Brian Kennedy Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 Re The Kids having less sex, this is pretty interesting. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim the Tank Nut Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 don't click on that link from a work computer... Interesting article but I encountered words that are a red flag so I left it there. Will finish reading from a home computer There are an awful lot of reasons to have less sex which oddly enough results in less pregnancies. In 50 years the worries of the day are going to be a lot different than we expect. Gender relations are under enormous stress right now and those problems aren't going away.The Climate Change wars are going to look quaint when people realize the profound change that modern gender relations have had on reproductive cycles. The population decline will most likely be more sudden than expected and the results will matter enormously not because of the huge change in numbers (it won't be that huge) but because everything is so carefully balanced now that irregularities have an outsize effect. Think of "just in time" inventory practices applied to a population. "oops, forgot to order a generation what's the worst that could happen?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobu Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 Maybe one issue is that you guys are talking about firing women for taking maternity leave? The interesting conversation came later over drinks between 4 of us, including the topic of whether there is ever a point where paid family leave granted to women on top of the corporate maternity allowance, constitutes abuse of the system. One flag that was raised was the one who carefully stacked a week of her bonding time on top of a week of her regular allotment of vacation time in over the course of the year after her maternity allowance ended. We also debated male paternity/bonding time and its potential for abuse as well. A balancing act between abuse and legitimate paid leave is going to be necessary training for corporate structures, especially as government birthrate-assistance measures increase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivanhoe Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 There are an awful lot of reasons to have less sex which oddly enough results in less pregnancies.There is a lot of sex going on, mostly casual/pre-marital. But its not the sex that the Progs want (i.e. upper-middle-class uni-educated whites). In 50 years the worries of the day are going to be a lot different than we expect.50 years ago, the worries of the day were Soviet aggression, nuclear war, ecodisaster, the population bomb, etc. Poor people had to struggle to get to work due to transportation issues and the disturbingly high crime rates of the time. Right now, we live in a culture where our poor have cellphones on which they can watch Youtube videos. The poor of 1969 could not have grasped the lifestyle that is considered poor in current times. Gender relations are under enormous stress right now and those problems aren't going away.True. All part of the war on western civ. The Climate Change wars are going to look quaint when people realize the profound change that modern gender relations have had on reproductive cycles. The population decline will most likely be more sudden than expected and the results will matter enormously not because of the huge change in numbers (it won't be that huge) but because everything is so carefully balanced now that irregularities have an outsize effect. Think of "just in time" inventory practices applied to a population. "oops, forgot to order a generation what's the worst that could happen?"Yeah, there's a long process time for the human manufacturing cycle. But that's not the problem. The real problem is the genetic pool quality problem. I live in a predominantly blue collar area. The folks having the most kids, mostly out of wedlock, aren't on the right half of the IQ curve, and definitely not on the right half of the values curve. People aren't connecting the dots. One week the worry is what people will do when most unskilled/semi-skilled jobs are done by robots. The next week, its that birth rates in the middle, upper-middle, and wealthy classes are dropping. The following week its outrage that public schools in low-income areas aren't teaching 14 year old girls how to put on a condom. Right when we are driving faster into a knowledge economy, we are encouraging people whose kids won't successfully participate into having the most kids*. Universities, ETS, and others keep having to re-norm and dial back their standards. Ironically, Mike Judge has walked back his position on the Idiocracy movie, right when the data are clear that the main theme has proven correct. In 50 years, none of the probable outcomes are good:- the government might control fertility a la PRC, quite possibly with forced sterilizations;- 1st world nations might devolve into some sort of two-tier culture, i.e. Morlocks and Eloi;- people might self-segregate by ability, with the smarter and more successful people congregating at (and taking over) some nation;- a culture war between the haves and have-nots could go hot and result in a massive depopulation through violence and disease. The least likely outcome is that American culture shifts back towards an effectiveness-oriented value system. It can happen, but its not gonna happen while Progs control 90+ percent of Internet traffic. * If you look at how AFDC works, having one kid with a deadbeat dad is a financial disaster for the mother, whereas having 3 generates enough EBT to survive without working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kennedy Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 Eloi/Morlock is kinda actually happening to be honest. My saying that is probably colored by living in the Bay Area, where it’s now basically blonde supermodels in Teslas driving past dying homeless people. It’s some 1790s Paris shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim the Tank Nut Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 1790's Paris never ends well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivanhoe Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 1790's Paris never ends well It does if you're a sociopath looking for an excuse to rape, maim, and murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kennedy Posted May 4, 2019 Share Posted May 4, 2019 1790's Paris never ends wellYup! I agree with most of the posters here that its time for a re-evaluation of this stuff, I just dont think Trump is the right guy for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 1790's Paris never ends wellYup! I agree with most of the posters here that its time for a re-evaluation of this stuff, I just dont think Trump is the right guy for it. You fight with the army you have, not the army you want to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 (edited) This book was just a side note in another book I was reading late last year but it had an interesting enough premise that it caught my eye - what if we have everything about population trends all wrong? The authors claim that the population predictions coming from the UN are basically rubbish (the authors' experience and my own seems to be the same in that these UN projections drive the discussion when one is had on population growth). In short UN models have global population hitting 11 billion by 2100 and continuing to climb. The authors talked to a host of researchers across the globe, along with traveling to select nations themselves to do their own study, who stated the reality is far different - we'll likely top out at 9 billion before 2100 and once we hit that we'll start dropping fairly quickly. The reason? A host of factors (urbanization, religiosity, education, income, etc.), once they become established in a population, push the fertility rate down. Once that rate hits a figure of 1.5 children per woman (a country needs 2.1 children per woman to simply maintain their population) it doesn't go back up. The result is a shrinking population and this trend, once limited to the most affluent first world nations, has reached even into the developing world faster than expected. At first this probably sounds like a good thing. If one is concerned about Climate Change a shrinking population is a good thing. If one is concerned about the struggles in feeding all these people (from enough land to farm to sustainable practices with fishing) a shrinking population is a good thing. The authors point out all the negatives that folks often overlook. The big one is that a shrinking population, especially one that's so heavily skewed towards older individuals as the coming years will be (a combination of folks living longer from previous population surges coupled to fewer young people from recent fertility drops), is terrible for the economy. In our consumer driven economies both purchasing power and innovation are traditionally driven by young and middle-aged consumers. Fewer people buying homes means home prices drop, etc. Even though the authors didn't address it specifically this way the book was also an interesting argument to the dangers of nationalized systems within this reality. Shrinking populations means a smaller tax base to support everything, in particular public heath programs and pensions (the world average right now is a 6:1 ratio of working individuals to retirees... in some European countries this ratio has already dropped to 2:1 and is still falling). What they did touch on indirectly is that with this added burden on the fewer young people it drives the fertility rate even lower ("why would I want to bring a child into this environment?"). So, when hearing this, the first thought would seem to be focus on national systems or laws that encourage having kids. Unfortunately... they don't work (or rather, the ones tried so far don't work). The authors touched on some of the better systems in place in Europe and in short they do push the fertility rate up but not enough (like from 1.5 to 1.6, far below sustainment rate of 2.1) and at great cost. For Americans (and Canadians) the book is actually kind of promising, however. The authors spent a fair bit of time on the calamity facing China after their disastrous one child policy was left in place for so long. China could, under some of the models the authors saw, dip down to as low as 600 million by 2100. By that same time the combined population of America and Canada could be in the 550-600 million mark. (There's also the issue facing China in the coming years of the gender inequality in their population skewing so heavily towards men.) The authors touched on the coming century being America's in large part because our population will continue to grow (along with Canada's). The only reason our population and Canada's is growing, however, is because we welcome immigrants. Fertility rate of natural born Americans (and Canadians) is below the 2.1 replacement rate (though higher than in most other first world countries). Our populations are only growing from immigrants coming in and having large families. Their offspring, however, acclimate to the norm and have fewer children. Thus, our population growth will only be sustained through continued immigration. Welcoming immigrants (the authors touched on legal ones) is something most country's across the world don't do even in the face of a shrinking population. As such our economy will grow (immigrants have a host of positive traits for an economy) and we'll face fewer of the strains other first world nations will be dealing with. There were some other interesting side discussions as well. For example, from a cultural perspective the reality is certain groups will likely disappear in the coming few hundred years. If you're a small ethnic group or country and your fertility rate is low you only have two options. Either you welcome in new people from outside the group that, even if they try their best to adopt your culture, will still change it in the process or you simply let yourselves die off. That begs the next question... is it a real tragedy if the latter happens? The authors were a bit somber on this last point but I'm struggling to see an issue here. Maybe it's the fact that I'm American and our culture is only a few hundred years old. Or maybe it's the old History major in me looking back on how all cultures continue to evolve... nothing lasts forever. Anywho, amazing little book. Quick read. Highly recommend.Your thoughts on the critical "against" comments on Amazon? Not sure what reviews you're referring to. I went and did a quick search of the 1-star reviews. Of the four the short one isn't even worth responding to. Of the other three the one by Dave Rice mentions a criticism that they "never mention or quantify the impact of abortions on the falling fertility in the US." Except... they do. Not directly, though. Access to abortions is one of the many issues they talk about early that drives down fertility rates as it becomes available to society. This is a constant so they don't touch on it in every chapter (instead when focusing on a specific nation they only mention unique conditions, like voluntary sterilization in the slums of Brazil, that apply to those countries). This David Rice then criticizes how women's empowerment doesn't make much sense in a place like Latin America but again, he's missing some basic points from the book. First, women's empowerment is a rather vague term and I don't recall the authors properly defining it. Instead, they mention how access to education in nontraditional ways has filtered down to even the poorest parts of our world now. In some of the poorest places of the world you have 70% of the population with a cell phone and plan. The authors noted how odd it was to be talking to some of the poorest women in India and seeing them constantly checking their phones. Ultimately the authors just threw anything where women chose to have fewer kids under 'women's empowerment' which is probably best exemplified by the voluntary sterilization highlighted in Brazil. The rest of David Rice's critiques (as well as those by the other two posters giving 1-star reviews) also have some glaring issues (it's like something pissed him off in the first 20 pages and he just stopped paying attention the rest of the way). That's not to say the book or the authors are without fault. I would agree at times they come across like pompous asses. One glaring example is when they take a few cheap shots at renewed negative attention towards immigration in the US. They go on to mention the many benefits of immigration but always preface these comments with 'legal.' Well... no shit. The authors here are missing the point many here on TN make - the issue isn't with legal immigration but with illegal. I give it a pass because the book is relatively short and they only briefly touch on the subject. I'll touch on this in a later post but I also think they miss the most glaring issue in their discussion (the problem of society downplaying the vital role being a mother is to the species). What matters to me when reading a book like this is that they don't hide the info or reasoning for the commentary and conclusions they make. They don't and as such I appreciate what they share despite the issues (as such I'd give it 4/5 stars using Amazon's scale). Edited May 5, 2019 by Skywalkre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 The reason? A host of factors (urbanization, religiosity, education, income, etc.), once they become established in a population, push the fertility rate down. Once that rate hits a figure of 1.5 children per woman (a country needs 2.1 children per woman to simply maintain their population) it doesn't go back up. Spot on with the clip. That movie was playing through my head as I finished the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 (edited) Great review, thanks! Re Tims point, there are a bunch of recent studies that younger folks in the US are getting married less, having less sex, all that stuff. Maybe Internet porn really will destroy the planet. I do not think porn business alone is to blame. how are todays US students entrapped with burgeoning student loan debts meant to afford building a family? Then entry wages are on decline effectively. Then society fragemtns more and more into individuals making it hard to meet anyone. When a young man awkwardly asks a woman out she screams rape/sexual harassemtn/hatecrime. And on and on and on. At the same time women cannot find men anymore. Oh ans women are told that having children is killing their prospects of a good earnings over their worklife. It really is stacked against both men and women at the moment. So to let off steam they go to the offerings by the porn industry. It is symptom of the situation not the cause. The authors claimed that when you look at earnings between men, women without children, and women who have kids that the first two are identical. It's only when you look at women who have children that earnings drop. I mean... it's understandable. Women in first world nations are getting married later and having (fewer) children later. If you take a woman who gets married in her late 20s (ahead of the curve IIRC) and has 3 kids in her 30s (ahead of the curve again) and assume she gets 8 months off for each (high compared to the US standard but below some of the most progressive nations) she'll have 2 less years of job experience by the time she's 40 compared to her female counterpoint who has had no kids. Is it really shocking that depending on how you measure income she'll be making less? But, more importantly... who's done more good for society? This is the subject the authors basically dodge in the book. Don't get me wrong they touch on the troubles of women having kids in a modern world (the desire to have a career, the financial need of having to have a career, the reality that in many parts of the world men still do nothing as far as homemaking or raising kids even when both spouses work, and the list goes on and on...) but they still dance around the bigger issue that is that question I just posed. I was speaking to a very liberal female friend recently about this book and basically posed that very question. The conversation wasn't... awkward but it was definitely more tense than our normal heated discussions (it's one of those love/hate relationships ). This is a very personal issue to her. She's now in her mid-30s and dueling between wanting to have a kid or making a career for herself. For the latter she's a lawyer who recently got picked up by a major firm. There's a lot of hours she'll need to put in and pressure to handle for years to make it... but at what cost? Is that cost ultimately worth it if it means she gives up a family? To her, why is it fair that she has to struggle with this while her male counterparts have no such issue? The authors of this book touch on how even the most progressive nations with months of leave and lots of paternal support don't have much of an impact on fertility rate. I can understand why because ultimately those are half measures. If we really cared we'd be making a push as a society that being a mother, that having kids, is a fundamental key to survival of the species. To me that's no small thing. For my entire life, however, even in a very conservative part of the US (which is more conservative than most of the Western world), my female friends have had the idea that being a mother is almost backwards... that what really matters to defining themselves is having a career. How did we end up here? Edited May 5, 2019 by Skywalkre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted May 5, 2019 Author Share Posted May 5, 2019 (edited) Eloi/Morlock is kinda actually happening to be honest. My saying that is probably colored by living in the Bay Area, where it’s now basically blonde supermodels in Teslas driving past dying homeless people. It’s some 1790s Paris shit. It's not just the Bay Area. The NE Valley here is eerily similar to your observation (down to the hair color ). Your comment also reminds me what Yuval Noah Harari touches on in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (another great book). The Eloi/Morlock bit (I want to say he may even use the same example?) is reminiscent of a scenario that can play out with continuing income disparity and the disappearance of the middle class coupled to advancements in info- and biotech. A more neutral, though still unpleasant, scenario was that the lower classes simply become irrelevant (which he poses is even worse than being exploited which was the case throughout history). As time has passed since reading that book I'm not as dire in my outlook as he seems to be but the possibilities are still... worrisome. Edited May 5, 2019 by Skywalkre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inhapi Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 For my entire life, however, even in a very conservative part of the US (which is more conservative than most of the Western world), my female friends have had the idea that being a mother is almost backwards... that what really matters to defining themselves is having a career. How did we end up here? Maybe because women with no or a bad career,spending their lives raising kids, are at the mercy in the long term of their husbands and want financial security for themselves ? Also in nowadays culture having a career is indeed what defines yourself, why deny women the right to that and relegate them to second class citizens ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bojan Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 Consequence of "your yob is your life" mentality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobu Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 Salarywomen versus familywomen is a thing, as there is some rivalry bordering on contempt between the 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmgill Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 Maybe because women with no or a bad career,spending their lives raising kids, are at the mercy in the long term of their husbands and want financial security for themselves ? Also in nowadays culture having a career is indeed what defines yourself, why deny women the right to that and relegate them to second class citizens ? That very well may be, but I suspect thousands of years of evolutionary drive is still asserting itself, even among many women who think career is king. The hypergamy still asserts. What's second class about raising children? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim the Tank Nut Posted May 6, 2019 Share Posted May 6, 2019 the notion that being a mother is a second tier calling is an abomination.In fact, same thing for being a father.In past times people seemed willing to accept the choices that others made, now the choices of the one are decided by the many. One blessing about aging is that you are less concerned about what others think. Unfortunately once there you are generally past child bearing years.There are (and will be more) many career women who secretly regret putting everything into a career only to end up old and lonely (but rich!).There are some that don't miss real life but many more that do. They just won't admit it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted May 7, 2019 Share Posted May 7, 2019 (edited) Although women have traditionally gained their greatest joy and sense of accomplishment from being wives and mothers; an equally important role as men's responsibilities as husbands and fathers, the feminist movement has successfully influenced many women to abandon these divinely ordained roles. Unfortunately, this movement has made headway even in the church, creating chaos and confusion regarding the role of women both in ministry and in the home. Only in Scripture can God’s intended design for women be found. Edited May 7, 2019 by Rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corinthian Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 the notion that being a mother is a second tier calling is an abomination.In fact, same thing for being a father.In past times people seemed willing to accept the choices that others made, now the choices of the one are decided by the many. One blessing about aging is that you are less concerned about what others think. Unfortunately once there you are generally past child bearing years.There are (and will be more) many career women who secretly regret putting everything into a career only to end up old and lonely (but rich!).There are some that don't miss real life but many more that do. They just won't admit it. A good friend of mine since law school days decided that she did not want to marry but wanted kids. She consulted with an OB-GYN and was told the age limit of when she can get pregnant without complications. She got herself pregnant at that age and bore a son. She made an agreement with the biological dad that he has zero anything to do with the child. She just wanted to have an heir. She is now thinking of adopting a girl for a daughter. My friend is a real career woman, focusing on acquiring wealth. She's a CPA-lawyer and a good one. Sadly, she isn't interested in any relations so I am firmly in the friendzone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 the notion that being a mother is a second tier calling is an abomination.In fact, same thing for being a father.In past times people seemed willing to accept the choices that others made, now the choices of the one are decided by the many. One blessing about aging is that you are less concerned about what others think. Unfortunately once there you are generally past child bearing years.There are (and will be more) many career women who secretly regret putting everything into a career only to end up old and lonely (but rich!).There are some that don't miss real life but many more that do. They just won't admit it. A good friend of mine since law school days decided that she did not want to marry but wanted kids. She consulted with an OB-GYN and was told the age limit of when she can get pregnant without complications. She got herself pregnant at that age and bore a son. She made an agreement with the biological dad that he has zero anything to do with the child. She just wanted to have an heir. She is now thinking of adopting a girl for a daughter. My friend is a real career woman, focusing on acquiring wealth. She's a CPA-lawyer and a good one. Sadly, she isn't interested in any relations so I am firmly in the friendzone. The sad part is the child. There is a reason why children need a man and a woman becoming husband and wife, and then a mother and father. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 the notion that being a mother is a second tier calling is an abomination.In fact, same thing for being a father.In past times people seemed willing to accept the choices that others made, now the choices of the one are decided by the many. One blessing about aging is that you are less concerned about what others think. Unfortunately once there you are generally past child bearing years.There are (and will be more) many career women who secretly regret putting everything into a career only to end up old and lonely (but rich!).There are some that don't miss real life but many more that do. They just won't admit it. A good friend of mine since law school days decided that she did not want to marry but wanted kids. She consulted with an OB-GYN and was told the age limit of when she can get pregnant without complications. She got herself pregnant at that age and bore a son. She made an agreement with the biological dad that he has zero anything to do with the child. She just wanted to have an heir. She is now thinking of adopting a girl for a daughter. My friend is a real career woman, focusing on acquiring wealth. She's a CPA-lawyer and a good one. Sadly, she isn't interested in any relations so I am firmly in the friendzone. The sad part is the child. There is a reason why children need a man and a woman becoming husband and wife, and then a mother and father. Next time just get a dog, for Pete's sake. At least men only get mistresses and sports cars for their mid-life crises. These single professional and celebrity women collect kids like jewelry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted May 16, 2019 Author Share Posted May 16, 2019 Shock, surprise... In March 2007, Spain introduced a national policy granting most new fathers two weeks of fully paid paternity leave....Unexpectedly, though, the researchers also found that families who were eligible for the paternity leave were less likely to have kids in the future. In a study published in the Journal of Public Economics (paywall), economists Lídia Farré of the University of Barcelona and Libertad González of University of Pompeu Fabra estimate that two years on, parents who had been eligible for the newly introduced program were 7% to 15% less likely to have another kid than parents who just missed the eligibility cutoff. While the difference dissipated further into the future, even after six years, parents who had been eligible for the leave were still less likely to have a child again.https://qz.com/work/1614893/after-men-in-spain-got-paternity-leave-they-wanted-fewer-kids/?utm_source=pocket-newtab Kind of an annoying article. The quote above talks about what they actually have as far as children and then the rest of the article talks about shifting desires in what parents say they want. Doesn't matter what you want, matters what you have. IIRC from the book Spain is one of the lowest nations in Europe as far as fertility rate goes, FWIW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalkre Posted December 26, 2019 Author Share Posted December 26, 2019 Japan is still struggling (and the rest of the developed world will be right behind them). Japan's Births Decline To Lowest Number On Record December 24, 20191:55 PM ETLaurel Wamsley Japan has been trying to increase its birth rate for years, hoping that a youthful boost could offset an otherwise rapidly aging population. It's not working. The country's health ministry announced Tuesday that the number of babies born in 2019 fell by an estimated 5.9% this year, to 864,000. It's the first time since 1899, when the government began tracking the data, that the number has dipped below 900,000, according to The Asahi Shimbun. The decline in the absolute number of births is especially stark given that Japan's population in 1899 was about one-third of its approximately 126 million people today. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/24/791132555/japans-births-decline-to-lowest-number-on-record Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonJ Posted December 27, 2019 Share Posted December 27, 2019 Abe's fertility rate aim of 1.8 is taking too long. Some of the talking heads want a baby boom. Too much materialism, too much women's right ideals and noisey MSM, too little national pride, too little appreciation of the mother role, too many sissy males. The worse offender is Tokyo with a fertility rate of something like 1.15 (still higher than all of ROK...) We like Tokyo stuff and Japan weired stuff and JAV. But its taking a toll. Some prefectures are actually not too bad though, at like 1.6. A little more push, and they'd be on mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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