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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   25467 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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The value of their talents now is almost intrinsically less than the value of her ability to produce more individuals with those talents going forward, all the more so because of the narrow window in which she is able to produce them. Its like Nature's most brutal tradeoff, especially since it echoes through the generations either way.

Our options are to exhaust the capabilities of one (1) exceptional individual during their life, but lose their abilities after they die... or have them produce, hopefully, 2-3 at least somewhat exceptional individuals who can, on net, produce 2-3x more value during their lives than exhausting the exceptional individual would have during theirs.

Wow, we've got a woman of genius intellect, showing prodigy-level talent in science and math, as well as the drive to actually compete in those fields... and if she does compete as hard as she can, we're basically guaranteed that her genes won't pass on and thus whatever genetic advantages she may have possessed will be expressed less in future generations.

Yes, this is the kind of thing you do in an existential emergency. If there was an asteroid about to crash into Earth in a decade, maybe, and you needed to gang-press every last human with a bit of STEM talent into the global effort to deflect it.

Or, for a less fantastical example, it was understandable when the Soviets ended up making their women into bomber pilots and snipers during World War II. They were eating the seed corn, but if they lost the war they were all going to die anyway; their time-horizon had collapsed to surviving the next battle. And once the war ended, they turned back to celebrating motherhood.

Needless to say, America is the last country in the world to face an existential military crisis. Canada and Mexico aren't going to invade, the US Navy rules the seas, and then there is the nuclear triad deterrent. It is insane for a country under such conditions to push women into military service as hard as it does. If a woman has eight children, half of them boys, you have a choice between half a soldier now and four full soldiers in the future, plus another four women who can go on to have eight kids each. How shortsighted do you have to be to pick A?

A woman with a towering stature and musculature that actually holds her own in physical feats against men in her weight class? Uhhh yeah make sure she marries a reasonably intelligent corn-fed U.S. Marine so her kids can be the next generation of super-soldiers.

A woman with an exceptionally cool head, innate motivational ability, and a keen business sense? Well we could plug her in as a CEO but why not guarantee that all of her offspring will be admitted to Wharton School of Business on a full-ride scholarship and have her raise a generation of top-tier MBAs? (mostly tongue-in-cheek, that's probably a waste too)

From in His strength, I will dare and dare and dare until I die:

Aroden might renounce her and if that happens she will have to pursue different life plans but it's still very hard to imagine them involving children. She argued it endlessly with her mother, when she was a child.

"If I'd gone off to be a holy warrior," her mother had said, "none of you would exist, and instead I raised three noble and good sons who will serve Aroden, and that's three times the effect any man can have, no matter how great. If you are unusually suited to His service, so will your sons be; character breeds true."

"If Aroden foresees that will be better I guess He won't pick me," says Iomedae, though of course if that were all there were to it she would be indifferent and she isn't.

Interesting story, but is it written by a teenager? Because "Evelyn is possibly, maybe, internally melting into a puddle of awwwwwwwwwwwww" is not generally how women in their forties who are foster parents react (I say this as a woman older than forty).

It's cowritten by lintamande (Kelsey Piper), Swimmer963 (who wrote the specific line you quoted), and lantalótë (who plays the role of Alfirin). Most glowfics are collaborations between two or more authors who take turns posting their character's responses; it's basically a public roleplay log.

No idea how old any of them are, but it really is a very young woman's view of emotional reactions. Or maybe I'm just insufficiently Bay Area to get it and people really do melt into puddles of awwww! all over the place there.

But women with eight children are solidly outgroup to the main body of the american elites; women having 5+ children is itself a threat to their position.

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