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France's baby bust

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Re: France's baby bust

#211

Post by Balgair »

mkoubaa wrote: post #161

> From the dawn of humanity to the eighteenth century, human life was dominated by starvation, poverty, wars, and pandemics. Actually no, human life only started to be dominated by this after the shift from hunter gatherer to agrarian societies.

As is usual, the issue is that 'it depends'.

Starvation and disease of course were primary concerns of prehistoric peoples and can be experienced by nearly all larger life forms.

Poverty really only came into existence once things like 'wealth' were invented. Those things only really came into being once people started to live in larger communities, though not exclusively food based ones. Places like the Chaco Canyon Culture show signs of 'wealth' (and therefore poverty), but only in it's early period, and then only kinda.

War is a bit of a funny one too, as it kinda depends on what we mean by war. Where is the demarcation between family feuds and true warfare?

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity is a good read into the recent developments into the 198,000 years of human history BC.

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/...

Re: France's baby bust

#212

Post by onetimeusename »

mtts wrote: post #120
rayiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those political parties in France talk about “western culture” instead of “Christianity,” but western culture is fundamentally an outgrowth of Christianity. Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. People in Europe are still socialized into all that, even if they stop going to church. This is app…

> Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. Most people would call that a culture. One were most people do not go to church on Sunday and politicians, even if they’re from a religious background, like Angela Merkel, don’t ever talk about God. And one that is very different from the one across the…

> And one that is very different from the one across the Atlantic where “in God we trust” is the national motto

What is your point about this? The motto has a long tradition almost as old as the country and it's really not uncommon for European countries to reference God in their national or even unofficial national motto.

> politicians make sure to fluff up their religious credentials.

Like who and how? Most politicians don't do this. Politicians in the US are generally not very religious in my opinion. Ironically, the ones I can think of that are most outspoken about their religion are two Catholics who are at odds with their church leadership over abortion and gay marriage, and Muslims who I somewhat doubt practice Islam. I am struggling to even think of more overtly religious politicians. I just think media reports skew how irreligious politics in the US actually is. I am sure you can find some story about a speech somewhere reference religion or a cross being put up on a state courthouse or something somewhere but I don't think exceptions make the rule and this forgets that even just taking the federal government alone, there are hundreds of politicians who never bring up religion and things are actually much more mundane.

Re: France's baby bust

#213

Post by ameister14 »

anovikov wrote: post #208
ameister14 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK did not acquire territories because of religious issues and to push out Puritans. It was economics. Your explanation in general is a massive oversimplification - most of the time, governments weren't intentionally driving colonization. England favored economic growth with corporations running the show. Jamestown, for example, was not founded by the government of England but instead by an investment company in…

Right: the government of England had a problem with religious sects and needed to push them out somewhere. That created demand on the part of Puritans who didn't want to get hanged at home, to emigrate, and King happily approved it because it meant good riddance.

Allowing someone to move there is different from acquiring territory for that purpose.

Re: France's baby bust

#214

Post by slaw »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #125
throwaway4aday wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States was a conservative country at least until the 1960s

When did the US stop being a conservative country? From my European point of view you have a two parties system allowing you to chose between conservative and more conservative.

Around 2000. There are two parties now, neither is conservative.

Re: France's baby bust

#215

Post by klipt »

Convolutional wrote: post #182
mkoubaa wrote: post #161

> From the dawn of humanity to the eighteenth century, human life was dominated by starvation, poverty, wars, and pandemics. Actually no, human life only started to be dominated by this after the shift from hunter gatherer to agrarian societies.

Marshall Sahlins studied hunter gatherer bands, and many work less than forty hours a week. Programmers I know can't figure out how to get down to a forty hour a week workweek to survive, but these hunter gather bands in sub-Saharan Africa and the Amazon seem to have figured it out.

I assume those groups are now protected and effectively have some government granted monopoly on their hunting and gathering land.

Always easier to have a good life with extra help from the government :)

Re: France's baby bust

#216

Post by anovikov »

ameister14 wrote: post #213
anovikov wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right: the government of England had a problem with religious sects and needed to push them out somewhere. That created demand on the part of Puritans who didn't want to get hanged at home, to emigrate, and King happily approved it because it meant good riddance.

Allowing someone to move there is different from acquiring territory for that purpose.

Well, with those territories not having defensible or Christian state, from standpoint of XVII century, those were exactly the same: those lands were "empty" and those settlers, by settling there as royal subjects, claimed it for the Crown.

If they settled in some country rules of which they'd find obliged to obey - either because it was Christian, or because it was too strong to ignore with their forces - they couldn't claim land and instead, will become immigrants, then of course it's not colonisation.

Re: France's baby bust

#217

Post by nostromo »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #204
thriftwy wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA or Brazil could have been speaking French today if France had higher fertility rate and thus could export its culture via people. That would obviously benefit its reach.

I and most people my age in Eastern Europe learned English in the '90s only from American video games and movies instead of French despite us being culturally and geographically closer to France that the US. If France wanted to export its culture abroad then it should invest in making some kick-ass games and movies, not breed more. US successfully exported its culture here because it made the best entertainment in th…

The size of the English-speaking market certainly matters.

Why make a $100 million video game like GTA 5 for 200 million French speakers when you can address the market of 2 billion global English speakers?

(Of course, they do localize it to French after developing it in English. But not everything gets localized and usually it’s targeted primarily at the English market.)

Re: France's baby bust

#218

Post by ameister14 »

anovikov wrote: post #216
ameister14 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing someone to move there is different from acquiring territory for that purpose.

Well, with those territories not having defensible or Christian state, from standpoint of XVII century, those were exactly the same: those lands were "empty" and those settlers, by settling there as royal subjects, claimed it for the Crown. If they settled in some country rules of which they'd find obliged to obey - either because it was Christian, or because it was too strong to ignore with their forces - they could…

The lands were claimed for the Crown years earlier in the first grant to the Virginia Company, which gave them lands ranging 100 miles inland from the coast and from the 34th to 45th parallels. (http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-first-virg...) It's why they made the Popham Colony. The first wave of Puritans to migrate weren't even living in England at the time, they had already moved to the Netherlands.

Re: France's baby bust

#219

Post by therealdrag0 »

Convolutional wrote: post #182
mkoubaa wrote: post #161

> From the dawn of humanity to the eighteenth century, human life was dominated by starvation, poverty, wars, and pandemics. Actually no, human life only started to be dominated by this after the shift from hunter gatherer to agrarian societies.

Marshall Sahlins studied hunter gatherer bands, and many work less than forty hours a week. Programmers I know can't figure out how to get down to a forty hour a week workweek to survive, but these hunter gather bands in sub-Saharan Africa and the Amazon seem to have figured it out.

Ive worked at a half dozen companies and never been pressured to work more than 40 hours as an engineer. So many have figured it out.

Re: France's baby bust

#220

Post by amriksohata »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #103
amriksohata wrote: post #56

The changing male and female roles in society also has a part to play in any society where women are needed to work

Fully agree with the first part, disagree with the second: women elected to work, they did not needed to work. Single income family was in a way better than dual income family, the world was in a great shape in the '60-'70 when women started to move to paid jobs. Now you have a lot more workers, more leverage to employers and a lot less time spent in the family and less time to have kids when you want to build a care…

I dont know why people have down rated your reply, its a fair assessment on my original comment.
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