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France's baby bust

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Re: France's baby bust

#231

Post by throwaway4aday »

ookdatnog wrote: post #131
throwaway4aday wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts.

Your statement makes no sense. To begin with, the terms "objective" and "relative" are not antonyms. A definition can be both, neither, or either one of the two. And the terms "progressive" and "conservative" in particular describe attitudes towards the status quo and traditional institutions, which means that whatever exact position a progressive or conservative person takes on an issue will depend on context. By th…

So you're arguing that the conservatives at the time failed to conserve their traditional values resulting in their spiritual successors being more liberal. Which in the case of the traditional value of having large families resulted in the demographic decline that is the topic of the article. This seems to clearly support OPs argument that conservative societies will be more successful as long as the values they are conserving are beneficial to the individuals comprising those societies and they succeed in conserving them.

Re: France's baby bust

#232

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #223
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly believe that hijabs and only hijabs (or maybe other Islamic symbols) are banned? Because if so I've got some good news for you - all overt religious symbols are treated equally.

And it’s so convenient that it so happens that Christianity emphasizes one’s personal relationship with god and generally doesn’t require or encourage wearing overt religious symbols.

"Christianity" doesn't emphasize a personal relationship with God; many forms of Protestantism do, but Catholicism does almost the opposite, and French Christians are overwhelmingly Catholic.

Re: France's baby bust

#233

Post by bumby »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #185
bumby wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just that, but in cold economic terms there are diminishing on having large families in industrialized societies. A large broad is an asset in agrarian societies but largely a liability in an industrialized one.

A large family is an asset in industrialized societies too, but in the long run. For example, having lots of siblings can help you later on for networking or being able to go someone to depend on, assuming a decent number of them obtain useful positions in society. But in the short term, it is a lot of sacrifice, especially for the woman who has to give birth and raise all those babies. And of course, it is a lot of…

>having lots of siblings can help you later on

True, but that’s not a benefit to the people making the decision to have more children. It’s a beneficial second order effect that won’t negate the cost to the parent.

Re: France's baby bust

#234

Post by rayiner »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #230
rayiner wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think that “comfort limit” has anything to do with Christianity? If you want to see what atheists do when they’re not bound by the cultural hangover of an abrahamic religion, look at population control efforts in Asia. The Chinese correctly observed that, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth.

> from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth. Except there is. You want the same protections applied to you, even if you're unconscious or otherwise unable to protest. Pretty much the only broadly supportable position is that killing a viable person is murder and no more or less supportable than them killing you.

How does that factor into the utilitarian calculus? Who cares about you? If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn, why shouldn’t society be able to eliminate you as a burden on them?

Re: France's baby bust

#235

Post by skissane »

rayiner wrote: post #234
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth. Except there is. You want the same protections applied to you, even if you're unconscious or otherwise unable to protest. Pretty much the only broadly supportable position is that killing a viable person is murder and no more or less supportable than them killing you.

How does that factor into the utilitarian calculus? Who cares about you? If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn, why shouldn’t society be able to eliminate you as a burden on them?

The Australian philosopher Peter Singer is a preference utilitarian, and has argued that infanticide should be legal, on preference utilitarian grounds. He argues we have to treat the preferences of all beings equally, but newborns have no concept of what it means to continue to live, so can’t possibly have a preference/wish/desire to go on living. Hence, the only moral obstacle to killing them is the wishes of their parents, therefore (painless) infanticide should be legal with parental consent.

Personally I find his view to be utterly morally abhorrent, but I have to credit him with the courage and consistency of taking utilitarianism to its logical conclusion.

Re: France's baby bust

#236

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

nostromo wrote: post #217
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

>The size of the English-speaking market certainly matters.

Meh, yo a degree yes, but not always. Korean entertainment had some international smash hits recently that went viral like Parasite, Squid Game, and All Of Us Are Dead, and they were all in Korean not in English. Quality mattes more than language.

Re: France's baby bust

#237

Post by Scoundreller »

genman wrote: post #166
franky47 wrote: post #2

> In 1700, almost 1 in 25 inhabitants on Earth, and one in five in Europe, was French. Today, less than a percent of humanity is French. Why did France’s population decline in relative terms so dramatically, and did it really mark the decline of France? It seems far-fetched to use global population as a relative indicator of France's "decline", where the global population exploded after the industrial revolution.

It is actually not true. The global population exploded after industrialized nations developed after WW2 new types of high yield crops and then gave those away to non-industrialized nations.

post-Colombian exchange, adoption of potato also helped Europe as a whole.

"By feeding rapidly growing populations, [it] permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most of the world between 1750 and 1950."

"Because potatoes were so productive, the effective result, in terms of calories, was to double Europe’s food supply."

"Routine famine almost disappeared in potato country, a 2,000-mile band that stretched from Ireland in the west to Russia’s Ural Mountains in the east."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-potato-change...

Re: France's baby bust

#238

Post by ookdatnog »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #231
ookdatnog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement makes no sense. To begin with, the terms "objective" and "relative" are not antonyms. A definition can be both, neither, or either one of the two. And the terms "progressive" and "conservative" in particular describe attitudes towards the status quo and traditional institutions, which means that whatever exact position a progressive or conservative person takes on an issue will depend on context. By th…

So you're arguing that the conservatives at the time failed to conserve their traditional values resulting in their spiritual successors being more liberal. Which in the case of the traditional value of having large families resulted in the demographic decline that is the topic of the article. This seems to clearly support OPs argument that conservative societies will be more successful as long as the values they are…

That's not at all what I'm arguing. My comment was purely a response to

> I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts.

I claimed that this is a nonsensical statement for two reasons:

1. You imply that relativity and objectivity are at odds (they aren't -- "I'm taller than my mom" is both a relative and an objective statement).

2. You claim that in order to have a meaningful conversation about conservatism and progressivism, these terms must be defined in an absolute sense. But they are by definition relative. Most of my comment illustrates this point.

Re: France's baby bust

#239

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

rayiner wrote: post #234
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth. Except there is. You want the same protections applied to you, even if you're unconscious or otherwise unable to protest. Pretty much the only broadly supportable position is that killing a viable person is murder and no more or less supportable than them killing you.

How does that factor into the utilitarian calculus? Who cares about you? If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn, why shouldn’t society be able to eliminate you as a burden on them?

> Who cares about you?

Me. That's why I want to find a simple set of rules that we can both agree to, where you care about me in trade for similar concern and protection.

> If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn

Right, I don't consider that viable without some sort of prognosis of recovery but if we go too far down the line of 'burden to society' it starts to include people who drive too slowly in the passing lane and gets more subjective.

Re: France's baby bust

#240

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

rayiner wrote: post #222
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have issue making sense of your reply to my comment. I don’t see how it’s against anything I said. As I wrote: "a significant part of the population is still strongly against any kind of religion". All religious signs are banned in schools not only the hijab. France views religion as strictly a private matter which has no place at all in the public sphere. That’s not a religious conflict just widely incompatible wi…

You don’t think the French ban on hijab has anything to do with religion? You think it’s just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the fact that Christianity happens not to generally require outwardly visible symbols of membership in a religious community, unlike Islam, Shikhism, Orthodox Judaism, etc.?

Remind me which faith in France add to shoot at civil servants to try to prevent them taking an inventory of the content of their cult places so it could be ceased by the state. I guess you don’t know or you wouldn’t write such idiocies.

But even then, as a French, I would applaud anything going against religions. The faster we get ride of obscurantism the better the world.

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