Wifely Duties

POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Saturday, January 9, 2010 04:47
VIEWED: 62964
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SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 8:37 PM

DT, the reality is that there are too mnay people for the earth to support. It may not feel that way since you live in the North American West, but you have not been to Europe, China, Japan, India, Bagladesh, Indonesia etc where any land that is even marginally arable is farmed, and every even semi-horizontal piece of land is occupied with something.

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 8:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
DT, the reality is that there are too mnay people for the earth to support. It may not feel that way since you live in the North American West, but you have not been to Europe, China, Japan, India, Bagladesh, Indonesia etc where any land that is even marginally arable is farmed, and every even semi-horizontal piece of land is occupied with something.

Is DT ByteMite? It makes a kind of sense...

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 8:45 PM

DT is male, and lives somewhere in the midwest. But we talk via e-mail. You should hear him mock me when I first told him I didn't want to have kids, or the thread he made last night where he keeps insisting that I've entirely misinterpreted Orwell. No, I GOT the point about the political rhetoric, but I still think that was just a small part of the link DT posted.

He also seems to think that I'm some kind of flirt, which, no. Just no. I'm not defined by his female-male axis, I deliberately took myself out of it, and it is frustrating as hell when someone condescends to me to say EITHER "You don't want kids or a romantic partner? Oh, it's just a phase!" OR "You don't want kids or a romantic partner? You've just been brainwashed by TPTB!"

But I think he has points about population control. He and I have been talking for a while about what the end goal of the leaders who want population decreases might be, it doesn't seem to me to be the stated goal of protecting the environment and building a future for our children. When has government or industry (one and the same) ever given a good GORRAM about the environment or the future? It's profits profits profits, how do I get me the biggest share?

And I like to confuzzle those assholes at every possible turn. So I try to figure out what they're up to. My theory on what their goal for population control might be changes from week to week based on whether a simpler more obvious reason occurs to me. This is my latest one.

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 8:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Yeah, I know those were a year old, but it had some bearing on the topic I wanted to discuss, so I addressed the comments about Obama's healthcare plan.

The problem with those policies is who it benefits, and it's not the populations the policy is instituted on.

The way I see it, it benefits the rich and those already in power, because those already in power are not having as many children anyway, so they aren't affected by the policies. But the lower classes that live a harder life and where it is less certain that their children will live to adulthood, these policies cause direct harm to them, and also exist to prevent the lower class population from exceeding a certain number that the powers that be think they can control.

That's how it is in China, the urban areas where all the power groups are (where they have undergone something like Rue's demographic transition) are unaffected, but rural areas and areas that are not Chinese ethnically but that the Chinese government claims are part of China, they are very much affected, and it is really almost a form of ethnic cleansing. The rural people of China do NOT like the one child policy. Perhaps they are selfish for wanting to have progeny that live long enough to reproduce themselves, but I don't think so.

It doesn't seem like ethnic cleansing if it pertains to Chinese as well - it's everyone equally.

I can conceive of an argument for Rich People wanting more working class so they can tax them more or find other ways to charge them fees and create even greater wealth.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:00 PM

Except you forget Marx and Orwell, which TPTB certainly have read. Get enough proletariates, and they overthrow the powers. It's the dialectic. The powers do not want that, so they want us to stay as stagnant intellectually and numberwise as possible. Or, if they can get us to be less smart and more controllable (either through a smaller population or just so dumb and unresisting and cattle-like that population size doesn't matter), then so much the better for them.

The industrial revolution made mass production a possibility via taking a long skilled process and cutting it down into small parts that can be overseen by unskilled (expendable) labourers. The cost was that a process required a larger labour force and more wages, something they've been trying to get around ever since.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:12 PM

Quote:
DT, the reality is that there are too mnay people for the earth to support. It may not feel that way since you live in the North American West, but you have not been to Europe, China, Japan, India, Bagladesh, Indonesia etc where any land that is even marginally arable is farmed, and every even semi-horizontal piece of land is occupied with something.

You directed this to me, first of all. I'm not DT. He lives in the Midwest, like Iowa or something, I live in Utah. Right location, wrong person.

Now. We don't WANT to use up all the land. That's a bad idea. You want to destablize as few ecosystems as possible (none would be best), because if you have no biodiversity, and something hits that crop hard, you're screwed. And that's not even considering the ethics of just letting (or actively making) millions of species extinct. No one is arguing that we should populate so that we use up every square inch of the Earth.

But if we had some improvements, we could cut down on a lot of the land being used, and increase our output. And if we were to actually invest in establishing some freaking off world colonies, the human race might have some long term potential without having to make any potentially murky decisions.

Yes, you're right, population decrease would ALSO make us use less land, but if you go that route, you still have to ask yourself, "what populations do we decrease?" That's not a decision that I think anyone should make, because it's impossible to be neutral when it's your nation, YOUR people's reproductive future at stake. Furthermore, without force (China), the population is unlikely to accept such a measure because it goes against basic instincts. Unless it's whitecoated, or they're preconditioned to accept it, a population will always choose survival over lofty sounding noble goals.

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:16 PM

"Reading thru old posts, just my $0.02: Wulf hates his mom 'cause his dad wasn't even around to take the flak."

WTF Sig?

Ahem. I wasnt even in this..

Wow...

RUE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:24 PM

And well, just ONE more post ...

"And what's the average birth rate of Europeans despite that? Low, is it? Perhaps because of social pressures and even subconscious messages about having less children for the better of the world, or even worries about the state of the world and bringing children into it?"

Your logic escapes me. Everywhere across the world, and even through history, when women do better economically they have fewer children. This was true in 14th century France, in 20th century China where the greatest birthrate decline took place BEFORE the one URBAN child policy (as a result of improved economics), in 21st century Iraq, and in historically frozen areas of Ethiopia.

So are you saying that women are COERCED into having fewer children when the economy becomes too NICE to them ?

Or that the government COERCES them into having fewer children as part of some grand conspiracy with policies that make having kids EASIER ?

NAaaaaahhhhh - that CAN'T be what you're saying.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:36 PM

Quote:
So are you saying that women are COERCED into having fewer children when the economy becomes too NICE to them ?

Or that the government COERCES them into having fewer children as part of some grand conspiracy with policies that make having kids LESS of a burden ?

Neither. I'm saying that there's factors, even when times are good and there's help available, that make people cautious about how many children they have. "What if something happens to the economy/the environment and we can no longer support them? That would be bad, never mind the social welfare programs. How do I know those programs could help all of my children? I've never been on social welfare before"... And so on. Parents are always worrying about their children, about their children not being injured and getting enough to eat. Recently, the "getting enough to eat" part has become a question of how much money people have, and how much supply of food there is. By supply I mean in the sense of supply and demand. How many farmlands there has been has been a factor in the past to supply and there have always been concerns about that, but capitalism introduces a whole new level to that regarding price fixing for food stuffs.

The government policies I'm talking about make having children harder. Policies that make it easier are only a bandaid for a broader problem, caused by capitalism and need. The government gives, but the government and the system takes a heck of a lot more.

RUE

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 10:06 PM

OK - one LAST one and then I'll have to continue this later.

You fudamentally misundertand the mental equation, I think b/c you assume that your thoughts represent the thoughts of others.

In poor agricultural countries everywhere, children are social security. The drive is to have MORE children ESPECIALLY in the face of poverty and scarce resources. Even in poor urban areas (think of the dump-dwellers of Manila, or the cardboard shack-dwellers of Rio, or the slum-dwellers of Jakarta ),
children are the only socially available option to women. (BTW, there is an interesting neurological article on why being socially excluded is so extremely painful. And why doing the ONE thing society will recognize you for is so emotionally compelling.)

In fact, you have not begun to think about what drove that fact to be true even in 14th century France (Source: Mother Love). Or when the society's best rewards for women come from being mothers (China 19th century).

Come to think of it, you have really not presented anything like a historical trend, or cross-cultural comparison, or ... anything ...

You need, I think, to break out of your own head - it's really small in there and the only thing you'll find is yourself ! - and realize that other people do NOT consider the 'fate of the planet' or 'what will happen to my grandchildren ?' when THEY have children, or not. In many cases, they are making the only choice available to them. And, as can be seen from MANY other situations (some of which I have referenced), not having children when other options are available and more rewarding is the driver behind the demographic transition.

Do some research on 'the demographic transition' - OK ?

And, uhm - WHICH government polices are making it harder ? Be specific !

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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