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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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yet there's a subset of the population (apparently, you included) that will say that it's a lie.

How can we know whether it's a lie or the truth when saying it is impossible? People who aren't overjoyed by their kids are considered the worst of the worst, up there with pedofiles and rappists.

Two points:

1 - Even if the true joy of parenting is ineffable (unfortunately the case) you can get an approximation by experiencing them in some way. Maybe it's "Kid's say the darndest things", hanging out with neices/nephews, or just being attentive at a playground while you eat a picnic lunch. This is hard, but I've already had 4 things happen today (despite having a job and typing out this reply) that I would classify as super cool and worth it.

2 - Think about how many people have to lie consistently over thousands of years for your thesis to be true. In the entirety of human history... wait, no, in the entire history of this planet for every form of life, Parenting has been worth it. And yet, only with the advent of social media and the mass delusional influence of women it enables in just the past 15 years... now we've finally woken up to the fact that procreating actually sucks? Just use your common sense here. How likely is that?

Every group that figured out the lie ended up extinct

Presumably this is also what happened to every group that decided that "being alive is neat" was a monstrous lie also ended up, only slightly more quickly.

Or perhaps beliefs that lead directly to "going extinct" aren't just bad but also incorrect.

Beliefs that lead to extinction cannot be widely accepted in a society for more than a short period of time, for obvious reasons.

That doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong.

Additionally beliefs that enhance survival are not necessarily correct or true.

This is the worst kind of hyperbole. No, someone saying they're not that into their kids isn't subject to the same degree of social ostracism as actual rapists or pedophiles. C'mon dude.

A rappist? Ah, is this the explanation for the Bad Bunny hate?