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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36337 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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How about a pallet cleanser?

In the other thread a few people brought up surrogacy, and maybe I've spent too much time with TERFs, but am I the only one that overwhelmed with the feeling of Lovecraftian horror whenever it's brought up? The feeling is even more uncanny, because it's like I slept through some great societal debate where everybody decided it's actually a lovely thing that should be celebrated. Although maybe it's not all that bad, there's a certain "how it started, how it's going" quality to the NYT headlines. In any case the casual way it's supporters talk about surrogacy freaks me out even more than militant pro-choicers.

Then there's the whole slippery slope thing:

  • Love is love, we have a right to get married just the same as you! - Yes I agree!

  • We also have a right to adopt! - Sure! I mean I have my issues with adoption in practice, but in principle if there are kids without parents, and willing gay couples to adopt them I don't see an issue.

  • We also have a right to biological children! What? Do you expect us to be ok with not having children?

Wait what? Yes I do! I'm all for tolerance, and living and letting live, but you're not going to make me see this as a lovely family moment, and anyway I don't remember signing on to turning a fundamental human experience into an industry when I supported the gay rights movement. Accept the limits of your biology, and move on.

Which brings me to Dase's idea "postrat «don't mean-spiritedly dunk on a rationalist» challenge (impossible)". Indeed, I can't help myself, and even though I used to be rat/rat-adjacent, I find myself having growing disdain for the entire philosophy. There's a meme that's slowly gathering momentum, that all the trans stuff, and 72 genders is just a foot in the door for transhumanism, and after I heard the idea for the first time, I can't seem to unsee it. This twisted ideology will drive us to throw away our humanity, turn us into a cross-over between Umgah Blobbies and the Borg, or trick us into committing suicide, because there's a subroutine running on some GPU somewhere, that's somewhat similar to the processes in our brains. Given the utter dominance of the trans ideology, the vindication of the slippery slope argument, and the extrapolated trajectory of these ideas, I believe we have no other choice - Transhumanism must be destroyed!

The only practical difference between a woman getting pregnant via a random man and giving the kid up for adoption, later being adopted by a gay couple, and surrogacy, is that the woman bearing the child is compensated for her time and efforts in the latter case (and, I guess, that the child's parentage is known). Neither of those seem like anything I would call a detriment compared to the former case.

I disagree. Money being involved is important because it creates incentives. It's the reason prostitution is not morally equivalent to casual sex.

i.e.: congratulations you now live in a society where some women will be forced to bear other's children against their will

Doesn't matter if all you wanted was voluntary exchange.

If you are a leftist and buy into the concept of wage slavery, sure. If you take a slightly less negative view of exchanging money for labor, then they aren't "forced against their will".

Well this is where ancaps lose me. I hold to certain things being more sacred that voluntary exchange, and sex and child-rearing is most definitely on the list.

The horror of such a situation is not something I see as allowable, even if Moloch says it's a-okay because everyone consented.

But then of course, the libertarian solution is that you're free to have such horrors in your community so long as I'm allowed to bar you from mine.

"it's against her will, even if it's consensual!"

This is basically the argument made in every spurious me too case.

That’s because the reasons that actually motivate people’s response in those cases are not what they are allowed to argue for in today culture, so that they are forced to make argument in the accepted framework, that is, framework of consent.

I wrote about it at the previous place:

What happens here is the conflict between traditional norms of sexuality, and the ones that have arisen during sexual revolution. This is really simple: a guy who uses his fame and status to pump and dump naive girls is seen as morally repugnant, according to traditional norms of sexuality that most people still hold, either consciously or subconsciously. That’s because traditional norms focus on stability, responsibility, and equity. However, in modern liberal take on sexuality, the core value is individual choice. Ability to choose is what empowers humans, and choosing is ultimate way to express sexuality. The confusion stems from the fact that people laud the norms of the latter, but make moral judgement based on the former set of norms. Hence, the guy is wrongdoer, because he wasn’t supposed to just pump and dump them: instead, he was supposed to validate them, by expending his efforts to signal she has high value. That she chose to do it and consented to the act is irrelevant: that’s not the deal she had in mind when consenting. She was hoping to get traditional deal, but instead she got the modern one.

The context was slightly different, but the point is the same.

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