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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27501 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I don’t think ‘I’m afraid of sex’ is the main reason fertility rates are dropping, I think it’s ‘I don’t want another dependent for the next two decades’.

I think it’s ‘I don’t want another dependent for the next two decades’.

Yes? That's what we're agreeing on here: sex makes babies, but people don't want babies because babies need you to take care of them and they're expensive which interferes with fun times and spending money on yourself, so people try and get around the 'having babies' part of 'having sex' via contraception and abortion.

"I don't want a dependent for the next two decades" being the case, then all the exhortations to 'do your duty for the common god and have four kids' are not going to work, and if you need every couple to be having four kids to keep your economy afloat, then you better get working on those artificial wombs.

How do artificial wombs have anything to do with the sacrifices parents make in raising children?

Artificial wombs in themselves don't solve the problem of the 'next two decades dependents'.

What do you do with these artificially-born children?

Are they going to be slaves fully raised by some kind of government or corporate facility?

Or is the idea that the market is going to capture potential parents that would want to take care of additional dependents but do not have access to a fresh womb?

I doubt that that would be a lot of people. Raising kids takes energy and people tend to run out of energy as they age. Helping raise grand-children, nephews and nieces, now that's a more accessible goal for a children-loving middle-aged or senior citizen.

If there is such a glut of desperate people just waiting to take care of children, all they have to do is knock on doors, network, involve themselves locally... Daycares take volunteers if you are ready to jump through licensing hoops.

If we're at the stage of artificial wombs to keep society running, then it will be the government raising the children. Not slaves but productive citizens with all the Right Values.

Think of Asimov's Spacer civilisations where robot nannies raise the kids and the parents have so little contact with them, on some worlds accidental incest happens and nobody thinks it a big deal.

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