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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026

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I’ll raise the issue of paternity testing as potential culture war fuel.

As far as I know, the law in US federal states and Western European countries is usually that a husband may not have a paternity test done on the child or children unless the wife agrees to it in writing and the family court permits it (in case of a divorce). I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know the specifics. But anyway, the practical reality is that a husband having such a test done on the kids without consulting anyone else is illegal. Basically there is never any permission given to do such tests.

On one of the now-defunct Manosphere sites, namely Dalrock’s blog, a regular commenter who went under the online name Novaseeker made a prediction about 10 or more years ago: not only will there not be any new legislation making paternity tests easier, as usually demanded online by angry men’s rights activists, but the opposite will happen. Namely: a growing number of men, usually in case of facing an initiated divorce, will start tinkering with these laws, covertly getting paternity tests done, basically on the black market, and this in turn will result on corresponding legislation becoming even more punitive and restrictive. There’ll be heavy fines, maybe even prison sentences etc.

Again, this was written more than 10 years ago. I wonder if anything of this has materialized or not.

Traditional society was a 'suck it up, life is hard' system that worked because things sucked equally for both genders. Men got an unfair amount of agency, and in return, women got an unfair amount of protection.

Feminism correctly pointed out that industrialized society should not be beholden to this survivalist system. In practice, they've focused on increasing agency for women, while fiercely guarding the protections of the erstwhile survivalist system.

Men have no competing movement because asking for protection is humiliating in erstwhile male society. Credit where it is due, Suffragettes did not get the credit they deserve for persisting with their non-woman-like behavior in public.

Asking for legal protections because you got cucked is humiliating. Asking for alimony from a wealthier ex-wife is humiliating.

One day, men will have their feminist movement. To men of this era, It will be ugly. It will look like boys becoming twinks. It will look like weak men refusing to take responsibility. It will look like welfare queens. As much as this forum is pro-men, I bet the shape of the eventual pro-men movement will disgust the median man on here.

Men have no competing movement because asking for protection is humiliating in erstwhile male society.

I think the bigger issue is that men as a group have little or no in-group bias compared to women -- who have strong in-group bias. So it's much more natural for women to organize and lobby for goodies for women.

One day, men will have their feminist movement. To men of this era, It will be ugly. It will look like boys becoming twinks. It will look like weak men refusing to take responsibility. It will look like welfare queens. As much as this forum is pro-men, I bet the shape of the eventual pro-men movement will disgust the median man on here.

These sorts of things are extremely difficult to predict, but barring any game-changing development in technology, I think the far likelier outcome is that subgroups which raise men and women both to fulfill traditional roles will just out-breed everyone else. How can a modern liberal woman who goes to grad school and has 2 or 3 children compete with a Haredi or Amish woman who marries at 18 and has 6-10 children?

Even with a low in group preference you would think that men would organize jointly on matters that impact all men, like with the evolutionary disadvantage men have when it comes to ensuring paternity.

And, well, this is what they did historically. What we call patriarchy is mostly just a way of managing this problem.

I don't think it can be explained purely by low in group favoritism for that reason.

How can a modern liberal woman who goes to grad school and has 2 or 3 children compete with a Haredi or Amish woman who marries at 18 and has 6-10 children?

Convert their kids. Some people already have the illiberal instincts to justify this.

[Per Patrick Deneen]We were discussing the practice of Rumspringa—literally, “running around”—a mandatory time of separation of young adults from the community during which they partake of the offerings of modern liberal society. The period of separation lasts usually about a year, at the end of which the young person must choose between the two worlds. An overwhelming number, approaching 90 percent, choose to return to be baptized and to accept norms and strictures of their community that forbid further enjoyment of the pleasure of liberal society. Some of my former colleagues took this as a sign that these young people were in fact not “choosing” as free individuals. One said, “We will have to consider ways of freeing them.” Perfect liberal consent requires perfectly liberated individuals, and the evidence that Amish youth were responding to the pull of family, community, and tradition marked them as unfree.

I'm sure the state can do plenty of things to try to suppress fertility. We've arguably mastered that trick by accident.

Even with a low in group preference you would think that men would organize jointly on matters that impact all men, like with the evolutionary disadvantage men have when it comes to ensuring paternity.

Why would you think that at all?

Suppose we did make disestablishing paternity much easier, so random man who married badly is better off. Great for him, really. But does the cost of supporting and raising a family end up being paid by the true father? No. Instead, that cost is born by net taxpayers, which is something like the median man and above. Although I genuinely sympathize with the guy getting cucked by his wife, I'm going to press the red button so I don't get cucked by the State. In the end, he did have choices about who he married and slept with, and he chose badly.

But does the cost of supporting and raising a family end up being paid by the true father? No.

Can we reintroduce debt slavery and forced labor then please? In order to turn that into a 'yes'?