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 -
An elegant solution to all the male crisises, embryonic sex selection. https://mistakesweremade.substack.com/p/the-y-chromosome-is-dysgenic
Men commit far more crime than women, they are more prone to diseases and they live shorter lives.
There may be more variation in men's IQ scores and they are more common in STEM, so we would certainly need some men for new discoveries and the like but what is the need for 1:1 sex ratio?
Most people don't work on intellectual tasks in civilization which need constant innovation and incredible time spent on them with a singular focus. Most jobs are mundane and of maintaince variety. We can just have few men which work on hard research type jobs where vast majority of population is women. Maybe with lack of men female researchers would lead. Besides if super intelligence arrives we may not need men working at these jobs at all.
This would solve the incel problem since men are rarer, this would solve the problem of dangerous men preying on women.
Note I am not serious here, but talking about this hypothetical seems like fun. It does seem obviously wrong but I can't pinpoint any specific moral principle it might violate.
Surely there is something wrong with this argument but what is it? It seems fine from an purely utalitarian perspective.
Edit: i am again restating that I am not seriously considering this. It's starting prompt for philosophy and a fun writing excercise.
The problem with this is that males become a kind of elite celebrity class, where the average male will have higher social status than the average female. Women would probably get jealous at this state of affairs. Many women would think, "why couldn't I have been born a man?" It wouldn't look like a feminist utopia.
I legitimately think that female envy (which is what drove Western Feminism) requires something of a low-status male slave class to rule over. Similarly, humans only think themselves rich when they have poorer neighbors to compare themselves with.
From this perspective, the humane solution to female emancipation is something like male p-zombies. Of course, that would require a Big Lie, so is it really humane?
But do people really desire this? I would say the evidence points to people in general wanting to live around and interact with people in their own economic class, not live as a king among the poors.
I think women looking for men are mostly similar to this, they might want the best mate they can get but are perfectly fine with having a mate roughly as good as their peers.
America is unusual among societies with relatively high inequality in that the "rich" class arranges things to make it easier to avoid poors 100% of the time, not to make it easier to hire servants with the tradeoff of only being able to avoid the other poors 90% of the time. I don't know if this is because America has a cultural norm of fake egalitarianism which makes people want servants less, or if it is because America is worse at policing such that people are willing to make more tradeoffs to avoid poors.
This is because of measures designed by real egalitarians ostensibly to help the poor, such as minimum wage and nanny taxes. Of course, if you can't hire poors to work for you (unless you're Elon Musk rich and not just two-doctor household rich), you're best off avoiding them entirely.
Two doctor households in Texas- or one doctor households- regularly hire nannies and housekeepers. Of course, we have very high inequality by US standards. But a cleaning lady once or even twice a week merely requires one to be middle class if it's a priority, or upper middle if it isn't.
Hiring a cleaning lady once or twice a week is hiring a contractor, either under the table (cheap, illegal, but negligible chance of punishment) or through some agency which handles the formalities (expensive and legal). That's different than having a servant or servants who only work for you.
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