Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: Even if you've fathered a child, I would still be unable to fathom why you would deem yourself worthier than your peers just because you have popped a little squeak into existence. You haven't even popped it yourself, you just took part in impregnating a woman.
Yes, it's a logistical nightmare, to be fair the original proposition deals with family units as such - presumably meaning stepparents' voting power would be boosted, divorcees' probably decreased.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: It is just plain ridiculous to state that childless people invest nothing or do not enrich societies. Isaac Newton had no children. I mean, Jesus Christ had no children. Need I state more? Plato. Joan of Arc. Beethoven. Leonardo da Vinci. Tesla was also childless. Let me expand a little. Einstein had children. Yet do you think him being father is a greater boon to humanity than General and Special relativity, the frameworks that our whole existence is mostly based upon? What I think is that laughable arguments like "you have no child, you're a social burden," are attractants for the most uneducated crowd that disgusting con-men who dub themselves politicians prey upon.
That is a great argument. If I see someone who makes the claim that it's impossible for a childless person to contribute to society, or even to their family, I will tell it to them. Nonetheless, there is a collective responsibility to have children. It may not necessarily distribute to every single individual. Just as if you have a group of 10 bystanders who witness a crime, no single bystander need intervene or call the police. Yet if everybody sits on their hands, they have collectively failed. If two people intervene only to get killed along with the original victim, the group has failed also. It's shared.
On August 09 2024 14:03 Sermokala wrote: The Minnesota national guard has made repeated statements supporting walz over the years (and its walz not waltz like vance keeps saying for some reason) on this issue.
Could you cite two of these statements? Legitimately all I can find is his former comrades and the guy who replaced him trashing him.
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
So I'm posting this here instead of in UK politics because it might have an effect on US companies, as well as the US/UK relationship.
Elon Musk has recently taken to having a massive hissy fit aimed at Kier Starmer and the Labour Party in the UK. I suspect Starmer has told him he needs to sort Twitter out after deliberately spread misinformation led to the UK riots last week.
Musk responded, partly, by retweeting false information posted by the head of Britain First, a far right ultranationalist group. That's the owner of Twitter doing that.
The response has been that the Mayor of London and some in the Labour party have spoken out about the 'online safety' bill which is coming into effect in the UK next year. It could seriously effect how Twitter and other social media websites work in this country and make them responsible for misinformation posted on their platform.
Elon Musk is ruining things for everyone, basically.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: This is some crazy quiverfull shit from Oblade. Need to have children to vote? Need to "pay taxes" to vote?
You cannot imbalance rights and responsibilities in society at large.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: A billionaire getting more votes because thats "more fair"
This is the opposite of what I wrote.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: Even if you've fathered a child, I would still be unable to fathom why you would deem yourself worthier than your peers just because you have popped a little squeak into existence. You haven't even popped it yourself, you just took part in impregnating a woman.
Yes, it's a logistical nightmare, to be fair the original proposition deals with family units as such - presumably meaning stepparents' voting power would be boosted, divorcees' probably decreased.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: It is just plain ridiculous to state that childless people invest nothing or do not enrich societies. Isaac Newton had no children. I mean, Jesus Christ had no children. Need I state more? Plato. Joan of Arc. Beethoven. Leonardo da Vinci. Tesla was also childless. Let me expand a little. Einstein had children. Yet do you think him being father is a greater boon to humanity than General and Special relativity, the frameworks that our whole existence is mostly based upon? What I think is that laughable arguments like "you have no child, you're a social burden," are attractants for the most uneducated crowd that disgusting con-men who dub themselves politicians prey upon.
That is a great argument. If I see someone who makes the claim that it's impossible for a childless person to contribute to society, or even to their family, I will tell it to them. Nonetheless, there is a collective responsibility to have children. It may not necessarily distribute to every single individual. Just as if you have a group of 10 bystanders who witness a crime, no single bystander need intervene or call the police. Yet if everybody sits on their hands, they have collectively failed. If two people intervene only to get killed along with the original victim, the group has failed also. It's shared.
On August 09 2024 14:03 Sermokala wrote: The Minnesota national guard has made repeated statements supporting walz over the years (and its walz not waltz like vance keeps saying for some reason) on this issue.
Could you cite two of these statements? Legitimately all I can find is his former comrades and the guy who replaced him trashing him.
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
I think that "Social Media" Plattforms need to start paying minmum wage to it's userbase. Userbase is generating, curating and promoting content that gets advertisement slapped on, so they do the work here. Plattforms know down to the minute how much time you spent there.. and so they need to start paying, and since users become employees, their employer can be held accountable for their actions (press code or other).
This is my silver bullet.
Trump Brain missfiring for over one hour:
Edit:
Favorite Lies:
- Kambala Harris didn't pass the bar exam - electric cars of 2,5 Tonnes make bridges in america collapse - Nobody in the history of any country ever got more crowd than trump rally - The world - and south america- is releasing prison and insance asylum population to the US - With president Trump, you wouldn't have ukraine, or oct7, or Gaza war, or having to pay 9 Dollars per barrel of gas - Democrats caused inflation because of the energy energy, now they do the trump and drilling
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: This is some crazy quiverfull shit from Oblade. Need to have children to vote? Need to "pay taxes" to vote?
You cannot imbalance rights and responsibilities in society at large.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: A billionaire getting more votes because thats "more fair"
This is the opposite of what I wrote.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: Even if you've fathered a child, I would still be unable to fathom why you would deem yourself worthier than your peers just because you have popped a little squeak into existence. You haven't even popped it yourself, you just took part in impregnating a woman.
Yes, it's a logistical nightmare, to be fair the original proposition deals with family units as such - presumably meaning stepparents' voting power would be boosted, divorcees' probably decreased.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: It is just plain ridiculous to state that childless people invest nothing or do not enrich societies. Isaac Newton had no children. I mean, Jesus Christ had no children. Need I state more? Plato. Joan of Arc. Beethoven. Leonardo da Vinci. Tesla was also childless. Let me expand a little. Einstein had children. Yet do you think him being father is a greater boon to humanity than General and Special relativity, the frameworks that our whole existence is mostly based upon? What I think is that laughable arguments like "you have no child, you're a social burden," are attractants for the most uneducated crowd that disgusting con-men who dub themselves politicians prey upon.
That is a great argument. If I see someone who makes the claim that it's impossible for a childless person to contribute to society, or even to their family, I will tell it to them. Nonetheless, there is a collective responsibility to have children. It may not necessarily distribute to every single individual. Just as if you have a group of 10 bystanders who witness a crime, no single bystander need intervene or call the police. Yet if everybody sits on their hands, they have collectively failed. If two people intervene only to get killed along with the original victim, the group has failed also. It's shared.
On August 09 2024 14:03 Sermokala wrote: The Minnesota national guard has made repeated statements supporting walz over the years (and its walz not waltz like vance keeps saying for some reason) on this issue.
Could you cite two of these statements? Legitimately all I can find is his former comrades and the guy who replaced him trashing him.
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
The ratio of workers to retirees in developed countries is around 3-to-1, it used to be much higher but as fertility rates drop and life expectancy increases this ratio is getting lower and lower.
So imagine how things would look like if it were 1-to-1.5. You would only be able to win elections on a platform that maximizes the pensions squeezed out of an ever shrinking working strata. That's also unsustainable, you'd have massive unrest and "kill old people" movements.
We could avoid the pitfalls of a lowering population by automating most work, but only if we fix the distribution of machine produced wealth before we have trillionaires with AGIs and private armies.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: This is some crazy quiverfull shit from Oblade. Need to have children to vote? Need to "pay taxes" to vote?
You cannot imbalance rights and responsibilities in society at large.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: A billionaire getting more votes because thats "more fair"
This is the opposite of what I wrote.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: Even if you've fathered a child, I would still be unable to fathom why you would deem yourself worthier than your peers just because you have popped a little squeak into existence. You haven't even popped it yourself, you just took part in impregnating a woman.
Yes, it's a logistical nightmare, to be fair the original proposition deals with family units as such - presumably meaning stepparents' voting power would be boosted, divorcees' probably decreased.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: It is just plain ridiculous to state that childless people invest nothing or do not enrich societies. Isaac Newton had no children. I mean, Jesus Christ had no children. Need I state more? Plato. Joan of Arc. Beethoven. Leonardo da Vinci. Tesla was also childless. Let me expand a little. Einstein had children. Yet do you think him being father is a greater boon to humanity than General and Special relativity, the frameworks that our whole existence is mostly based upon? What I think is that laughable arguments like "you have no child, you're a social burden," are attractants for the most uneducated crowd that disgusting con-men who dub themselves politicians prey upon.
That is a great argument. If I see someone who makes the claim that it's impossible for a childless person to contribute to society, or even to their family, I will tell it to them. Nonetheless, there is a collective responsibility to have children. It may not necessarily distribute to every single individual. Just as if you have a group of 10 bystanders who witness a crime, no single bystander need intervene or call the police. Yet if everybody sits on their hands, they have collectively failed. If two people intervene only to get killed along with the original victim, the group has failed also. It's shared.
On August 09 2024 14:03 Sermokala wrote: The Minnesota national guard has made repeated statements supporting walz over the years (and its walz not waltz like vance keeps saying for some reason) on this issue.
Could you cite two of these statements? Legitimately all I can find is his former comrades and the guy who replaced him trashing him.
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
Some selected birth rates per woman. Some surprised me a lot! South Korea: 0,8 Puerto Rico: 0,9 Spain: 1,2 Finland: 1,3 Norway: 1,4 Russia: 1,4 Cuba: 1,4 Sweden: 1,5 UK: 1,6 US: 1,7 France: 1,8 Venezuela: 2,2 Low income countries: 4,5
Population decline is terrible for a society. The main problem is the elderly: you get an increasingly large group of elderly, and a shrinking working population to pay taxes to take care of them and pay their pensions. France and Russia have had serious interial turmoil because of pension reforms, and this is coming everywhere.
When the population is shrinking, you need to cut down on a system which is rigged for more people. Hospitals and schools need to be closed, infrastructure abandoned, business will face staffing shortages. You are forced to make nasty cuts in public service to face the new reality, and it HURTS.
The US has ok so far because of immigrants, but this is not sustainable long term. Emptying poorer countries from their young and working population is robbing them of their best asset. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, the birth rates are already on the lower side. If the conditions get better, the immigration waves might even turn. In Spain, there has been heavy immigration both to and from South America depending on where the conditions are better.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: This is some crazy quiverfull shit from Oblade. Need to have children to vote? Need to "pay taxes" to vote?
You cannot imbalance rights and responsibilities in society at large.
On August 09 2024 09:48 Sadist wrote: A billionaire getting more votes because thats "more fair"
This is the opposite of what I wrote.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: Even if you've fathered a child, I would still be unable to fathom why you would deem yourself worthier than your peers just because you have popped a little squeak into existence. You haven't even popped it yourself, you just took part in impregnating a woman.
Yes, it's a logistical nightmare, to be fair the original proposition deals with family units as such - presumably meaning stepparents' voting power would be boosted, divorcees' probably decreased.
On August 09 2024 06:12 JoinTheRain wrote: It is just plain ridiculous to state that childless people invest nothing or do not enrich societies. Isaac Newton had no children. I mean, Jesus Christ had no children. Need I state more? Plato. Joan of Arc. Beethoven. Leonardo da Vinci. Tesla was also childless. Let me expand a little. Einstein had children. Yet do you think him being father is a greater boon to humanity than General and Special relativity, the frameworks that our whole existence is mostly based upon? What I think is that laughable arguments like "you have no child, you're a social burden," are attractants for the most uneducated crowd that disgusting con-men who dub themselves politicians prey upon.
That is a great argument. If I see someone who makes the claim that it's impossible for a childless person to contribute to society, or even to their family, I will tell it to them. Nonetheless, there is a collective responsibility to have children. It may not necessarily distribute to every single individual. Just as if you have a group of 10 bystanders who witness a crime, no single bystander need intervene or call the police. Yet if everybody sits on their hands, they have collectively failed. If two people intervene only to get killed along with the original victim, the group has failed also. It's shared.
On August 09 2024 14:03 Sermokala wrote: The Minnesota national guard has made repeated statements supporting walz over the years (and its walz not waltz like vance keeps saying for some reason) on this issue.
Could you cite two of these statements? Legitimately all I can find is his former comrades and the guy who replaced him trashing him.
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
Some selected birth rates per woman. Some surprised me a lot! South Korea: 0,8 Puerto Rico: 0,9 Spain: 1,2 Finland: 1,3 Norway: 1,4 Russia: 1,4 Cuba: 1,4 Sweden: 1,5 UK: 1,6 US: 1,7 France: 1,8 Venezuela: 2,2 Low income countries: 4,5
Population decline is terrible for a society. The main problem is the elderly: you get an increasingly large group of elderly, and a shrinking working population to pay taxes to take care of them and pay their pensions. France and Russia have had serious interial turmoil because of pension reforms, and this is coming everywhere.
When the population is shrinking, you need to cut down on a system which is rigged for more people. Hospitals and schools need to be closed, infrastructure abandoned, business will face staffing shortages. You are forced to make nasty cuts in public service to face the new reality, and it HURTS.
The US has ok so far because of immigrants, but this is not sustainable long term. Emptying poorer countries from their young and working population is robbing them of their best asset. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, the birth rates are already on the lower side. If the conditions get better, the immigration waves might even turn. In Spain, there has been heavy immigration both to and from South America depending on where the conditions are better.
Having a large percentage of old people in your population has other effects too.
Ask anyone in the UK who just had to deal with 14 years of conservative government.
Or Germany, with basicly 40 years of conservatives, sometimes wearing the colors of social democrats (now Schröder is basicly an asset to putin).
Germany is very kid-friendly, yet the (native) population still shrinks.
- 75000€/Child as Kindergeld (250€/mo) - Taxbreaks - Subsidized Childcare - Paid Maternal/Paternal leave (up to 2 years with 70% of pay, with the guarantee of re-assume your old position on unlimited contracts) - Free School, University - Health insurance for kids covererd by parents insurance - In case of lay offs, people caring for children get more protection from losing their job
Yet our demographic is getting old, and population is shrinking (as I understood you'd need fertility >2 to even keep the level)
So conservatives trying to trick peope into having kids by withholding sex-ed, contraceptives and abortion is one way.. but in reality people don't want to have kids because they can think of better things to do.
100% agree that the effects of an ageing population are not pretty and I'm not unduly concerned about who's going to pay my pension.
Nevertheless, the world's population numbers need to come down or we will keep making the planet increasingly unlivable. If we add to the numbers by doing our patriotic duty and making more babies, aren't we simply setting ourselves up to fail?
Besides lying about Walz's military rank and general status as a veteran, conservatives also asserted that Walz purposely deserted his unit once he learned they were being mobilized for deployment to Iraq. First of all, even if that were hypothetically true, that would still be his right to do so. Second of all, unsurprisingly, it's a lie anyway. In March 2005, Walz announced that he'd be retiring for a congressional bid. In May 2005, he officially retired from the military. It wasn't until August 2005 - several months after Walz had retired - that his unit found out they'd be mobilizing for deployment to Iraq. Walz retired long before that mobilization was communicated.
Trying to downplay Walz's military service is a weird move, given how short and unimpressive Vance's military service was, compared to Walz's, and how non-existent Trump's was.
I recall a news piece about young adults here doing less alcohol and drugs in general. And something that should come as no surprise based on that, have less sex. Combine that with excellent contraceptives and I see the trend with few children continuing.
It is an interesting social problem. We want global population to decrease since it is easier to keep long term sustainability going with fewer people. The less people the higher the potential quality of life for the ones living (considering current tech).
But what level of quality of living is good enough? Perhaps we could have a decent quality of life already for everybody if we just changed habits instead, things like fast fashion is an example of something that needs to stop. Traveling for business or pleasure is also something that needs a massive reduction, etc.
So if the trend of people spending more time online continues and we somehow turn the trend away from "influencers" prompting spending that could be a major benefit. People do less and still stay happy. Thus having a less negative impact towards the global break even point. Though since people aren't wired to be happy in this type of setting it will probably lead to even worse mental health outcomes on average.
Entire thing is complex even if you disregard the demographics where getting old is likely to be worse than it currently is. (Until you hit improvements in tech such as caretaker robots and medicines that keep you in good health, not just alive.)
On August 09 2024 21:03 KT_Elwood wrote: There whole scheme is to put misinformation up on Social Media to erode trust in the "Other side".
I read that Tim Waltz also drinks horse semen, sodomy is a nono, so I go with the pedo goldenshower Trump and the couch fucker Jerkma Donghart Vance
It's such a weird response. Using a couch as a sex object isn't morally wrong its just a really odd thing you would totally see a republican give out for free. For your response to be beastiality and animal abuse in some gleeful revenge meme attempt you just look even worse.
The worst insult I've seen is calling him JV for junior variety.
While the aging population is a serious issue, the factors pertaining to the cause of it isn't necessarily bad or reversible. There is not one, single immediate solution for it. Rather it's a combination of many things that would dampen the effects over time. Of which, people don't even agree on employing any of these possible things. Just seems like we are very far from resolving anything, before it course corrects itself by just more old people means more old people dying.
On August 09 2024 21:03 KT_Elwood wrote: There whole scheme is to put misinformation up on Social Media to erode trust in the "Other side".
I read that Tim Waltz also drinks horse semen, sodomy is a nono, so I go with the pedo goldenshower Trump and the couch fucker Jerkma Donghart Vance
It's such a weird response. Using a couch as a sex object isn't morally wrong its just a really odd thing you would totally see a republican give out for free. For your response to be beastiality and animal abuse in some gleeful revenge meme attempt you just look even worse.
The worst insult I've seen is calling him JV for junior variety.
Honestly fucking a couch is one of the least bad sorts of things a lot of Republicans fuck
On August 09 2024 21:03 KT_Elwood wrote: There whole scheme is to put misinformation up on Social Media to erode trust in the "Other side".
I read that Tim Waltz also drinks horse semen, sodomy is a nono, so I go with the pedo goldenshower Trump and the couch fucker Jerkma Donghart Vance
It's such a weird response. Using a couch as a sex object isn't morally wrong its just a really odd thing you would totally see a republican give out for free. For your response to be beastiality and animal abuse in some gleeful revenge meme attempt you just look even worse.
The worst insult I've seen is calling him JV for junior variety.
Honestly a fucking a couch is one of the least bad sorts of things a lot of Republicans fuck
We are likely already at 2x what is sustainable according to people who study that kind of thing.
I'm not advocating that we systematically kill people, but if there is a growing trend that people choose to not have kids, why try to reverse it? I.e. why not let the problem fix itself?
I had considered and discarded that for a variety of reasons I'm happy to share:
First, nothing is sustainable on a long enough timeframe. We are human beings and are basically unique among living creatures because we have the ability to engineer the sustaining of ourselves.
Secondly, yes anyone can look and claim for example "known fossil reserves are decreasing" or "blahblah population of animals is decreasing." There's always a solution other than "fewer people" if we're not too lazy to figure it out.
Thirdly, there is no industry of "everything-is-fineism" experts because for reasons you and I are probably aware of enough to omit in this context, it is not profitable. Nevertheless, everything is fine. You tell me a guy is an expert because he wrote a book saying oh god we have too much X we are running out of Y. That's fine, but it's an observation. It's not a policy recommendation or solution. My question is, what is the specific issue, what is the timescale, and what is the consequence. No apocalypse is happening in the next few hundred years.
We have an unlimited source of solar energy and therefore food. We have more water than you can shake a stick at. We have near unlimited energy stored in fissile reserves in the Earth. We can and do engineer weather and biomes. Every metal is infinitely recyclable. Chemical reactions are cyclic and reversible given enough input energy, which we have infinite of. Basically the only limiter is the role of the atmosphere as a planetary radiator, which can probably also be engineered around. I'm not worried about a sustainability crisis.
Fourth, let's say we identify a placeholder issue for the sake of argument. "Existing less" is not a solution. Your house has a lead pipe, it's leaking and about to burst and flood your basement. Just let it blow up because lead is poisonous anyway. By reducing the number of pipes by letting them all blow up, we reduce the chance of lead poisoning. Hey, we have a park with tennis nets. People keep playing tennis there and the nets get worn out - No, don't replace them or design better nets, just reduce tennis altogether. This doesn't pass muster in any context. There's not enough potatoes? Well there's too many Irish anyway right so the problem can fix itself. "There's not enough drinking water here." "Kill yourself." No, drill a well.
We as a species face issues in every term from short to long. What part of our civilization is best equipped to address them? The successful countries that have developed the technology and systems that have got us this far. That have access to healthcare, safety, and most of all education, which is how you continue to teach the next generation. If they don't propagate their own existence, if there are no next generations, that means dropping the ball and setting future humanity up for failure.
Fifth, this leads to the empathy dichotomy between left and right - conservative empathy is psychologically measured to be clustered nearest the individual, whereas leftist empathy is directed at the most distant entities from the individual. What I'm getting at is this - How is anyone worried about the sustainability of the future of human civilization over the sustainability of their own family or clan or country? How could anyone presume to sustain the former when they can't even handle the latter? It's 100% hippie hubris. It's defeatist, it's nihilist, and it's just weak.
I think the US is one of the best ideas in history. People choosing, or not choosing, to not have kids, is a problem per se. It is not a great sacrifice - intentional or not - to the greater well-being of Mother Earth, or the Universe, or God knows what for people to not have children. It's not a contribution, and it's not saving anything. That kind of narcissism is just an elaborate version of Agent Smith's worldview. Humans aren't a disease. We're all there is. We get all the responsibility to move forward and take care of what we have, and we get the risk of failure. I understand you haven't represented yourself as an extinctionist, wouldn't want to put words in your mouth, nevertheless it's directionally wrong. Generations of successful people getting smaller, not even continuing at a constant replacement but getting smaller - isn't helpful to our species. Human beings being alive is not a problem that needs to be fixed.
There may be a day in the future technocracy where overpopulation redlines. You can directly deal with it then with your one child policies or sterilization or baby licenses or whatever. That day is not near.
Oh no the master race, sorry, I mean "generations of successful people" are getting smaller. Better incentivize them with vote multipliers, complimentary Fortnite skins, and a gun salute for every 3rd baby, god forbid you subsidize childcare, diapers, maternity/paternity leave and take a more serious look at work-life balance.
EPT
