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The Decline of Marriage

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Re: The Decline of Marriage

#101

Post by tptacek »

watwut wrote: post #99
christophilus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

In 40 years of connection to Catholic culture including 12 years of Catholic schooling I have never once heard any voice from the church --- including the laity --- talking about women "wanting to be men".

I did, however, spent middle and high school having the notion of gender equality in the workplace inculcated to me by priests, nuns, and lay teachers.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#102

Post by gorkonsine »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #98
gorkonsine wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you'd rather have less time to yourself, then that's a perfectly acceptable choice. As an introvert myself, I'd rather have more people to share household and child-care activities with, because that would increase the amount of time I have for other pursuits. I don't have kids myself, but I know people who do and the amount of time they spend dealing with them is incredible. I do have a house though, and even there the amount of time I spend on upkeep, repairs, cleaning, and cooking is significant. Having roommates I have little emotional connection to has pluses and minuses: you can share some of the expenses and household duties (if they're good roommates), but the minus of having less privacy kinda sucks. But if you're closer friends than that, it's not such a problem and is actually a benefit by having more emotional support nearby. Also, with more incomes you can afford a bigger house (since house size does not scale linearly with bedrooms; bathrooms and kitchens are the most expensive rooms by far), and this gives you more space than you can afford on your own.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#103

Post by remarkEon »

ef4 wrote: post #92
remarkEon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

>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)...

This might be the worst possible way to think about the present security situation. In aggregate numbers are there less lives being destroyed today than in the 1990s? Maybe. But what does that have to do with total risk of all out war? You're measuring everything by casualty numbers, and not the actual potential for catastrophe, to say nothing of the risk of actual civil war in Europe precipitated by rapid demographic changeover. Scoff at that all you like, but you'll struggle to find a time in history where they was such a significant culture clash that didn't result in violence.

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

That argument is so, so tired. What level of casualties would make you actually take this serious? Do Jihadists need to be killing people monthly? Weekly? Do we need to have a major 9/11-like incident or more Nice style attacks?

>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".

In my experience boomers are the ones acting like everything is just fine and it's actually folks who are a bit younger and look at history on a munch longer timeline than just the last ~200 years who think we're in for some rough times ahead.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#104

Post by remarkEon »

gorkonsine wrote: post #93
remarkEon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.

So? As you said, "What does it matter?" Those societies didn't survive. I don't really get how to treat the quip "you're looking at thi[s] through the lens of western history", other than as an attempt do disqualify what's literal fact by saying that it was observed by "westerners."

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

I'm never going to understand this sentiment. "It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing and attempts to subvert it are introduced at our own peril - at least until we actually have total command of controlling said biology.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#105

Post by greglindahl »

api wrote: post #33
losvedir wrote: post #27

Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish). On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happi…

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…

Wait, have you been listening to the people who say that atheists have no morals, because all morals come from religious teaching?

The middle-aged atheists I know are mostly in families with children. And they seem to have similar beliefs as religious people when it comes to the amount of care they take raising their children.

If you bring up generalizations like this with no backup details, are you surprised that you "get attacked" for bringing it up?

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#106

Post by greglindahl »

JBReefer wrote: post #16
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…

As a corollary, based on population growth rates/disparities between birth rates, people are going to be very surprised how quickly Mormonism rises. They're basically the only chunk of native born Americans that have a birth rates above replacement, and it's a LOT above replacement.

How familiar are you with US religious groups? Because there are a lot of US religious groups and sub-groups with high birthrates. Examples include Orthodox Jews, the most conservative slice of US Catholics, several kinds of the most fundamentalist Protestants, etc etc.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#107

Post by mercutio2 »

defen wrote: post #90
ef4 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fundamental flaw hiding under arguments like yours: the "civilization" you're circumscribing is an imaginary and arbitrary boundary. An ahistorical retcon. It's as unsupported as discredited racial theories that all humans fit into three tidy buckets ("caucasoid", "mongoloid", "negroid"). For example, maybe you're talking about "Christendom". But then it's not actually in decline -- hispanics are part of Ch…

> What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization". Do you recognize that your argument can be applied to literally any culture that wants to ethnically preserve itself (just replace "white" with "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Nigerian" or whatever)? You are arguing that any civilization that wants to…

I don’t see a lot of irony here.

Yes, cultures which want to preserve their ethnic makeup are racist. I think they’re wrong and won’t support that aspect of a culture spreading around me if I can help it.

That I support certain enlightenment era egalitarian values doesn’t in any way diminish my ability to speak up for cultural diversity that doesn’t rely on ethnic identity.

You seem to be implying that all cultures must be accepted as complete packages, without negotiation on any facet. That seems facile.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#108

Post by mercutio2 »

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.

It sounds like you’re thinking polyamory is a requirement.

In any world derived from our own, polyamory would be allowed, not required.

If you’re worried you’d be judged harshly for raising a child with only two parents, as many on this thread are judging single moms... well, you’re probably right. But maybe that’s an argument for a little more support for everyone, not for less support for the more-than-two-grown-ups-per-household folks?

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#109

Post by defen »

mercutio2 wrote: post #107
defen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization". Do you recognize that your argument can be applied to literally any culture that wants to ethnically preserve itself (just replace "white" with "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Nigerian" or whatever)? You are arguing that any civilization that wants to…

I don’t see a lot of irony here. Yes, cultures which want to preserve their ethnic makeup are racist. I think they’re wrong and won’t support that aspect of a culture spreading around me if I can help it. That I support certain enlightenment era egalitarian values doesn’t in any way diminish my ability to speak up for cultural diversity that doesn’t rely on ethnic identity. You seem to be implying that all cultures m…

I'm not asking you to accept any aspects of any culture spreading around you - I'm asking whether you believe every culture must eventually subscribe to Anglo-American universalism?

In concrete terms, do you think Japan would become a better place if it had fewer Japanese people and more non-Japanese? This isn't a question about Japan's so-called population problem - keep the population the same but make it have fewer Japanese-descent people.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#110

Post by honestoHeminway »

refurb wrote: post #18
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, It is all confounded by the heritability of all mental traits. I suspect the offspring of single women who use sperm donors (who are screened heavily for proxies of genetic quality, such height, facial symmetry and educational attainment) are more successful then the offspring of married couples on average. I don't know if anyone has looked into it though.

I think you're putting too much emphasis in heritability rather than the impact of childhood on mental states.

I have yet to see a boy who is not mangled by his single mother into some early adolescence by oversharing of information.
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