Crowstep
30m ago
I strongly suspect that most people with "FREE PALESTINE" in their Instagram bios don't want to let Palestinian refugees into Europe (or anywhere outside of Gaza), because that would constitute "ethnic cleansing".
My guess would be that most westerners on the Free Palestine side would be pretty cool with Gazans coming to Europe, given their broad support of third world immigration generally.
Now Israel's Arab neighbours, they are the ones who don't want the Palestinians.
Crowstep
39m ago
Why are you hung up on this, I wonder.
What can I say? I don't have much patience for the water carriers of genocidal dicatatorships, which there are unfortunately quite a few of around here.
So far all of Putin's negotiations have been obviously in bad faith, so the diplomatic options for the Ukrainian state are either:
- Fight until Putin's calculus changes, perhaps by destroying the Russian oil industry as they are currently doing
- Surrender so he can 'Denazify' the country with a lot of bullets to the back of the head
Given those two options, when someone flippantly argues that the Ukrainian state defending itself is illegitimate, it merits pushback in my view.
Crowstep
1hr ago
How do you figure that? I do not think the brutal extent of conscription in Ukraine is currently deniable. If the people wish it, how come volunteers are so insufficient?
Conscription in existential wars is a normal thing for states to do, hell, lots of states conscripts young men (and in some cases young women) even in peacetime. Obviously any individual will have an incentive to freeride on his comrades and let them fight the war, but the existence of conscription does not, a priori, make a country defending itself illegitimate. If you believe that, then you'd have to believe that Britain and America fighting against Hitler was illegitimate, since they both used conscription.
(Also I find it curious that you responded to just one half-sentence.)
I quoted that part because it's the fundamental crux of our disagreement. You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Ukrainian state should just surrender because fighting is, in your words, futile. I don't think it should, unless the people wish it (which they don't).
It's also worth pointing out that IGI-111 was claiming that Ukrainian soldiers were being blown up by the Ukrainian government.
Crowstep
3hr ago
They will be, in effect, sent to be blown up in same futile operation
I think this is the key part of our disagreement. You think that Ukraine defending itself is pointless or illegitimate, and should therefore just surrender so Russia can do whatever it wants.
I think that a country defending itself from an expansionist dictatorship with genocidal aspirations is not only legitimate and noble, but also something that the west should support, in order to reinforce the post-war norm that big countries can't just annex small countries if they feel like it. And what the Ukrainians are doing seems far from futile.
Crowstep
8hr ago
How are they even remotely similar? Individual asylum seekers lying about being gay to get asylum vs a Ukrainian government which is, in reality, doing as much as it can to minimise casualties of its own soldiers getting accused of deliberately blowing them up.
Crowstep
9hr ago
They're not tolerance forming.
How does that square with the fact that you need to keep increasing the dose (albeit not forever)?
I started on a very low dose myself (<1mg) but am having to increase it because my weight loss is plateauing.
Crowstep
9hr ago
Fear for your life because a foreign invader wants to blow you up?
Come on now, do you really think that the 'Ukrainian Government wants to blow up Ukrainian soliders' is a reasonable take?
They would much rather put drones in the line of danger than soldiers. Unlike Vladimir's meat grinder tactics.
Crowstep
1d ago
Do you have an 'objective source' showing there was any significant impact on female behavior when 'various US red states' restricted abortion?
I've no idea because I don't really care. I was only giving it as an example of policies which, even though they restrict women's actions, aren't designed around increasing birth rates. Because there aren't any illiberal policies directed at either men or women designed to increase birth rates.
Crowstep
2d ago
Throw a couple more 'reallys' in there and I still won't find that believeable.
How about if we look at objective source rather than you just pulling up some articles that annoyed you?
Google Trends data. Birth rates men vs birth rates women for the past five years. Searches for birth rates women are about four times as common. 'The discussion' about birth rates is predominantly about women, obviously. Always has been.
The fact that you can find lots of articles about women complaining about their relationships (also something they've been doing since time immemorial) isn't evidence to the contrary.
Can you name a single policy proposal in any Western Country (hell, try non-Western) that tries to improve TFR by increasing restrictions on female behavior?
I can't name a single policy from any country, western or eastern, that tries to improve TFR by increasing restrictions on male or female behaviour (except in the roundabout sense that baby bonuses are going to be a net loss tax-wise for childless people). The only thing that comes to mind is abortion restriction in Poland or various US red states, which is a big restriction on female behaviour, although advocates don't tend to justify the policies by talking about birth rates.
Crowstep
2d ago
And yet, the discussion centers on men's failures
Errm, no it doesn't? The three theses OP mentioned are neither about men nor women. Academic discussion doesn't focus on men (for the reason that the TFR data is mostly about women) and if you go somewhere like /r/natalism there's much more discussion about women than men, because women are the ones who have the babies.
Honestly, I have no idea where you got the idea that birth rate discussions focus on men. They really, really don't.
Crowstep
2d ago
You’re suggesting that the far left, i.e. actual Communists, is too individualistic?
Arguably yes. Communists don't so much share as demand that the state share on everyone's behalf. Historically, communists were keen on dissolving any social bonds outside of the state, such as the family or churches.
The fact that religious people are higher trust and give more to charity is indisputable from the social science data. Whether or not that is strictly theological or due to more general social processes (e.g. meeting the same group of people every week) doesn't really change that.
Any bottleneck on reproduction is almost entirely going to be defined by the population of reproductive-age women and their behavior
Sure. That's basically tautological, in that only women can have babies.
Phones, opportunity costs, education levels, loss of religion, literally ALL of those have demonstrably higher impact on female behavior than male
Much less clear. To pick one example, men secularised first and fastest over the 20th century.
The birth rate collapse isn't being caused by women being too picky. It's caused by less coupling, which is in turn caused by people socialising much less due to screens.
Crowstep
10d ago
Productivity isn't just about how much effort the person puts in for what objectively comes out, it's a lot to do with the situation of society outside as well
The 'situation of society' is created by the coethnics of the lazy barista you malign. Westerners weren't just placed in in rich countries by a benevolent alien, our ancestors made our countries rich, and we keep them rich by our efforts.
My proposal is simple: bring the second guy over to the high historical capital investment zone and watch humanity flourish.
We've tried importing the third world to Europe. It hasn't caused a lot of flourishing.
Crowstep
12d ago
This particular incident? Almost certainly a nothingburger.
The Telegraph has now carried the story, and West Midlands Police have issued a press release saying they are now investigating who the African men were that carried out the attack (after initally saying that everything was fine on social media).
My prediction is that BBC News will be covering this tomorrow, along with the centrist papers like The Times. The Guardian will (reluctantly) follow the day after.
Depending on your definition of 'nothingburger', I would say the story is gaining traction. The victim will appear in court in a couple of weeks so I expect there'll be further coverage from that, whether he is found innocent or guilty.
Crowstep
13d ago
To increase birth rates and reduce dysgenics, early marriage should be encouraged, particularly among the intelligent. Ideally, both husband and wife should be in their late teens to very early 20s. Older-male relationships between young adults (~16-25) should also be destigmatized. Society should be restructured to ensure that intelligent couples can have as many children as possible before age 30-35; reduce time spent in education, prioritize youth for high-paying jobs, give intelligent young men huge lump sums per child (funded by e.g. abolishing welfare), and so on.
Sounds like a better plan than complaining about phones to me.
Almost nothing here could be defined as 'a plan' in even the most generous sense. There is no 'destigmatise' button that any government can press. 'Prioritise youth for high-paying jobs' is not possible in a free market. Giving baby bonuses is possible, although realistically not politically likely given that old people vote and unborn children don't.
Meanwhile, the 'complaining about phones' crowd is actually doing stuff.
And the stuff they're doing matters because it's obviously the phones.
Actual high fertility groups like the Amish and the Haredim was very small age gaps between spouses, because the key thing for fertility is early marriage, and if your young women are getting married at 18-20, it makes more sense to have the young men marrying them at 20-22 than waiting a few more years for no reason.
Ignoring all the platitudes and bible verses, there is only one concrete change they propose, increasing legal migration to (somehow) eliminate illegal migration. Since demand to migrate to the US is extremely high and, more importantly, outwith the control of the US, the only way to stop illegal migration through legal migration is to grant literally everybody in the world who wants one a visa. Even with the lip service about secure borders, that's the only way that policy can work. You may say that doesn't count as 'open borders' (because every still has to apply for a visa) and they may say it still counts as 'secure borders' (because only legal migrants are allowed in) but come on, legalising all immigration from everywhere is open borders by any reasonable definition.
Saying that the organisation is 'pro-immigration' is frankly underselling it. Their policy proposals, slim as they are, are radical open-borders extremism that are far beyond the political mainstream. They may dress them up in nice cuddly language, but these boys are anarchists in frocks.
That document is a perfect example of why men of the cloth shouldn't get involved in politics. They've put out a special message that is 99% nothing and 1% childishly naive extremism with no addressing tradeoffs (simply stating that 'Human dignity and national security are not in conflict' doesn't count).
I don't know much about American Catholicism, but it seems awfully hard to square:
The USCCB is not "pro immigration", it advocates for treating people (including, but not limited to, immigrants) with kindness and dignity
with:
USCCB affiliates have settled more than 30% of all refugees to the United States since 1980, almost all from the third world
The latter is what my high school history teacher would call 'crunchy' and the former what he would call 'woolly'. Our essays always had to be full of crunchy statements and avoid woolly ones, because an argument full of wooly statements can basically argue anything at all without evidence.
Here's the crunchy parts of what the USCCB actually says:
We bishops advocate for meaningful reforms of our nation's immigration laws
Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such [trafficking] risks.
I would have quoted more but it's an unhighlightable PDF (surely a mortal sin?). But anyone reading can look at it themselves. I don't think it's too uncharitable to say that their solution to America's illegal third world immigration is to simply make that migration legal. Less charitably, to replace de facto open borders with de jure open borders.
That seems pretty pro-immigration to me...
Crowstep
18d ago
This explanation focuses on the culture of Conservative MPs. The author focuses on why the Tories ignored the obvious flaws with the 'invite the entire third world' policy, but I think the trigger was something more short term. The government panicked that cutting off the supply of cheap EU labour would cause inflation as demand came roaring back post-COVID. Combine that with regular old incompetence from the Home Office who simply didn't think consider allowing unlimited numbers of low-skilled migrants from the third world to bring unlimited numbers of dependents with no requirements might have quite a large take-up.
Crowstep
19d ago
In a list of 'least racist countries', western countries make up the top 17, as well as about 25 of the top 30.
Crowstep
19d ago
a scheming point
I assume you meant Schelling Point, but Scheming Point works just as well!
Crowstep
22d ago
Here is everyone We're just RETVRNING to tradition when 17 women reproduced for every man
A reminder for anyone reading what that statistic actually entailed. Clan warfare that wipes out male lineages, not massive harems.
Crowstep
28d ago
Sloot wasn't complaining about adultery, he was complaining about Ukrainian refugee women having sex at all.
Crowstep
28d ago
Sloot wasn't complaining about adultery, he was complaining about (single, presumably) Ukrainian women going on dates while living as refugees abroad.
I know a young Ukrainian woman living in the UK. I don't know if she has a boyfriend, but it would be absurd to demand that she avoid getting one because her male peers are fighting. Nobody benefits from that.
I'm pretty sure an Israeli government with an empty Gaza would fill it with Jewish settlements, just like they are with the West Bank.
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