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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9064 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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I've been really thinking about this tweet.

Forcibly draft men to die for their country and no one bats an eye

Suggest that women have children for their country and suddenly everyone starts freaking out

We can force men to die, but can't even ask women to become mothers

This point is interesting, and I think rather noteworthy. There were many protests over the Vietnam conscription, Muhammad Ali's being the most famous example, so perhaps saying no backlash at all is a bit hastey. And who could forget our poor friends in Ukraine.

Still, I think she raises an interesting point. Most men still, (both legally and socially). Have to abide by the traditional man script. And this pressure is more on them then womens end of the social contract, which (from what I can see) is basically non existent.

Now the easiest explanation for this double standard is probably just gender bias: we simply have less empathy for men as a whole.

The way I see it, there are a couple of plausible solutions to make things for fair or consistent(any additional ones are welcome):

  1. Gender "Equality". Extend "bodily autonomy" rights (for those who are actually consistent and believe in the concept, as a side note, I believe this is just a silly excuse) to men and end the draft, eliminate male disposability. Both men and women ask each other out. Stop valueing men as pure economic units. Men aren't wallets or soldiers, their people! Ect. Basically "Masculism" or some variation of MRA movement.

  2. Extend the social contract obligations to women, and all that entails. Basically bring back some (or all) of the "patriarchy".

From what I can tell, 1 has kinda been tried, and has basically failed, probably due to the gender bias mentioned. I imagine Lauren favors the 2nd option, (& I kinda do). Implementing it may be unrealistic, however, due to various political and environmental constraints. I think realistically though, we are probably gonna have take a hard examination at the female end of the social contract at some-point, when birth rates and their implications become more severe and un-ignorable. Maybe we get lucky technology bails us out, but fundementally, I find the prospect of a society with no children, no families, etc, to be deeply dystopian.

I think one thing conscription shows (and the fact that many societies have it) is that, no society really wants to cease to exist. Nor should we. There is something valuable about societies existing, and continuing on into the future, even if we have to make some sacrifices for it. I think one can make a case (and many indeed do!) for extending some modified version of the social contract/roles to women. I've been deep thought about if societies might attempt this in the future, or what a modified variation of feminine roles/obilgations would look like. What do you think?

I honestly think this is a pretty reasonable take. A lot of people are attacking the claim that drafting people isn't controversial. It obviously is, but the majority of society still sees it as a necessary evil, as without it the nation could be overrun by other states that are less scrupulous. This is less of an issue for the USA that only has two relatively weak neighbors, but the principle is sound in general. Ukraine would have collapsed to Russian aggression long ago if it didn't draft its population to fight, and yes it's very controversial in that country with there being many examples of draft dodging enforcement actions that look more like kidnappings, but again it's still necessary.

Childbirth is extremely invasive for women of course, but it's also very invasive to be enslaved by the military and potentially shot to death. While death in childbirth can happen, it's fairly rare with modern medicine. Death in war on the other hand is an expected outcome for thousands or millions of men. If women were told that raising the children was optional after birth, then they'd only need to go through the pregnancy for 9 months, give birth, and then they'd be done which compares to the years-long requirements for many draftees, with unclear end dates. If I was behind the veil of ignorance and told I either had to be either a man reborn to be drafted in Ukraine's war, or a woman forced to bear a child for the state, I'd choose the latter pretty easily.

The main 2 differences I can see between drafting and forced childbirth are the following:

  1. Forced childbirth hasn't been seen as necessary historically since natural birthrates had been sufficient.
  2. The idea of forcing women to bear a large share of societal costs is seen as far more heinous than asking men to do the same.

Neither of these is very compelling in our current situation.

Great. Let's agree on this: every one of you men go off to war every year, while every woman gets pregnant every year. Happy with the bargain?

No? That would presumably lead to an absurd amount of unnecessary wars and would flip the underpopulation problem into an overpopulation problem.

Not if enough men die in the wars.

You'd have to fuck up a whole lot to manage that, I think, if you're the US. Basically do literally 1984-esque makework war (makewar) without even trying to be effective. At this point just drop the pretense and execute whatever surplus unnecessary males you think there are.

What?

It's not an overpopulation problem if enough people get killed in the wars. I mean, you've got other demographic problems them, but no longer overpopulation.

I guess? But having a bunch of people die in pointless wars would be bad in and of itself.

Depends on the opportunity cost.

Wouldn't call it "happy", but of that's what it takes, I can take one for the team.

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