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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4490 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 5, 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.

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Has anyone read a good non-mainstream or little-known well-regarded hypothesis as to why the black family collapsed in the mid 20th century? Not necessarily looking for a Jared Taylor-tier piece, but I'm open to arguments the mainstream would consider taboo, such as questioning our liberal principles.

Thomas Sowell talks about this a bunch, and if you haven't I strongly recommend reading some of his work and/or listening to interviews with him. One of the main things he blames is the wellfare state, which, in attempting to help poor single mothers with families by giving them financial assistance, accidentally incentivized people to become single mothers. In some cases, there were literal "man in the house" rules, where people would be sent over to houses of people receiving assistance to see if there was a man living in the house (presumably contributing to the finances and acting like a husband even if not legally married to the woman) and then cutting off the financial support if there was one present. These were eventually stopped by the supreme court, but the general economic incentives remained.

If getting pregnant before marriage drives you into poverty and homelessness, you will be extremely careful not to be promiscuous, and to expect marriage from your partner.

If you have relatives who would save you from poverty by financially supporting you, then relatives will apply pressure on all of their female kin to maintain standards, and will criticize them for violating these norms.

If men have to have jobs and get married in order to have sex because virtually all women are holding these standards, then men will get jobs and get married.

But if getting pregnant and having five children with different men just makes the government pay for your kids instead, then there's little downside to it, from an individual perspective. It's been a disaster for the community though.

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