naraburns nihil supernum
2yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
When The Times’s Israel correspondent Isabel Kershner recently asked an Israeli Army tank driver, Shai Levy, 37, to describe the purpose of the looming Israeli invasion of Gaza, he said something that really caught my ear. It was “to restore honor to Israel,” he said.
All these Islamist/jihadist movements — the Taliban, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis — have deep cultural, social, religious and political roots in their societies. And they have access to endless supplies of humiliated young men, many of whom have never been in a job, power or a romantic relationship: a lethal combination that makes them easy to mobilize for mayhem.
And that’s why, to this day, none of these movements have been eliminated once and for all. They can, though, be isolated, diminished, delegitimized and decapitated — as America has done with ISIS and Al Qaeda. But that requires patience, precision, lots of allies and alternatives that have legitimacy within the societies from which these young men emerge.
Perhaps the greatest political challenge is what to do with surplus young men. It is this group that lies behind most terrorism, ISIS, inceldom, much of the dissident right, most challenges with policing and crime. Rich countries have more options than poorer ones, as do countries with lower birthrates compared to higher ones (due to reductions in the proportion of violent, dispossessed young men as a percentage of the total population).
Perhaps the greatest political challenge is what to do with surplus young men.
One massive benefit of artificial wombs when we get them is that we'll just be able to not conceive the surplus men in the first place by simply changing the gender ratio. It will improve the world so so much.
It so definitely wouldn't. If it ever becomes a viable technology be ready for HUNKY GRADE-A BEEF Jarheads, coming of an assembly line, roided up naturally and ready to fight in endless wars.
Eh, I expect drones to take over the physical portion of warfare by that point, at best they would be operated by someone sitting thousands of km away, and you don't need roided up humans for that (one underrated benefit of drones is that even if the physical object is destroyed, all the combat experience is not lost, the drone operator keeps on getting better and better at waging war and can learn from his mistakes, while soldiers fighting in the flesh can find those same mistakes to be fatal, losing their army all the accumulated experience when they die).
Oh, I expect modernity to continue cratering birth rates, to the point where countries have to gestate a significant proportion of their future children in artificial wombs to maintain the population. When push comes to shove and the choice is between doing this or letting in millions more low IQ/fundamentally different culture people from the third world I expect governments to grudgingly fund this. Also, even if say 80% of all children are born as normal, you can still affect the net gender ratio by a lot by e.g. only gestating female embryos in artificial wombs (this will change the M:F ratio from 1.07:1 to 0.70:1).
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Notes -
[NYTimes, Friedman] Why a Gaza Invasion and ‘Once and for All’ Thinking Are Wrong for Israel
Perhaps the greatest political challenge is what to do with surplus young men. It is this group that lies behind most terrorism, ISIS, inceldom, much of the dissident right, most challenges with policing and crime. Rich countries have more options than poorer ones, as do countries with lower birthrates compared to higher ones (due to reductions in the proportion of violent, dispossessed young men as a percentage of the total population).
One massive benefit of artificial wombs when we get them is that we'll just be able to not conceive the surplus men in the first place by simply changing the gender ratio. It will improve the world so so much.
It so definitely wouldn't. If it ever becomes a viable technology be ready for HUNKY GRADE-A BEEF Jarheads, coming of an assembly line, roided up naturally and ready to fight in endless wars.
Eh, I expect drones to take over the physical portion of warfare by that point, at best they would be operated by someone sitting thousands of km away, and you don't need roided up humans for that (one underrated benefit of drones is that even if the physical object is destroyed, all the combat experience is not lost, the drone operator keeps on getting better and better at waging war and can learn from his mistakes, while soldiers fighting in the flesh can find those same mistakes to be fatal, losing their army all the accumulated experience when they die).
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A rather separate issue from very poor 3rd worlders having way too many kids with no prospects.
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Artificial wombs won’t change very much. There is no scenario in which the vast majority of babies aren’t carried to term inside of a woman.
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Getting artificial wombs does not imply natural wombs stop working. The vast majority of babies will continue to be born the old fashioned way.
Oh, I expect modernity to continue cratering birth rates, to the point where countries have to gestate a significant proportion of their future children in artificial wombs to maintain the population. When push comes to shove and the choice is between doing this or letting in millions more low IQ/fundamentally different culture people from the third world I expect governments to grudgingly fund this. Also, even if say 80% of all children are born as normal, you can still affect the net gender ratio by a lot by e.g. only gestating female embryos in artificial wombs (this will change the M:F ratio from 1.07:1 to 0.70:1).
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