Outlaw83
2mo ago
That's only if you believe either reporting of life satisfaction in 2024 or 1954 (or whenever you think women would be happier if they just accepted it was their lot in life) is actually good data.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I mean, maybe if we win a World War, and have a massive economic boom due to 1/2 the developed world being rubble, we can temporarily stop a birthrate drop that was already beginning for a decade or so.
Since, if you look at actually long-term brith rate charts, the Baby Boom is basically just a temporary front-loading of births that eventually evened itself out. If you actually took somebody who knew the shifts by even say, 1926 and asked them to guess the fertility rate (based on births per 1,000) based on the current tendencies, they'd actually likely get it pretty close.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I mean, even many rationalists are coded as weirdos who aren't getting laid to plenty of people.
J.D. Vance is the person closest to be associated with the movement to actually get a national stage, and some of his views, that have been decently popular here and other rationalist or rationalist-adjacent spaces implode when in contact with actual voters. The guy's impressively below water approval wise, and is actually probably hurting Trump among secular swing voters in the Midwest.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I mean, you still need to convince something more than a small sliver of the population that women basically choosing when they have children is hurting society. The problem this argument, societally, isn't so much left-wing college students at NYU, it's sorority girls at Alabama & LSU who are putting off kids almost just as much. Look at how quickly even an Alabama legislature had to scramble when one judge made that ruling on IVF.
Probably because the Alabama Republican's were hearing from their very own Trump-voting, pro-life, very conservative aunts, wives, and daughters to fix it, now.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I'd argue it wasn't so much propaganda as getting older and having a more realistic view of what raising kids actually look like. There's a reason why for instance, a series about a bunch of kids raising themselves in a boxcar was a YA series aimed at basically older elementary school, because as you get any older, even an average intelligence 13 year old starts thinking of some issues and plot holes.
Also, depending on the family the responsibilities you may have at 15 with a baby in the household, whether it's a younger sibling or a visiting cousin are probably different and closer to reality than you would've had at 9.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
Right. It turns out being able to work and not having your economic security tied to another human being is seen as a positive, especially even in say, parts of the world that aren't as advanced as the Western world on women's rights. Part of the reason a disproportionate number of people working in sweatshops in Asia were women (and was the same of say, New York in 1843), was that it allowed a degree of economic freedom that wasn't possible in basically the alternative of substantive farming, either in rural Vietnam in 2013 or rural New England in 1884.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
There's this weird wish among decent groups of all ideologies for basically tuning the clock back on actual advancement - whether it's my fellow lefties unhappy that America's a productive enough country we no longer can make cheap t-shirts here or conservatives upset the workforce is advanced that nobody would want to hire a 14 year old to do a manufacturing job.
It's actually a good thing for you to be a country where you're so advanced, 13 year old's are basically useless in the workforce! Sure, there are downsides, but there's a reason why the only places where there's massive amounts of low-productivity manufacturing work and cihld labor are some of the poorest places in the world.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
Eh, there's still plenty of alternate hypothesis put out there by my fellow lefties and some centrists in recent years from housing prices to cultural and educational gaps between young people and so forth. Again, I don't think any of that is a 0 reason, but just like anything short of massive restrictions of contraception + women's education will lead at best to a .2 or .3 rise, I think housing, women getting more liberal and going to college more, and even Tinder is like a .2 or .3 thing if you add it all up.
Ironically, J.D. Vance's remarks from the past few years continually being brought up have actually accelerated the acceptance of, 'yes, it was birth control and that's a good thing, you weirdos.'
I mean, yes, I think any form of education that's more than just 'be happy and have babies' for young women will lead to this, when there's any sort of political and societal freedom for women, along with access to consistent birth control.
Now, I know people will point to say, the 50's or early 20th century or whenever about educated women going happily into marriage, but again, if you actually look at what well-educated wives of lawyers, doctors, and so on actually did, they actually didn't dote on their five kids or whatever. I bet in reality, the median middle to upper middle class woman spent far less time actually parenting her four or five children did than the median PMC girlboss does today - no, she handed the kids off to servants, than went to the League of Women Voters, Women's Temperance Union, or whatever - aka, a bunch of things that are basically non-profit NGO's do today, run by basically the same groups of women.
You can prefer the set-up, but the college-educated women weren't happy housewives sitting at home, and I bet you the vast majority of them would've happily taken the pill...because massive amounts of their children and grandchildren did, before any real cultural revolution started. As far as the vaunted post-WWII period, look at what came as a result of having millions of college-educated women in suburbs with nothing to do - massive bits of activism on both the right and left, because a bunch of college-educated women were bored and not happy - both Betty Friedman and Phyllis Schlafly basically came from that millueu.
Also, I don't think there's really a "problem" so there's nothing to solve. Also, by all measures, my 'view' is the standard view outside of maybe the right-most 5-10%, that 18 year old unmarried girls having less babies is a positive for society, so yeah, I think secularism should be loud and proud - we did that.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I think those studies are severely flawed, not that they're being fudges or anything but in that they assume those numbers women say are what they really want in their heart of hearts. Like, I say, I want to lose x pounds, but you know what I continue to do? Eat donuts and burritos because they're yummy, and I care about that more than losing weight. I think a lot of women say they want say three babies, and may even continue to say that after they have a kid, but when they faced with the mental cost of doing so, or other changes they'd have to make, they say no, even though they still might say they want three kids if asked in a stufy, but they also don't want to give up x, y, and z about their current life either.
After all, the American people claim they want a smaller deficit, but a majority is against any kind of specific spending cut. Note, as a dirty leftist I'm fair about this - the American people also want a larger welfare state, but no rise in taxes on anybody but very, very rich people.
I think if you did everything reasonable pro-natalists want - you might push things up .2 or .3. But, short of massive restrictions on women's contraception, you're not getting any massive shifts, because has been pointed out, a lot of the actual change over the past 20 years is a massive drop in teen pregnancy that 90% of society was behind at the time.
As far limiting access, I'm not a woman whose ability to control her own reproduction would be affected, so I'm going to claim what would be better for that woman, even though I'm aware much of this site thinks they know what's best for women and shockingly, it lines up with their general political beliefs.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
The dirty little secret was this basically failed in the US - rates of severe endemic poverty among old people were massive even pre-Depression, which is what led to support for Social Security in the first place. It turns out a lot of people either just don't care about their parents or are barely surviving on their own, that another mouth to feed may tip the scales.
So, yes, we have a less connected society, but severe endemic poverty among retirees basically doesn't exist and now there's a massive class of consumers who didn't exist. Win-win for the social democrats and the capitalists.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
Sounds like a quick way to create a generation willing to put the people in charge who say they're in debt the moment they're born around the nearest lamppost the moment they have the ability to do so.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
"Parents should teach their children about how to build a full life for themselves, starting with having children of their own."
You assume the parents think their children have had a positive effect on their lives, or more importantly, telling your kids at 18 to pop out some babies will overwrite the previous 18 years of complaining they've heard about the cost of raising them or getting in the way of their own lives, and so on.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
Again, the reactionaries are actually basically right - women's education (and I mean, like basic education, not whatever you think the evil modern western college is) + available contraception = a dramatic drop in birth rates no matter what else you actually try. Iran & Saudi Arabia are having big drops, and as noted, even places like Mongolia are dropping and Hungary's attempts largely failed unless judged on a curve.
Also, as noted, because contraception is much better than even 20 years ago thanks to IUD's, teen pregnancy have fallen off a cliff in the US - something everybody to the right of Stalin was praising as a worthy goal 20 years ago. The Christian Right got what it wanted - far less pregnant single teen girls.
The difference is, as opposed to the reactionaries, I think it's good women have the right to control their own reproduction.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
There may be a religious revival among a very certain set of previously agnostic to atheist right-leaning people in specific industries who spend a lot of time on Twitter, I see no evidence in church attendance numbers or other factors of any actual shift in religiosity among the larger population.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
So, while there were legitimate issues with Obama and his team's larger running of the Democratic Party, it's important to remember that of the supposed 1,000 legislative seats lost, 150 were in NH alone (because NH is weird and has a massive 400 seat legislature with lots of weird swings), and a lot more were in rural Yellow Dog seats in places like Arkansas, Mississippi, and so forth that were basically doomed the moment they could be put in a flyer next to a black Democratic President in a way that wasn't true of John Kerry or Al Gore.
I would say the nomination of Hillary and James Comey's choices of what to announce and when is what led to the election of Trump, but I'm aware the latter is the minority position here.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
The Democrat base, the casual never-Trumpers, maybe even the grillpillers? They’re just glad to have a candidate under the retirement age.
Yes, this is what polling showed consistently through the entirety of the election and hell, Nikki Haley said on stage the first party to not nominate an old man would win. Of course, she was being self-affacing with that argument and now denies that, but it may turnout to be true.
I think to a certain extent, people want to turn the page of the Trump-era of politics and Harris just has to be a reasonable choice to swing voters. Who don't deeply care about the things many rightists here do, but also don't care deeply about the stuff I do as a social democrat.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
Because all the "good" libertarian stuff is taken up by one of the two parties - Trump pretends to be anti-war and pro-gun, Democrat's are pro-LGBT, pro-abortion, and pro-weed, and nobody outside of rich people and dorks actually like libertarian economics. So, the libertarian party becomes a breeding ground for weirdos complaining about having to have driver license's, legalizing heroin and selling it at 7/11, and knowing way too much about age of consent laws.
As pointed out, their nominee is actually a consistent libertarian, which means the weirdo culture war libertarian types don't like him, but also any left-leaning people upset with Kamala over foreign policy would be turned off by his economic standards.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
I mean, to be fair, it's easy to be cheap when the kid has no real personality or interests yet.
Outlaw83
2mo ago
As I've said before, a lot of of the overreaction about young men turning right is from two sources -
1.) Right-leaning people hoping that they're not doomed in the long run 2.) Left-leaning people shocked there are still young right-wing people.
The other thing is 14-17 year old boys are pretty terrible for somewhat sympathetic reasons (ie. they're horny with no real outlet), and the vast majority of them that get girlfriends (which most still do) calm down the first time their girlfriend makes fun of them.
Also, I think a lot of 'redpill' content is being consumed by non-American male audiences, which also shift things.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
Sure, getting people out to vote by paying them is one thing - but verifying they're actually voting the way you want is a whole other thing. Obviously, if you do that in a D+80 area, the few Republican votes you'd end up is worth it, but we're talking about payment for legitimately changing their vote.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
I've seen conservatives, liberals, leftists, and rightists all make this argument about some form of election where they've lost as some form of pushback, and here's the thing. If you don't vote, and you have a free and open ballot, you're saying you're fine with any option that wins. Not voting is an endorsement of the current order, whomever ends up the winner.
I have far more respect for somebody who shows up, and even just spoils their ballot or writes in something off the wall than somebody who isn't part of the process at all, then tries to act like it's not legitimate. Those who show up are the ones who create the government. You can be upset if your preference loses and be upset with the choices made of course.
But non-voters, especially ones who act as if they're above it all are silly, especially when the reality most of the 67% who didn't vote aren't doing it for some noble reason, but because they don't care, and no, they wouldn't care even if the perfect politician who you think should be in charge showed up either (I've said the same thing to my fellow lefties about Bernie).
Outlaw83
3mo ago
I mean, at the end of the day, operating a motor vehicle on public roads paid for via taxation is a privilege, not a right. You can drive a car in any condition on your own private property.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
I think the reason vote buying isn't the norm is that it's basically illegal and more importantly, the amount it'd take to get any high number of American's to 'sell' their votes is pretty high. Yes, you can could get a promise from a bunch of people to sell their for vote for $100, but actually getting proof and such before sending payment would be a much more complicated scenario, when it'd be actually much cheaper and efficient to get more people to support you to turn out.
Whatever you'd spend on the former, is far better spent on just getting low propensity people within your own coalition to drop off their ballot in the dropbox or mail.
Yes, if you're a poor country and selling your vote can pay your rent for a month, that's one thing. America is too rich for that.
I think we should change the incentive structure so that conservatives no longer advocate for the limitation of the economic and personal freedoms of women. It would still be the men's choice, just under a difference incentive structure, so they no longer talk about how women just need to have fewer options than men for the good of society.
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