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 -
What country are we imagining, here? In the USA, my answer is-
Allow married women access to social security for up to the first two years after childbirth as a replacement for earned income. You can get this done, although it would technically have to be gender equal, by making it dependent on a working spouse’s social security number.
Offer student loan forgiveness with marriage and childbirth. For best results, I’d probably do $10,000 forgiven at marriage, 20k for the first child, and everything wiped out after three, with a smaller payout for child number 2. Have this with no sunsetting.
Require states to make a no-frills childbirth free through medicaid with no means-testing.
Preempt local car seat requirements for children five or older.
Sounds funny, but this is directionally among the best pieces of advice here. My SO and I (we met in grad school in the US) discussed the possibility of having children in the future before, and quickly concluded that we like the idea iff we do not return to the US, because safetyism is enshrined in the law and culture to the point that depending on the state you are expected to provide your children with 24/7 minders up until age 14 or so, and still can get CPSed for something random that a neighbourhood busybody happened to dislike (no child seat? unfiltered internet access? allowed to climb a tree? slapped for throwing a tantrum?). And then there's the ridiculous costs, both for satisfying safety demands (babysitters and what-not) and for obtaining anything resembling decent schooling.
It's not just a joke. The cost of not preventing 8000ish births is that you also don't get to prevent 60ish deaths, though.
It's kind of weird that we have reason to patch up our car's seats post-hoc at all, though, isn't it? That there isn't a standard seat-belt adjustment for them? At some point around "all new vehicles must have dual front airbags" (1998) or at least by "all new vehicles must have backup cameras" (2018), you'd think "all new vehicles must be able to buckle up a toddler without inserting a third-party Rube Goldberg contraption" should have been on the table.
Either the auto industry shot down the idea, or it genuinely isn't physically feasible. Or, pure failure of the imagination and somehow nobody thought of it. I dunno, those baby seats must be doing a hell of a lot to have so much instituional inertia.
I remember built in car seats in mini vans when I was in elementary school, but it’s probably not physically possible to have the same seat securely accommodate a small child and an adult. The size difference is too big.
a few things spring to mind- at the highest end, wealthy people don't care and can just buy a super nice kid seat, at the lower ends people want a vehicle that will last 10+ years. Removability of the child seat is a feature. Secondly, resale value on cars with permanent child seats would plummet, because who wants to buy a car knowing that its had shitty snotty kids in it for the last however long.
Specifically I recall some kind of flip-down contraption built into the seats for easy convertability. While they feature in my memories predominantly as being impossible to clean to the point of the filth motivating me to get out of car seats ASAP, my suspicion is that the real reason for their disappearance is a change in minimum required standards for car seats.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link