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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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African TFRs have declined faster than expected and you cannot walk from sub-saharan Africa to the southern US border.

Doesn't matter; lefty "humanitarian concerns" and need for more votes will have them shipping them over en masse.

Far more conformist-to-the-point-of-totalitarian governments in northern Europe have failed to prevent demographic growth among the native fundamentalists.

Because they didn't have the tools and technology modern states do.

the level of state disfavor directed against the Dutch Calvinists or French Tradcaths is likely the maximum that western governments are capable of

Naïvely over-optimistic. For example, it's been a staple of 20th century sci-fi that eventually the government is going to regulate and license parenthood to prevent "overpopulation." Most of my classmates in college back in the early 2000s thought it was necessary — both to "save the environment" and to prevent "the wrong sort" from having kids (some defined "wrong sort" in terms of genetics, others in term of likely bad "nurture", but both agreed the target would be flyover Republicans). Just a couple days ago on Reddit, in a discussion on SpaceX, space exploration, and why the latter is becoming "right wing" coded, several people proposed that "space" is right-wing because going into space is totally unnecessary, and Earth will be more than enough, if only we can get reproduction and population growth under control — and therefore "parental licensing" is both necessary and inevitable. The only problem they could see with it was the need to figure out how to keep "the wrong people… (right wing conservatives)," from taking it over and using it to promote "racism, inequality, sexism, ableism and the like" (as opposed to using it against their enemies).

How would your conservative communities handle being systematically denied parenthood licenses?

Or how about trying to "hide your power-level" when FMRI scans get good enough at reading brain activity — and the software good enough at interpreting it — that the government can actually detect "thoughtcrimes" when they question you "under scan"?

By growing until we have the numbers to control the place.

Again, you're naïve if you think that will be allowed. Even with the fertility advantage, it's mostly being offset by lousy youth retention rates among most groups. Why will that change for the better, rather than the worse. The current trend is still toward becoming a smaller and smaller minority. Sure, the projections have that turning around in the longer run… but before it does, we'll be at our smallest and weakest? Why wouldn't that — when things start to turn around and the fraction starts growing again — be the time for them to really crack down and crush us?

I get that you can't picture a future moment where the last social conservative alive is on his or her knees next to a ditch with a gun to their head, but I can. (I imagine your objection ultimately comes down to your belief that God won't allow such an outcome.)

Naïvely over-optimistic. For example, it's been a staple of 20th century sci-fi that eventually the government is going to regulate and license parenthood to prevent "overpopulation." Most of my classmates in college back in the early 2000s thought it was necessary — both to "save the environment" and to prevent "the wrong sort" from having kids (some defined "wrong sort" in terms of genetics, others in term of likely bad "nurture", but both agreed the target would be flyover Republicans). Just a couple days ago on Reddit, in a discussion on SpaceX, space exploration, and why the latter is becoming "right wing" coded, several people proposed that "space" is right-wing because going into space is totally unnecessary, and Earth will be more than enough, if only we can get reproduction and population growth under control — and therefore "parental licensing" is both necessary and inevitable. The only problem they could see with it was the need to figure out how to keep "the wrong people… (right wing conservatives)," from taking it over and using it to promote "racism, inequality, sexism, ableism and the like" (as opposed to using it against their enemies).

How would your conservative communities handle being systematically denied parenthood licenses?

On a scale of things to be prepared for from 'not going to the beach in case a dog swimming with a gun in its mouth accidentally shoots you' to 'keeping jumper cables in your car' this is very firmly on the not having kids so they don't die in school shooting end of the spectrum.