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Comment by wrg | Hacker News Reader

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Russia had 3 times more people than Ukraine but cannot win the war, only grind few hundred meters per day and thousands of KIA+WIA daily. They have people to continue do it for the next 10 years, but economy will likely collapse sooner(3-5 years).

Not only does South Korea have a huge technology advantage over North Korea, but South Korea could also easily build nuclear weapons if it wanted to. It would probably not be at risk of losing a war to North Korea even if its population dropped to 10 million.

It sounds like you're suggesting woman's rights caused South Korea's military to shrink 20%, and thus it is desirable to not give woman rights, lest it cause men to choose not to join the army, and thus it is desirable to roll back woman having rights, as it could cause men to not join the army and its no biggie anyway, its not in their constitution that woman have rights.

Am I reading it right?

You're not reading it right. Women not having kids because they are making Excels/working in assorted minwage jobs directly translates into less kids being born which then translates into less potential soldiers. It's not difficult.

It was difficult enough that you were downvoted to gray, and rather than just shrugging and moving on, I assumed the best.

I also was perfectly polite in my post.

It wouldn't have been difficult for you to do the same.

To be clear, you are claiming it is time to roll back woman's rights (the right to work) so they maintain the same army size.

May I be bold, and make a conjecture?

You are aware this argument is unjustifiable and people react as such, otherwise, you wouldn't be rolling out your 9 year old anon account to do it.

You do not understand why it is unjustifiable, so, you blame some sort of conspiracy or ill in civil society for your inability to back your free-association with your name.

I mean, I personally find the idea of rolling back women's rights to be repellent, but arguments should not be judged based on whether or not the author feels compelled to make them anonymously. In history, there have been plenty of true and justifiable things said anonymously because the people saying them were worried about being persecuted for their opinions.

You are ensuring that we do not invert the causal order: i.e. keep the order that it is a bad argument, then, conjecture about why one would offer one. The community appreciates that.

I wasn't being impolite, maybe you are inferring impoliteness into it where there is none?

Unjustifiable? Not at all.

I am fully aware of how much of a third rail my point was, and you guessed right about why I used this account to make it. Shouldn't that say something to you? I don't think I am saying something necessarily bad, but it's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about this because neither side is really willing to give any ground. I'm also glad the backdrop of this discussion was the fucking South Korean army's size as you can't really get more high stakes (for South Korea at least) than that. Yet still, we're somehow not allowed to discuss it, it's too taboo.

And why are you framing it as a conspiracy? Prima facie, is my point really that incoherent? Inflammatory, sure. But is there really no link between births in a country and that country's female population being largely in the workforce? C'mon. Please do stop this inane shouting down of taboo subjects, do not brow beat people for using anonymous accounts when it's clear why they are doing so. Discuss the issue rather than brush it under the carpet until the hump gets too large to ignore and absolute trash like Tate and friends make use of it to increase their platform. Be smart, maybe learn lessons from the last few years in politics.

/rant

Ah yes the epic downboot. That will definitely stop this issue metastasizing into something that will get hijacked by the Andrew Tates of the world. Let's just pretend until we can't!

You called it the elephant in the room, but then you chose to speak mysteriously about it, and became belligerent when asked to clarify. I still don't understand what you were saying in the original post regarding women's rights, even after reading this reply.

Perhaps not women’s rights, per se, but allowing the culture to portray every possible lifestyle except motherhood as honorable and rewarding definitely caused it.

You gotta have mamas to have babies.

My experience has been that women have kids when their lives feel stable and secure like when they have house, and they and their partner are out of school and a couple years into a well-paying, stable job. The longer that stability alludes a woman and/or couple the longer it takes to have children which means fewer or no children.

Fair argument but easily shot down by the high birth rates in poverty-stricken countries such as India, Pakistan, most states in Africa. Yes it does play a part in birthrates in developed countries and I don't doubt it is a factor in many people not starting families. But the deeper issue isn't economic otherwise it would apply evenly across the board and it simply doesn't.

That kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? Why are these women choosing more schooling and more years of employment prior to motherhood?

It’s almost like the culture is telling them that getting a degree, starting a career, and getting a nice house are goals more worthy than motherhood.

And what do the moms that “make it” and do have a kid or two do once they get there? Dump them in daycare because being a stay at home mom just isn’t socially acceptable.

Stability is an inherently subjective concept. Ask any third world mother if they’d trade places with a first world mother and the answer would be a resounding yes. Between food stamps, rent assistance, and tax subsidies, there has never been a more stable time to raise a family. But it isnt cool so they don’t do it.

This is 100% a culture problem. Women are trained from a young age that becoming an independent working woman is higher status than being a stay at home mom.

> That kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? Why are these women choosing more schooling and more years of employment prior to motherhood?

They weren't getting to choose before.

The comment I was responding to posited that the reason women don’t choose motherhood was a lack of stability.

Are you arguing that letting women choose to become educated and join the work force has reduced their ability to start families?

That's a hell of a motte to a bailey. We're not really saying anything anymore other than making a claim its not-honorable to be a mother in the culture (trivially false)

It really is women's rights per se. I wrote that fully realising I will get downvoted to oblivion for questioning the status quo/consensus but it's so mind-boggling that I can't stay quiet and it helps that this time they're finally connecting the most vital of dots, military capability.

There are a few ways to address declining birth rates and removing women's professional opportunities beyond motherhood is a heavy-handed one with heaps of negative trade-offs / externalities of its own.

Please feel free to discuss any such approach that hasn't been tried and failed (such as tax incentives). AFAIK they actually did try various financial incentives in SK (and Japan) with very little to show for it.

I’d point to cultural issues that persist even now making motherhood unenviable, such as the norm of men taking little to no part in child rearing and house duties.

Being expected to raise the children, keep the house clean, keep up with laundry, do the grocery shopping, and keep the family fed among other things all on your own while your partner’s day ends after coming home from his 9-to-5 doesn’t sound very pleasant, and a lot of young adult women (especially in East Asia) saw exactly this play out with their parents so it’s only natural if it’s led them to become avoidant.

Women not being housewives is almost entirely responsible for this. I’d rather have the government make having children mandatory than rolling back women’s rights though.

That sounds at least on par with, if not worse than, than rolling women's rights back. How would it be enforced?

Married for 5 years and no children? Taxes go up by 20% or something similarly brutal. Have children? They go down by 20%.

This might make people not get married I guess so you would need an extra benefit to being married like no free healthcare if you’re not married by 35 or something.

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