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 -
Sure, height matters, but I think you're hanging a lot more on it than is warranted, and if your dad had the same concerns as you, then he wouldn't have married your mother. You can't control these things unless you are going to go for polygenic embryonic selection, so why stress about "she's suitable in every way except height"?
Yeah, women like tall men, but that often means just "taller than me". If she's five foot six and you're five foot ten, she's not going to be crossing you off the list of "not quite six feet, pity". Height alone isn't going to be a deal-breaker, and if it is, then I think (to be honest) you're better off without that sort of neurotic type.
My parents had an arranged marriage lol. My mom was too much of a nerd to even date before that, and that too she had to rush it because of her younger sister.
Given that my dad was an up and coming surgeon who had already made a name for himself, and she was considered tall for women while he was average for men, I doubt it was a big deal. But I have heard her grumble about it, sotto voce, or else how would I know about the heels thing? Oh, and he did have a really nice head of hair at the time. Shame it didn't last.
I don't think I'm likely to go for polygenic embro selection (yay, someone remembered what I was yapping about), given that IVF itself is expensive. And I have other ways to handle the height issue, should it even prove to be an issue.
You know that 5'10" is considered tall too right? Six has magic connotations, but even that's a perfectly respectable height for an adult male.
So you see, I don't particularly worry about height, especially given what I told you about my ex who I was serious about. But I would certainly prefer a girl who likes me for more than my height, and I do have other qualities if I say so myself. Worst case, HGH. It's safe enough. If I'm even alive to have kids and know that they're coming out short.
Yes, that's what I meant that five foot ten is tall, so this mythical list of "six foot or GTFO" is something I find difficult to believe. I could see it as a filtering mechanism, similar to how jobs ask for "five years of experience in a two year old technology" just to weed out the excess number of applicants, but I don't think it's more than that on a dating app where the story seems to be that there are always more men than women on these and the women get flooded with requests.
You'll find that I never claimed that being literally six feet or above is necessary, in the "GTFO" way.
Women are actually pretty bad at judging height. It's trivial for men close-ish to 6 to lie on the apps, and even then they're unlikely to get rumbled on a date. However, I'm just grateful I don't have to lie, and whatever combination of nature and nurture put me here, it staggered to the finish line before collapsing. But a lot of women (percentage unknown to me, but it's non-negligible) set height filters, and the de-facto standard if 6' or 180 cm for the metric folk (see, they're cutting you a whole 2 or 3 centimeters of slack!).
What I am saying is:
I'd be equally as concerned with my kids turning out dumb or ugly, which why I wouldn't marry someone hot but dumb. And while I'm no Adonis, I still pray that I end up with someone tugging in the rightward direction.
Sure, height matters for men and there are studies out the ears about the advantages of tall men over short men in work and life.
But saying casually that you'll slap your sons on HGH if they aren't tall enough at an age you decide they should be a certain height grinds on me the same way that giving 16 year old girls boob and nose jobs grinds on me: something that is meant to be helping them but is more about stupid societal standards. I don't think a 16 year old girl needs stripper boobs. I don't think a 12 year old boy needs HGH unless there's a genuine medical condition there, not just "Dad thinks I'm four inches too short for the optimum life".
For me, it's the same with puberty blockers and the trans issues; we've only got the long-term usage history for them on kids with medical conditions like premature puberty, so jumping from that to "it's perfectly harmless and reversible and will have no effects" when you're talking about blocking normal puberty and development is disingenuous, to say the least. We don't know yet what the effect on normal puberty children is, and we won't until we get the long-term information from the kids being used as guinea pigs right now.
I don't really care, if people get boob jobs, dye their hair blonde or try to do anything else that improves their lot in life.
"Oh woe is me, you shouldn't put your kid through college, and shouldn't ask for your wife to have at least an undergrad degree, don't you know it's just setting up said degree being mandatory for your kids?"
"Oh you shouldn't expect your kids to study hard in school, don't you know it's a zero sum competition, yada yada?"
Things don't work that way. As long as you don't major in underwater basket weaving, or worse, the arts, college is usually a very net positive return on investment.
So, being better versed in the benefits of height and the risks of HGH, I consider it a net benefit in expectation. I expect to know better in that regard than you do, but it's no skin off my back if you object.
After all, you are woefully confused if you think HGH, given in barely supraphysiological doses over years, is remotely comparable to dosing up to the gills with hormones mainly produced by the other sex. We know the safety of the former, and as I've mentioned, look at Lionel Messi, who would have been a 5'2" or thereabouts bitter could have been if his doctors weren't more considerate. I know what I'm signing them up for.
I don't think you should treat your kids as biological experiments, but as you say, it's nothing to do with me. I'm not talking about "don't put your kids through college", I'm talking about "don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington". If you want to be the equivalent of a stage mother pushing your kids to live your dreams vicariously through them - okay, that's your family business and if they're happy or not with how things turn out, they'll let you know in later years.
Biological experiments? Hardly. It's not like there's a One True Guide To Parenting, so everyone has to figure it out as they go. It's no bigger a deal than getting them glasses, feeding them plenty of leafy greens and so on. It just sounds unusual and strange to you, but you're not a decoupler.
I have their best interests at heart. I wouldn't do anything to them I didn't want done to me.
I wish I could say that every parent wants the best for their kids, but in my case, it's true as far as I can tell.
Blonde women are rated hotter. Hence so many fake blondes. Women with bigger breasts are more attractive, hence boobjobs. Taller guys are the same, and well, at least their height won't be "fake". So it goes for athletics, education and everything else a parent thinks is optimal for their child.
I don't expect my kids will work for a living. I don't expect anyone will. But to the extent that I'm not nearly 100% confident in that hypothesis, well, it's my job as their future dad to do everything I can for them.
My own view is that there is not going to be magic all-powerful AI providing for the world, so most people are goiung to have to work for a living just like always. The type of work available may be different, but the profits of AI are going to the big institutional shareholders.
I'm not saying you don't intend the best for your kids, but your view of "this is best for you" and their view of the results, which after all they are the ones living with it, may differ. "Dad, I hated that from the age of three you were measuring me every week and if I didn't match up to what you expected, your disappointment and disapproval were evident. Sure, I'm six foot tall, but I'd prefer to be five foot nine and we spent time together doing stuff when I was a kid".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link