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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34906 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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You mention being 24, so I was curious if you'd ever seen The Life of Julia. It was heavily criticized at the time for taking a "nanny state will care for me cradle to grave" approach.

Now honestly... in a hypothetical world where all of these items were attained, do you honestly think you'd even want children?

Yes! I think that a world like that would be wonderful, and I would likely have many more children than I plan to have. Maybe have them forever. The life of Julia is a life that had a robust system of safeties designed to help her when she fails and when she suceeds, such as healthcare coverage until she turns 26 to help with sudden medical emergencies and programs like Head Start to protect her from the effects of abusive parents. If any of these government programs actually forced Julia to do something she didn't want to do, I would agree that The Life of Julia promotes a "nanny" state, but nowhere did I see any federal agency or legislation that forced Julia to make a life choice. I see, in fact, Julia has many more choices and freedoms given to her with the strong social safety net I believe those programs provide.

Can you think of any countries in, say, Europe, who have many or all of these policies you say would encourage you to have more children where women actually go and have more children?

I mean, I'm not sure I believe it totally, but I wouldn't totally throw out an argument that the reason why countries in Europe aren't at South Korean-levels of fertility are those programs, and if they had a less robust US-style welfare system, they'd even be lower. Obviously, impossible to prove a negative, but yeah, considering our increase religiosity as a country, etc., if the US had European-style welfare, I could see our TFR being a notch or two higher. Not high enough for natalists, but better overall.

I am not familiar with countries in Europe, much less their economic policies, so I cannot think of any.

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