Goodguy
12hr ago
I think part of the reason is this: It's easy to imagine the supposed Russian threat. It is very unlikely that Sweden would fight Russia any time in the forseeable future, but pretty much anyone in Sweden over the age of 7 or so could imagine a war against Russia, and of course the idea of a war with Russia became much easier to imagine about 4 years ago than it had been before. Fertility rates, on the other hand, are something that only a small fraction of people think about. I don't think I have ever, in my entire life, heard anyone discuss fertility rates "in real life", outside the Internet. Personal fertility, sure, or the fertility of friends and family members. But not fertility rates. That's a topic the discussion of which is mostly confined to certain government circles and to certain usually right-leaning online spaces.
Goodguy
1d ago
To summarize my own viewpoint:
The existence of consciousness makes pure reductionist materialism/physicalism non-credible.
However, there is no good evidence for and no good argument in favor of any of the various conventional religions (Judaism, Christanity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any of the others).
It is possible that the nature of consciousness is in principle beyond the reach of any sort of rational or scientific investigation. And I consider it almost certain that it is beyond the reach of any sort of rational or scientific investigation that would seek to reduce it to a purely material/physical explanation.
To the extent that I am spiritual, it is because I perceive this mystery. I am more or less comfortable with, and find beauty in, the mystery as a mystery. Not because I would not like to know the answer. I would love to know. But it is not clear that it is possible to know. The various answers that people have tried to give over the course of human history are all, as far as I can tell, not credible. The existence of the mystery, on the other hand, is real. We do not know the answer, but we do know that there is a mystery. And that in itself is spiritual.
Goodguy
1d ago
The STEM people are convinced that Science Explains It All, us religious types have been in this fight once too often before, and we end up talking past each other.
There is a third category that I belong to: people who think that it is quite likely that science will never be able to be able to explain consciousness, and are thus not materialists/physicalists, yet who at the same time are not religious in the conventional sense of the word - that is, we believe that there likely is something beyond the material in existence, something that likely is in principle beyond the reach of science, but we do not believe in any of the established religious traditions and do not believe in some kind of divine creator-intelligence, unless that divine creator-intelligence is simply a synonym for "the universe".
Goodguy
3d ago
Realistically, it would be such a gigantic insult to the US' standing in the world that, even though a large fraction of the country and of politicians would be happy about it, the US' leaders would feel compelled to take strong measures. Chinese nuclear weapons and enormous conventional arsenal would, I think, prevent the US from launching a full-scale conventional war against China (but full-scale war is not out of the question). The US would immediately detain every important Chinese citizen and PRC-connected individual on its soil and in territories under its control. The US would also begin a full-scale naval blockade of Chinese shipping. The question with the blockade would be, how close to Chinese soil would the US risk moving its naval forces. In any case, given geography and US naval strength, the US could certainly effectively end China's overseas trade.
It's an extreme hypothetical, however, since China has little to gain and much to lose from taking Trump hostage. Vance, whatever he privately feels about Trump's China policies, would feel politically compelled to not only continue, but even to expand on Trump's anti-China moves in response to China taking Trump hostage.
Goodguy
8d ago
Some Native American hunter-gatherers used alcohol too, but it's probably easier for farmers to make in large quantities I suppose.
There might also be a factor, though, of greater social disruption leading to the greater alcohol abuse by North American natives as opposed to Mesoamerican natives. That's if there actually is higher abuse, of course. The Mesoamericans went through very profound social disruption, but most of them went from being farmers working for native elites to being farmers working for Spanish elites. Many of the North American natives, on the other hand, were forced entirely off their lands, killed, or "just" had their original ways of life almost entirely ended.
Goodguy
9d ago
Do modern descendants of Mesoamericans have better alcoholism resistance than modern descendants of North American natives? The Mesoamericans, after all, were not hunter-gatherers, they had advanced civilizations that were perhaps roughly at the scientific/technological level of the Mediterranean civilizations of about 1000 BC.
Goodguy
10d ago
I think that the Marxist platform is very diverse because there are many kinds of Marxists. I think that most of them do not want to abolish the family.
As for Marx himself, as far as I know he did not want to abolish the family, he just wanted to get rid of the "bourgeois" style of family.
I'm no expert on Marxism though, so correct me if I'm wrong.
Some of the ethnic groups of the Caucasus tend to look quite different physically from Europeans or even from Iranians, and many of the languages of the Caucasus are not Indo-European despite the Caucasus being located very near to the likely origin point of the Indo-European languages and despite the Caucasus having spent thousands of years having strong Indo-European-speaking powers on its borders, so I suppose it's possible that they too retain strong pre-Indo-European genetic traits, although I have no idea whether there is any connection to Early European Farmers.
Yeah, I think there is definitely a danger to escapism, but not all fantasy/sci-fi worlds have a negative effect, at least not on all people.
I've spent many hours with J.R.R. Tolkien's stuff, diving into relatively obscure writings by him, reading other people's theories... but it all tends to have a sort of uplifting, elevating, ennobling quality. I disagree with his moral worldview in which goodness is on a deep level more or less synonymous with obedience to the kind of God who is ok with drowning an entire continent because its people were corrupted by an evil being that He himself created in the first place. But that doesn't stop me from absorbing moral lessons and spiritual ennoblement from his work.
H.P. Lovecraft's writings are very different, and not what I would call ennobling, but from them I've received a lot of education in how to write in an interesting and grammatically advanced way, also in things like architecture and history. And there is something that I find very mystically interesting in his concept of "adventurous expectancy" that he touched on in some of his letters.
On a different note, there is Stephen King... I like his Americana, the noble blue collar workers and artists, the landscape of gas stations, diners, and small towns. It is also just good clean entertainment, there are many Stephen King fans but I've never heard of anyone becoming so obsessed with his work that it began to harm their lives.
Even something like Star Wars, which some people do get obsessed by, has a fun playful quality. It's basically an homage to many different kinds of other real and fictional worlds... tales of knightly chivalry, greaser movies, samurai movies, the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, etc... but in space, and all put together into one fictional universe. I've spent some hours reading through Star Wars lore, but I've never been tempted to buy Star Wars merchandise or devote more than a small fraction of my life to Star Wars.
There is also reading about actual history, which I've done a lot of. It can have an escapist quality, but one can also learn valuable lessons from it. It would be difficult, I think, to have a reasonable notion of modern politics and geopolitics without having read history. There's something to be said for understanding today's reality from first principles and direct perception, and certainly that has a lot of value, but reading history is at the least a valuable aid, at least if one does not let it bias you too much (and of course one can also become biased while attempting to understand today's reality from first principles and direct perception). I've spent many an hour reading about obscure details of this or that World War 2 campaign, but I've never become tempted to devote more than a small fraction of my life to such activity.
I do think there is a real danger. I was maybe too bookish for my own good when I was a teenager. But I am not sure to what extent the distance that I kept from more direct involvement with reality was caused by my bookishness, and to what extent the bookishness was just what I did while I had that distance from more direct involvement with reality. It is possible that even if I had forced myself to put away the books, I would not have engaged more directly with reality any quicker than I actually did. It's hard to say.
What eventually drove me more out of the books was a combination of things... making friends and getting invited to do things, sexual frustration forcing me to learn how to develop social skills, becoming more rebellious in my attitude toward social structures like school, going away to college and living on my own, also just a deep sense of "there is more to life than just reading about life" and a deep dissatisfaction with a life spent merely on reading.
Some people get caught at some point on that journey and never actualize much further. But if it wasn't for the fantasy worlds, it's possible that they would not necessarily actualize much faster, or at all. I don't know. I just know that for me, the worlds of books have been a beneficial and, I think, not really particularly stunting part of my life. On the contrary, I think that they have probably enriched my life more than they have taken away.
Goodguy
11d ago
I think no, right-wing authoritarian governments have a similar level of tendency to suppress dissent.
Suharto killed over 500,000 civilians in the 1960s as part of a supposed anti-communist battle.
As for the Soviet Union, it was great at suppressing dissent back during Stalin's time. After it softened, the tendency to suppress dissent reduced to such an extent that by the time the system fell apart, it barely used its massive security forces and military to try to hold itself together by force.
Goodguy
15d ago
I don't think those urban communities are underserved when it comes to abortion. I know you're just being snarky, but I mean, still. I think it makes strategic sense for pro-choice activists to focus their efforts on parts of the US where there are legal challenges to abortion.
Goodguy
16d ago
Depends on how Chad the Chad is and what woman or women he is interested in getting with at the moment. Chad might strategize if it's a question of how to sleep with a gorgeous woman he feels is out of even his league. Chad might strategize if for whatever reason he has become particularly interested in a given woman, if he has started to think about her in more than just a hit-it-and-quit-it sexual way. But when it comes to just run-of-the-mill getting laid, I don't think Chad strategizes much. He just feels sexually confident, playful, and relaxed. This projects out effortlessly from him in his eyes, facial expressions, body language, vocal tone, and subjects of conversation when he is interacting with a woman. He experiences interacting with women as something fun, pleasurable, and playful rather than like an existentially fraught job interview. This too communicates itself to them. Normally I think the extent of his strategizing is to just come up with some "excuse" to start talking to a given woman or women, if an excuse is even necessary. Once the interaction starts, I don't think he's thinking much about what he's doing at all. This all applies whether he's a Chad who is Chad because he looks great or if he's a Chad who is just sexually confident without necessarily having great looks.
Goodguy
17d ago
As to why you can't discuss looks productively with women, it's because attractiveness is core to female self image and requires immense kayfabe to avoid the crushing reality.
To some extent that's true - but on the flipside, there are also many many women (and men) who have an inaccurately low opinion of their own looks despite being attractive. Which is not necessarily a contradiction to what you're saying. The kayfabe is partly a reaction to the low self-esteem, whether that low self-esteem is accurate to reality or not.
Goodguy
17d ago
Do women, on average, kneejerk hate Clavicular for trying to look good? I haven't observed that reaction.
Goodguy
19d ago
You know who is about as violent as white men? Black women.
I suspect that this is probably not true, at least when it comes to the more dangerous forms of violence that cause severe injuries and deaths. The male vs female difference when it comes to this stuff is so large that it makes racial differences seem small in comparison.
But correct me if I'm wrong.
Trump being assassinated would be that, I think it's possible that even @Amadan would be ok with a low effort starter post if that happened. Not sure if a possible failed assassination attempt against Trump is massive enough, though.
Total nuclear war would certainly justify bending the rules, in my book. But then, if you're rushing to The Motte to write a post after total nuclear war starts, you might want to reconsider your competence at making decisions.
Yeah, I'm not sure that any person has been actually hated (as opposed to just disliked) by a greater fraction of the US population than Trump is since Osama bin Laden (which is not to say that the fractions are even close to similar, since my guess is that Trump is probably hated by something like 30% of the population and with bin Laden it was probably at least double that). Before bin Laden, maybe you'd have to go back all the way to Hitler, Tojo, and Hirohito. I dunno, possibly Ruhollah Khomeini in between, as well. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and GW Bush have also been widely hated, but I think also not to quite the same degree of Trump, although it's somewhat close.
Goodguy
21d ago
I agree with this advice. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of women one talks to "in real life" are not ridiculously hypergamous man-haters.
Police tools and surveillance have gotten to a very advanced state in the US. Many murders go unsolved, but I'm not sure it's so much that police can't solve the murders. I note that after Mangione's assassination of Thompson, police went all-out. They take assassinations and terrorism seriously. And there are cameras everywhere. In people's pockets, on the walls of buildings.
Basically, it's hard to get away with any kind of political violence. That reduces the number of people who are willing to do it.
Goodguy
22d ago
I think she did. Sometimes people need somebody to tell them that their emotions and habits are making them do really stupid things, like drink a lot of alcohol every day or regularly interact with a man who has a non-trivial chance of murdering them. That's one of the good things about friendship actually, the ability to have somebody tell you things like that and to help somebody else by telling them that.
Goodguy
22d ago
I don't know if I'm right, but my hunch is that even if that is true, men nonetheless have a higher rate of causing serious damage because they are much stronger than women.
Goodguy
23d ago
I can make a conscious choice to love my wife
I find this to be an interesting statement. Could you please elaborate?
I don't think the theory of a civilization scale parasite is necessary. There is a simpler explanation: the vast majority of people simply don't see falling fertility rates as a problem. It's not that people would naturally see it as a problem but a memetic parasite is blinding them. It's that people generally don't see it as a problem unless something brings it to their attention. The vast majority of people have never have paid any attention to social-level fertility rates at all. People 1000 years ago had large numbers of kids because of very local and immediate factors: basically, the poor needed kids for labor and as a form of welfare in old age, the rich could afford to have a bunch of kids and then not work much to take care of them (servants could do it), contraception was primitive, women viewed having kids as more central to their identity than they do now, and so on. People were having many kids because of these immediate local factors, not out of a personal interest in their society's overall fertility. When you take people's basic disinterest in overall fertility rates and then remove the factors that previously kept fertility high, the fertility rate drops. The removal of the factors that had previously kept fertility rates high was not caused by some singular memetic parasite. It was caused by several separate things: technological change that reduced the importance of physical human labor, improvements in contraception, the feminist movement. Now of course, these things are related: the technological changes also helped to enable feminism to begin with, improvements in contraception were partly motivated by a feminist-leaning desire to help women, and so on. But to think of them all as being part of one social contagion is, I think, going too far. It overly compresses the actual complexity of the historical phenomena into one supposed dimension.
Now, one could certainly argue that there exists a widespread ideology that helps to make it harder for people to tackle the problem even once they begin to think of it as a problem. One can call it "leftism", or whatever. But even if one removed this ideology, that does not mean that people would automatically start to think of falling fertility rates as a problem. That's a separate thing. The "survival instinct" that you mention does not activate until and unless the problem becomes very visible. And we are not yet at that point. So falling fertility rates fall into the same class of problems as climate change: the vast majority of people do not have any sort of inherent tendency to pay attention to the problem. They only begin to pay attention to it either after individuals and groups put significant efforts, on a massive scale, into "raising awareness" of the problem, or after the problem has begun to create such obvious negative consequences that even the average person notices it.
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