# Creator laments creation of die Antibabypille **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575 "2009-01-09T20:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/161 "2009-01-12T20:05:52Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Here are some debate tips for you **mswas** , which I fully expect you to ignore: > > - Keep your tone of discussion civil and open. Far too often you come across very aggressively. Your points may then be frequently dismissed out of hand, and you miss the opportunity for a good debate. I am sorry if my aggressiveness turned you off. > [@](#): > > - When engaging in debate, don’t reply to poster’s points with a simple dismissive rolleye, or by calling the posters or their points stupid This does not get you off on the right footing. Sometimes it’s the best way to get your point across. Not all arguments are worth of equal time. Many times my points get dismissed too. It happens. > [@](#): > > - Make every effort to read and understand what people have written, and realize that it is probably not a personal attack on you. I don’t really feel attacked, I’m just not going to respond to reflexive notions of bigotry. People use the word bigot far too often and it is starting to wear out. > [@](#): > > - Stop and think that other people may have an opinion which is valid. If it is not one that is shared by you - then explain why not. Try not to simply dismiss their opinion outright while looking like you have not even considered it. Using the word bigot is dismissive in and of itself. > [@](#): > > - Study logical fallacies, particularly if you are going to quote them in a thread. Accusing someone of \*ad hominem \* is particularly amusing if you call them and their arguments stupid in the same post. I recommend this to you as you clearly do not know what ad hominem means. Attacking someone’s argument is not an ad hominem. ad hominem means that you dismiss their argument by some virtue of their identity. ad hominem: Your argument can’t be correct because you are a moron. not ad hominem: You are an idiot because your argument is stupid. I didn’t call you stupid, just your argument. No one offended me personally. I just felt like I would have to wade through a lot of canned arguments if I gave them any respect at all. I’d like to remind you that your initial contribution was: > [@](#): > > I think that this is actually Mr. Djerassi’s main problem here. I don’t think he’s worried about a declining population - he just does not like the thought of people enjoying sex. That’s sort of the canned argument that reduces the other side to ridiculousness. So you are asking for respect when you started off with disrespect. You decided that he was a prude (ad hominem) and therefore the rest was irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/162 "2009-01-12T20:12:11Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > That’s sort of the canned argument that reduces the other side to ridiculousness. So you are asking for respect when you started off with disrespect. You decided that he was a prude (ad hominem) and therefore the rest was irrelevant. To which you could have replied: > [@](#): > > No, he does not appear to be overly concerned with the morality of sex per se, but more with the disappearance of his culture (insert evidence). Also, bear in mind that the word “enjoy” was translated from German, and may convey a difference nuanced meaning after translation. Do you see the difference? Do you agree that you do not do yourself or your argument any favours by your tone and snark? BTW, I have not accused you of bigotry or racism in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/163 "2009-01-12T20:20:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Uh…are you sure you’re responding to my post? Because if you are, you really need to reread it–your response shows a tremendous misunderstanding of the post. > > Hint: it doesn’t fit into the categories you’ve prefabbed for dismissing your opponents. If you think it does, you’ve misread it. > > Daniel Well then here is where you went wrong: > [@](#): > > **Culture doesn’t exist.** Rather, it is a very useful way of describing the aggregate common preferences that a given group of humans hold. Don’t start by denying something’s existance only to go on and describe what it **is**. Either something is or it isn’t. You started by denying it’s _being_ and then proceeded to describe it as a state of being. Your post struck me as unconstructive double-talk. > [@](#): > > Nipple rings and raves are a core part of American culture, inasmuch as the population of humans in our area commonly prefer to engage in ostentatious sexual displays during adolescence, and the adults in our area commonly enable such behavior (through, for example, providing licenses to piercing parlors). But that behavior really only occurs on the level of the individual: a person who lacks a nipple ring is every bit as much an American as a person who’s never ridden the subway, never attended an Ivy-league school, never driven a car. Nipple rings are products, raves are culture. Culture as you and I _both_ have defined it, is in terms of a process, a way of life. > [@](#): > > Individuals make choices. We’re a social species, so the choices we make are influenced by the choices others around us make. When a subjectively critical mass of people in a society make similar choices, we call it “culture” for convenience. But all it really is, is a bunch of individuals making their choices. Yes, we define all words for convenience. Again you aren’t saying anything, but you’re not saying it very eloquently. > [@](#): > > Culture can change in two ways: Culture has to exist to change. > [@](#): > > 1. Some jerk can come along and force people to stop making the choices they want to make. “If you have a picture of the Dalai Lama in your house,” they might say, “I’ll send you to a labor camp.” This is bad, for exactly the same reason it’d be bad for you to tell your girlfriend, “If you have a picture of your ex in your house, I’ll send you to the hospital.” It’s using violence to prevent people from making the choices they want to make. (True, it affects more people, which makes it worse, but it’s not worse on some mystical Destruction-Of-Culture way). Ok, no disagreement here. > [@](#): > > 1. A person can see the choice that their society has made for a long time, see an alternative choice, and decide to make the alternative choice. An Irishman might decide no longer to smoke at the pub. Two Saudi teenagers might decide to celebrate Valentine’s Day. An American liberal arts professor might decide to wear a suit and tie. If enough people stop making the old choice and start making the new choice, “culture” changes. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with this form of cultural change. (There may be if the individual choices cause harm–e.g., people start feeding infants formula made from contaminated water instead of breastfeeding–but the fact of cultural change is itself morally uninteresting). ‘Wrong’ in this case is purely subjective. It’s not wrong if you don’t care, and it is wrong if you do care. If certain cultural forms require a critical mass of participation in order to continue then it is ‘wrong’ to those who want them to continue, not wrong to those who are ambivalent, and right to those who want to see it change. > [@](#): > > The article laments the fact that the pill allows Austrians to make a choice they were previously unable to make. That’s dangerous nonsense, whether it’s spouted by a scientist or by the Pope. I don’t care if cultural change is happening in the second fashion: all it indicates is a bunch of people making different choices. The problem here is that this reaches far more fundamentally into the hierarchy of needs. IE, it touches on the survival of the culture itself. Chinese people playing Mozart are not preserving Austrian culture, they are Chinese people playing Mozart. It’s certainly not dangerous nonsense to point out that there are more people over 65 than there are under 15. Anyone who knows even the first thing about demographics and economics knows that this is an untenable situation, as the very basis for economics is that old people amass wealth, then distribute it to the young who perform the labor. If there is no young to perform the labor the wealth dissipates. The loss of cultural tradition cannot simply be replaced by immigrants, it doesn’t work like that because much of culture is passed on through family, especially if the _culture_ does not have a tradition of assimilating immigrants. I disagree with the fundamental premise that tradition is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/164 "2009-01-12T20:22:11Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > To which you could have replied: > > Do you see the difference? Do you agree that you do not do yourself or your argument any favours by your tone and snark? The thread went just fine IMO. It made it to page 4 before it got hijacked. As far as I can tell that’s as well as one can hope for a thread to go. > [@](#): > > BTW, I have not accused you of bigotry or racism in this thread. Never said you did, but you did choose to oversimplify an argument into an ad hominem and now you are asking me to give it equal time. So if you are going to teach me good debating skills then what I have in return to help your debating skills is suggest that you not just toss in an oversimplifying stereotype as your first effort in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/165 "2009-01-12T22:16:17Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Don’t start by denying something’s existance only to go on and describe what it **is**. Either something is or it isn’t. You started by denying it’s _being_ and then proceeded to describe it as a state of being. Your post struck me as unconstructive double-talk. That’s because you didn’t read carefully. Others did, and they caught the nuance of what I was saying. > [@](#): > > Yes, we define all words for convenience. Again you aren’t saying anything, but you’re not saying it very eloquently. Your lack of nuanced reading is not my problem. Your aggressive defence of poor reading is also not my problem, but it’s clear that further talk with you is unproductive. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/166 "2009-01-12T23:00:40Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well the violence wasn’t meant to undermine your point as much as point out that there isn’t quite as totalitarian an adherence to a solitary ideal as it would seem. Though you pointed to the extreme edges also. That’s correct. In our modern world of plenty where sex is being decoupled from reproduction, natural selection would seem to prefer groups who (1) hold the cultural value that it’s a good idea to have lots of children; and (2) are succesful in transmitting their culture to their young. People at the extreme edges of religion seem to fit these requirements pretty well. Actually, there are some interesting parallels between the Amish and the Haredim. Basically, the way they talk, act, and dress raises significant cultural barriers between them and the outside world. To be sure, trends can change. Just as Austria’s low birth rate may very well change. > [@](#): > > Thanks for the post above too. You are welcome. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/167 "2009-01-12T23:58:03Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > [Quote=Deeg] > I’ve gotten the impression that some white Europeans are concerned that the number of white babies is declining, especially when compared to the number of immigrant babies. Could be a touch of racism in his concern. A **touch**? [/QUOTE] Actually, none, based on his quoted comments linked in this thread. That has been the straw man of a number of posters. Djerassi expressed concern for a declining birth rate in Austria and suggested that the solution would be to review immigration. Since capping or lowering immigration would not force up the birth rate, the clearest interpretation one could give to his words, (if not predisposed to presume xenophobia or in every current European), would be that he sees an increase of immigration as the necessary solution to an aging population. How support for an increase, presumably from Turkey, North Afrrica, and similar locations, would indicate racism is, of course, studiously ignored by those who need to find it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/168 "2009-01-13T01:56:38Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > But culture doesn’t exist remember? This is not an obstacle from a post-modernist perspective. You’d understand this if you had enough respect for your forbearers to learn about our defining traditions, instead of dismissing them as “liberal navel-gazing.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/169 "2009-01-13T02:07:28Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > This is not an obstacle from a post-modernist perspective. You’d understand this if you had enough respect for your forbearers to learn about our defining traditions, instead of dismissing them as “liberal navel-gazing.” FWIW, I know you’re joking around, but I wanna clarify that what I’m saying doesn’t fall at all into the deconstructivist camp; rather, if it’s gonna be categorized, it’s an embarrassingly modern emphasis on the individual as the seat of all that’s interesting or relevant. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/170 "2009-01-13T04:13:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s because you didn’t read carefully. Others did, and they caught the nuance of what I was saying. Well as long as you think you are brilliant. Maybe I wasn’t quite as impressed because I’ve heard it all before. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/171 "2009-01-28T14:43:37Z")
Carl Djerassi defended himself in an article in the Guardian yesterday. [I never blamed the pill for the fall in family size](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/27/medical-research-health-response) Referring to the article he wrote in December that is quoted in the OP’s link he said: “Contraception, birth control, abortion, or the pill were nowhere mentioned in my article. I accused the disturbingly large xenophobic segment of Austrian voters (notably young ones) of assuming that their small country was not situated in the middle of Europe but rather on an island where God permits them to live independently to enjoy their schnitzels.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/172 "2009-01-29T02:00:27Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > For instance, American culture: Harvard U., Vanderbilt U., The Marine Corps, Jazz, Rock and Roll, Techno, Biscuits and Gravy, Enchiladas, Surfing in California, Riding the Subway in New York, Towns built around automotive culture. > > Pop Culture Fads: Bell Bottoms, Nipple Rings, Mohawks Wait a second. How old do you think “towns built around automotive culture” are, anyway? The private automobile didn’t become the dominant element in American community structures until around the 1950’s. That’s only about 10-20 years before the advent of bell bottoms. And where on earth do you get the idea that techno, a music genre less than 25 years old, ranks as some kind of abiding part of American culture? Yes, there are differences between long-term cultural heritage and passing cultural fads, but I wouldn’t put money on any individual’s ability to reliably predict which recent trends are going to fall into which category. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/173 "2009-01-29T02:56:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Wait a second. How old do you think “towns built around automotive culture” are, anyway? The private automobile didn’t become the dominant element in American community structures until around the 1950’s. That’s only about 10-20 years before the advent of bell bottoms. > > And where on earth do you get the idea that techno, a music genre less than 25 years old, ranks as some kind of abiding part of American culture? > > Yes, there are differences between long-term cultural heritage and passing cultural fads, but I wouldn’t put money on any individual’s ability to reliably predict which recent trends are going to fall into which category. I am talking about the differences between a product of culture like Bell Bottoms and a Cultural movement, like the hippies that wore the bell bottoms. Electronic music is here to stay, Techno has an enduring legacy and people organize their lives around it. While there is a fashion culture there is no bell bottoms culture. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/174 "2009-01-29T03:43:55Z")
For reference, “bell bottoms” originally entered this conversation via the following remark of mine: > [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Here in America, we don’t have flappers and speakeasies anymore, nor are bell-bottom jeans and disco music all the rage. Those aspects of culture have, in a sense, died out. Is there something distress-worthy in this? I would argue that flappers are comparable to hippies and disco is comparable to techno, so far as cultural movements go. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575/175 "2009-01-29T03:57:52Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > For reference, “bell bottoms” originally entered this conversation via the following remark of mine: > > I would argue that flappers are comparable to hippies and disco is comparable to techno, so far as cultural movements go. Yes, I’d agree, they are kind of movements of contiguous threads in culture. Techno came out of Disco to a certain degree. Just like Beatniks gave way to hippies and somewhere along the line flappers gave way to whatever it was that gave way to Beatniks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creator-laments-creation-of-die-antibabypille/480575.md?page=8)