domain:youtu.be
ThisIsSin
The boob tube emits harmful XXX-rays
5m ago
I am worried about losing the ability to maintain an industrial society.
The problem with highly-automated industrial societies is that you need relatively few people to maintain them. They need to be intelligent, of course- that's why hay gets made about "only the stupid breeding"- but the first indication that there were way too many people for a society to house without serious efforts towards UBI/make-work/bureaucratic expansion came to the US in the 1930s and it's weird nobody seems to realize this.
South Korea has a surplus of people relative to the economic opportunity that can be found there; that's why their education system is a hellscape, that's why women don't feel the need to marry men for resources nor are men in a position to accumulate an attractive surplus (since the average man and average women are roughly equal in industrial and post-industrial productivity, and the men lose some of that through the draft, and the women complain that the post-military men just show up and compete successfully for the same level of jobs).
Their TFR of 0.7, and the fact men can't attract women/women can't be attracted to men in equal conditions like that, is thus natural and probably good for the country long-term, but certainly not beneficial in the short-term (you'll see this effect in Russia after the war even if they lose; perhaps the best thing for South Korea to do at this point is to invade the North, since they've got a lot of resources they aren't using there).
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
25m ago
Most people in the first world don't roll infants around in the dirt, certainly. Also, there's something called neonatal tetanus which is probably caused by contamination of the blade used to cut the umbilical cord -- but not only is that something that should be very rare in the first world, the vaccine has to be given to the mother, not the infant.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
26m ago
This is how I treat my toilet paper. However I would not say I hate my toilet paper at all, in fact I am usually very grateful that it is present (assuming no bidet etc.) and would be very upset if it were missing.
Well, as I just explained, "hate" in the sense of harboring personal animosity isn't the same as "hate" in the sense of considering someone to be less than human, but I don't think women who claim men hate them are wrong when pointing to men who think it's appropriate to regard them as equivalent to toilet paper.
ThisIsSin
The boob tube emits harmful XXX-rays
27m ago
Strivers the world over generally have lower fertility rates, and everyone in these countries is a striver. Add incredibly dense urbanism and the lack of religious influence to raise fertility, it's not that hard to explain.
Also, remember the last time the [urban] US had South Korean-level birthrates: it was 1910-1920, and people were packing hard into cities to work sweatshop jobs in an economy that was hollow as fuck (and would collapse in 1929). [A TFR of 2.3 in a country that was 50% rural suggest the urban areas were serious fertility shredders.]
Remember also that China in particular is trying to make sure this doesn't happen by limiting the number of people from rural areas that will ever be allowed to take the sweatshop jobs- one could argue the Depression happened in the US because this process happened too quickly.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
33m ago
"Notwithstanding", but I've never seen "sigma" used to mean that. Sometimes "modulo" is.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
46m ago
Yep, that's what people were colloquially (and maybe even officially, I don't remember) calling the day all restrictions were set to be lifted. I don't recall any limitations being re-imposed after that. I admit that for a while if you tested positive for covid you were still required to self-isolate for 10-14 days, but I wouldn't call that hysteria.
Prominent health officials were arguing for re-establishing some level of restrictions around the time of the Omicron variant but Boris Johnson overrode them on that.
SteveKirk
54m ago
My suspicion is that the race thing got a bit too real once journalists and academics started losing jobs to dei, they don't want to touch the transsexual thing with a 10' dilator right now, and so the only culture war left to push is warmed-over '14-'18 feminism.
And the idea of not pushing on any culture war front just doesn't occur to people who consider journalism and activism to be synonymous
BurdensomeCount
Apparently "BIPOC" is a racial slur now.
54m ago
I consider you to be a disposable object to be used, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant because you're not really even a person
This is how I treat my toilet paper. However I would not say I hate my toilet paper at all, in fact I am usually very grateful that it is present (assuming no bidet etc.) and would be very upset if it were missing.
Hate requires having a certain intensity of feeling and even if we were talking about particularly poor toilet paper I've got better things to do than give the requisite number epicycles to thinking so hard about the toilet paper than I can reasonably say I hate it (perhaps if it were the toilet paper used in all the toilets at my workplace so I used it on a daily basis then yes I might dedicate enough cycles, but if it's like a toilet in a shopping mall I rarely ever visit then sorry, I don't have the brain cycles to waste on hating the toilet paper).
For someone who's very sexually successful they may well have better things to do than waste their limited number of brain cycles on what exactly their next sex partner thinks, no different to how I have zero desire to waste brain cycles on what the guy sitting next to me on the train thinks, purely because of how abundance makes humans value things less, no hate involved (were the guy next to me on the train the only person I'd met in the last month I'd probably care about what he thought, but under current conditions, he's just an "eh").
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
55m ago
Firefighters arriving after the fire starts is perfectly fine.
However, if the firefighters are wandering around with petrol and matches before the fire starts, then we have problems - especially when it comes to paying them a hefty bill for their services.
AppleyOrange
55m ago
So you believe there was fraud in 2020 and 2024, but no evidence of fraud in either years?
Felagund
56m ago
Everyone who brings up the suicide discourse to score a point is contributing to the problem. We know that suicide, like many other things, spreads socially; that's why newspapers try not to cover suicides too much. But for some reason, we decide to convince teenagers that the proper way to spite people who won't give them the gender treatment that they want is by suicide. No wonder suicide rates are astronomical.
disposablehead
Hipster eugenicist
1hr ago
The problem is, we don’t have cures. We have drugs that at particular doses have positive risk/benefit ratios for a particular condition for most patients. If every bottle of Tylenol is priced to cover the liability for liver damage I’m not sure pharmacies continue to exist.
Felagund
1hr ago
Oh, woah, I hadn't realized that you were ex-trans. Have you given a description of what things were like for you somewhere? Your life history? (If so, where? If not, I'd be interested.)
BurdensomeCount
Apparently "BIPOC" is a racial slur now.
1hr ago
Organisms that are supposed to reproduce, will. Defective organisms that are unable to reproduce will weed themselves out, and rightfully so. It's almost a tautology.
Agreed. Just take a look at Elon Musk's progeny. The expected value of grandchildren he's going to get from one of his normal children is much higher than the expected value of grandchildren he'll get from his trans daughter. Iterate for a few generations and the deleterious memetic mutations will weed themselves out.
Felagund
1hr ago
"I believe that the vast vast majority of doctors providing gender affirming care through therapy, puberty blockers, and in very rare cases surgery, are doing so with the best interests of the child in mind, which was not the case for castrati historically as I understand it."
While I'm sure that a great many of the people in the process have good intentions, I do not think that they are often acting with good judgment. In your example, killing is murder unless you kill the right person in the right context. But it does not merely suffice that you think that what you're doing is the right situation ("they really had it coming"), but that it actually be that.
I don't really have a good sense of what things were like for castrati. I think they (or at least, those who were successful) were not infrequently of fairly high social status, but I'm not at all sure of that.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1hr ago
I’m still getting a feel for it, but to be honest early observations are very concerning. A lot of academics just spouting extremely simplistic leftist takes. I’m trying to see how my pushback is received. I’m sure I’ll have more observations later.
jeroboam
1hr ago
Agreed, this is wishcasting. Almost no one in the real world is doing this. The whole premise is bunk anyway. Most women don't want weak men who bend to society. They want strong men who mold reality.
Probably the bigger problem in South Korea isn't misogyny but rather effeminate men.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1hr ago
When I mentioned "the worship of the weak and ugly and broken" I was referring to Wokeness as a whole that elevates ugly and broken people.
The big point I’m trying to get across is that while ressentiment toward popular attractive normal white people is a major component of wokeness, it has not significantly impacted pop music during the time you’re claiming that it did. There were still tons of normal attractive white pop stars during this time, selling out arenas. For every Lizzo there’s a dozen thin and sexually normative men and women outselling her and outperforming her on the charts.
If anything, pop music is far more the exclusive domain of pretty people than it was in previous eras you’re pointing to; the collapse of “bands” as a viable commercial music model led to a marked decrease in the number of unattractive-but-musically-gifted pop musicians. In the 1970s and 80s, Billy Joel could become a successful popular musician, selling out arenas to young people. There is no equivalent whatsoever in the world of pop music today. Maybe Adele? But of course Adele was noted as an extreme exception at the time because it was so rare for unattractive people to become successful and marketable pop musicians - and it still is today.
Can you just acknowledge that Katy Perry's "persona" is not the same as Taylor Swift's? And that the latter is playing a straight archetype of popular white girl? Katy Perry is not going for that, she has her own image and look. I don't think Katy Perry plays the "popular girl next door" persona like Swift does. I don't think Perry goes for the "Prom Queen white girl vibe" like Swift embraces.
No, I do not acknowledge that, which is the whole source of our disagreement.
Firstly, on the subject of Katy Perry: I would submit her music video for “Teenage Dream” as a perfect encapsulation of the “popular and attractive white girl has sex with jocky white guy” archetype you’re pointing to. Katy Perry in her prime was every bit the gorgeous prom-queen type of woman you’re gesturing at; is it just the fact that she isn’t blonde and Germanic-looking responsible for you associating her with some other sort of image? I’m not sure what “archetype” you imagine her to be portraying.
Now, on to Taylor Swift. Which era of Swift’s career are we talking about? Like, the whole conceit of the Eras tour is based on the fact that her image, the thematic content of her music, her appearance, have all fluctuated dramatically throughout various junctures in her career. These fluctuations can roughly be sorted in terms of her different albums, or at least in clusters of albums.
The first stage of her career was her “country era”: her eponymous debut album (2006), Fearless (2008), and Speak Now (2010). On these albums she absolutely does not embody the “popular girl/prom queen” archetype; again, on her biggest hit from this era (“You Belong With Me”) she very explicitly places herself in contrast with this archetype. Her lyrical themes in this era are about vulnerable and wholesome teen romance, from the perspective of a sort of outsider. (Swift herself never finished high school, instead transferring to a homeschooling academy that could accommodate her extensive touring schedule.) Her Christian upbringing heavily influenced her lyrical content and image at this time. The “girl next door” archetype may be tentatively applied to her at this time, although it’s specifically the kind of girl who will expect you to marry her before she puts out. (So, certainly not the archetypal “prom queen”, who traditionally has a healthy sex life with her jock prom queen boyfriend.
Then you have her pop-transition era with Red (2012) and 1989 (2014). I will grant you that in this specific era, she’s more comfortably embodying the “hot popular girl with conventional interests and opinions common to mainstream white people” archetype. She also surrounded herself in public with a bunch of models and attractive female celebrities, nearly all of them white. If you were making your argument during this period of time, I would uncontroversially agree with you. Still, though, none of these albums include any swear words, so she’s still hanging onto her more reserved and conservative roots at this time.
Then on Reputation (2017) she becomes more jaded, self-conscious, and ambivalent about her fame, her public reputation (hence the album title), her romantic failures, etc. It’s the first Swift album with a swear word, and it also contains a ton of more “urban” musical influences. Its lyrical content contains a lot of personal introspection, discussion of her own personal foibles, and emotional depth. It is certainly not the work of someone who is blithely comfortable in her own skin and her own high-status normality, which is what the “prom queen” archetype is all about.
On Lover (2019) she’s somewhat back to the popular-girl side of her personality; it’s also the first Swift album containing political commentary, with the song “You Need To Calm Down” crudely attacking “homophobia”. Still, though, it’s decent ammunition for your claim that she’s leaning into the “popular girl” thing. (Other than on “Paper Wings”, my favorite song on the album.)
However, this archetype is totally abandoned on Folklore (2020) and Evermore (2020). This is where she begins her “crunchy art hoe” era. These albums have an almost Joni Mitchell style singer-songwriter vibe. They’re not anything that a prom queen would be capable of producing or identifying with. Everything from the production to Swift’s image during this time is very understated, very organic, very unpreposessing. (During this time, Swift put out a ton of videos of her at home with no makeup, in her pajamas, hanging out with her cats and writing music. This is the work of someone who wants to project a very different sort of “normality” than the popular girl/influencer type.)
Now with her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, she’s still pretty much in her artsy era, although of course the authenticity of it is somewhat complicated by the fact that she’s now a billionaire. And of course especially now that she’s dating Travis Kelce and is looking hotter than ever, that “popular girl with the jock boyfriend” is an unavoidable part of her public persona, since it’s actually uncontrovertibly true about her for the first time in her life. But it has not been a constant throughout her career, is not the primary reason for her popularity (since it wasn’t true during large portions of her success and popularity) and is only one element of her appeal. Popular girls can see themselves in Swift, but so can gawky PMC and academic types, and even conservative Christian purity types can vibe strongly with her first three albums. She’s a chameleon of sorts, not really an “archetype” or “persona” in the way you’re claiming. She’s many things to many people, and any attempt to reduce her to a particular archetype is going to run up against counterexamples from her own life and career, depending on where you want to point to.
jeroboam
1hr ago
Yes. Fix torts and we can unlock a lot of benefits. But let's not put the cart before the horse.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
They don't really expect their husbands to love or even like them, they do not expect sex to be enjoyable, and they are expected to be essentially maidservants for their husbands' families. (There is an entire genre of Korean horror movies about evil mother-in-laws.)
This seems common with pagan cultures. Like we knock on Islam for its(tbh, pretty repressive) treatment of women, but Islamic religion does tell husbands to take their wives' wants and needs into account and care for them. Scott just reviewed a book all about how early Christianity spread by telling women that it would make their husbands love them. And a pretty good chunk of the republican fertility advantage in the US comes from telling young women that socially conservative values will make men love them and treat them better(there's an entire genre of country music about loving on women who are babycrazy and have strong family values and how they're worth holding off on sex for and cutting back on drinking to reasonable levels and all that).
You don't have to deny women opportunities on a societal level to make their lives suck. Women are not the same as men, you can totally set up society to make it so they get the short end of the stick in hundreds of little ways.
jeroboam
1hr ago
Let's see what RFK can do. Maybe we'll start directing dollars towards effective interventions and away from ruinously expensive and ineffective ones.
I agree that America should be more like Europe and Asia by harshly prosecuting violent crime and refusing to tolerate drugs. We should probably also adopt European food standards where breakfast cereal has 5 simple ingredients instead of 20 unpronouncable ones.
ThenElection
1hr ago
I don't know why the election has triggered a renewed gender war. The gender gap remained the same, or even decreased : https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/
Even if you think there's new evidence that says it makes sense to use sex as a carrot to convince men to vote Democratic, isn't going full Lysistrata a bad idea? If Democratic women go on an absolute intimacy strike while Republican women are still happy to form relationships etc., for men who would be swayed by such things, it just creates an incentive to become Republican.
Lastly, it seems self limiting: as women drop out of the relationship market, the women who choose to remain in it move up in terms of the quality of the men they can get.
All of this is probably overthinking things, though, as it seems mostly like a temper tantrum of the overly online set.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
1hr ago
babies are recommended to get 2 influenza shots in the first 12 months of life, so the number is 20 and not 18.
The standard recommendation is one shot in the first year of life.
If we're counting the combos, MMR & DTaP would count for 24 and not 18 (8 total doses of these shots).
Yes, 24 is the number I used after breaking down the vaccine cocktails.
HPV is 2 or 3 doses.
HPV is one or two doses.
When I count, I get 72 or 73 not including the RSV.
You are still hiding the ball, because you've counted 47 with some fudging and there's only 24 other recommended shots on the schedule. Even with these inflated numbers you only get 71. "A hundred dollars? What do you need fifty dollars for?"
boosters (teal),
Boosters are not teal, teal shots are not recommended for all children.
South Koreans really aren't very effeminate compared to other East Asians. They all go through military service which seems to change a substantial portion of them physically and mentally, at least IME. The problem (as explained in the linked AAQC) really does seem to be mostly caused by (unrealistically) high female standards.
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