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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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There is a lot more culture war meat here than random celebrity gossip. Maybe it shouldn't have gotten this much attention, but now that it has, the meta is CW relevant.

This is far closer to a gun control debate following a school shooting than celebrity gossip....

Also, there is a giant memetic threat here, that I wont be surprised if we see sympathy for Clance increase cases like this. I think there is a precursor in SIDs. SIDS may have hidden the causal mechanism of infant deaths so effectively that society learned “babies occasionally inexplicably die” rather than transmitting a more specific warning about dangerous parental practices. While this mostly disappeared in sleeping safety reducing accidental suffocation, I suspect that some amount of infanticide also got 'disappeared' into this statistic.

When SIDs is some 'act of God', nobody internalizes or normalizes the idea that some women(and men) can't handle it and are irresponsible with their babies to the point of homocidal neglect or even outright infanticide. The toaster fucking meme is apt here.

I’ve heard over the years that SIDs was just society’s way of covering up infantacide. How true is this? Are their stats? Studies? Not making a judgement either way, just wondering.

Not true in that simplistic of a formulation. But it’s complicated. There was no conspiracy to cover up infanticide across society. Rather SIDs as a catch-all included poorer safety standards / knowledge, accidents, negligence, and yes infanticide but as a minority.

Infanticide, probably not so much- SIDS parents get investigated.

Crappy parenting, though? Yes. There’s a world of difference between intentional infanticide and alcoholic/drug using mothers smothering their babies on accident in a stupor.

Yeah, one thing that's been heavy on my mind in this case has been the prospect of a NAMBLA-esque fringe radical feminist group emerging over the next few years, seeking to normalize maternal filicide years after birth by extension of much of the abortion logic, and causing a lot of trouble in the process.

That already exists. Progressive lawmakers occasionally propose laws allowing infanticide on the part of the mother. Awkward pro-abortion arguments regularly get into ‘this would also apply to a 3 month old’ territory.

Can you cite one of these proposed laws?

A quick search reveals some alarm regarding this California bill. An earlier version of the text (click on the dropdown menu at the upper right corner of the page and go to 2022-03-17) said:

Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.

"Perinatal death" does include infanticide. However, the final version that actually became law (2022-09-27) changed this to "perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero".

I mean, I'm not even thinking that extreme. I just mean creeping incrementalism of abdication of maternal duty being ok.

This is giving me strong mouse utopia vibes.

I don’t know what that means

that reddit atheist meme

Old experiment with mice. Giving them abundance led to inversion of ordinary mouse behavior and collapse of mouse civilization.