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Comment by Guy2020 | Hacker News Reader

Guy2020

Some people have extraordinary wealth and they have the ability to set economic incentives, policies, and cultural influences for certain types of behavior to emerge. There's a hierarchy to our societies, there are people with great power and people with little to no power. I guess the greatest magic trick of the modern world is to make people believe such things do not exist.

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IMO a greater magic trick is convincing folks like you that these rich people are actually powerful enough to control fundamental behaviors like sex and reproduction.

It's a profoundly dis-empowering and anti-democratic message, which is of course why a lot of those rich people are happy for you to believe it.

The reality is this: in every instance we know of, making education and birth control available to women (not forcing, just giving them the option) has resulted in declining birth rates and increasing standards of living.

It's really quite inconvenient to be pregnant, to parent a newborn, and to be responsible for a child for 2+ decades. It's very rewarding, but it's also really hard. You don't need a global conspiracy to explain why many women limit or opt against it if given the chance.

Parenting is hard and expensive, especially these days in the developed world where people have children late and most people don’t live near extended family. My parents moving near me totally changed my wife and my outlook on having a third (from “no way, too sleepy” to “hey remember when the little one was just a baby?”)

Money is just one form of wealth. Having a network of trusted, productive people, such as healthy grandparents who can assist with raising children is another.

I can see in my extended family and friends the monetary and general success of those with supportive families (especially those families with multiple brothers) that worked together versus those families that were split apart and did not have someone to rely on. They are in completely different socioeconomic classes now.

Wouldn't rich people or powerful organizations be able to influence family planning decisions in exactly the way you just described?

Funding cheap ubiquitous birth control on a global scale.

If you want some chocolate ice cream, and I sell some to you, does that make me a powerful person who influenced your ice-cream-eating decisions?

Are you saying there are no mechanisms that allow wealthy people to influence human behavior on a large scale? Please read "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays.

France has tried. They even give subsidies. But the fertility rate is only 1.85.

The groups that are still growing are those that oppress women. Islamic countries [1] and ultra-orthodox Jews, especially. Evangelical Christians used to be higher but have now dropped down to the below-replacement US rate.

Teen pregnancies are way down in the US. So are abortions; that's not it.

Nobody really understands why. There's lots of speculation. The decline of religion? Better birth control? Video games? Declining testosterone levels? Fewer people in agriculture?

[1] Fertility rate 2.9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth

[2] Fertility rate 6.2. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/israeli-population-increase-...

[3] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2018/06/faith-fer...

There should be a godwins law for people who attempt to use this method of ending a discussion.

"go read this book which explains my point because I can't explain it well enough to others." is not a convincing argument in the least.

What good are books if we can't direct people at them? That book makes my case. The fact that Bernays was a major advisor for the media complex of America makes the book an even more significant piece of evidence for my position.

The idea is not that books are not useful, but that you should make effort to summarize the main point of the book while still recommending the book.

Ok...the main point is that there is a shadow government that shapes our culture and people's perceptions through mass media and by corrupting influential people for the purpose of endorsing certain ideas/products. In that work, Bernays details these types of "shadow governments."

You should see their blog. It quotes Nietszche and the Bene Gesserit on the way to thousands of words restating Wittgenstein's axioms.

The problem with your thesis is that it overlooks the centuries-long advancement of feminism in favour of a conspiracy theory.

It's funny how people dismiss things so readily by labeling them "conspiracy theory." I just can't imagine looking at a world with such great wealth inequality and coming to the conclusion that this is an equal playing field where everyone exerts the same influence on the evolution of humanity.

Mary Wollstonecraft was not rich, and (ironically given this discussion) died due to the complications of giving birth to Mary Shelley.

The claim that the wealthy are controlling everyone's fertility is as short-sighted as it is parochial.

Given that elsewhere in this thread you explain how this is all the work of a shadow government, the label hardly seems unwarranted.

They're controlling the economy in ways that influence reproductive choices.

Social progress influences choice, which in turn influences economies, which influence people.

There is no cabal of They. The "shadow government" thesis is straight-up conspiracy batshit.

Unless you mean the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China who certainly authorized the two-child law just a few years back, but they're not really a shadow government. They're a regular one, just not very transparent.

Ultimately both Chinese communism (via Hegel) and Western feminism (via Wollstonecraft) trace their origins back to the French Revolution, so maybe you are being controlled by Robespierre.

Either you have sufficient evidence or you don’t. This is what separates us from the schizos.

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