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The Decline of Marriage

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Re: The Decline of Marriage

#91

Post by ef4 »

Danihan wrote: post #83
ef4 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines. I'm so tired of these sorts of facile statements. They're so smugly wrong-headed. Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. It has massive social and economic value. Territory matters, access rights to said territory matters matters, to literally every living thin…

I'm not objecting to the existence of geographic boundaries. I'm objecting to the idea that those geographic boundaries say anything meaningful about the people born on either side of said boundaries.

> Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't.

I agree. But I think that a real estate sale is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults, and it's none of your business if I want to sell some of mine to someone who happened to be born slightly too may miles away to end up on the "right" side of some border.

Nativists like to pretend to be defenders of human liberty, when they're just nanny staters with different preferences.

> Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.

Yes, but why does it matter if the other organism you're competing with was born in El Paso vs half a mile away in Juarez? The nativist position is that one is vigorous, dynamic market competition and the other is a foreign invasion. When really they are exactly the same.

Sure, all living things compete (in addition to cooperating -- all ecosystems and markets feature a network of both). But that does not explain the fetish for treating certain people as OK to compete and others as not.

> What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?

Obviously we are only discussing human immigrants here, so unless you're making an underhanded comment about the inhumanity of foreigners, where are you going with this analogy?

Realize that's not just snark -- the whole argument rests on the idea that there's a bright line between two sets of people. That line is completely imaginary. I guarantee you couldn't find it in an experiment, if I got to pick 50 American citizens and 50 non-citizens and you had to tell who was who just by talking to them.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#92

Post by ef4 »

remarkEon wrote: post #67
ef4 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Those wars are bad, but badness needs to be measured relative to something.

For example, the Afghanistan war from 2001 to the present has killed somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 people. This makes it very small by the standards of 20th century wars.

In the 1990s alone, there were at least eight wars an order of magnitude bigger than that (Congo, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi, Rawanda).

And yes, we can add up Syria and Iraq too, and that is a much bigger number, but I can likewise keep adding up 1990s wars. It turns out that was a more violent decade in terms of actual battle deaths.

> though I could argue the actual starting point is Pakistan or maybe even Indonesia

You could argue that, but you would be hampered by the fact that casualty numbers in those countries are minuscule by the standards of actual wars.

> not to mention terror in Europe.

Terror is Europe is up a bit but still far from the highs it was hitting in the 1970s.

http://www.datagraver.com/case/people-killed-by-terrorism-pe...

The panicky "things are worse than ever and deteriorating" position is just not supported by hard evidence. It's stoked by an eager media ecosystem that profits from fear, and an aging generation that wants to externalize it's own perceptions of decline.

Many of the people saying "the west is declining" are in fact just baby boomers who are declining who can't accept that they are not equal to "the west".

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#93

Post by gorkonsine »

remarkEon wrote: post #84
gorkonsine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most modern polyamorous relations end up with the women having more partners than the men. Women have a far easier time finding sex partners than men do, on average.

But this is only a recent trend because of the advent of birth control technologies, which shifted the balance of risk in having multiple partners. Prior to this, high status males had consistently high partners than females.

No, not always. There were matriarchal societies in ancient times where women had multiple partners. You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.

Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#94

Post by gorkonsine »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #64
gorkonsine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you two not have any other friends? You don't even have to have sex with other people: add up all the time you spend taking care of kids without any help from extended family. Now imagine you join up with another couple just like you that you're great friends with, and you move in together into a bigger house, each couple with their own master bedroom. Now you have 4 adults taking care of all the kids, as well as doing household chores. Is it not obvious how this is useful?

As for extended family, what if they suck? A lot of people don't get along with their extended family. Why be stuck with your blood relatives when you can choose the people you live with instead?

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#95

Post by renegadesensei »

gnicholas wrote: post #65
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.theguardia…

Yeah it is mainly a Japanese product. I just do all of the copy in English first since that's my first language. Really the service can be used by anyone seeking a marriage partner. From my research I think Japan and east Asia in general is the bigger opportunity.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#96

Post by Danihan »

ef4 wrote: post #91
Danihan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines. I'm so tired of these sorts of facile statements. They're so smugly wrong-headed. Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. It has massive social and economic value. Territory matters, access rights to said territory matters matters, to literally every living thin…

I'm not objecting to the existence of geographic boundaries. I'm objecting to the idea that those geographic boundaries say anything meaningful about the people born on either side of said boundaries. > Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. I agree. But I think that a real estate sale is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults, and it's none of your business if I want…

Do you genuinely believe that the mass importation of people with radically different beliefs and customs (such as an adherence to Sharia Law) would have no effect on the native population? That cultural change wouldn't affect scientific freedoms? That it wouldn't affect civil liberties? Technological advancement? Crime rates?

Does it seem impossible to you that cultural differences could spark a civil war? Do you disbelieve that native populations can be essentially wiped out by a competing or hostile culture within a few short generations, similar to the fate of the Native Americans?

Why should someone believe that all cultures are equal when some cultures and nation states are much, much more successful by almost any quantifiable metric?

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#97

Post by watwut »

Brendinooo wrote: post #63
watwut wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 possibl…

I am not saying that marriage is bad for you. But, if the lack of peer pressure is the reason why you don't marry, then I dont want to be unlucky lady who might end up thinking you actually wants to be with her. Or unlucky dude if genders are reversed.

There is nothing about monogamy in the article.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#98

Post by pavel_lishin »

gorkonsine wrote: post #94
pavel_lishin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you two not have any other friends? You don't even have to have sex with other people: add up all the time you spend taking care of kids without any help from extended family. Now imagine you join up with another couple just like you that you're great friends with, and you move in together into a bigger house, each couple with their own master bedroom. Now you have 4 adults taking care of all the kids, as well as…

> join up with another couple just like you that you're great friends with, and you move in together into a bigger house, each couple with their own master bedroom

Yes, because we've lived with roommates as a married couple. As an introvert, again, this kind of sucks.

And I don't choose to live with my extended family, either.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#99

Post by watwut »

christophilus wrote: post #66
watwut wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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/d…

Sure there are and there are plenty of sexist liberals.

But, conservative catholics are quite open about women "wanting to be men" when they are attempting to be effective, no liberal talked with straight face about men being head of familly, lectures about husbands being expected to manly hit the table with fist to get his way, and women not being real women if she states openly what she wants (you are supposed to gently manipulate). The fist thing is priest during wedding and manipulation psychologue in journal article. The "you are not scared" question when I wanted to drive car with kids came from conservative catholic collegue, otherwise nice to talk with dude. But in his world, women is expected to be afraid of such feat or something.

So I mean, I have respect to Catholic feminists, but some of theirs cobelievers are whole another level. Plus there may be difference in location - we are more conservative place in general.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#100

Post by tptacek »

cmahler7 wrote: post #49
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue. Yes, this is a horrible outcome. We must admit that we have something here that is worth preserving. If we continue to fail in this we are in a very sorry state indeed.

People have been brainwashed to hate their own culture, demorilization is the first step of ideological subversion. Western Civilization might not be perfect but there's nothing else in human history that has come close to it. Everybody should watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA

This is a hyperbolic argument that adds nothing to the discussion. One telltale sign of that: you've thrown out an a little rhetorical molotov cocktail of people "brainwashed to hate their own culture", but haven't bothered to take the time to define any of your terms.
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