site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   30126 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This excellent piece on age segregation has got me thinking about how serious and pervasive this problem is. As the author states:

Young adults are afraid to have children, because they can’t possibly imagine adding some to the life they currently have. New parents are isolated from most of their previous friends, as their paths suddenly never cross again unless they too have kids of their own. Children compete within their age group at schools, never having a chance to either mentor someone or have an older mentor themselves. Teenagers have no idea what to do with their lives, because they don’t know anyone who isn’t a teacher or their parent. And everyone is afraid of growing old because they think that the moment they stop going to the office they’ll simply disappear.

As discussed in @2rafa's post downthread, a major issue of the fertility crisis is a lack of time. Another issue it seems is a lack of even interacting with children unless you have some yourself, or have some in your family. I wonder if the lack of time among young adults in the West is causative of this age segregation?

Regardless, it likely has its roots in the K-12 education system. It's profoundly unnatural from a cultural standpoint to only be in the same peer group as people right around your age. I'm convinced it's unhealthy, and it predisposes us in a massive way to only socialize with people close to our age.

Do you think age segregation is an issue as well? If not, why not?

It takes a whole village to raise a child. The lack of fathers is often talked about but not the lack of grandparents, uncles aunts and cousins. Instead, we in the best case have two parents who work 40 hours + 10 hours of commuting and answering emails at home each totalling at 100 hours combined. Few people can afford good housing without ruining themselves. There are often no other relatives who can baby sit, cook, give second hand clothes and parenting advice.

We have replaced the village with paid services and fertility is low except for poor people with lacking impulse control and the rich who can afford to solve these issues. There is no uncle to take the kids fishing or fix their bike. Their is no aunt who can pick the kids up at school and babysit them. There are no grandparents who can serve as four extra parents. In much of the world grandparents do a lot of the cooking. In the west people eat expensive pre fab food instead.

I do believe the socialization factor that you bring up is a part of it. Children and childhood are so far removed from a 25 year old's life that it is easy to forget about. There can easily be a 35 year gap in a family during which there was no experience with children or childcare. New parents have to learn the skills from scratch, often without a single older adult around to teach them.

This is so underrated comment, it really is an unspoken bubble. The demographic change is huge, especially in Southeast Asia where people born in 50s or 60s are often from large families of 5 to 6 while their children have one child or are childless. I have a friend who is single child of single children on both parents side. He has a wife who is also single child although she herself has an aunt. But in general their combined family is incredibly small, if my friend's parents die he will have no living family in this world. This is the family of the future.

I have many uncles and aunts and number of cousins that I being me would probably mix some names. It is such a vast difference in social experience. My experience is just blip in history, it is a rare transition towards inevitable modernity.

My experience is just blip in history

Mathematically his is too, right? Not every only-child is going to have kids, and in that extreme case, a TFR below 1 (hi, South Koreans! Remember that the last one there has to turn off the lights!) is as unstable as a TFR above 4.

it is a rare transition towards inevitable modernity.

I can barely imagine what a future stable modernity is going to look like. You could tell me anything from "After the AGIs cure aging low TFR is a good thing" to "After the environment/economy/whatever collapses and the low TFR subpopulations die out, Malthus has the last laugh for the next million years", and I wouldn't be sure you were wrong...

I know a couple of only children of only children (one or even both parents). It makes me very sad, because in the latter case they really are all alone in the world after they die. No siblings, no cousins, deeply deeply tragic to think about.

Then again, my mom and dad both came from trad rural families with like 8-9 surviving children, so I have a ton of aunts, uncles and cousins, approximately none of which I see with any regularity outside of family events (since they don't live where I live).

True, it’s an option though. I’m grateful that if anything went badly wrong in my life (addiction, parents dying suddenly, some kind of deep depression etc) there are a lot of people who love me and who would take me in, at least for a time, and treat me as family. You never know how life will turn out, family is always the ultimate safety net.

The demographic change is huge, especially in Southeast Asia where people born in 50s or 60s are often from large families of 5 to 6 while their children

Or the United States, where people born in the 90s were often from large families of 5 or 6 while their children (if they lived in a city) have one or no children and (if they lived in the country) only had 2 or 3.

This is the family of the future.

Of course, by "90s" I mean "1890s". TFR by the early 1920s (when their children would be having children) was down to 2.3 in a country that was 50% rural- if we assume that people in rural areas are the ones bringing up the average (these old statistics never seem to differentiate by area) to a mere 3.0, that means the urban areas of the 1920s US had birth rates comparable to modern-day South Korea.

The fact that fertility rates only went down to 2.0 in the 1930s (the largest economic crisis in 100 years; the second largest would happen due to mass hysteria roughly 90 years later) is some evidence against this claim, though latex condoms and hormonal birth control weren't even invented yet. Urbanization inherently prices most people out of having kids (and sex in general) and most people don't really care all that much- both of things happen to be the the historical norm, too.

Come to think of it, it's interesting that the US entered WW2 sending a bunch of what would have been at that point only children and it's weird that nobody really talks about that (especially since the war on the border of the American Empire is being fought by groups with similarly bad TFRs and economic prospects that were assumed by some to be chilling effects).

it's interesting that the US entered WW2 sending a bunch of what would have been at that point only children

I'm pretty sure that's just not true. Unless by "a bunch" you mean "a small minority".

Come to think of it, it's interesting that the US entered WW2 sending a bunch of what would have been at that point only children and it's weird that nobody really talks about that

Possibly because it is not, in fact, true.

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