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The Decline of Marriage

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Re: The Decline of Marriage

#61

Post by Moshe_Silnorin »

cmahler7 wrote: post #45
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #2

Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society. Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating. As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the…

What's your opinion on studies showing that people with lower intelligence reproduce at much higher rates? This would seem to lead to an Idiocracy like future. Do you think something should be done to prevent this?

It's not pseudoscience and I suspect we'll have firm genetic proof that this has occurred. However, it is so slow it likely won't matter. Genetic engineering for increased IQ is looking like it will be easier than anticipated. Hell, even embryo selection would give us 8 points per generation. Should be possible as soon as we have about a million genomes tagged with their donor's IQ. This would make quick work of any dysgenic trend. However our civilization is so self-hating and in such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction that I suspect we'll be a generation behind Asian nations when it comes to widespread use of such technology.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#62

Post by christophilus »

caseysoftware wrote: post #50
api wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last sentence brings up something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely that secular philosophy seems completely blind to children or to the needs of family and child rearing. It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids. Some secular communities actively seem t…

> It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny. My wife stays at home with our boys and I've heard her mocked and derided directly to her face. The interesting thing that it's been exclusively by women (even family members). I've never heard a man question it and some seem jealous that we don't need that second income.

Yeah. Same. My wife has consistently been told either explicitly or explicitly that her choice to be a stay-at-home mom is a poor one.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#63

Post by Brendinooo »

watwut wrote: post #36
Brendinooo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The most important fact motivating this essay is simply that the vast majority of adults want to get married and have children. This suggests that the reduction in marriage rates reflects not a conscious choice but rather people running into various obstacles preventing them from finding a partner. Thanks to the parent comment we know that this is self-serving to a certain extent since they they're selling a solutio…

There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends in later age in article. There is mention of career for women (that is not a party) and expectation of completely different lifestyle for married man and married women in the article. Men is supposed to work (in japan context means maybe Sunday afternoon off), so I don't think couple gets to know each other to be friends. The only real externalities…

> There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends

That was my point - sometimes people have stances on issues without really knowing why they believe what they do. I was just postulating another option that the article didn't explore. In other words, could the more conservative folks here wave this article around and say "see, people have an innate desire for lifelong monogamy!", or is it possible that some of the cultural aspects of marriage could manifest in other ways that would then cause a person to say "nah, I don't need marriage now"?

> I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry.

Nah. I benefit from pressure to do lots of things that are good for me. Working out, accomplishing things at work, contributing to a retirement fund, getting to the doctor, etc. Yeah, peer pressure can take you to dumb places, but it's not inherently evil.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#64

Post by pavel_lishin »

gorkonsine wrote: post #56
pavel_lishin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. As an introvert, this is my idea of hell. I have one wife, one child, and two cats - and that's about the maximum I can currently handle, emotionally and... attentively? Adding more significant relationships in my life would be really, really, really…

It's simple: with a polyamorous relationship, your wife would have another boyfriend/husband to spend her time with, and also to help take care of the kid, leaving you alone more of the time with the cats. There's no requirement in polyamory for everyone involved to have multiple partners.

I think polyamory might work fine for some, but giving it out as a blanket suggestion is asinine. My wife's an introvert, too - she doesn't want another husband, either.

Other people to take care of the kid would be fantastic, but traditionally that's done by the extended family - grandparents, siblings, etc.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#65

Post by gnicholas »

renegadesensei wrote: post #17

Cool to see I got some comments! Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience. It's like midnight here and I'm going to be…

Are you targeting the Japanese market, which I understand to have one of the lowest fertility rates? Or are you going after the EU and US markets also?

My sense is that the US market for this is not very mature at this point. There is only a little talk of fertility rates, and in fact there are news stories floating around [1] that tout the environmental benefits of having fewer/no children.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#66

Post by christophilus »

watwut wrote: post #41
api wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last sentence brings up something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely that secular philosophy seems completely blind to children or to the needs of family and child rearing. It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids. Some secular communities actively seem t…

"It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny." Well, it is not like really conservative christians would seen women as equally capable as men - it just seen as natural that women cant naturally compete and thus is better off at home. (And dont tell me no, I read local conservative christians journals, have friends in that community and occasionally visit catholic church with conservative pr…

This is a false categorization of the Catholic position.[1] Doubtless, there are plenty of priests who misrepresent on this (as on any position), but I know a handful of feminists who are now Catholic and who think there is no other organization that understands the human person (both women and men) so well. I tend to agree, but I'm definitely biased. :)

[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1995/do...

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#67

Post by remarkEon »

ef4 wrote: post #58
remarkEon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine. Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades, and the serious prospects for massive social unrest going forward both in the States and in Europe, which often get discussed here, how in the world can you say that. "The World" (since you apparently are one of those who think the term "Western…

> Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades In the last two decades, the share of humans living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 10%. And child deaths under age five were cut in half . So where's your data? I will add that I don't think "western civilization" is racist, even though the term gets coopted often by racists. I happen to be proud to be part of a scientific civilization and want to see it flo…

The wars that stretch from Afghanistan (though I could argue the actual starting point is Pakistan or maybe even Indonesia) in the East to the Atlantic Coast of Africa, to start, not to mention terror in Europe.

You're going to run into problems if you start using one-dimensional measures like extreme poverty (which has a shifting definition) as a proxy for systemic risk in our system.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#68

Post by cmahler7 »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #61
cmahler7 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your opinion on studies showing that people with lower intelligence reproduce at much higher rates? This would seem to lead to an Idiocracy like future. Do you think something should be done to prevent this?

It's not pseudoscience and I suspect we'll have firm genetic proof that this has occurred. However, it is so slow it likely won't matter. Genetic engineering for increased IQ is looking like it will be easier than anticipated. Hell, even embryo selection would give us 8 points per generation. Should be possible as soon as we have about a million genomes tagged with their donor's IQ. This would make quick work of any…

I agree, China is already investing massively in research on intelligence and they won't be afraid to use it. Chinese culture combined with super-intelligence will be unstoppable.

>such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction

I've always thought it was funny how people are perfectly fine saying height is genetic but saying intelligence is genetic is unthinkable. Research shows intelligence is just as, if not more so, influenced by genetics

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#69

Post by Bbowen100 »

cmahler7 wrote: post #42
dr_ wrote: post #29

"As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies." This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward? My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence. Marriage was…

Your method would destroy society. Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits, leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent. Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates. I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institu…

>Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits.

Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.

>...leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.

This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"

>Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.

Uhh I guess, sure I can concede that.

>I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs.

I am also agnostic and I agree that religion is important however not for the same reason you do. Yes religions bind societies but only to a certain extent and for only so long. See the conflicts between early Christians and Jews, or the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Or current extremist Muslims, hell extremists of every religion. As much as religion binds people together it even more so tears people apart.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#70

Post by remarkEon »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #55
cmahler7 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your method would destroy society. Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits, leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent. Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates. I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institu…

You're conflating your personal experience with modern courtship and kinship rituals in a particular society with some sort of universality of human nature. That's a nice way of saying you're wrong. You and all other humans exist because of what you say you believe would "destroy society". Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history. There are existing kinship models where…

>You're conflating your personal experience with modern courtship and kinship rituals in a particular society with some sort of universality of human nature. That's a nice way of saying you're wrong.

Except his personal experience seems to map onto the general history of the emergence of marriage in society as a useful social technology to do exactly what he says: take males out of competition for mates and put them to use for society so their kids don't starve.

>Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history.

This is not true in the slightest. Even the iconography of sex throughout ancient history explicitly links sex to pregnancy. We started domesticating animals at least ~15,000 years ago. We did not "recently" discover this unless I'm misunderstanding your time horizon.

>The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.

What is "modern understanding?" That your biological parents don't matter? As others have pointed out, if you want to accelerate societal collapse that's the fastest way to do it.

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