# Issues on which it is genuinely not clear who will end up on the "right side of history" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2019, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008 "2019-10-19T18:03:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/41 "2019-10-22T05:03:52Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > That’s a bit more than “slightly twisting” my words, it’s completely ignoring my words. Apologies for being unclear, I didn’t mean to imply that’s what you were saying or close to it ; by “twisting” I meant deliberately using your phrasing to some other purpose. Hence the initial conditional. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/42 "2019-10-22T06:06:19Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > If you can think of any historically used argument for or against slavery that cannot be hammered into an argument we could use for or against abortion, I’m all ears. What is the relevance of whether shit arguments that were used in favor of slavery can be brought to bear as similarly shit arguments on the abortion rights issue? Shit arguments do not stand up to the scrutiny of history. If we’re asking how history will ultimately view this, we can be confident that history will ultimately dismiss the religious cranks who think that a clump of cells has a soul and the same rights as a person. From a long term historical perspective, the question is surely whether there are _good_ arguments on both sides of the issue. And in that respect, the abortion rights issue is qualitatively different and less clear-cut than the slavery issue, because the former is about whether rights exist at all; whereas the latter is about compromising between conflicting rights. But I don’t think this thread should turn into an abortion debate, I’m not sure I have much to add. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/43 "2019-10-22T06:30:14Z")
My comment on abortion: If women can’t be trusted to decide the fate of their own bodies, how can they be trusted to vote on the fate of society? Banning abortion requires female disenfranchisement. End of comment. The future (our descendants) may not exist to look back on current life (that’s us, mates) and judge us historically if we don’t deal with nuke proliferation, environmental and climate crises, and upcoming pandemics. Social-moral issues pale in comparison. I see ubiquitous surveillance and tech-tightened social controls as inescapable in our future; present privacy concerns will look ludicrous in retrospect. Yes, the apocalypse WILL be live-streamed. 'Bye now. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/44 "2019-10-22T06:31:27Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > What is the relevance of whether shit arguments that were used in favor of slavery can be brought to bear as similarly shit arguments on the abortion rights issue? My point is that the arguments weren’t shit _from their point of view_, socio cultural context and so on. We just think they’re shit because we have internalized that black people are people, which mostly they did not even as they fought to free them. While I’m by no means well read on the microhistory of slavery & abolition I’m almost certain that a) some slavers went to their graves adamantly certain that they were in the right and utterly incomprehensive that their opponents could possibly be so disingenuous or morally bankrupt and b) some abolitionists went to their graves thinking the slavers weren’t necessarily wrong _per se_but it wasn’t worth their being so uncompromising about it and eliminating the institution was a solution, not to further equality or human rights or any sort of moral positive you and I could relate to in and of itself but rather a lesser evil from a strictly political or economic standpoint. If in 300 hundred years people have, due not to some technological phaseshift but a simple change in mental paradigms (predictably reinforced via education and cultural representations), conclusively and collectively come to the conclusion that a clump of cells is 100% real people then they’ll absolutely think us barbarous for having ever thought different and that we’ve all been making “shit arguments” that “don’t stand the scrutiny of history”, whatever the latter may possibly mean. At least the mainstream will, while historians will again and again enjoin them not to pass arbitrary judgements on caricatures because it’s fucking pointless for any purpose :o. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/45 "2019-10-22T06:34:21Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > I see ubiquitous surveillance and tech-tightened social controls as inescapable in our future The fuck you mean, “in our future” ? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/46 "2019-10-22T06:47:57Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > My point is that the arguments weren’t shit _from their point of view_, socio cultural context and so on… But screw the relativism, there is a long-sustained historical trend for human society becoming more civilized, treating one other with more respect and getting _better_ at ethics over time. That’s the context in which we should ask how modern-day ethical questions will fare in the long run. I think it’s a reasonable assumption that in the long run, shit arguments will not stand up to progressively greater scrutiny. And by shit ethical arguments I mean, for example - treating some subset of people badly because it makes some people richer; treating some subset of people badly because of superstitious nonsense; treating some subset of people badly because of false pseudoscientific claims, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/47 "2019-10-22T07:16:14Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But screw the relativism, there is a long-sustained historical trend for human society becoming more civilized, treating one other with more respect and getting _better_ at ethics over time. There is ?! ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/48 "2019-10-22T07:50:13Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > There is ?! Yes. Do you really think we were more civilized 500 years ago? > **[The Better Angels of Our Nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature)** > > The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. The book uses data simply documenting declining violence across time and geography. This paints a picture of massive declines in the violence of all forms, from war, to improved treatment of children. He highlights the role of nation-state mo Th... ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/49 "2019-10-22T08:21:44Z")
I think we simply changed the framework of what “being civilized” means. You shit on medieval people doing things based on “silly superstitions”, but that’s what they thought was true, and they acted generally positively within the framework of that truth of theirs. It’s not yours, but that doesn’t make them psychopaths or idiots. People have mostly always tried to be roughly good as they thought “good” entained, so long as it didn’t cost them overly much to be good, and kinda sorta done the best they could but really in the end mostly just being selfish jerks. Like, I don’t deny that, for example, and within the context of Western civ, casual violence is much less normalized now than it was in the 17th century. It’s a really big leap to go from that to an inevitability of this evolution, and we sure as shit condone and normalize new and interesting forms of being terrible to each other that would have horrified the average 1519 person. Also Twitter would have angered and confused them I think. It kinda does me tbh. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/50 "2019-10-22T08:23:50Z")
Oh, and I’d really be careful about that “civilized” word. Remember that “we’re trying to civilize these people” has almost always meant killing them or coercing them to do things our way uncritically. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/51 "2019-10-22T08:52:32Z")
I mean the most immediately demonstrable example of this is the homosexual space. Greeks and Romans and Vikings had a very codified notion of it, when and where it was allowable, some spaces where it was not just condoned but even enjoined etc… Then you look forward along the timeline and you see Judeo-Christian Europeans traipsing into unexplored spaces of the world, like Japan or China or America and declaring these people unfathomably revolting and uncivilized because they didn’t even know that man cannot bumfuck man, period, then often proceeding to “educate” them on the subject. Flash forward today and we look down on those backwards Muslims and Chinese and so on for being regressive towards gays because it’s OBVIOUSLY okay and totally uncivilized to marginalize them at all (even though that was the norm here all the way into the 90s, and even though we still have reactionary fuckmooks who are utterly incensed about rainbow flags whom we rightly dub “reactionaries”) Representations and cultures evolve and change, but it’s not an upwards arrow on a 2D graph. And we all think we’re totally right about everything, because if we thought we were wrong about something we’d change to the thing that we think is right, almost tautologically. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/52 "2019-10-22T11:00:55Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I don’t really see how that’s possible. > Like, if me and my SO had sex with no intentions (and no financial means) to have a child whatsoever but she still got pregnant ; there being a magic artificial womb jar out there to incubate the fetus in her stead is not really relevant, or at least merely leads to further issues and questions. Are we supposed to take care of the child regardless ? Is there a moral or societal imperative to put our regrettably fertilized egg in the magic jar against our stated wishes ? Who’ll take care of the kid since we won’t ? Does that mean right now there’s a moral crime in e.g. fertility treatments implanting a dozen fertilized eggs into a woman’s uterus to increase the chances of one taking hold ? All of those questions apply to the man having sex with a woman with no “intentions” of having a child result. The man is unnecessary to the development of the child, so his input into the process is not required. The woman is necessary, it is her decision whether she will participate. With an artificial womb, the woman is just as unnecessary to the development of the child as the man is today. As I suggested above, it is one thing to say “I refuse to participate in this process” it is a very different thing to say “Kill it.” Today, if there is a pregnancy, the man has no control over whether or not that child is born. Tomorrow, with artificial wombs, the woman (theoretically) has no control. Sure, she could seize control by hiding her pregnancy and killing the fetus in secret, all to what… avoid child support? I doubt that would be on the ‘right side of history’. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/53 "2019-10-22T11:36:31Z")
It’s not just “artificial wombs” that could render abortion obsolete, but better birth control. If women have complete control over their reproductive cycle, then they will only get pregnant when they want to. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/54 "2019-10-22T12:00:26Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > All of those questions apply to the man having sex with a woman with no “intentions” of having a child result. The man is unnecessary to the development of the child, so his input into the process is not required. The woman is necessary, it is her decision whether she will participate. > > With an artificial womb, the woman is just as unnecessary to the development of the child as the man is today. As I suggested above, it is one thing to say “I refuse to participate in this process” it is a very different thing to say “Kill it.” Today, if there is a pregnancy, the man has no control over whether or not that child is born. > > Tomorrow, with artificial wombs, the woman (theoretically) has no control. Sure, she could seize control by hiding her pregnancy and killing the fetus in secret, all to what… avoid child support? I doubt that would be on the ‘right side of history’. Um… all of this, yes ? And that’s, like, my point ? Once you posit a techwomb that can incubate babies from the morning after onwars ; then if you subscribe to the notion that “every random clump of cells is sacred !” then it follows that every. single. egg. must go into a techwomb and be grown into a baby regardless of any intention from either parent (unless the mother insists on doing it the lowtech way obviously, but that doesn’t change the outcome). All the back and forth arguments about the mother’s body autonomy or the world-renowned cellist hooked to your kidneys fly right out the window : if the baby can be grown to no inconvenience to nobody, then it… must ? Or must it ? And if so why ? And even if Because, is it really a good idea practically speaking ? And… I do reiterate : techwombs solve fuck all. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/55 "2019-10-22T12:11:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It’s not just “artificial wombs” that could render abortion obsolete, but better birth control. If women have complete control over their reproductive cycle, then they will only get pregnant when they want to. First, this posits a 100% efficient bit of tech (which… you’ve ever used a Windows product, right ? :D) ; second that merely moves the ethics 5 feet eastwards. They can now control their reproduction ! But should they ? Is it best ? For whom ? If the guy wants a kid but the girl ties down her tech ovaries can she \*really \*do that considering we have tech wombs ?! Etc… Tech’s not going to make anything black and white. Or simpler. Techno/industrial history is nothing if not the solving of old problems in exchange for new and strikingly familiar although slightly different problems. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/56 "2019-10-22T12:20:56Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > First, this posits a 100% efficient bit of tech (which… you’ve ever used a Windows product, right ? :D) ; second that merely moves the ethics 5 feet eastwards. They can now control their reproduction ! But should they ? Is it best ? For whom ? If the guy wants a kid but the girl ties down her tech ovaries can she \*really \*do that considering we have tech wombs ?! Etc… > > Tech’s not going to make anything black and white. Or simpler. Techno/industrial history is nothing if not the solving of old problems in exchange for new and strikingly familiar although slightly different problems. This particular tech would make things black and white, IMO, except on the fringes. Only a relatively tiny minority currently believe that it should be illegal for a woman to control her reproductive cycle, based on polls I’ve seen about birth control. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/57 "2019-10-22T12:32:31Z")
_shrug_ maybe, but then ostensibly only a tiny fringe think women should carry their rape babies to term and they still drive major policy positions ; not to mention the _de factos_ “oh you can absolutely have an abortion as is your right only there’s not a single place you can because we’ve used every legal angle we could to drive the docs away and shut down the clinics, tee hee” What, if anything, makes you think magitek solves the issues of bronze age superstition or class spite ? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/58 "2019-10-22T12:58:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > then if you subscribe to the notion that “every random clump of cells is sacred !” then it follows that every. single. egg. must go into a techwomb and be grown into a baby regardless of any intention from either parent (unless the mother insists on doing it the lowtech way obviously, but that doesn’t change the outcome). All the back and forth arguments about the mother’s body autonomy or the world-renowned cellist hooked to your kidneys fly right out the window : if the baby can be grown to no inconvenience to nobody, then it… must ? Not every single egg, but every fertilized and viable egg/embryo/fetus. We can say with certainty that infanticide is wrong. 100%. There’s no doubt there, regardless of how inconvenient the baby may be. A clump of living human cells, after developing for 7-9 months and being located outside a woman’s body, is now 100% protected by law and morality. It is helpless and useless, and will require many years of care to become a competent member of society, but you may not destroy it. At what point in that entity’s past do we say that we may destroy it at the behest of one person? Do we say that an additional 6 months of NICU support is just too much for society to take on, and we should be allowed to freely destroy a 1 month old embryo despite the fact that it is fully viable? There’s a whole lot of grey area there to deal with. One other thing I would say with certainty is that an unfertilized egg need not be forcibly fertilized. An egg (and a sperm) are both wholly part of the parent person, they come entirely from that person and nobody else. Locking down your ovaries or testes is your right because they are part of you and nobody else. That there is a bright line that doesn’t really exist once the egg is fertilized and is developed enough to be reliably supported to adulthood outside of a woman’s body. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/59 "2019-10-22T13:27:25Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > _shrug_ maybe, but then ostensibly only a tiny fringe think women should carry their rape babies to term and they still drive major policy positions ; not to mention the _de factos_ “oh you can absolutely have an abortion as is your right only there’s not a single place you can because we’ve used every legal angle we could to drive the docs away and shut down the clinics, tee hee” > What, if anything, makes you think magitek solves the issues of bronze age superstition or class spite ? It doesn’t solve those issues, but it renders them mostly irrelevant, at least in terms of women’s reproductive rights. If technology makes it so every single woman has complete control of her reproductive cycle at no cost, this would be very popular and opponents wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I’m not saying this is likely to happen in the near future, but in my understanding this part of the discussion started with an assumption about such technology existing. ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008/60 "2019-10-22T13:50:26Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > There are some other issues, though, which IMHO it is genuinely \*\*\*not \*\*\*clear at all which side will eventually be considered, decades down the road, to be on “the right side of history”: > [ul] > [li]Transgender athletes competing in women’s sports \*without \*surgery or hormone treatment;[/li][li]Racial preferences in dating/relationships (racist to refuse to date someone because of race, or not?);[/li][li]Legalized polygamy (will it follow in the footsteps of SSM or not?);[/li][li]Islam’s influence in the West;[/li][li]The West’s perception of China (is siding with China “the right side of history,” or not?)[/li][/ul] > These are opaque because, in part, you could make a conservative/liberal argument for and against both sides of each matter. > > If anyone has others that come to mind, please post them. One issue that is very impactful on communities, but tends to get overlooked, is **trade policy**. I tend to come down on the side of having more trade, as I think it’s economically efficient and it promotes peace. However, when there’s trade, some communities have a large displacement of jobs that hurts for generations. So, I think trade needs to be paired up with help for communities that lose jobs due to trade. In any event, this seems like an issue where there’s no “right side” of history. Another issue is land use and infrastructure balanced against property rights. I think it’s good for societies to develop better power grids, broadband, roads, pipelines, and so forth. But often, it comes at the expense of the little guy who owns land that’s “in the way”…I can see both sides of this. Gun rights in the US are very controversial on the left and even somewhat in the middle. But I think there are shades here that don’t lend themselves to “you’re on the right side of history” type thinking… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/issues-on-which-it-is-genuinely-not-clear-who-will-end-up-on-the-right-side-of-history/842008.md?page=4)