This is why the religious groups that keep women in their place at home, breeding, will rule the world.
Firstly, what is the "This" in "This is why"? "Non-religious groups of people will just die off"? "Religious zealots are taking over Japan as non-religious inhabitants dwindle"? None of this is sane.
Secondly, modern religious interpretations do not dictate that women must stay at home and pump out babies. That bigoted stereotype is rooted in a warped view of some religions' beliefs about the role of sex in society. The stereotype is also rooted in extremist interpretations of some religions, but those extremist interpretations are not representative of what is going on in Japan[0]. Perpetuating this bigoted stereotype isn't helping any argument.
Thirdly, just because people are born into a highly devout religious family does not mean they stay religious. I submit myself as an example of a person born into a religious family but turned agnostic.
[0]Edit: It is also not fair to take the extremist minority interpretation from anywhere and apply it broadly everywhere, not just Japan. Hopefully it is self-evident why without me having to bring up other ugly examples.
modern religious interpretations
do not dictate that
He's not making a normative statement that religions should place women in this/that/the other role. He's making a factual statement: those social groups that do demand that women's role is primarily in reproduction will outbreed everybody. This is an undeniable and empirically observable fact, whether you turned agnostic or not.
It's playing out already in the kindergardens and primary schools in my hometown already: most children are Muslims, with burka wearing mothers. Yet less than 1/3, probably less than 1/4 of the population is Muslim, the rest is white, highly educated yuppies, GLBTQ whatever ... who all have 0 children.
That's not even close to what I read when I saw:
> will rule the world
That seems extremely normative to me.
In fact, I honestly fail to see any facts presented in the one sentence I responded to.
There are a lot of debatable nuanced points between the factual statement of having more kids and the conclusion of ruling the world. There are no connecting-the-dots arguments in the post I responded to. If Animats wanted to mean the fact you bring up, she/he would have just said the fact. But that is not what happened. Taking the simplest interpretation of Animats's one entirely-normative sentence, it is an extreme opinion that expresses a large contempt/disdain for organized religion.
I really hope you examine your post, and evaluate how and why you took Animats' opinion and managed to somehow extract a fact from it. And that's whether I turned agnostic or not.
The exact name and nature of the "Maxim gun" changes from era to era, but the basic premise holds. There are ways to provide security, and even assert dominance, that do not rely on massive population numbers. In fact, looking at the world history of the past several centuries, one could say that relying on massive population numbers have been a losing strategy for pretty much everyone who tried it for long.
Incidentally, that line is from a humor piece, "The Modern Traveller", by Hilaire Belloc.[1] Read chapter VI for the context.
Having plenty of firepower does not help much in counterinsurgencies. There's nobody to aim it at. "Nation-building" from the outside has a success rate of zero.[2]
[1] https://archive.org/stream/moderntraveller00belluoft [2] http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/is...
As far as counterinsurgencies go, it doesn't matter. US (and other countries) are not waging wars in places like Syria and Iraq for the sake of their survival. They could withdraw entirely tomorrow, and not much would change for them. Those insurgencies are not an existential threat.
>“[Nippon Kaigi] have worked steadily and stealthily with local politicians and political lobbies to oppose things like gender equality, recognition of war crimes and the comfort women [sex slaves during WWII], women using their maiden names after marriage etc. It’s anti-this and anti-that but has no vision of the future.”
>[T]heir goal may be to alter radically the parts of the constitution which define marriage and the rights of wives, thus, “rolling back sexual equality and making Japan a country pleasant for cranky old men, like themselves.”
Otherwise we are saying our population size is a magic number that must always be stable or go upwards irrespective of economic conditions. It makes no sense at all. What is the basis of such reasoning? Are not recessions in house prices and share prices a net positive for younger people?
Populations should decline sometimes. Unless we believe we're immune from the laws of biology.
As for those religious groups that believe promulgating their population is a solution, they are likely to meet a bloody and desperate end. You should notice that despite Africa's incredible birth rates for example, it is also the least densely populated Continent. War, famine and disease.
Some of the middle east is going to implode when the oil price gets too high and we should stand by and allow it to happen. Doing nothing is absolutely the smart choice. I think this perspective is the only way to prevent contagions of disease, violence and war from spreading around the world. There are alternatives but the mindset of people in the West will not find those acceptable at present e.g. voluntary sterilizations, genetic engineering.
We need to totally reject Wilsonianism if we are to prosper in the 21st century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilsonianism
I think this is something the right and left can actually agree wholeheartedly on.
Yarvin has a great quote on this subject:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...
"Fascism no longer exists. It's as dead as Odinism.
...
What's alive is the ideological system that defeated fascism -- which committed plenty of atrocities of its own. Of our own. When we think about crimes from the last century, it seems more relevant to think about the crimes we committed, not those they committed.
What is fascism? It's exactly what everyone thinks it is. The conventional wisdom is perfectly correct. Our historians have a merciless, laser-sharp understanding of everything bad that fascism was and everything it did wrong. What hasn't been done is turning this same laser on our own institutions."
That Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld are not in fear of a Nuremberg trial situation is not a positive statement about our society. The fact is not that our systems are rotten, but that they have been eroding for quite some time, longer than people today suspect.
[1] Rising GDP means you can hide the fact that income distribution is getting more and more lopsided. Having soft internal boarders (AKA Zoning/Gated communities) to make sure that the rabble doesn't see how the other 0.1% lives also helps.
[2] Same GDP but 30% fewer mouths means 100/70 = 1.43 or 40% more per person on average.
That is correct. Satoshi would very likely agree.
Look at the advantages of a moderate fall in population growth*
- Less pressure on housing. People can have less debt or obtain a shelter with savings.
- Reforming the terrific quantity of old, used resources into raw materials can much more easily supply the inputs for new products and services. Recycling is often much cheaper than people appreciate, in the case of copper and some other metals it is a closed loop. That is: more things can exist made out of copper over time while the net amount of the copper in the system remains stable. Think of how most aluminum cans get cycled back into... more aluminum cans and at such a rate.
- Pressure on wages increases. The economy becomes leaner but also more efficient as more price signaling information percolates through the system. It's like a fat person who has hit the gym.
I could go on but just these are major positives! It is perfectly possible to have a healthy growth rate under the conditions I mention. Historically wage increases and major economic booms occurred in times of deflation.
Why then is there such a set against recession, against natural population declines? Why is it depicted as a monster?
The answer is probably short sighted political decision making coupled with crony capitalism. The truth is that our economy is more biological organism than mechanical contraption and right now it has heart disease from acting like a glutton.
The only consolation I can offer is that things that cannot go on, don't. The gold standard was not necessarily a good idea but the monetary system we have at present may be worse.
> The reason neoliberals dislike this is because for that to happen you need to confront the fact that income distribution is politically mediated not equably allocated by the magic hand.
To my eyes a neoliberal is often a civil servant in government who orders a road building contract to be awarded to a company which he also owns through a series of shells (or a family member). American congress is apparently much more efficient than other governments because this appears to occur without the shell companies because it is not defined as corruption. They are not government or business but a quantum superposition of both. You could probably name some names if you wanted to but I won't here.
> Rising GDP means you can hide the fact that income distribution is getting more and more lopsided. Having soft internal boarders (AKA Zoning/Gated communities) to make sure that the rabble doesn't see how the other 0.1% lives also helps.
So I've noticed! Hard working working class kids or lower middle class strivers aren't doing terribly well. A large portion of millennials think that 20k or 30k is a lot of money. It isn't. In real terms they're making less than their parents.
The fact is that since 2008, with few exceptions, the 'success stories' I've been seeing are primarily backed by the bank of Mom & Dad. Free houses, paid vacations, tution loans paid off etc. If the middle classes believe in meritocracy, they certainly don't extend that belief to their children. Many hard working and intelligent entrants to the job market are barely making ends meet. The ones I know live like students five, ten years after graduation.
Of course this trend existed before 2008, but it has been particularly stark since then. Economists wonder why innovation is in decline, and companies why cars and cinema ticket sales are in decline. The answer is simple but uncomfortable, which is that the kids can't catch a break even when they've skillfully negotiated most hoops and networked every contact known to them. Then lots of others see this and basically give up to subsist on welfare.
Honestly the biggest "fuck you" today a person could give to the system, is starting their own business without debt or not getting a mortgage. The good news is lots of young people are waking up, the bad news is their many of them and most of their parents are deep in la la land.
* Obviously there are limits to my reasoning! It works within bounds and I believe it is appropriate for our present situation.