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 -
@Bombadil is concerned, AIUI, about the possibility of a majority-feminist democracy removing a bunch of legal rights from men. You're using economic theorems that are founded on the assumption that both the buyer and seller are free citizens - that they have the option of walking away status quo ante. A slave can't walk away; his master (or, I suppose, mistress) can unilaterally torture him if he does not accept the deal, which tends to make his bargaining position pretty awful (and let's not get into the abuse of psychiatric drugs to remove his ability to refuse).
I personally, upon reading @Testing's OP, had more immediate/prosaic concerns, although still based on the "one person, one vote" point; the sex disparity in attitudes to liberty is huge (note that it mostly persists even for Red-coded oppression; this isn't just an artifact of the majority of women being Blue Tribe), and I'd worry about all the usual failure modes of hewing the legs from under liberty as a societal principle (including economic stagnation, for starters).
Sure they can. But they don't, partially because there's no better deal to be found elsewhere. (Related: why don't women leave abusive husbands in 1860?)
The thing about one's group being in deficit is that it increases the benefits to defectors. Usually this means "pays a [higher/lower] wage if one is a [buyer/seller]", but it can be other things too, in particular political power.
For the last 100ish years, men have been the defectors, paying women higher and higher socioeconomic wages. They couch this in moral terms, but fundamentally it's just business, just like anti-slavery efforts (and democracy more generally) were back in their day.
Make the economic situation dire enough and people will literally fight to make themselves slaves. Communist countries are a pretty good object lesson in how that works.
We can debate the point that men are completely unnecessary in modern society (which is, in fact, a reasonable question to ask- as automation mostly replaces men, including suicide drone swarms); if they are, this won't work for exactly the reasons you stated. But if they are vital, then my point holds; I'll point to Western gynocracies' obsession with mass male immigration as a suggestion that they are.
Yes, I'm fully aware of the track record of Western governance over the last 30 years.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link