivering a child to them. You could even give the biological parents dibs on adoption in the event they later change their mind.

(By not paying the same amount of upfront cash to parents who raise their own children, you (1) save money and (2) implicitly brainwash people into thinking children are valuable. Someone is willing to pay you 200k for one! Will you take the money like a poor person, or have one and keep it to broadcast to the world that you are so well-off that you don't need it?)

I read a rather persuasive essay that argued at the end that financial redistribution was largely ineffective, even counterproductive since it basically transferred money away from married men (the biggest net-taxpayers) to someone else, who might or might not have children with that money. While these men aren't raising their own families with their own money that's being taken from them...

Financial tweaks don't have a good track record, Niger and Mali or Yemen don't need these tricks to enjoy high fertility. Really, it's about culture rather than financial incentives.