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 -
Is the slippery slope really a fallacy?
A story from Canada today that, by its very nature, maximizes heat. I will try to keep my own emotions about this story in check. Sitting at the intersection of gay rights, abortion rights, surrogacy rights, and ultimately the violence upon which all government force is founded, I bring you: Couple sues surrogate who refused to abort their baby over a minor birth defect
https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/world-news/couple-sues-surrogate-who-refused-to-abort-their-baby-over-a-minor-birth-defect/
Long story short, the baby had a minor heart defect
(the article doesn't specify what)and a cleft palate, and the adoptive men wish their now two year old child had been murdered and are suing the birth mother for failing to do so (there are also claims that she failed to keep them informed in a timely manner about these issues). Last I'll say of my own emotions on this is that this strikes me as outright demonic behavior and if I say anything more about my feelings I'm going to drift into fedposting so I'll stop here.The main point I can take away from this is that all of the Christian right that warned about various slippery slopes have been validated over, and over, and over again. The slippery slope is technically a fallacy, yes. But Christians repeatedly pointed out "There is no limiting principle here, and the arguments you nake to support degenerate behavior X are just as applicable to degenerate behaviors Y and Z and there is nothing except public sentiment (and not even that if a judge somewhere says otherwise) preventing the awful things we're talking about from becoming reality."
For those who lived through the culture wars over abortion, gay rights, and similar issues, have your feelings on the matter changed in anyway whatsoever over the last decade or two, and in which direction? And why, if you're able to articulate.For me at least, to quote the meme an old friend shared in our edgy groupchat the other day, "Upon further consideration I have decided to become more extreme in my religious beliefs".
If you oppose two gay guys renting a woman for her body and then getting a lab to artificially inseminate her so they can live out their dreams of owning a baby but then it's not the baby they hoped for so they ask her to kill it and when she doesn't they try to sue her- if you oppose that, and your only argument against it is "it might get weirder in the future," you've already surrendered.
If you opposed any of the precursor policies 20 years ago, and the argument you settled on was "it might get weird in the future," then you surrendered back then. Saying "This is a slippery slope" at the start of the argument is a good opener, but saying it at the end of the argument (which trads ended up doing on all these issues) is a form of sulking surrender, like "Oh you'll be sorry one day." Well it's one day now and none of the winners are sorry. They just keep winning bigger and bigger, which makes invoking the slippery slope even funnier to them.
If you care about this stuff, you need to go to war or give up on the West, and especially the East, where they love abortion and suicide even more than we do. Accept that you live in a society where the average person has been totally given over to evil and futile hedonism, and react accordingly.
I don't know what "accordingly" means, but most people have settled on "I will live exactly like everyone else does except I will not kill my baby or my old aunt" which seems like cope. If the sort of situation described in the article is possible, there's something a lot deeper going on in society.
The argument wasn't "it might get weirder" it was (and is) "it will get weirder" and it will get weirder in very specific, predictable ways (plus some new man-made horrors beyond our comprehension and ability to predict). And it was hardly the only argument against gay marriage, legal abortion, etc.
That's an option, but without a critical mass of people on your side it's not a realistic possibility. One of the other options (and these are not all mutually exclusive) is to create your own pocket of sanity and stability in the world for you and yours, while preparing for when other, more decisive solutions to the issue become more feasible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link