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8 comments
It's hard to tell what specific ideas this article is suggesting. "We have to kick out patriarchy and welcome in matriarchy", OK, how? What does that concretely mean?
> It's hard to tell what specific ideas this article is suggesting. "We have to kick out patriarchy and welcome in matriarchy", OK, how? What does that concretely mean?
Nothing, really. It's just attitude. Patriarchy vs. matriarchy is just needless and counterproductive polarization.
Nothing, really. It's just attitude. Patriarchy vs. matriarchy is just needless and counterproductive polarization.
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I see all of these analyses, and I think they're all wrong. They say stuff like:
> The main reason cited? The astronomical cost.
> Then there’s the state of the world. Climate change is looming over us. War is breaking out across the globe. Political instability has never felt more visceral than it does in an age where we see people murdered by state officials on our news feeds. It’s no wonder people are electing to delay or avoid having children to protect potential offspring from growing up in a broken world.
I call bullshit on both of these.
People who live in less comfort have more children.
I think we've reached such a high standard of living - autonomy, freedom from boredom, entertainment at the press of a button, etc. - that I couldn't even imagine trying to fit children into this as a man with all the money in the world.
There isn't enough time.
The middle class today have access to better lives than King Louis. Infinite entertainment, better food, vices, etc. Despite pressures, we're living in luxury relative to the past (minus that post-WWII bubble of abundance - that was an outlier). Life is too good, and we're holding everything to an incredible standard. Nobody wants to give up on that.
One hundred and fifty years ago you'd send your child to school barefoot and in rags.
Peter Zeihan likes to call children "expensive furniture". In the past, kids would be free labor for the farm. Nowadays, they come with rules, expectations, appointments. You're meant to helicopter over them, spend tons of money on them. They cost "a million dollars each" or something ridiculous. Gone are the days of making your children paint the fence for a nickel.
Who made these ridiculous rules?
But even that isn't the main reason.
We're asking modern adult parents to give up concerts, smart phones, video games, travel, hanging out with other adults. This is a uniquely post-millennial adulthood experience. In the past, these entitlements for adults were scarce. Adults had children and bore responsibility, and that's it. Now that's unthinkable. Adults have fun. Fun that's so abundant that we all have to maintain a baseline of dopamine, otherwise we feel ill.
Imagine going a week without your smartphone. That's the environment that produced the most kids. That era is gone.
The poorest regions are still having kids because they haven't been absorbed into the modern social internet experiment and pleasure chamber yet.
Smartphones and modern dopamine addiction killed kids.
I'm not making a value judgement, I'm just saying this is the reality we're in now vs. the past.
> The main reason cited? The astronomical cost.
> Then there’s the state of the world. Climate change is looming over us. War is breaking out across the globe. Political instability has never felt more visceral than it does in an age where we see people murdered by state officials on our news feeds. It’s no wonder people are electing to delay or avoid having children to protect potential offspring from growing up in a broken world.
I call bullshit on both of these.
People who live in less comfort have more children.
I think we've reached such a high standard of living - autonomy, freedom from boredom, entertainment at the press of a button, etc. - that I couldn't even imagine trying to fit children into this as a man with all the money in the world.
There isn't enough time.
The middle class today have access to better lives than King Louis. Infinite entertainment, better food, vices, etc. Despite pressures, we're living in luxury relative to the past (minus that post-WWII bubble of abundance - that was an outlier). Life is too good, and we're holding everything to an incredible standard. Nobody wants to give up on that.
One hundred and fifty years ago you'd send your child to school barefoot and in rags.
Peter Zeihan likes to call children "expensive furniture". In the past, kids would be free labor for the farm. Nowadays, they come with rules, expectations, appointments. You're meant to helicopter over them, spend tons of money on them. They cost "a million dollars each" or something ridiculous. Gone are the days of making your children paint the fence for a nickel.
Who made these ridiculous rules?
But even that isn't the main reason.
We're asking modern adult parents to give up concerts, smart phones, video games, travel, hanging out with other adults. This is a uniquely post-millennial adulthood experience. In the past, these entitlements for adults were scarce. Adults had children and bore responsibility, and that's it. Now that's unthinkable. Adults have fun. Fun that's so abundant that we all have to maintain a baseline of dopamine, otherwise we feel ill.
Imagine going a week without your smartphone. That's the environment that produced the most kids. That era is gone.
The poorest regions are still having kids because they haven't been absorbed into the modern social internet experiment and pleasure chamber yet.
Smartphones and modern dopamine addiction killed kids.
I'm not making a value judgement, I'm just saying this is the reality we're in now vs. the past.
Yeah I kinda agree. I also think maybe like, having kids kinda blows. Maybe people just weren't able to choose before?
> Yeah I kinda agree. I also think maybe like, having kids kinda blows. Maybe people just weren't able to choose before?
Having kids is a lot of work, but it's great. It's definitely not self-centered hedonistic pleasure, though.
If you're all like, "what's in it for me" having kids is probably not for you.
Having kids is a lot of work, but it's great. It's definitely not self-centered hedonistic pleasure, though.
If you're all like, "what's in it for me" having kids is probably not for you.
What else was there to do?
Before 2000, TV was only "on" for three hours a day. You'd run out of things to read in the newspaper.
Before 1940, there was literally nothing else to do.
Before 2000, TV was only "on" for three hours a day. You'd run out of things to read in the newspaper.
Before 1940, there was literally nothing else to do.
> Even as the government expands free nursery hours, it’s not enough to make having a child financially viable for many people. The fantasy of the one-working-parent household is no longer the norm, and parents are being destroyed by exorbitant childcare fees.
Socialism fails because it’s paid for by taxes on the youth anyway, it’s just a circular waste of money after the bureaucracy takes their cut. Stop stealing the youth’s wealth with socialism and taxes for the sake of the old.
Socialism fails because it’s paid for by taxes on the youth anyway, it’s just a circular waste of money after the bureaucracy takes their cut. Stop stealing the youth’s wealth with socialism and taxes for the sake of the old.