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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2620 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is a strong central authority necessary to deter the catastrophe of health and fertility?

Consider that if America wanted to reduce its obesity epidemic it would likely have to implement draconian actions like high taxation or outright bans on certain food types, reduced workplace stress conditions, incentivizing longer breastfeeding times and reducing female employment to reduce stressed mothers. If it wanted to maintain or increase its fertility rate it would need to deter or ban women from higher education, teach pro-motherhood material in public school, possibly ban certain types of media…

Any action that has a real effect on the ever-increasing problems of obesity and fertility would be essentially off the table. Our capitalism worship and our political climate forbids it. It is unlikely that there will be a magic bullet for fertility that does not include reducing female education/employment and producing natal propaganda. A state like China, however, can snap their finger and introduce policies that will certainly reduce obesity and increase fertility.

reduced workplace stress conditions

How confident are you that this is an important predictor of obesity? From previous looks I've done at the data, it looks like the fattest populations barely work at all. It turns out that giving low IQ, low time preference people access to heavily subsidized food and earmarked money to buy it is a bad idea. Before trying anything draconian, we could just stop subsidizing sugar and stop spending $100 billion per year on food stamps and see where that lands us. It won't be a complete fix, but it's at least not racking up debt to poison people that lack the impulse control to put down the chips.

I think it has a significant effect on maternal stress which has a significant on obesity. The idea that women should be as stressed as men is not well thought on for humanity’s progress. And circadian changes from shift hour work will have an influence on obesity and fertility generally

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