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 -
They is currently an 8 month old baby in the UK with a mitochondrial disease which is almost definitely terminal. The babies name is Indi: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/italy-grants-citizenship-terminally-ill-british-baby-after-104666139
A UK judge has ordered that that the baby be killed. Her parents have protested this, saying that they don’t think the government should kill their baby.
The Catholics have said: give us the baby and we will put the baby in our pediatric Vatican hospital, and the Italian government has said they would cover the medical bills. The Italian government has also said that the family can have Italian citizenship.
The UK has said no, you can’t leave, you need to keep the baby here so we can kill it.
I know this sounds hyperbolic, but…I don’t think it is. Read the article.
Absolutely deranged behavior.I understand that in socialized medicine countries there is some calculation about how much life support will cost, and famously in Canada sometimes this means the government just tries to get you to kill yourself, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The Catholics are being pretty Catholic about this and just trying to save the baby. The UK government won’t let them and insists that they should just kill her.
Insanity.I think it's ok for the government to make utilitarian decisions on behalf of children when the stake are high enough and the outcome clear enough.
I don't know for sure if this case meets that standard, I'd need to both be a doctor and read an unbiased account of the situation (and no one without a biased take would bother reporting on this case from either side).
But the pitch is: this infant will die shortly no matter what, it's already suffered severe neurological damage that would prevent it from appreciating any potential positive experiences it might have during that time, keeping it alive on life support for a few months is gaining it absolutely nothing except torturous pain and suffering.
Again, I don't know how well the actual case fits that hypothetical, but in a hypothetical like that I do believe that it's in the infant's best interests to have life support suspended, and I would be ok with the government enforcing that. Children need something to protest their interests in cases where parents are acting against those interests starkly enough (even if they do so out of misguided love), and it's possible to invent a stark enough scenario to justify this intervention.
Of course, aside from what it would be right for the government to do in theory, is the question of what powers and policies we want to government to have in the real world, where it's run by often stupid people and we have to live with the full variance of its actions. In a case like this I am cheered by the fact that the judge is just siding with the doctor's strong recommendations rather than judging the merits of the case on his own; I feel like there's probably some system of relying on expert advocates that produces good outcomes in expectation. But I'd be very sympathetic to someone arguing that the government can't be trusted with these types of decisions, and we just have to accept whatever child suffering denying them that power incurs as the cost of preventing even more suffering if we gave them that power.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link