site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I believe that one of the reasons why so many people are single today is because too many people are unattractive.

Yeah. Also there is the fact that the things that men were/are traditionally good at (heavy labor and war) aren't nearly as important in the modern world, while the traditional male failure modes of essentially being a violent/drug addicted/game addicted jackass are still just as bad. It's pretty arguable that Joe Median isn't a good deal for Jane Median these days. I'm not at all saying that this is a bad thing; there's been plenty of arguments that patriarchy was a sheltered workshop for unattractive dudes.

Also there is the fact that the things that men were/are traditionally good at (heavy labor and war) aren't nearly as important in the modern world

imma push back on that because let me just say that if men stopped doing all the things you could reasonably consider "heavy labor" for a week then entire industries and nations would be brought to the brink of collapse.

The modern world has definitely freed up large swathes of the population to do things that don't require lifting the equivalent of their body weight from parallel multiple times a day, and shoved those jobs where it is still expected off to the periphery. But the stuff that DOES require heavy labor as an input (agriculture, construction, energy production) are all FOUNDATIONAL for civilization.

But, from a cultural perspective, the physical and personality traits associated with engaging in heavy labor have certainly fallen out of fashion, so such guys are probably disadvantaged when it comes to finding mates. since a woman might have to take a status hit to be seen associated with such a man.

But the stuff that DOES require heavy labor as an input (agriculture, construction, energy production) are all FOUNDATIONAL for civilization.

Fair enough. But...suppose that something (a virus maybe) just nerfed the shit out of male strength, leaving most dudes as weak as the average woman. This would suck, but we'd learn to adapt and even if there was no cure, 10 years after that virus hit we'd be doing OK. This being said, I'm not sure that greater male physical strength is required for agriculture or construction. I will say that construction would be more expensive and less efficient if you only had women working it. This being said, if we had a good deal of warning that dudes doing heavy labor would down tools and stop working we could most definitely keep things going. Designing tools to be smaller and more readily used, building machinery to automate certain parts of processes, and having more people on work crews could allow civilization to keep chugging along.

The median man, as you said, doesn't need to be swole in order to earn a living.

But...suppose that something (a virus maybe) just nerfed the shit out of male strength, leaving most dudes as weak as the average woman.

This has already happened. It's called "mass industrialization" (even the swolest man is absolutely nothing compared to the power of the three-phase induction motor, the air compressor, the internal combustion engine, and the thinking machines though those would come much later), and had completed its takeover of the United States by about 1920 (other nations would be slightly ahead or behind); the negative effects of this would be temporarily reversed by an economic golden age from about 1950 through 1970.

It's worth noting that though some societies have had these conditions (the Peoples of the Longhouse being the most relevant example, as those societies never needed to develop agriculture or industry in the 10,000 years between running into a more advanced civilization), it has never been the case that these conditions were true for the most advanced society on the planet. I don't believe that 4 generations of people is enough time to change underlying biological realities though admittedly technology will eventually be good enough to obsolete women just as hard (if that technology is not banned... but it probably will be, with the usual bullshit justifications).

This being said, if we had a good deal of warning that dudes doing heavy labor would down tools and stop working we could most definitely keep things going.

And now you know why male interests have no representation in the halls of power today, and why progressivism lacks the concept of positive-sum economic growth entirely. Countries that are less industrialized, meaning "men are more required to create primary goods", tend to (need to) afford men more political power.