site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   20337 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 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.

An influencer couple announced that they aborted their pregnancy because the fetus had Down syndrome. This upset a lot of people including some fine congressmen.

However, it's actually very common. Screening for genetic disorders is generally performed between 10 and 20 weeks, giving plenty of time for a reasonably early choice. "As a result of these elective terminations in the U.S., there was a 37% reduction in the numbers of babies with Down syndrome born in 2018. This means that in recent years there were 37% fewer babies with Down syndrome than could have been born". In Iceland, almost all such diagnosed pregnancies are aborted after testing.

People with Down syndrome are clearly generally capable of living "happy" lives. They have the equivalent intelligence of an 8 to 9 year old. Most 8 to 9 year olds seem happy enough to me, and it would not be a horrible curse to live decades in such a condition. Perhaps we might ask if such a life is fulfilling, but a young child can't comprehend what that means; as well ask your dog if he's fulfilled by sniffing butts and digging holes.

For the caretakers of course, life may not be so rosy. Taking care of a small child indefinitely, knowing all of the joys and sorrows of adulthood that they will never experience, does not sound fulfilling, to say nothing of the physical and monetary toll. It's therefore unsurprising that most parents choose not to condemn themselves to such a future.

God in His infinite wisdom creates babies with far worse afflictions. Most people would agree that it is ethical, perhaps mandatory, to abort nonviable children who will live only hours in agonizing pain after birth. Down syndrome, as a patently survivable condition, lies on the edge of this boundary.

Maybe aborting your downs-y fetus is something you should do in private. This is intentionally trying to court controversy.

Maybe the early stages of pregnancy should be something you do in private. I always thought that you weren't supposed to tell anyone until 3 months in at a minimum; plenty of things, even besides Downs, can go wrong early on.

Yeah. But, well, Influencers.

Yeah. 14 weeks has been received wisdom in my experience, since I believe about 95% of miscarriages occur by that point and it's usually about the point of the first ultrasound.

Agreed on this, and that aborting the fetus is the right thing to do. But expecting such restraint from an influencer is about as reasonable as expecting couth from Trump; the obnoxiousness is just the nature of the beast.

They already made a video announcing the pregnancy, so they couldn't just pretend that nothing happened.

Yeah, you just don't mention it again and everyone assumes it was a miscarriage and you don't want to discuss it. But yes, Influencers are obnoxious, I know.

Just heavily imply it was a spontaneous miscarriage. Nobody is going to pry much deeper

Since they were already oversharers in the first place, I see it as a good thing, to the extent them being transparent about yeeting their Downed fetus nudges such an action further within the Overton window and encourages others to do the same.

It is preferrable not to lie

Society prefers polite fictions about abortion, miscarriages and SIDS over the alternative

What is the scoop on SIDS? I heard some echoes from conspiritard circles that it's a euphemism for women killing their babies (by accident or not), but I don't have a high degree of faith in the source here, and I'm not an expert on baby health.

Conspiracy? I’ve always been under the impression it was an open secret, that SIDS was mostly a face-saving coverall.

A) To let presumably grieving parents (especially mothers) save face and/or avoid blaming themselves for the infant’s death. Plus, not many people want to be a big meanie and ask too many difficult questions to a parent (especially a mother) who just lost a baby, even if it might be more like “lost” in many cases.

B) To let the poor and BIPOC save face. Like @wqnm and @burkeboi mentioned, SIDS occurs most frequently among the demographics you most expect, and without SIDS as an alibi we’d be outing such parents (especially [single] mothers) as careless, impulsive, neglectful, and/or malicious, and we can’t have that.

SIDS is a tragedy that can strike any mother of an infant at any time. If It Just So Happens that SIDS occurs more frequently among mothers from underserved and minority communities, that only means we need to provide such communities with more support and resources (i.e., taxpayer gibs).

under the impression it was an open secret

Not according to the demographic most likely to take it seriously (which conversely Just So Happens to be the demographic that suffers from SIDS the least frequently), who are likely to try and spend resources preventing it.

Plus, not many people want to be a big meanie and ask too many difficult questions to a parent (especially a mother) who just lost a baby

Beyond very obvious depraved-heart stuff like "gave birth in a bathroom and left the baby in the toilet" I think it's good such questions not be asked. If they were, we'd only be prosecuting it if the mother was white, as a natural extension of who over-zealous CPS reporting is most likely to affect now.

According to baby care classes I took: they think it is largely accidental suffocation. Like falling asleep holding your baby and then shifting your weight so the baby's face ends up pressed against you. They lack the strength to reposition themselves.

I'm friends with an EMT, this is correct. It's most commonly things like tired new parents co-sleeping with newborns and accidentally smothering them, etc. Newborn babies are super fragile, and it's not always prosecution-level negligence that kills them. As burkeboi mentions below, it's especially common amongst certain demographics you would expect.

I was reading the book Expecting Better from Oster since I'm having a kid soon, and she gave a stat where something like 80% or so of SIDS deaths come from smoking households in the UK. Those households are like 10-15% of the total households. That's not to say smoking is the big killer, although it is pretty bad for fetuses and new babies, but a family that is likely to smoke around their kid is likely to ignore other best practices as well.

From that, and other things I've read, it seems that SIDS is highly correlated with parents who do tons of things wrong, rather than just one thing or another. The "conspiracy" take is that a lot of public health messaging, to make the underclass and/or specific minorities look less bad, overemphasizes that 'this could happen to anyone' rather than pointing to most SIDS happening from parents being really negligent on many axes rather than Sally the Secretary having a drink every now and then.

That's an accurate description. Doesn't mean it's the right choice.

They already made a video announcing the pregnancy, so they couldn't just pretend that nothing happened.

I think that as a practical matter, they could. If a few months later the woman was not visibly pregnant, very few people would ask what happened. And if someone did ask, the response "it didn't work out" would generally be accepted.

Yeah. Miscarriages happen and there's a layer of social propriety around this matter where people aren't going to pry.

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