site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   16264 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm not sure what the point would be of legally disestablishing paternity would be if you're married. If you want to do it for your own edification then buy a test off of Amazon; there's no role for the court to play here.

You can't think of why a married man would want to legally establish he'd been cheated on and duped?

You can't think of why a married man would want to legally establish he'd been cheated on and duped?

I suspect what's going on here is that @Rov_Scam is attacking some kind of straw man. Why would a married man wish to establish non-paternity? Obviously, the answer is that -- if the law allows it -- he would like to get a divorce and get out of paying child support. If he discovered he was not the father, either through an informal DNA test or some other way, then in theory he could file for divorce and, as part of that proceeding, ask for the Court to find that he's not the father and therefore he's not on the hook for child support. As part of that proceeding, he would presumably request a formal DNA test. (Of course this is only if a non-paternity proceeding is permitted in the relevant jurisdiction.)

Here's what I said before:

If the man is married to the mother, it's a much bigger problem for him. In a lot of jurisdictions, he's completely screwed. In others, he has a limited amount of time to dispute paternity.

Now, obviously it kind of goes without saying that if a husband is formally disputing paternity, he's going to be doing it in connection with a divorce proceeding. Admittedly, I did not spell that out. Which -- I suspect -- was the opening @Rov_Scam needed to come in and pretend that I was talking about a non-paternity proceeding brought without any kind of divorce. Which I agree would be silly.

Which is why I strongly suspect that @Rov_Scam is just going after a strawman for whatever reason. But who knows? In another post I asked him to QUOTE me if I said anything he disputes.

I'm not trying to establish a straw man, I just don't understand why you continued to argue after I said you could disestablish paternity as part of a divorce proceeding.

If the man is married to the mother, it's a much bigger problem for him. In a lot of jurisdictions, he's completely screwed. In others, he has a limited amount of time to dispute paternity.

I arbitrarily looked at the laws in the number of states and I couldn't find any that prohibited this.

If I'm reading correctly, California allows cohabiting spouses two years after the date of birth to dispute paternity. I think Indiana, too? I'm not sure of anywhere with a statutory block, but paternity-by-estoppel states can supposedly get really messy even with clear genetic evidence.

... uh, hilariously, Pennsylvania does actually have case law blocking genetic testing for paternity in some cases and seems to have a paternity-by-estoppel statute.

As a preliminary matter, you're not going to find any estoppel statutes (there may be a few but that would be rare). Estoppel is an equitable doctrine that prevents someone who has engaged in a course of conduct that creates a reliance interest from reneging to the detriment of another. I don't have time to go into too much detail but see this case. It, along with the first one you cited, gives a good overview of the contemporary views of the presumption of paternity and paternity by estoppel. As to the former, the court concludes that:

This Court’s decisions, however, have held steadfast that there is a single circumstance under which the presumption of paternity continues to apply, and, indeed, is irrebuttable –where there is an intact marriage to preserve.

To quote the relevant part of the opinion you cited:

In order to determine the paternity of a child born in wedlock, courts first must determine whether the marriage is intact at the time of the paternity challenge. If so, then the presumption of paternity applies, and dictates that, regardless of biology, the mother’s spouse will be the child’s parent. However, the presumption may be rebutted if the putative father produces clear and convincing evidence that: (1) there is a reasonable possibility that DNA testing would reveal him to be the child’s biological father; and (2) determining parentage based upon DNA testing serves the best interests of the child, with due consideration for the interests of the potential father as well as the interests of the wife and husband. If the court finds no threshold possibility of paternity, or determines that adjudicating paternity by DNA testing would disserve the relevant interests, then the presumption governs. But if the court finds a threshold possibility of paternity, and determines that the balance of interests lies in assigning paternity based upon the biological truth, the presumption must yield, and the court should order appropriate genetic testing to determine paternity of the child.

I'm not trying to establish a straw man, I just don't understand why you continued to argue after I said you could disestablish paternity as part of a divorce proceeding.

Maybe because I wasn't actually arguing but instead asking for clarification?

Here's what I said:

I'm not sure what your point is here. Do you disagree with anything I have said?

And then later:

Again, I am not sure what your point is here. Let's do this: Is there anything I said which you dispute? If so, please QUOTE it.

It seems you don't actually dispute anything I said. But were rather pretending that I was seriously proposing for a husband to bring a non-paternity proceeding without an accompanying divorce proceeding. i.e. straw-manning me.

Anyway, I will ask the question a third time:

Is there anything I said which you dispute? If so, please QUOTE it.

And by the way, do you have any precedent to support your claim that for a conviction under the Federal wire fraud statute "the government would need to identify a particular person that saw the representation, relied on the representation, and that the organization made money off of that reliance."

No, I can't. The legal consequences of disestablishing paternity are irrelevant if the man and woman are married and living in the same household with the child. The three things that are legally at play here are support obligations, visitation rights, and the right to make decisions. Married guys with kids don't pay child support to their wives, and visitation isn't an issue when you live together. And he doesn't need a court order to let his wife make all the decisions.

if the man and woman are married

I'm not sure where you're from, but on planet Earth, cheating is generally cause for not being married any more, notably even in religions that are normally incompatible with divorce.

It not being the husband's kid is undeniable evidence that this happened, and further, undeniable evidence that the wife concealed that fact. (The mother is not confused- the baby comes out of the mother.)

The purpose of this law is simply to limit the woman's liability for cheating in a relationship, while leaving it unlimited for the man (any intent behind that is an exercise for the reader). It's consistent with the other laws that limit the duties the woman has to the man in a marriage.

even in religions that are normally incompatible with divorce.

This part is not true- adultery is not accepted as a reason for divorce in religions that forbid it. The largest such, the Roman Catholic Church, recommends a civil divorce only when the marriage endangers a member or members of the household and doesn't accept divorces as valid in any circumstance(it is not sufficient for an annulment to demonstrate that the parties shouldn't be married anymore).

If you file for divorce then the marriage ends and you very much can challenge paternity.

Please read the entire thread before commenting.

cheating is generally cause for not being married any more

If you're suspicious, you can feel free to have a private lab do a test. If you then decide to file, you can have the court order a proper test as part of the proceedings.

Having legally established that you'd been cheated on and tricked into raising somebody else's kid isn't going to be a relevant factor in the following divorce case?

I would only recommend pursuing an at-fault divorce if the following apply:

  1. You want the details of your humiliation to be a matter of public record
  2. You don't mind paying significantly more for this privilege

And even then, as I've said about 50 times by now, the court would order the test after you file.

Why on earth do you think it makes any sense at all for the "official" test to come after the divorce is filed, rather than before? One would think you'd want to have that sorted out formally and then decide to file based on that result, not file for a lark and then find out.

Regarding the "at-fault" thing: justice is its own reward. It's not going to be a secret you got cucked either way, obviously.

I think Rov_Scam's focusing on the 'legally' part of 'legally disestablishing paternity'. Because the legal effort to disestablishment paternity is seeking a court order, it's not special because of the genetic testing providing stronger technology, but because of the formal environment on the legal system providing 'proof' from a seeing-as-a-state perspective. Even if you're divorcing the person for unrelated reasons and then want to make sure that the kid is yours, you'll want to file for divorce immediately because of associated delays rather than figure out paternity; if you're filing divorce because the kid isn't yours, you need to know that before any legal filings because a false claim will probably have your wife divorcing you.

((I'm not convinced it's always useless to go with an at-fault divorce, but it's definitely one of those things that's iffy : infidelity can impact alimony, but it's ultimately up to the judge making it up weighing competing factors, and outside of very high-income relationships, it's quite possible that any difference will get swallowed by the increased legal costs, risks of proof being insufficient, and counterclaims (either reciprocal infidelity, or acknowledgement).

That said, it can speed up the divorce. I think it matters less in PA most of the time, since it has a 90-day no-fault if both partners agree and that's faster than you can get on a court docket, but either a unilateral divorce or in states that require 1-year separate for all no-fault divorces, that can be value of its own.))

Caveat: I'll make the cuck argument here, and it's not the kid's fault their mom failed to either keep it in her pants or have the balls to request an open marriage. But I get that matters a lot more for het people.

You wrote a great reply so apologies for responding to the smallest detail first:

I think it matters less in PA most of the time

Hang on, are you also in PA? Just how much of this board is located in PA? One could be forgiven for getting the impression there are like 2 Indians, an Irish woman, and everyone else here is from Pennsylvania.

As we should be.

No, apologies. I've used it as an example because I was under the impression Rov_Scam was operating as a lawyer in Pennsylvania.

More comments

Don't forget the two New J*rseyans who can't get guns because they saw psychiatrists one or two decades ago and don't have the records.

More comments

I'm not sure what the point would be of legally disestablishing paternity would be if you're married.

It can potentially get you out of paying child support if you get divorced. Which presumably a lot of men would do if they discovered they were the victims of their wife's paternity fraud.

Like I said, if you're suspicious you can get a test done through a lab, it just won't be able to be used in court. If you decide to get divorced based on the result, then you can have a forensic-grade test done. I also don't know what kind of universe you think exists where a guy could initiate proceedings questioning the paternity of one of the marital children that wouldn't result in the wife just filing for divorce anyway.

Like I said, if you're suspicious you can get a test done through a lab, it just won't be able to be used in court. If you decide to get divorced based on the result, then you can have a forensic-grade test done. I also don't know what kind of universe you think exists where a guy could initiate proceedings questioning the paternity of one of the marital children that wouldn't result in the wife just filing for divorce anyway.

Again, I am not sure what your point is here. Let's do this: Is there anything I said which you dispute? If so, please QUOTE it.

And by the way, do you have any precedent to support your claim that for a conviction under the Federal wire fraud statute "the government would need to identify a particular person that saw the representation, relied on the representation, and that the organization made money off of that reliance."

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats