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The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

aaronrenn.substack.com

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#11
post #7

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention North Korea more. The DPRK is probably the most collectivist (least individualistic) large society on the planet, so much so that it terrifies bona fide liberals. I'm sure the intense political polarization of the divided Peninsula has contributed to hyper-charging individualism in the South. You don't want to be like the enemy. FWIW, DPRK birth rate is about 1.9, still below…

Bleeding heart liberals, all the other kinds of liberals, people who don't want to be executed by anti-aircraft cannon for having the wrong last name, people bothered by concentration camps, people concerned about nuclear prolifertion, all those kinds of people.

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#12
post #7

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention North Korea more. The DPRK is probably the most collectivist (least individualistic) large society on the planet, so much so that it terrifies bona fide liberals. I'm sure the intense political polarization of the divided Peninsula has contributed to hyper-charging individualism in the South. You don't want to be like the enemy. FWIW, DPRK birth rate is about 1.9, still below…

I think the part that terrifies "bleeding heart liberals" is the abject poverty, brutally oppressive quasi-militaristic (I say quasi given its profound ineptitude) regime, and mass starvation.

I would imaging birth rates don't really make it to the top 10 list of problems in N. Korea.

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make daycare, child health services and great schools universally available and cheap/free. That is probably a good idea but there are places where daycare is free and there's no evidence it makes a difference.

The childcare is free, but what about the rent?

[deleted]

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#15
post #9
post #7

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention North Korea more. The DPRK is probably the most collectivist (least individualistic) large society on the planet, so much so that it terrifies bona fide liberals. I'm sure the intense political polarization of the divided Peninsula has contributed to hyper-charging individualism in the South. You don't want to be like the enemy. FWIW, DPRK birth rate is about 1.9, still below…

Just for future readers being "liberal" does not necessarily mean that one is "collectivist". The OP, like many others, confuses governmental, economic, and philosophical ideals so that they can make a political point - one that does not contain much in the way of substance. In the way of examples, neoliberalism [1] comes to mind. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

To add to this, liberalism and neo liberalism aren't on the left of the political spectrum. These political ideologies are fairly solidly right or centre-right

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#16
post #11
post #7

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention North Korea more. The DPRK is probably the most collectivist (least individualistic) large society on the planet, so much so that it terrifies bona fide liberals. I'm sure the intense political polarization of the divided Peninsula has contributed to hyper-charging individualism in the South. You don't want to be like the enemy. FWIW, DPRK birth rate is about 1.9, still below…

Bleeding heart liberals, all the other kinds of liberals, people who don't want to be executed by anti-aircraft cannon for having the wrong last name, people bothered by concentration camps, people concerned about nuclear prolifertion, all those kinds of people.

[flagged]

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#17
post #14

This is a take from a gender-essentialist who ardently believes fixed roles for men and women are established by the bible. Their other publication: https://americanreformer.org/

In light of this fact, I'd guess "their" preferred pronouns are he/him/his.

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#18
Peter Zeihan's take is that urbanization leads to less children because there's less space, you don't need the free labor kids provides on the farm, and children are very expensive in the city.

This is coupled with the speed of urbanization for countries that industrialized after the second world war- the later you industrialize, the faster that industrialization happens, the more stark the transition to a childless economy.

As mentioned in the article, there is a demographic boon for that industrialized generation. Less money needed for schools, etc, more time your prime working age adults can contribute to the economy.

Except all those countries industrialized around the same generation. That generation is aging out of the workforce and there's nothing to replace them.

Zeihan posits this leads to demographic collapse, and that these countries just simply "go away" because there isn't enough children to keep the country functioning. I'm not sure how much I believe that, but I do know that nobody has a clue how to fix it. Japan has been front and center for this problem and still haven't found a way to reverse the trend.

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#19
The hostility towards children is a real thing you can see today. I saw it first hand in Japan; parks had signs with dozens of prohibitions, while news stories about this phenomena inevitably had an 80 year old complaining that there were children outside at 8 and politicans saying that it was a "complex problem". These are not new parks mind you; just there are silver-haired "main character syndrome" types who consider public spaces as public spaces for their own personal pursuits.

As the proportion of the elderly (and mentally ill elderly) increase, creating age restrictions on elderly voting may be necessary if we want to prevent these selfish behaviors from damaging the long-term viability of our own democracies.

Re: The Toxic Reality of a Post-Familial Society

#20
post #14

This is a take from a gender-essentialist who ardently believes fixed roles for men and women are established by the bible. Their other publication: https://americanreformer.org/

I try not to partake in tinfoil hattery, but this getting the upvotes that it did, in the time that it did, given the content, and compared to the demographic of the platform, might alarm some folks who care about the integrity of submissions on HN.

Maybe that's nobody, maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm not following HN guidelines. IDK.

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