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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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Insane? If I'm correct in believing a fundamental necessity of American life in the 21st century -- as far as moneyed powers are concerned -- is to prune the surplus population in ways which provoke their naïve consent, then this proposed measure is very, very sane.

  • -10

But muh Demographic Transition...

Put more eloquently, this doesn't make sense. A number of people here will likely have the stats on hand showing that the US is already below the replacement threshold in terms of fertility. And, of course, I think this law is within that area of "I think the stated motivations of the people behind it are their literal and honest motivations, and there is no ulterior motive, only ignorance of repercussions."

Since the death rate is exceeding the birth rate the system should stop employing its eugenicist gears? This is a silly thought.

To your second point, your opinion is in that area of “No one knows anything that isn’t explicitly spelled out to them, even if the pattern should be obvious without the explanation.”

What if you are not correct?

Then the world is exactly as dumb as you think it is.

That's not what I mean.

Surely you have to take into account, as anybody with reason, that dooming people to terrible fates when you are not certain it is for the best is not good, because you might just be wrong and doing evil. And even then, all of the most terrible people of history share one unshaking belief in the righteousness of their cause, and they were all wrong.

The hard part of virtue is finding the strength to do things even in the face of our own fallibility, but we should first climb over the hurdle of the easy part: not treating matters of life and death with reckless banality.

Of course no evil is ever done in the name of evil. But that has nothing to do with what I’m saying, so I’ll level: I don’t think there’s anything good about this particular brand of sanity.

But if you believe there are “too many” people (I don’t)…

If you believe this surplus creates damage to the whole (I don’t)…

If you believe transgenderism is an innate and immutable condition (I don’t)…

Then these measures are defensible on any of those grounds, (albeit for very different reasons) and you’ll find yourself on the losing end of these arguments more often than not if you concede to any of those framing narratives.

Me? I believe most everything is imaginary and divisions are created or destroyed in order to meet the dictates of an unknown author. Whether it’s Von Neumann’s idea of unthinking geometrical processes to which humans are blindly governed, Steiner’s idea of competing archetypes (Lucifer and Ahriman), Jung’s idea of participacion mystique, or if some people are knowingly serving nonhuman/antihuman entities, I’m not sure and I doubt anyone who is.