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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13599 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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I’m not familiar with any data on this but I seriously doubt the average woman who signs up for military service anywhere in the world normally does so at the age of 18.

A 24 year old can easily have 4-6 kids

Not unless she belongs to some dedicatedly natalist counterculture like the Amish or so - that is the current social reality in the West. And in that case she’s very unlikely to become a military volunteer. I also doubt that a woman doing military service is generally conducive to her ever entering a stable marriage in the first place.

Even in the worst of the wars, only 15% of young men died -- that would in France/Germany in WWI.

That would not be the worst of wars in terms of the loss of young men. The Paraguayan War of 1864-70, the Serbian army in WW1 and the Soviet army in WW2 all resulted in a casualty rate that was much higher than 15%, to name just three examples. Not that any of this disproves OP’s argument about the 30% figure in any sense but it needs to be pointed out anyway.

I’m not familiar with any data on this but I seriously doubt the average woman who signs up for military service anywhere in the world normally does so at the age of 18.

Even a basic Google search for "average age at enlistment" cites 18-20 for the US, France and a few others I plugged in. For Israel and other compulsory-service countries it's 18. Germany showed a slightly higher average in the low 20s.

I also doubt that a woman doing military service is generally conducive to her ever entering a stable marriage in the first place.

I will take moving the goalposts here as admission that the original point is conceded.

Not that any of this disproves OP’s argument about the 30% figure in any sense but it needs to be pointed out anyway.

It doesn't disprove it, but it does say this scenario is rather rare.

Let's consider a 24-yr-old woman who completed 6 years of military service and another woman of the same age who did other things. Which one of them have a higher chance of entering a stable marriage resulting in 4-6 kids?

Based on her traits before having entered service? Or in the counterfactual where the very same person with the very same disposition to enlist who randomly was disqualified at 18?

Because it’s probably correlated in a way that’s preexisting. I doubt there’s much of a causal relationship.

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