Crowstep
3hr ago
Immigration isn't going to be a viable solution for much longer
I saw on twitter someone describe immigration as a solution to declining birth rates as being like trying to turn a shredder into a printer by shoving in more paper.
Crowstep
4hr ago
Global birth rates were declining in the 2000s, certainly (which is what your first chart shows). But if you narrow it down to the richest countries at the time, most were seeing mini-baby booms. The US, UK, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Scandinavian countries, China, Canada and Russia (plus a bunch more) all saw TFRs increase between 2000 and 2010.
These researchers estimate that the introduction of the iPhone specifically reduced TFR in the USA by 33-52%.
'Modernity' doesn't really fit as an explanation. After all, the 1950-70s were definitely more 'modern' than the 1930-40s, but that's when the Baby Boom happened. The Industrial Revolution (arguably the beginning of 'modernity') caused the global population to explode as it left behind the malthusian limits of agriculture.
Of course, perhaps framing it as 'narcissistic culture vs smartphones' is the wrong way to go about this. Lyman Stone makes a convincing case in the second half of this article that the kind of self-centred culture you criticise was created by the technology shock of digital entertainment (of which smartphones seem the most powerful part).
To that end, we should not see the “long decline” graph as a rebuttal to cell phones, nor should we see digital technology as a mere “accelerator of the trend.” The new selfishness is only a viable ideology because digital technologies made it viable. Sitting at home wouldn’t be appealing without the digital technologies! These norms would not have reached scale without the specific vehicles to propel them, and because socializing is a cooperation problem, even individuals who do not share emergent selfishness norms lose out on potential socializees. People don’t RSVP to the party because they are at home chatting to their AI girlfriend. Even people trying to live in the real world are impacted.
Crowstep
12hr ago
The root problem is that the beliefs and values of modern (ie post-modern) liberalism are not conducive to, and in some respects actively incompatible with, forming healthy and stable relationships.
Before 2010, birth rates were going up across the developed world, and either reached or came close to reaching replacement level.
We'll never know, but it may well be the case that modernity minus the smartphones, social media and dating apps could have been fine. This paper suggests that it is specifically short form video and dating apps that are the problem, but not video or social media in general (Facebook and Youtube don't seem to have affected birth rates, while Tinder, Tiktok and Instagram did).
Crowstep
4d ago
I think it's worth pointing out that under your definition, Lebanon is an apartheid state; Syria is an apartheid state; Egypt is an apartheid state; heck, even Norway is an apartheid state.
I'm not VIM but what exactly do you mean by that? Because Norway etc has non-citizens in its territory?
Crowstep
5d ago
I'd like to see some feasible measure developed that can 'quantify' the benefits and harms of social media use and THEN we can craft policies that regulate the issue, just like we do with cigarettes, toxic waste, and like we USED to do with gambling. My general prescription is that we should add friction to the vices.
The funny thing is, I agree with you. But from reading your comment history, your misogyny (and trust me, I do not use that word lightly) makes me distrust anything you say.
Like, if the problem is the phones, you should be talking about the phones, not about how women are awful.
I do concede that maybe you're not like this in real life. I talk about HBD on here occasionally, but I spend approximately 0% of my time in real life talking about it for obvious reasons. Maybe you have deep, fulfiling relationships with women in real life. Maybe you're married with kids?
But to quote a recent article on Astralcodexten:
The pain facing both men and women is evidence of a wounded society, and you cannot heal an injury by only stitching half of it
If you want to fix the world, you're not gonna do it by attacking half of the population, even if the media is unfair when it writes about men.
Its the women.
If a trend affects women by 40% and men by 30% (or whatever percentages you prefer), then no, it's not.
Also, how would you go 'targetting the most susceptible gender' with, for example, social media? Ban social media but only for women? If social media is bad for everyone but worse for women, why ignore the harm to men?
You also conveniently omit the social trends that are affecting men more, like video game, porn and gambling addictions.
Your approach is like the mirror of those 'tell men rape is wrong' campaigns, where the point is clearly to scold men because the activist enjoys it, not because it'll work.
Crowstep
6d ago
The Women's Institute has about 170,000 members, although these are really hundreds of individual chapters (a la Freemasons) so not sure if it counts.
Crowstep
8d ago
They should be given free passage to the West Bank until Gaza is rebuilt.
I'm pretty sure an Israeli government with an empty Gaza would fill it with Jewish settlements, just like they are with the West Bank.
Crowstep
8d ago
I strongly suspect that most people with "FREE PALESTINE" in their Instagram bios don't want to let Palestinian refugees into Europe (or anywhere outside of Gaza), because that would constitute "ethnic cleansing".
My guess would be that most westerners on the Free Palestine side would be pretty cool with Gazans coming to Europe, given their broad support of third world immigration generally.
Now Israel's Arab neighbours, they are the ones who don't want the Palestinians.
Crowstep
8d ago
Why are you hung up on this, I wonder.
What can I say? I don't have much patience for the water carriers of genocidal dicatatorships, which there are unfortunately quite a few of around here.
So far all of Putin's negotiations have been obviously in bad faith, so the diplomatic options for the Ukrainian state are either:
- Fight until Putin's calculus changes, perhaps by destroying the Russian oil industry as they are currently doing
- Surrender so he can 'Denazify' the country with a lot of bullets to the back of the head
Given those two options, when someone flippantly argues that the Ukrainian state defending itself is illegitimate, it merits pushback in my view.
Crowstep
8d ago
How do you figure that? I do not think the brutal extent of conscription in Ukraine is currently deniable. If the people wish it, how come volunteers are so insufficient?
Conscription in existential wars is a normal thing for states to do, hell, lots of states conscripts young men (and in some cases young women) even in peacetime. Obviously any individual will have an incentive to freeride on his comrades and let them fight the war, but the existence of conscription does not, a priori, make a country defending itself illegitimate. If you believe that, then you'd have to believe that Britain and America fighting against Hitler was illegitimate, since they both used conscription.
(Also I find it curious that you responded to just one half-sentence.)
I quoted that part because it's the fundamental crux of our disagreement. You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Ukrainian state should just surrender because fighting is, in your words, futile. I don't think it should, unless the people wish it (which they don't).
It's also worth pointing out that IGI-111 was claiming that Ukrainian soldiers were being blown up by the Ukrainian government.
Crowstep
8d ago
They will be, in effect, sent to be blown up in same futile operation
I think this is the key part of our disagreement. You think that Ukraine defending itself is pointless or illegitimate, and should therefore just surrender so Russia can do whatever it wants.
I think that a country defending itself from an expansionist dictatorship with genocidal aspirations is not only legitimate and noble, but also something that the west should support, in order to reinforce the post-war norm that big countries can't just annex small countries if they feel like it. And what the Ukrainians are doing seems far from futile.
Crowstep
8d ago
How are they even remotely similar? Individual asylum seekers lying about being gay to get asylum vs a Ukrainian government which is, in reality, doing as much as it can to minimise casualties of its own soldiers getting accused of deliberately blowing them up.
Crowstep
8d ago
They're not tolerance forming.
How does that square with the fact that you need to keep increasing the dose (albeit not forever)?
I started on a very low dose myself (<1mg) but am having to increase it because my weight loss is plateauing.
Crowstep
8d ago
Fear for your life because a foreign invader wants to blow you up?
Come on now, do you really think that the 'Ukrainian Government wants to blow up Ukrainian soliders' is a reasonable take?
They would much rather put drones in the line of danger than soldiers. Unlike Vladimir's meat grinder tactics.
Crowstep
9d ago
Do you have an 'objective source' showing there was any significant impact on female behavior when 'various US red states' restricted abortion?
I've no idea because I don't really care. I was only giving it as an example of policies which, even though they restrict women's actions, aren't designed around increasing birth rates. Because there aren't any illiberal policies directed at either men or women designed to increase birth rates.
Crowstep
10d ago
Throw a couple more 'reallys' in there and I still won't find that believeable.
How about if we look at objective source rather than you just pulling up some articles that annoyed you?
Google Trends data. Birth rates men vs birth rates women for the past five years. Searches for birth rates women are about four times as common. 'The discussion' about birth rates is predominantly about women, obviously. Always has been.
The fact that you can find lots of articles about women complaining about their relationships (also something they've been doing since time immemorial) isn't evidence to the contrary.
Can you name a single policy proposal in any Western Country (hell, try non-Western) that tries to improve TFR by increasing restrictions on female behavior?
I can't name a single policy from any country, western or eastern, that tries to improve TFR by increasing restrictions on male or female behaviour (except in the roundabout sense that baby bonuses are going to be a net loss tax-wise for childless people). The only thing that comes to mind is abortion restriction in Poland or various US red states, which is a big restriction on female behaviour, although advocates don't tend to justify the policies by talking about birth rates.
Crowstep
10d ago
And yet, the discussion centers on men's failures
Errm, no it doesn't? The three theses OP mentioned are neither about men nor women. Academic discussion doesn't focus on men (for the reason that the TFR data is mostly about women) and if you go somewhere like /r/natalism there's much more discussion about women than men, because women are the ones who have the babies.
Honestly, I have no idea where you got the idea that birth rate discussions focus on men. They really, really don't.
Crowstep
11d ago
You’re suggesting that the far left, i.e. actual Communists, is too individualistic?
Arguably yes. Communists don't so much share as demand that the state share on everyone's behalf. Historically, communists were keen on dissolving any social bonds outside of the state, such as the family or churches.
The fact that religious people are higher trust and give more to charity is indisputable from the social science data. Whether or not that is strictly theological or due to more general social processes (e.g. meeting the same group of people every week) doesn't really change that.
Any bottleneck on reproduction is almost entirely going to be defined by the population of reproductive-age women and their behavior
Sure. That's basically tautological, in that only women can have babies.
Phones, opportunity costs, education levels, loss of religion, literally ALL of those have demonstrably higher impact on female behavior than male
Much less clear. To pick one example, men secularised first and fastest over the 20th century.
The birth rate collapse isn't being caused by women being too picky. It's caused by less coupling, which is in turn caused by people socialising much less due to screens.
Crowstep
19d ago
Productivity isn't just about how much effort the person puts in for what objectively comes out, it's a lot to do with the situation of society outside as well
The 'situation of society' is created by the coethnics of the lazy barista you malign. Westerners weren't just placed in in rich countries by a benevolent alien, our ancestors made our countries rich, and we keep them rich by our efforts.
My proposal is simple: bring the second guy over to the high historical capital investment zone and watch humanity flourish.
We've tried importing the third world to Europe. It hasn't caused a lot of flourishing.
Crowstep
20d ago
This particular incident? Almost certainly a nothingburger.
The Telegraph has now carried the story, and West Midlands Police have issued a press release saying they are now investigating who the African men were that carried out the attack (after initally saying that everything was fine on social media).
My prediction is that BBC News will be covering this tomorrow, along with the centrist papers like The Times. The Guardian will (reluctantly) follow the day after.
Depending on your definition of 'nothingburger', I would say the story is gaining traction. The victim will appear in court in a couple of weeks so I expect there'll be further coverage from that, whether he is found innocent or guilty.
Crowstep
21d ago
To increase birth rates and reduce dysgenics, early marriage should be encouraged, particularly among the intelligent. Ideally, both husband and wife should be in their late teens to very early 20s. Older-male relationships between young adults (~16-25) should also be destigmatized. Society should be restructured to ensure that intelligent couples can have as many children as possible before age 30-35; reduce time spent in education, prioritize youth for high-paying jobs, give intelligent young men huge lump sums per child (funded by e.g. abolishing welfare), and so on.
Sounds like a better plan than complaining about phones to me.
Almost nothing here could be defined as 'a plan' in even the most generous sense. There is no 'destigmatise' button that any government can press. 'Prioritise youth for high-paying jobs' is not possible in a free market. Giving baby bonuses is possible, although realistically not politically likely given that old people vote and unborn children don't.
Meanwhile, the 'complaining about phones' crowd is actually doing stuff.
And the stuff they're doing matters because it's obviously the phones.
Actual high fertility groups like the Amish and the Haredim was very small age gaps between spouses, because the key thing for fertility is early marriage, and if your young women are getting married at 18-20, it makes more sense to have the young men marrying them at 20-22 than waiting a few more years for no reason.
I'm not sure it would work like that. We've seen with the pension age debates that young people are perfectly willing to defend more goodies for the old, because young people will be old one day too.
The relative weakness of the youth vote vs the grey vote in the UK is why the government is raising the retirement age but not removing the triple lock, which is mathematically unsustainable.
I suspect we'll see more countries go that route. Maintain generous pensions but with higher pension ages, which to be fair was the initial idea for pensions. 20th century politicians didn't imagine people living 30+ years in retirement.
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