Earlier quoted context omitted.
* citation needed
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We've banned this account for repeatedly posting egregiously abusive comments. If you're the longtime user that you've claimed to be, you surely know this is unacceptable.
Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
141–150 of 172 posts
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#142Everything about this thread is weird and woefully online. As an n of 1, we are surrounded by so many births that we just trade baby gear since we are either a handful of months ahead or behind many other parents. Our assumption was that we were in a stealth baby boom. Truly everyone we know has a minimum of one very young child with a high number of parents with between 2 and 4. It certainly runs counter to many onl…
I'm not in the US but it's been years since I had a coworker with more than 2 kids (or they're so many departments apart I simply don't know). None of my closer friends has more than one kid (ok, that might be a bit of an exception). None of the families in my huge apartment building has more than 2 kids. I'm actually hard pressed right now to name 5 people I know who have 3 or more kids or 2 siblings (and the kids/siblings being younger than 30). (and I am including all my US acquantainces (sorry, no real friends over there for me))
I just don't understood what this has to do with "online".
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#143Just like there's a natural selection to those with religious beliefs (and active killing of those without) there's probably active selection to those with conservative beliefs like raiding a family, a desire to teach their values to their children, producing as many children as possible - values that correlate with conservatives.
I think the atheist experiment of the last century or so is starting to yield clear evidence of what is and isn't "fit" in the Darwinian sense. Exactly as you are saying.
Atheists have existed for basically forever. I think you're referring to the 'not murdering, ostracizing and repressing them' experiment. If, like some in this thread, you think that violence, ignorance and removal of freedoms are acceptable means to getting an outcome some find preferable (or "fit", or "natural"), please state so directly.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Changing the birth rate begins with changing the culture that discourages families of a certain size. Such a program would be a good first step in stating that bearing and raising children is something we value as a society. Coincidentally, I had a similar suspicion about the free/subsidized fertility treatments- the rate of people not having children due to needing medical intervention is small enough that subsidizi…
I was commenting on > A fairer, more effective strategy would be subsidizing the first year or so of the child's care- diapers, food, clothes, cribs, vaccines and such. And not anything political. United States is so fucked beyond repair when even commenting on birth rates turns into “being on the left politically”
Well, you proposed fertility treatments in a discussion on an article entitled "Falling fertility on the left as a key driver of US birth decline" so I had wrongly assumed you were engaging with that conversation.
We're taking two different approaches to the same problem. I suggested something that will change attitudes (though I will concede it would be only a first step, not sufficient on its own) whereas you suggested making medical intervention for fertility cheaper for patients.
Hence, my final line was a bit of a tongue in cheek remark on which of the two approaches was more likely to have an impact on the article's thesis.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Having kid with the wrong person is even shittier experience then marrying them. You can divorce and never see the guy again, ut you cant get rid of baby daddy. > meeting a partner in one's teen years, and getting it done by age 20 is best because one is the least picky then among all of one's fertile years Considering staggering rates of violence, domestic abuse and even rape in such circles, this not the best indiv…
> Considering staggering rates of violence, domestic abuse and even rape in such circles
That's a nonsense argument since it's completely orthogonal to what I noted. Whatever you mean by "such circles" and "those circles" has no relation to what I noted. If women seek out partners with bad character, they will have to live with the consequences. At any age that's 18 or above, it is the woman's responsibility to ensure the partner is a respectable person from a respectable family before having a child with them. It doesn't take more than a few months of being together to determine it.
If the person was initially good but becomes "wrong" later, this can in principle happen at any age. A higher age won't guard against it.
In reality, the common reasons for the delay are banal, like not matching a wildly-high near-seven-figure income, six-foot height, eye color, etc.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know plenty of women who have delayed starting a family and they were well aware of the increased risks.. as they struggled to meet the right person, establish themselves professionally etc. They were certainly not brainwashed.
I know someone who knew such a women that benefited from this suggestion, so for what it's worth: women who feel strongly about having kids but are struggling to find a suitable partner should consider instead finding a suitable sperm donor through the appropriate legal channels, and raising the kid alone.
That can work but there are some risks:
1. It greatly lowers the genetic diversity in the population, and this is dooming. This can be consequential because some such donors can have serious cancer causing genes that trigger at an early age, that are not apparent from the profile, as has happened.
2. You never know if a staffer will use his sperm instead or will simply make an error in which sperm gets used. It happens often enough. The woman is then left with the worst of all choices.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while the right focuses their empathy inwardly (family values.) Not true. Right idea of family valuea is not about empathy and does not have much elements of empathy. It is more about establishing hierarchy and punishing you if you step put of it. It is not even like they would be more emphatic toward disabled close ones. They dont extend empathy toward abused or sexually harassed female familly member or kid. Or t…
> It is not even like they would be more emphatic toward disabled close ones. They dont extend empathy toward abused or sexually harassed female familly member or kid. Or to gay familly member. From a biological/evolutionary standpoint, that's the correct approach. Anything that reduces - chances at - reproduction or makes the population less fit is an issue that makes said population tend toward extinction.
> From a biological/evolutionary standpoint, that's the correct approach.
I believe the science disagrees on this point. In the case of humans, adaptations that contributed most to our success as a species are a constellation of pro-social traits that enabled us to cooperate in organized fashion in relatively large numbers (which empathy plays a major role in mediating).
Evolutionary fitness is not always meaningful at the level of the individual, particularly in social animals. IIRC, there are a number of species in which individually-disadvantageous (i.e. purely altruistic) behaviors are conserved, despite their apparent adverse effects on individual fitness.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#148It seems the paper conflates "fertility" and "reproductive rate". Which is akin to conflating "soil fertility" and gross yields. It also seems many comments here have not picked up on that.
Yes, but that is the common terminology.
That's fair, it just really hinders the conversation amongst laymen.
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why people shouldn't take life advice from cartoons and celebrities
Sure, that's why Smokey the Bear is such a bad idea. Ignore the fact that pushing propaganda starts young, (the population in general, but especially) children are impressionable, and (echoing sibling) that we should probably consider the impacts of media on children. Lots of cartoons are wholesome, and it can be a powerful tool for setting social norms. More to the point, it's going to happen anyways - so let's do w…
…and knowing is half the battle.
GI Joe theme plays in the background
Re: Falling fertility on the left as key driver of US birth decline
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can't also assume that your offspring will have the same values as you.
You shouldn't be OK with them having any random values, either. If you have a civilization, you have a vision about life, and what's good and what's bad, and you want to see it to continue. That some of them will inevitable change over time is not the same as you preactively having no preference and guidance for your offspring whatsoever, and thinking "no problem, anything goes".
> If you have a civilization, you have a vision about life,
Do you?
Your 'civilization' doesn't run on some kind of command economy five-year-cultural plan. Its values and views of what's good and bad are just some (often dystopian) local maximum it's stuck in.
Not to mention the obvious - what if you strongly disagree with your civilization's values?