domain:experimental-history.com
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6hr ago
Their lifestyle would change, they would face the 50% child mortality that plagued humanity most of its existence, but within a generation they would adjust to the new normal. They wouldn't die out entirely.
Tenaz
6hr ago
If regular stories gave me what I wanted (fast pace, well-written, very high stakes, characters developing morally and in power) then I would eagerly read them. There's something deeply wrong about the publishing industry that these books are so few and far between.
The Rage of Dragons is the best "traditional" book I've read in a while and it was originally self-published.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
6hr ago
I’m familiar with the social ecosystem of the Haredim. It’s super interesting. The women are not involved in religious learning, they are raised to support their husband. Because the Rabbi credential is socially important, the women work to support their husband pursue it. But just as important to this is that the women have children. This is going to be the first question asked to married Haredi women. This is why they have a lot of children. What the men learn in their Yeshiva is that having children is a mitzvah, and so they fulfill their nocturnal obligations. This is an easy ask because all childcare duties fall on the women. The Rabbi credential system is not as competitive as, like, getting into a PhD program, because the big Rabbi positions are handed down via nepotism; my understanding is that it’s often a factor of showing up.
The desire to be mothers comes from exposure to babies and small children
Lol no
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-019-09525-0
”The difference between a firstborn and fourth-born woman (0.09 fewer children) is equivalent to a change in 0.04 standard deviations in fertility for our outcome variable. (For birth order 6, the effect is 0.13 fewer children.) Thus, the results suggest that birth order shows a negative relationship for women, with more children amongst early-born sisters than later-born sisters, though the effects are not very large in substantive terms.”
Firstborn women with one additional sibling show an increase in own fertility by 0.12 children, two additional siblings increases their own fertility by 0.22 children, and three younger siblings increases their own fertility by 0.30 children
Do you really think that a Haredi woman who happens (due to some cosmic accident) to be an only child herself, will not go on to have many children? My intuition tells me she will have a lot; perhaps not as many as her many-sibling peers, but still way more than an American with four siblings
For tradcaths grandmotherhood is higher status than having single adult children, but not as high status as having nun/priest children
I would consider this a perversion of the religion. The Epistle to Timothy is clear that women “will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.” These are bad Christians if they are giving a woman status for raising a priest instead of a dozen kids. I actually find Catholicism horrifically anti-natal because the most devout are pressured into producing impotent clerical heirs. It made sense in Malthusian times for the youngest male without property to join the church. It doesn’t make sense now. In more traditional, medieval Catholicism, even these priests had concubines
aaa
7hr ago
In any with strong religious norms, a childless woman was seen as beneath a woman who had many kids. Religious communities do a good job at redirecting social status
In any place with strong religious norms children were also very cheap, nearly free, or possibly even negative cost. The two things correlate that one wonders if it isn't religion that produces high fertility but the reverse: high fertility produces a religion that promotes high fertility. If you look really hard at christianity, for example, there's a lot of antinatalist messaging in there that almost nobody uses: yes be fruitful, yes onan but also "For there are some eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it".
Are religious communities redirecting social status or getting bent around by what people consider social status anyway? Look at how many churches display pride flags despited that being a far more clearly condemned practice than just not having children.
In America you have the enormous problem of capitalism / consumerism which will need to be fixed for any national solution to occur, because you have some of the smartest people continually telling women that their social value is determined by buying and experiences things
Yes, but surely we can agree that buying and experiencing things, and that having lots of free time, is something that is pleasurable in itself, that it isn't all just a big psyop.
with universities (effectively all of them behaving as businesses) telling them they need to be educated
But do they go to university because they are told to do so or do they go because it's not their money (either it's coming from mom and dad or from a loan) and they get to party for 5 years? Are they doing it for the status or are they doing it because they expect to be fun and they are correct?
If you’re at a party and there’s a poor artist, a prestigious academic, and then a plumbing company owner who makes $400k yearly
Being a rich owner of a plumbing company is not so much a job as it is a wish. It doesn't matter if you think something is beneath you if it's also unavailable to you. What's available to you is being an employee of a plumbing company and that makes little money and is phisically draining on top, hence nobody wants to do it.
Their leaders are engaged in a holy war but the average member is just a normal person doing what their culture says to do, and in this culture the number of children is prized over everything. Both men and women are judged harshly or celebrated strongly based on their fertility. It’s seen as both a commandment and a blessing. The average member isn’t having kids for a nefarious reason, they are just taught through custom that it’s prized.
I think the Haredi are in a position similar to the lifelong Seaorgers: the community is so closed and dependent upon itself that leaving is not just discouraged socially but it's also economically very difficult. Nevertheless the percentage of people that leave that lifestyle is growing.
Unlikely now that Gypsies are forced into schools in Europe.
You're overestimating the mighty power of europe here.
And look at historical figures: Ben Franklin’s father made candles, was his 17 children necessary for the candle business in an era with slaves and indentured servants? Of course not. Albrecht Dürer‘s parents were goldsmiths, did they need to have 18 children?
Some people are just weirdos.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
7hr ago
The reason I call it “trivial” is because it is easy to change behaviors and values when you have complete control over education and media. As I mention, China can do this while America will be unable to do it. Education and media are antecedent to social values which are antecedent to behaviors. You can train a woman to crave settling down to have children young through exposing them exclusively to media where women receive respect and esteem and attention for doing so, where the women doing this are shown as beautiful and alluring, where it is depicted as a satisfying and an all-moral purpose, where “maternal moments” are artfully selected in media to only show its positives, and where everything which opposes this is shown as psychologically disastrous / ugly / low-status / shameful / selfish. At a more sophisticated level, you apply all of this to prenatal behaviors beginning at the doll-carrying age, eg the traditionally feminine qualities of being meek, caring, loving, and docile, which makes a woman more likely to have children later on for a variety of reasons. A girl who grows up attached to the idea of loving and caring for a doll becomes a woman who wants to do this to a child; a girl who grows up with a modest sense of worth is a woman who does not fantasize about marrying a werewolf pirate billionaire. This is all easy, it is trivial. Two weeks of cognitive labor by a CCP-appointed team of 140iq social psychologists will be able to fix their fertility eternally.
Dean
Flairless
7hr ago
I've a similar feeling when the word 'must' appears in journalism.
In other fields, 'must' is an obligation, or a consequence of a previously established condition. An apple must fall when subject to the law of gravity. A spouse must maintain a certain level of relations lest they be divorced into an exspouse. A racer must move faster than the competition to win.
In journo-speak, 'must' is much more likely to mean 'something the writer wants the subject to do, but they don't actually have to do.' The politician must take a certain position. The government must take a certain policy. In such cases, though, the consequences of not abiding the 'must' are, well, that they clearly did not have to do what they must have done.
To me it's a red flag of advocacy journalism, outside of specifically technical/consequential framings of the earlier sense.
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
I believe the theory that Gypsy kids are an economic resource to their parents is due to their utility for typical Ziganeur activities like welfare exploitation, petty crime(which can combine with schooling pretty well), and charity scams.
And I'm going to talk a bit about ultra-religious communities, because I can tell you don't actually live in one- the highest status thing in an ultra-religious community is to become a member of the structure of the religion. This is why Haredi families gamble on their boys becoming rabbis even though the supply exceeds the demand and yeshivas provide no secular education whatsoever(and ultra-islamic families do the same thing with madrassas). For tradcaths grandmotherhood is higher status than having single adult children, but not as high status as having nun/priest children. The desire to be mothers comes from exposure to babies and small children, not from social status(which pushes young women towards the convent). You could not replicate this effect in a society where people don't already have 5+ children. Now of course there is no option for tradcaths to drop out of education at the age of 7 or 8 and enter full-time preparation for the cloister, so it kinda comes out in the wash(and haredi women seem like an afterthought/ultra-islamic women like property).
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
Amish civilization is dependent on trade with their technologically advanced neighbors, though. You can have premodern subsistence farmers at shockingly small scale, that's just not what the Amish are.
Forty-Bot
7hr ago
Well, it would be more like
Having hefted his mace, he swung at her as hard as he could
but I don't think that sounds any better
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
I have to admit, this is a bit like kneecap getting accused of terrorism. AFAICT, there is no positive- literally none whatsoever- to children's screentime, and videogames don't have great social effects either. But government overreach is also bad.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
8hr ago
My unhealthy obsession with designing houses continues unabated.
One somewhat strange aspect of the IPMC (International Property Maintenance Code) is table 404.5, which lays out the minimum areas of living rooms and dining rooms based on occupant count.
| Occupants | Living (ft2) | Dining (ft2) | Total (ft2) | ⌈Total per occupant⌉ (ft2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 120 |
| 2 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 60 |
| 3 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 67 |
| 4 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 50 |
| 5 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 40 |
| 6–∞ | 150 | 100 | 250 | 42–1 |
Obviously, it is nonsensical for the total required assembly area per occupant to bounce around like this.
IBC (International Building Code) table 1004.5 states that a dining/living room with tables and chairs should have 15 ft2 per occupant. Therefore, I am inclined to think that it would make sense to superimpose on IRC table 404.5 a failsafe minimum of 45 ft2 per occupant.
AfterEpictetus
8hr ago
You have statistics on overturning custody agreements to back that up?
yofuckreddit
8hr ago
I realized I didn't see your first paragraph. If you are interested in bikepacking I highly recommend taking the plunge on a 3-night route or something. It is still very hard - I would train at least a month or two beforehand - but a route that's rated a 5 or so on that site is doable with grit. Finding even a single friend to join you will make it a lot more fun.
Anything in particular blocking you or giving you second thoughts?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
8hr ago
I love it when writers attempt to paint a world entirely in shades of grey while never telling the reader what to think...
Time was, we just called that "good writing". But it's depressingly uncommon these days. :(
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
8hr ago
And then the characters make some offhand comment about a magic spell that lets you switch gender which certain people who were "born in the wrong body" use to cure their condition.
At least that's better than the BG1 expansion from a few years back, which (in a world where perfectly effective magic to change your sex exists) had a transgender character. It was so fucking stupid that I did not and never will buy that expansion, no matter how good people say it is otherwise.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8hr ago
Completely agree, there was a lot going on in that movie and although I can't say that I enjoyed watching it, I was left thinking about all of the different things that it touched on for days afterward.
anon_
8hr ago
I disagree. If the court got it wrong somehow, no responsible parent would let their kid stay in an unsafe situation just because the law said they had to.
A responsible parent with a reasonable predictor of the external world would realize that violating the order will lead to their child shortly being returned to that unsafe situation with less chance of ultimately getting a better solution.
anon_
8hr ago
Now of course this is a non central example, but if you think it's impossible for judges to be morally wrong in a way that's terrible enough as to require risking everything by running afoul of the law, you clearly have unreasonable faith in the institution.
Of course they can be morally wrong! Or factually wrong! Or legally wrong! Or any combination of the 3.
The issue isn't that they are right, it's that violating a custody order will just get your ass thrown in jail and the custody order enforced and discredit further attempts to challenge it. Which, if it's a bad order, just makes it a lot worse.
children who have voluntarily run away with strangers
You have to wonder just what % of such strangers are not pederasts or pedos.
I mean, presumably most of them are. But what does that amount to? The article I linked suggests that more than 95% of "missing children" cases are runaways, but it is not clear what percent of those run away with someone else. If a 15-year-old runs away with her 16-year-old boyfriend, that often seems to get dropped into the same statistical bucket as a 6-year-old getting snatched off the street, or a 12-year-old who gets removed from an abusive home by her own mother or father violating a custody order. The numbers get turned into a narrative of rampant child endangerment, but the reality is more complicated than that.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9hr ago
Reuters: African Union backs campaign to end use of Mercator projection
The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa's size.
"It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not," AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was "marginal", despite being the world's second-largest continent by area, with 54 nations and over a billion people.
Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the 'Correct The Map' campaign led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes.
"The current size of the map of Africa is wrong," Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter, said. "It's the world's longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop."
Haddadi said the AU endorsed the campaign, adding it aligned with its goal of "reclaiming Africa's rightful place on the global stage" amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery.
'Correct The Map' wants organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said they already use the Winkel-Tripel or Equal Earth for static maps and are phasing out Mercator on web maps.
The campaign said it has sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts.
Other regions are backing the AU's efforts. Dorbrene O'Marde, Vice Chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission, endorsed Equal Earth as a rejection of Mercator map's "ideology of power and dominance".
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
9hr ago
That's a very absolute statement for which it's very easy to come up with counterexamples.
This is pretty low effort but just below the threshold at which I feel a need to drop a mod warning (people are allowed to make bad arguments and absolute statements that don't stand up to any kind of scrutiny). However, given your track record, I would suggest putting more effort into your arguments if you wish to actually make an argument.
rayon
waifutech enthusiast
9hr ago
This is sadly also endemic in assorted AIslop, in my experience you have to prompt LLMs pretty heavily (introducing its own set of issues) if you do not want your hypothetical fantasy/medieval world to be ruled by modern American politics. Not even relatively uncensored Chinese models are wholly immune to it.
You could make so many fun films based around the idea, yet they make crap.
E.g. imagine velociraptors escaping confinement and breeding freely in the continental Americas and being as smart as parrots -smart enough to have theory of mind and to bury evidence, avoid people who may have guns and leaving tracks in the mud.
Government dismisses it (dinosaurs? On our federal land? You've gotta be joking!), nothing much happens except feral hog populations mysteriously start diminishing. Blurry photographs dismissed as photoshops and reptilian conspiracy theories. Missing people cases not much impacted yet.
What's going to happen?
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