magnax1
1yr ago
Basically all industrialized countries went through the modernization that led to declining birth rates post WW2, but France definitely lagged behind Germany and the UK economically before the 2nd world war.
magnax1
1yr ago
Definitely not true, because I'm a YIMBY and am totally opposed to dense urbanification. You could call most of the republican party functionally YIMBY (anti construction regulation) but anti urbanification, they just don't use those terms. There's a pretty clear connection between how red an area is and its lack of housing regulation.
magnax1
1yr ago
You may be right that rational is not the right word (I actually kind of hate that word, I just wasn't being precise enough I guess) but projection and the general meaning of the statement as a whole should be pretty obvious--they are projecting their worldview and values onto other countries, that America and co have the same zero sum authoritarian worldview and that will lead them to conflict with russia, when it's obvious by their different actions (How NATO plays out vs historic Russian alliances) that this isn't the case. They then use this claimed worldview to justify things they were going to do anyways (invade a third party). I think it's totally fair to call this irrational, in that it's just not an argument that stands up to any scrutiny, but it is also has a clear purpose and the term rational is too wishy washy relativistic to be meaningful.
magnax1
1yr ago
The serbs shot down one stealth jet (that is an order of magnitude less stealthy than an F35 or F22) out of dozens of bombing runs in the exact same flight path. Not exactly a good track record.
magnax1
1yr ago
It's worth adding that the Soviet casualties in the early and mid parts of the war ranged from 2-4 times as high as the German. Even during the end when the Soviets outnumbered the Germans 4 to 1 with better equipment, more fuel, and total air superiority, the Soviets usually only achieved around 1 to 1 casualty ratios. Not only is it hard to believe the Russians had much faith in their leadership, its hard to actually call Zhukov et al better than what the Russians are putting out now. They were just in a much more favorable situation materially.
magnax1
1yr ago
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No_one NapoleonBonerpart5 1d
You vastly overestimate China here and vastly underestimate Russia, especially in terms of "dying" countries. China's demographics are the worst on Earth by far, Russia's are the best in Europe outside France.
magnax1
1yr ago
No, I'm just saying some of what chatgpt puts out is pretty much garbalygook. "What's the joke?' is a question without an answer.
Yes. The deep south cash crop states were not the only slave states. You pointed out border states yourself, many of which are quite temperate in climate. There was no reason for them to be so undeveloped compared to new england, and even some of the relatively underpopulated great lakes states. Virginia is actually an ideal place for industrialization--lots of cheap coal, lots of riverways that can transport coal and then power industry in cities, and lots of amazing places for huge ports. Yet, Virginia never really industrialized.
Studies have actually been done, although the veracity will always be fuzzy with 150+ year old data, they never suggest the effects are "not very" large.
A lot of borders are arbitrary, but the outcomes are not. The policy of a state and culture of a region are maybe the most important single factor for economic development. Slave states vs non slave are maybe the best example outside of east and west germany.
magnax1
1yr ago
Black people have a much higher propensity to crime at every income level, but single motherhood alone makes up almost all that difference. The problem is much clearer than people often let on.
magnax1
1yr ago
Intent to distribute/felony possession is different from state to state, but many are in the pounds and few (maybe none) are as low as half an ounce. Federal numbers have been absurdly large for a while since they're mostly interested in international trafficking.
Material conditions of Americans require them to outsource most of the parenting to the State.
Considering how little effect what school you go to has on you and how big of an effect the makeup of your family has on you (how your parents interact with you, divorce, single motherhood, etc) I think this statement is a probably just outright wrong. In terms of time commitment it might be true that the state/schools are a bigger factor (although considering school holidays I'm not sure its actually true) but in terms of effect I don't think the evidence suggests anything like that.
Also, I suspect much less individual care from parents was given to children on average in the past. I actually remember a study that suggested this (IIRC mothers spend about as much time on a child as they did in the past but fathers spend far more) Of course, I didnt save the link.
Really, I don't think there's any evidence for most of your claims. If it is true that children are mainly raised (in terms of effect) by the state, its probably mainly true in cases where social institutions fail (again, mainly divorce and single motherhood)
Edit:also, the claim that mothers work stressful jobs, relative to the past, seems almost entirely the opposite of reality. Almost all women through history worked on small farms toiling at housework day to night. Hunger gatherers societies were ultra violent and incredibly unstable. The current era is by far the lowest stress for anyone, mothers included, excluding the sort of kazcynskian over socialized sense of stress.
magnax1
1yr ago
HR should be taken very seriously. It is a small branch of the state forced into business so that the business complies with everything the state demands. That is far more dangerous, although maybe not "serious" than any other part of a business. None of the others can have the cops come down to put you in jail or take away everything you own.
magnax1
1yr ago
It is very easy under certain circumstances, but those circumstances have almost nothing to do with your qualifications to be a productive citizen in American society. Immigrating to the US via qualifications can be almost impossible unfortunately.
magnax1
1yr ago
Deregulate housing/zoning, cut taxes, increase rural infrastructure, implement a land value tax, and support other policies which would incentivize moving away from the densest urban areas. If you can get something more radical through then the next policy would be something like removing taxes for married women who have 3 children with the same man. I don't think you could get that passed in any country though. You could probably get small short term bumps in pregnancy rates by welfare/paid leave policies but in the longer term they'd crater birth rates harder because it incentivizes or normalizes single motherhood which produces unproductive members of society and all the other social burdens that accompany that.
magnax1
1yr ago
Most top European talent also immigrates out. Its impossible to start a new industry upending business in Europe because of regulation. Spacex, Uber, and many others could never have started anywhere in Europe because they would have been regulated out of existence.
Russia and France modernized post WW2. Qatar is currently modernizing and therefore is only just now dropping below replacement. It's where France was in the 50+ years ago in the cycle. Obviously modernization is the main trend here that dominates all other, but Qatar doesn't seem to be an outlier at all. UAE is already sub 1.5. Saudi Arabia seems to be behind on the curve, but its still quickly trending below 2.1. It may be the case that in 20 years Qatar's TFR will still be 1.80, but it doesn't seem that way.
magnax1
1yr ago
Religiosity doesn't seem to have much correlation in general. There are exceptions (mormons, like you said, but even they are trending down fast) and the most religious countries in the world, the Arab peninsula states, have low birth rates that are trending down fast.
magnax1
1yr ago
I don't think this is as separated as you seem to think.
I don't think they're separate. Like I said-
the biggest fear of wokism in corporations comes from implicit regulatory burden
But civil rights suits and so on are not the biggest burden. It's one of many burdens, and the burdens become bigger and more arbitrary the bigger the company.
magnax1
1yr ago
I don't see an economic reason why cutting edge gene modding would be exclusively catered to the rich. If you want a return on investment you want the broadest market possible. High cost products are usually products that have high cost of physical resources like cars, or high labor costs. Gene modification is essentially selling data. It's market would be more similar to a market for music, books, movies, etc than cars. Therefore its largest problem would be creating excludability and financializing the asset.
The only way this might not be the case is through significant regulatory capture, which considering the total non-functionality of the FDA is possible. The only problem is the FDA's incentives are not aligned with the wealthy, but with self preservation. This presents itself mostly through absurd overcautiouness and regulatory violence against uncooperative corporations.
magnax1
1yr ago
Indeed, Britain's involvement is what really set it off as a "World War", whereas if they had stayed out it would've probably been a larger repeat of something like the Franco Prussian war. I've felt for a while that their decision to join the war was ultimately the most disastrous foreign policy decision the UK ever made.
magnax1
1yr ago
The excess deaths are probably caused by the after effects of Corona. Myocarditis and other heart issues are moderately common in people who didn't even have severe cases. Most of the people who have these issues probably don't know they have them. Then there are the severe cases, of which there were a lot, where people were stuck on ventilators and likely had all sorts of complications. Those people often aren't long for this world. There's also a case to be made that isolation caused by the pandemic has increased all cause mortality, bit that's pretty foggy and may not be true. It's also possible that the data is just off.
If the vaccines caused noticeable health risks it would be absurdly easy to see a correlation. Vaccination=higher mortality. That correlation isn't there. Also, hiding a health issue caused by a drug is so outside of the FDAs historical behavioral pattern that it's really ridiculous to lean into some conspiratorial coverup. Remember, when 2 J&J vaccine patients had heart issues out if millions (a rate which is far less than the rate in the random population) the FDA pulled the vaccine immediately. Yet they're covering up mass sickness from other vaccines?
This is one of those conspiracies that's really hard not to be condescending about because it's just so thinly supported.
Its common for people with extensive previous records or who are involved in violent crime. I don't think that's what people are thinking about when they hear someone went to jail for Marijuana for years.
magnax1
1yr ago
Society won't collapse because a few companies might lose out to French, Japanese or maybe Chinese companies, and then have to reform, create new organizations, or limp on as a second rate economy (like Europe has been doing for 50+ years without a sign of collapse). The gap between where the US is now and collapse is monumental. It is the most powerful, rich, and culturally dominant nation in human history. It basically has to conjure up boogiemen to create competitive incentives. Undoubtedly the US will collapse someday, just like every other civilization or nation ever, but woke won't be the cause.
Btw I'm not saying woke stuff is good. It's just an exaggerated threat to terminally online right leaning types. You could realistically go a month in a wealthy suburb living out your life and never have it affect you at work, home or your kids school's. One of the actual biggest issues in America right now is a huge gap between the perceived importance of a problem (Global warming, school shootings, woke, or whatever) and actual significant problems.
magnax1
1yr ago
Earth is nowhere near its carrying capacity, and the human population is more realistically limited by the resources of the solar system on any time scale where the Earth's carrying capacity is an issue. If Human population was about to trend to 40 billion, then Malthusian carrying capacity might become an issue. 9 billion? Not even close.
The biggest issue right now is that modern welfare systems are basically ponzi schemes. The eventual solution will be obvious--drastically cut spending, but that's difficult to achieve in democracies where the people paying are outnumbered by the people being paid.
Yes, the anti-individualist argument would be against allowing them to take hormones, dress up, etc. I'm not aware of any significant cohort who wants to do that in North America.
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