Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society.
Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating.
As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the back of contraception packaging reproduce. It will be interesting to see how this works out long term.
As a corollary, based on population growth rates/disparities between birth rates, people are going to be very surprised how quickly Mormonism rises. They're basically the only chunk of native born Americans that have a birth rates above replacement, and it's a LOT above replacement.
Religion has a way of self-moderating as it grows. There's already a huge movement of ex-Mormons, and it's inevitable that pockets of Mormons with a different (and more open-minded) view will form as it spreads further from the source.
Think about how many variations on Christianity exist in the US. If Mormons hold to the trend of every other religion that's gotten distant from its origins, I don't mind it replacing the thousand variations on other stories about some guy having adventures in the desert.
How familiar are you with US religious groups? Because there are a lot of US religious groups and sub-groups with high birthrates. Examples include Orthodox Jews, the most conservative slice of US Catholics, several kinds of the most fundamentalist Protestants, etc etc.
There's a fundamental flaw hiding under arguments like yours: the "civilization" you're circumscribing is an imaginary and arbitrary boundary. An ahistorical retcon. It's as unsupported as discredited racial theories that all humans fit into three tidy buckets ("caucasoid", "mongoloid", "negroid").
For example, maybe you're talking about "Christendom". But then it's not actually in decline -- hispanics are part of Christendom, and Christianity is growing in Africa, so on net it's growing, not shrinking.
Maybe you mean the population within the actual geographic boundaries of Europe and the former British colonies (including America). But if that's your definition, then you would accept immigration as a solution, and you would admit that America is already doing fine.
Maybe you're talking about people who live in societies with constitutions that ultimately derive from the ideas of the enlightenment. But again, not shrinking.
Maybe you're talking about a specific local cultural tradition -- but then it's not really "the West" that's in decline. "Western civilization" necessarily spans a huge range of cultures, otherwise you can't successfully take credit for everything from Socrates to Charlemagne to Descarte to Luther to Newton to Einstein. Consider the magnitude of the cultural turnover across that span!
Is South America part of "Western civilization"? It's literally in the western hemisphere and colonized by Spain and Portugal. If you're really talking about having a connection to European cultural history, it clearly fits. But if we include it, then again the decline disappears. Guatemalan immigrations to the US can't be a non-western invasion.
What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".
Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine. That web is fundamentally global, as much as that annoys chauvinists. And globally, the world is getting richer and more equal at a rapid pace. Mortality is falling. The population is not in decline, although it has a good shot at plateauing in the coming decades, which will be a good thing.
>Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine.
Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades, and the serious prospects for massive social unrest going forward both in the States and in Europe, which often get discussed here, how in the world can you say that. "The World" (since you apparently are one of those who think the term "Western Civilization" is racist), in my judgement, is looking at the most global security risk since the lead up to WWI. There's well documented demographic shifts in Europe that could lead to a fundamental cultural re-imaging of the continent. We might be careening into another financial crisis.
> Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades
In the last two decades, the share of humans living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 10%. And child deaths under age five were cut in half.
So where's your data?
I will add that I don't think "western civilization" is racist, even though the term gets coopted often by racists. I happen to be proud to be part of a scientific civilization and want to see it flourish. But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines.
The wars that stretch from Afghanistan (though I could argue the actual starting point is Pakistan or maybe even Indonesia) in the East to the Atlantic Coast of Africa, to start, not to mention terror in Europe.
You're going to run into problems if you start using one-dimensional measures like extreme poverty (which has a shifting definition) as a proxy for systemic risk in our system.
Those wars are bad, but badness needs to be measured relative to something.
For example, the Afghanistan war from 2001 to the present has killed somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 people. This makes it very small by the standards of 20th century wars.
In the 1990s alone, there were at least eight wars an order of magnitude bigger than that (Congo, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi, Rawanda).
And yes, we can add up Syria and Iraq too, and that is a much bigger number, but I can likewise keep adding up 1990s wars. It turns out that was a more violent decade in terms of actual battle deaths.
> though I could argue the actual starting point is Pakistan or maybe even Indonesia
You could argue that, but you would be hampered by the fact that casualty numbers in those countries are minuscule by the standards of actual wars.
> not to mention terror in Europe.
Terror is Europe is up a bit but still far from the highs it was hitting in the 1970s.
The panicky "things are worse than ever and deteriorating" position is just not supported by hard evidence. It's stoked by an eager media ecosystem that profits from fear, and an aging generation that wants to externalize it's own perceptions of decline.
Many of the people saying "the west is declining" are in fact just baby boomers who are declining who can't accept that they are not equal to "the west".
>In the 1990s alone, there were at least eight wars an order of magnitude bigger than that (Congo, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi, Rawanda)...
This might be the worst possible way to think about the present security situation. In aggregate numbers are there less lives being destroyed today than in the 1990s? Maybe. But what does that have to do with total risk of all out war? You're measuring everything by casualty numbers, and not the actual potential for catastrophe, to say nothing of the risk of actual civil war in Europe precipitated by rapid demographic changeover. Scoff at that all you like, but you'll struggle to find a time in history where they was such a significant culture clash that didn't result in violence.
>You could argue that, but you would be hampered by the fact that casualty numbers in those countries are minuscule by the standards of actual wars.
>Terror is Europe is up a bit but still far from the highs it was hitting in the 1970s.
That argument is so, so tired. What level of casualties would make you actually take this serious? Do Jihadists need to be killing people monthly? Weekly? Do we need to have a major 9/11-like incident or more Nice style attacks?
>Many of the people saying "the west is declining" are in fact just baby boomers who are declining who can't accept that they are not equal to "the west".
In my experience boomers are the ones acting like everything is just fine and it's actually folks who are a bit younger and look at history on a munch longer timeline than just the last ~200 years who think we're in for some rough times ahead.
>But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines.
I'm so tired of these sorts of facile statements. They're so smugly wrong-headed.
Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. It has massive social and economic value.
Territory matters, access rights to said territory matters matters, to literally every living thing on Earth. Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.
What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?
The idea of boundaries isn't some new thing. It's essentially the reason we developed laws and civilization in the first place, to manage territory in a rational way. Territorial delineations aren't just "imaginary lines."
Are laws just imaginary words to you? Are title agencies imaginary businesses? Does money only have imaginary value? Why not give it all away then.
I'm not objecting to the existence of geographic boundaries. I'm objecting to the idea that those geographic boundaries say anything meaningful about the people born on either side of said boundaries.
> Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't.
I agree. But I think that a real estate sale is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults, and it's none of your business if I want to sell some of mine to someone who happened to be born slightly too may miles away to end up on the "right" side of some border.
Nativists like to pretend to be defenders of human liberty, when they're just nanny staters with different preferences.
> Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.
Yes, but why does it matter if the other organism you're competing with was born in El Paso vs half a mile away in Juarez? The nativist position is that one is vigorous, dynamic market competition and the other is a foreign invasion. When really they are exactly the same.
Sure, all living things compete (in addition to cooperating -- all ecosystems and markets feature a network of both). But that does not explain the fetish for treating certain people as OK to compete and others as not.
> What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?
Obviously we are only discussing human immigrants here, so unless you're making an underhanded comment about the inhumanity of foreigners, where are you going with this analogy?
Realize that's not just snark -- the whole argument rests on the idea that there's a bright line between two sets of people. That line is completely imaginary. I guarantee you couldn't find it in an experiment, if I got to pick 50 American citizens and 50 non-citizens and you had to tell who was who just by talking to them.
Do you genuinely believe that the mass importation of people with radically different beliefs and customs (such as an adherence to Sharia Law) would have no effect on the native population? That cultural change wouldn't affect scientific freedoms? That it wouldn't affect civil liberties? Technological advancement? Crime rates?
Does it seem impossible to you that cultural differences could spark a civil war? Do you disbelieve that native populations can be essentially wiped out by a competing or hostile culture within a few short generations, similar to the fate of the Native Americans?
Why should someone believe that all cultures are equal when some cultures and nation states are much, much more successful by almost any quantifiable metric?
> What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".
Do you recognize that your argument can be applied to literally any culture that wants to ethnically preserve itself (just replace "white" with "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Nigerian" or whatever)? You are arguing that any civilization that wants to preserve its ethnic character is fundamentally illegitimate, which is ironic because that view is at root a direct outgrowth of the European universalist enlightenment tradition. You think you are better than other cultures, and you are using that to self-righteously argue for their destruction.
My argument is contingent on the idea that behavior/personality is somewhat heritable, and that culture and ethnicity co-evolve to a certain extent - statistically, people are more likely to be better suited to their own culture. Finns are better at being Finns than they are at being Italians, and vice versa.
Yes, cultures which want to preserve their ethnic makeup are racist. I think they’re wrong and won’t support that aspect of a culture spreading around me if I can help it.
That I support certain enlightenment era egalitarian values doesn’t in any way diminish my ability to speak up for cultural diversity that doesn’t rely on ethnic identity.
You seem to be implying that all cultures must be accepted as complete packages, without negotiation on any facet. That seems facile.
I'm not asking you to accept any aspects of any culture spreading around you - I'm asking whether you believe every culture must eventually subscribe to Anglo-American universalism?
In concrete terms, do you think Japan would become a better place if it had fewer Japanese people and more non-Japanese? This isn't a question about Japan's so-called population problem - keep the population the same but make it have fewer Japanese-descent people.
What's your opinion on studies showing that people with lower intelligence reproduce at much higher rates? This would seem to lead to an Idiocracy like future. Do you think something should be done to prevent this?
It's not pseudoscience and I suspect we'll have firm genetic proof that this has occurred. However, it is so slow it likely won't matter. Genetic engineering for increased IQ is looking like it will be easier than anticipated. Hell, even embryo selection would give us 8 points per generation. Should be possible as soon as we have about a million genomes tagged with their donor's IQ. This would make quick work of any dysgenic trend. However our civilization is so self-hating and in such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction that I suspect we'll be a generation behind Asian nations when it comes to widespread use of such technology.
I agree, China is already investing massively in research on intelligence and they won't be afraid to use it. Chinese culture combined with super-intelligence will be unstoppable.
>such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction
I've always thought it was funny how people are perfectly fine saying height is genetic but saying intelligence is genetic is unthinkable. Research shows intelligence is just as, if not more so, influenced by genetics
While I agree that we have a problem with population growth, the author has very traditional views on marriage and its requirements for a society/population to function - there's much more to it than that.
Also thanks for calling my existence "illegitimate" in 2017.
Since the blog is run by someone who uses Japanese in their name and profile, I'm considering whether I should be a little more charitable and maybe call it a result of poor translation.
Most of the stuff in the article that looks like bias to Western readers, in fact, could sound perfectly reasonable to Japanese readers for whom it might have originally been written. Japanese society is incredibly conservative when it comes to family norms.
Wow, this article isn't scientific at all, in the least.
>As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies.
>The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communities. Strong communities create prosperous cities. Prosperous cities create successful nations. Successful nations advance humanity.
Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries. "We've always done it this way" isn't proof, and the way our society was before ~50 years ago was actively bad and oppressive for many members of society, particularly women who really were second-class citizens, unable to vote or hold most jobs.
Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.
There are studies that show that single parent homes correlate with certain social outcomes. The next dozen leaps, however, are way out there or patently false.
Yes, It is all confounded by the heritability of all mental traits. I suspect the offspring of single women who use sperm donors (who are screened heavily for proxies of genetic quality, such height, facial symmetry and educational attainment) are more successful then the offspring of married couples on average. I don't know if anyone has looked into it though.
I’m with you on almost everything, I happen to agree communal and/or polyamorous parenting is great (no sarcasm, kids raised this way are great); but when do you think universal female suffrage happened in the U.S.? The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.
Are you implying there was some kind of poll tax or equivalent suppression of the female vote until the 60s?
I think ~50 years ago referred more to this type of thing, while stuff like voting rights was just included since it's relevant to the struggle as a whole.
What I'm saying is, I doubt he thinks they couldn't vote in the '60s. I think he just used ~50 years ago earlier in his comment and then later on was mentioning some of the other struggles, like voting.
Women couldn't hold most jobs until the 1960s or later; they could only be nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc. Suffrage was earlier, but just like black people (men) who got freedom and suffrage way back in the mid-1800s, they still weren't full members of society until significantly later.
Your “widespread” modifier gets you off the hook, who can say how social contract adjustments play out when they go mainstream.
But the polyamory community doesn’t look anything like polygamy. Like, not at all. More like polyandry, but most polyamorous folks I know have a single primary (and that primary lasts way longer than the average married couple, in my personal experience) and the rest of the business sees women finding multiple partners much more easily than men.
Most modern polyamorous relations end up with the women having more partners than the men. Women have a far easier time finding sex partners than men do, on average.
But this is only a recent trend because of the advent of birth control technologies, which shifted the balance of risk in having multiple partners. Prior to this, high status males had consistently high partners than females.
No, not always. There were matriarchal societies in ancient times where women had multiple partners. You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.
Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.
>You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.
So? As you said, "What does it matter?" Those societies didn't survive. I don't really get how to treat the quip "you're looking at thi[s] through the lens of western history", other than as an attempt do disqualify what's literal fact by saying that it was observed by "westerners."
>Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.
I'm never going to understand this sentiment. "It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing and attempts to subvert it are introduced at our own peril - at least until we actually have total command of controlling said biology.
To claim that those societies didn't survive solely because they weren't monogamous, patriarchal societies is either profoundly ignorant or intellectually dishonest. Societies don't survive for many different reasons, usually become some other foreign society with natural advantages (due to their geography) outcompete or conquer them. Go read "guns, germs, and steel".
>"It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing
You're missing the point that contraceptive technology is here now, and not going away, so what may have worked in the past is no longer applicable because of this. Contraception changes everything.
> Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings
If you want to accelerate western societal collapse, this is the way to do it. What would likely occur is the richest will have a large number of wives and children causing huge amount of tension and unrest in a society.
The problems this causes are likely why monogamy is such a strong factor in the major world religions. Societies in which there is a massive imbalance in the opportunity to have offspring is ripe for turmoil.
> Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents.
As an introvert, this is my idea of hell. I have one wife, one child, and two cats - and that's about the maximum I can currently handle, emotionally and... attentively? Adding more significant relationships in my life would be really, really, really taxing.
It's simple: with a polyamorous relationship, your wife would have another boyfriend/husband to spend her time with, and also to help take care of the kid, leaving you alone more of the time with the cats.
There's no requirement in polyamory for everyone involved to have multiple partners.
I think polyamory might work fine for some, but giving it out as a blanket suggestion is asinine. My wife's an introvert, too - she doesn't want another husband, either.
Other people to take care of the kid would be fantastic, but traditionally that's done by the extended family - grandparents, siblings, etc.
Do you two not have any other friends? You don't even have to have sex with other people: add up all the time you spend taking care of kids without any help from extended family. Now imagine you join up with another couple just like you that you're great friends with, and you move in together into a bigger house, each couple with their own master bedroom. Now you have 4 adults taking care of all the kids, as well as doing household chores. Is it not obvious how this is useful?
As for extended family, what if they suck? A lot of people don't get along with their extended family. Why be stuck with your blood relatives when you can choose the people you live with instead?
> join up with another couple just like you that you're great friends with, and you move in together into a bigger house, each couple with their own master bedroom
Yes, because we've lived with roommates as a married couple. As an introvert, again, this kind of sucks.
And I don't choose to live with my extended family, either.
If you'd rather have less time to yourself, then that's a perfectly acceptable choice. As an introvert myself, I'd rather have more people to share household and child-care activities with, because that would increase the amount of time I have for other pursuits. I don't have kids myself, but I know people who do and the amount of time they spend dealing with them is incredible. I do have a house though, and even there the amount of time I spend on upkeep, repairs, cleaning, and cooking is significant. Having roommates I have little emotional connection to has pluses and minuses: you can share some of the expenses and household duties (if they're good roommates), but the minus of having less privacy kinda sucks. But if you're closer friends than that, it's not such a problem and is actually a benefit by having more emotional support nearby. Also, with more incomes you can afford a bigger house (since house size does not scale linearly with bedrooms; bathrooms and kitchens are the most expensive rooms by far), and this gives you more space than you can afford on your own.
It sounds like you’re thinking polyamory is a requirement.
In any world derived from our own, polyamory would be allowed, not required.
If you’re worried you’d be judged harshly for raising a child with only two parents, as many on this thread are judging single moms... well, you’re probably right. But maybe that’s an argument for a little more support for everyone, not for less support for the more-than-two-grown-ups-per-household folks?
>Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries.
More like millennia. You should ask yourself why/how the concept emerged independently across many cultures and civilizations what that signals for its usefulness in building social structures that are able to respond to negative external stimuli (war, disease, environmental catastrophe etc).
>Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.
Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, since the opposite is true.
The article is a PR piece for "Keiyaku Kekkon", a japanese marriage partner startup.
I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data.
Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model:
"Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriage." Users create their ideal marriage agreement and match up with a suitable partner.
Unlike typical dating sites that match people based on personality, Keiyaku Kekkon matches people based on their marriage contracts. Users can spell out exactly what they want out of marriage and exactly what they have to offer."
>The most important fact motivating this essay is simply that the vast majority of adults want to get married and have children. This suggests that the reduction in marriage rates reflects not a conscious choice but rather people running into various obstacles preventing them from finding a partner.
Thanks to the parent comment we know that this is self-serving to a certain extent since they they're selling a solution to the problem.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting point to make. It's one thing if people don't want marriage and reject it as such, something else if they do want to get married and don't/can't make it happen. Do they truly want marriage in the sense of what it's traditionally meant - exclusive and permanent, but externalities mentioned in the article hinder it from happening?
Or do people just want a big party when they're young and a friend when they're old, and attach "marriage" to the sentiment?
There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends in later age in article. There is mention of career for women (that is not a party) and expectation of completely different lifestyle for married man and married women in the article. Men is supposed to work (in japan context means maybe Sunday afternoon off), so I don't think couple gets to know each other to be friends.
The only real externalities mentioned are that
1.) You cant keep up with Jones if Jones have two incomes and you have one (It kinda assumed that if we both have to work it counts as external obstacle to marriage. E.g. the assumption seems to be that people want 1960 middle or higher class marriage and don't bother when they cant get exactly that).
2.) No one arrange "suitable" marriage for you and there is no societal pressure to marry for you.
I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry. I would also say, that both points are you making marriage decisions based on social status it brings to you, in which case I am quite happy you are not my partner.
> There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends
That was my point - sometimes people have stances on issues without really knowing why they believe what they do. I was just postulating another option that the article didn't explore. In other words, could the more conservative folks here wave this article around and say "see, people have an innate desire for lifelong monogamy!", or is it possible that some of the cultural aspects of marriage could manifest in other ways that would then cause a person to say "nah, I don't need marriage now"?
> I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry.
Nah. I benefit from pressure to do lots of things that are good for me. Working out, accomplishing things at work, contributing to a retirement fund, getting to the doctor, etc. Yeah, peer pressure can take you to dumb places, but it's not inherently evil.
I am not saying that marriage is bad for you. But, if the lack of peer pressure is the reason why you don't marry, then I dont want to be unlucky lady who might end up thinking you actually wants to be with her. Or unlucky dude if genders are reversed.
In the unmarried pool, male and female strategies are incentive-incompatible. Both parties in that pool have unrealistic expectations for what they are able to offer (not making normative judgments here), hence the difficulty in finding partners in the first place.
Believe it or not, the culprit here, again, is wealth inequality.
> If people are voluntarily opting out of marriage and family
I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.
I'd say the article is actually inferring that marriage is what makes a family happy and stable. That and their use of the term "illegitimate" left me unable to finish the article. I'm sure some of it is my strong anti-marriage bias but it reads like being bound by contract and law is what makes a relationship and a family stable.
If you're curious about actual data, and not just a bunch of unsupported claims, Pew has a nice little paper they published back in 2014 on this topic:
Cool to see I got some comments! Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience.
It's like midnight here and I'm going to bed, but feel free to leave questions or contact me if you want to know more about anything. Peace!
Are you targeting the Japanese market, which I understand to have one of the lowest fertility rates? Or are you going after the EU and US markets also?
My sense is that the US market for this is not very mature at this point. There is only a little talk of fertility rates, and in fact there are news stories floating around [1] that tout the environmental benefits of having fewer/no children.
Yeah it is mainly a Japanese product. I just do all of the copy in English first since that's my first language. Really the service can be used by anyone seeking a marriage partner. From my research I think Japan and east Asia in general is the bigger opportunity.
This is rather misleading. What you are seeing is not so much the decline of marriage but rather the success of anti-gentile policies implemented by Israel designed to control non-Jewish populations.
The Jews want small ethnic groups filled with willing sex slaves. The Jews want to break up marriage so that the non-Jewish populations are filled with sexually available single people.
The Jews want to turn the world into a fucking zoo.
Monogamy isn't dead as the author seems to imply by the falling marriage rates. Many people I know are not married but are in 10+ year long-term monogamous relationships (myself included). We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do and how our assets must be split in the case we decide to break up (though we never plan to). We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.
I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.
I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.
> We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do
What about the government telling other people what to do about your relationship? If one of you were seriously hurt, would the hospital accept the other's instructions as a medical or legal proxy, etc?
If you all did split and there was a dispute between you too, the government (courts) are still how things would get settled, no? Marriage I believe is just a form of contract. I believe you can write you own binding legal marriage contract that can specify whatever you would like. As a nonreligious married person, that's what I consider marriage to be. A legal framework for deciding these things. Not having one just means things won't be well defined, but the adjudication process is still similar it seems to me.
regarding property, the addition of a prenuptial or postnuptial rider to the main marriage contract makes it quite flexible and negotiable. I guess without you using more words, I won't understand what the actual specific concern is.
Without the contract of some sort in place, its not so different than operating a business without a contract. You may think you know the outcome of an interaction, but without a contract its completely unknown in actuality.
Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish).
On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things may work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.
I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.
All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.
edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).
>But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue.
Yes, this is a horrible outcome. We must admit that we have something here that is worth preserving. If we continue to fail in this we are in a very sorry state indeed.
People have been brainwashed to hate their own culture, demorilization is the first step of ideological subversion. Western Civilization might not be perfect but there's nothing else in human history that has come close to it.
This is a hyperbolic argument that adds nothing to the discussion. One telltale sign of that: you've thrown out an a little rhetorical molotov cocktail of people "brainwashed to hate their own culture", but haven't bothered to take the time to define any of your terms.
Your last sentence brings up something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely that secular philosophy seems completely blind to children or to the needs of family and child rearing.
It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids.
Some secular communities actively seem to discourage children and belittle people who care about them. It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.
I usually get attacked in forums for bringing this whole topic up.
Needless to say if not believing in God means you don't want to reproduce, then the advent of birth control will guarantee a 100% religious future. Not only are ideas passed from parent to child through cultural mechanisms but if there is any biological basis for religiosity it is now being strongly selected for.
In an ultimate cosmic irony those who deny evolution on religious grounds seem to have higher fitness.
I have my own hypothesis about this. I think there may be a philosophical "uncanny valley" (fitness valley) between pre-rational superstitious thinking and true rational thought. IMHO this valley has not been crossed. A true fully formed rational worldview would manage to carry everything forward including fertility and spirituality. So far every attempt at conceiving such a thing has landed in New Age lala land but maybe we should not give up.
It does not. Marriage and fertility rates are dropping across all income groups. And, in the past, it was the wealthy and educated who had more children than the poor and uneducated.
I wasn't arguing the opposite -- that people have some kind of duty to have kids. I was simply pointing out that there exists a complete void in secular philosophy and culture when it comes to this aspect of human existence.
Many people turn to religion when they have kids for this reason. There's just nobody else in society and culture that acknowledges the importance of this aspect of human existence or provides any social framework for it.
Another hypothesis I have is that there exists some kind of deep cognitive link between the emotional basis of religion and the emotional basis of parenting and fertility. "God the father," etc. When I hear God spoken of it is generally as a kind of idealized parent. Most religions seem to have a strong fertility cult aspect.
Secular philosophy refuses to touch this. Maybe this comes from its general phobia of anything emotional, aesthetic, or "spooky." Secular philosophy has a similar reluctance to touch things like "consciousness," which gives us the bizarre spectacle of conscious beings experiencing themselves proclaiming that consciousness does not exist.
Of course religion has its own denialisms and refuses to look at certain things. When we decide that we believe in a philosophical framework, generally we start discarding anything that doesn't fit neatly into it. This IMHO humanity's greatest cognitive weakness. Finding a way to short circuit this would be a path to super-intelligence.
"It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny."
Well, it is not like really conservative christians would seen women as equally capable as men - it just seen as natural that women cant naturally compete and thus is better off at home. (And dont tell me no, I read local conservative christians journals, have friends in that community and occasionally visit catholic church with conservative priest.)
The only real difference is that one group see moms as throwing away skills while the other as never having them in the first place.
This is a false categorization of the Catholic position.[1] Doubtless, there are plenty of priests who misrepresent on this (as on any position), but I know a handful of feminists who are now Catholic and who think there is no other organization that understands the human person (both women and men) so well. I tend to agree, but I'm definitely biased. :)
Sure there are and there are plenty of sexist liberals.
But, conservative catholics are quite open about women "wanting to be men" when they are attempting to be effective, no liberal talked with straight face about men being head of familly, lectures about husbands being expected to manly hit the table with fist to get his way, and women not being real women if she states openly what she wants (you are supposed to gently manipulate). The fist thing is priest during wedding and manipulation psychologue in journal article. The "you are not scared" question when I wanted to drive car with kids came from conservative catholic collegue, otherwise nice to talk with dude. But in his world, women is expected to be afraid of such feat or something.
So I mean, I have respect to Catholic feminists, but some of theirs cobelievers are whole another level. Plus there may be difference in location - we are more conservative place in general.
In 40 years of connection to Catholic culture including 12 years of Catholic schooling I have never once heard any voice from the church --- including the laity --- talking about women "wanting to be men".
I did, however, spent middle and high school having the notion of gender equality in the workplace inculcated to me by priests, nuns, and lay teachers.
Glad to hear that not everywhere are catholics as conservative as here. I heard/read that one multiple times. Then they got offended when someone called them sexist.
> It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.
My wife stays at home with our boys and I've heard her mocked and derided directly to her face. The interesting thing that it's been exclusively by women (even family members). I've never heard a man question it and some seem jealous that we don't need that second income.
Wait, have you been listening to the people who say that atheists have no morals, because all morals come from religious teaching?
The middle-aged atheists I know are mostly in families with children. And they seem to have similar beliefs as religious people when it comes to the amount of care they take raising their children.
If you bring up generalizations like this with no backup details, are you surprised that you "get attacked" for bringing it up?
"As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies."
This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward?
My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence.
Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.
But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.
As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.
Your method would destroy society. Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits, leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.
Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.
I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs. People are different colors, genders, etc but religion can be used to bind it together.
You're conflating your personal experience with modern courtship and kinship rituals in a particular society with some sort of universality of human nature. That's a nice way of saying you're wrong.
You and all other humans exist because of what you say you believe would "destroy society".
Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history. There are existing kinship models where the "husband" is the father of all of his wives' children, even if he's 80 years old and has ED. Native American courtship rituals placed women in control of their relationships with multiple partners. There's more than one way, and humans have done them all for millennia.
The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.
Just because you don't think you or the other products of your society could handle it doesn't mean an entire species is de facto incapable.
>You're conflating your personal experience with modern courtship and kinship rituals in a particular society with some sort of universality of human nature. That's a nice way of saying you're wrong.
Except his personal experience seems to map onto the general history of the emergence of marriage in society as a useful social technology to do exactly what he says: take males out of competition for mates and put them to use for society so their kids don't starve.
>Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history.
This is not true in the slightest. Even the iconography of sex throughout ancient history explicitly links sex to pregnancy. We started domesticating animals at least ~15,000 years ago. We did not "recently" discover this unless I'm misunderstanding your time horizon.
>The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.
What is "modern understanding?" That your biological parents don't matter? As others have pointed out, if you want to accelerate societal collapse that's the fastest way to do it.
The reality is our brains are built on hardware hundreds of millions of years old. It would be nice if we could build a perfect world but until we can genetically modify ourselves we are stuck with it and all the biases and instincts associated with it. Our strongest instinct is to procreate, social conditioning can't stop that.
>Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits.
Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.
>...leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.
This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"
>Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.
Uhh I guess, sure I can concede that.
>I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs.
I am also agnostic and I agree that religion is important however not for the same reason you do. Yes religions bind societies but only to a certain extent and for only so long. See the conflicts between early Christians and Jews, or the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Or current extremist Muslims, hell extremists of every religion. As much as religion binds people together it even more so tears people apart.
>Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore.
Because if you're not passing on your genes, who cares. One of the best historical indicators of more violence or unrest in a society is a gender imbalance. Idle males who don't/can't find a partner end up acting out. If you're talking about men higher up the IQ or socioeconomic ladder, then sure they might find happiness or value in life outside of marriage/child-rearing. We encourage people to put off children at our own risk.
Edit: This is the paper [1]. The finding: "Gender is a well-established individual-level correlate of crime, and especially violent crime (50). It is a consistent finding across cultures that an overwhelming percentage of violent crime is perpetrated by young, unmarried, low-status males (50–52)."
>Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.
Marriage limits a man to one women, IVF would allow one man to impregnate essentially infinite women and other factors like personality wouldn't factor into the OPs nearly anonymous genetic propositioning.
>This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"
Yes, look into the studies on young men in the US and Japan who are coasting because they see no reason to work hard. They have video games and are happy. The alternative to apathy is violence. Neither is good for society, apathy leads to lack of progress and violence destroys society
Im not sure there's any correlation between young men who are sitting idle and what I was referring to.
There are men who do not have children, some gay men for example, who are highly productive members of society.
The selection bias that you indirectly refer to is already happening. And with the availability of ivf, what I am referring to is already happening as well amongst lesbian and gay couples and single educated women who haven't met the right person yet. And what's to stop it? If people who are smart, successful, but haven't found the right mate or don't want to get married, go gamete shopping and find the ideal set of genes, and produce the ideal child - how do other children without these advantages compete against them? My guess is that other potential parents then start going the same route, especially if marriage is on the decline anyhow.
I don't think it leads to violence and truthfully it's not something I even condone without further thought.
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[ 0.16 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadOur revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating.
As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the back of contraception packaging reproduce. It will be interesting to see how this works out long term.
Think about how many variations on Christianity exist in the US. If Mormons hold to the trend of every other religion that's gotten distant from its origins, I don't mind it replacing the thousand variations on other stories about some guy having adventures in the desert.
I've found his accomplishments in theory of choice to be invaluable when studying the marriage/partnership systems.
For example, maybe you're talking about "Christendom". But then it's not actually in decline -- hispanics are part of Christendom, and Christianity is growing in Africa, so on net it's growing, not shrinking.
Maybe you mean the population within the actual geographic boundaries of Europe and the former British colonies (including America). But if that's your definition, then you would accept immigration as a solution, and you would admit that America is already doing fine.
Maybe you're talking about people who live in societies with constitutions that ultimately derive from the ideas of the enlightenment. But again, not shrinking.
Maybe you're talking about a specific local cultural tradition -- but then it's not really "the West" that's in decline. "Western civilization" necessarily spans a huge range of cultures, otherwise you can't successfully take credit for everything from Socrates to Charlemagne to Descarte to Luther to Newton to Einstein. Consider the magnitude of the cultural turnover across that span!
Is South America part of "Western civilization"? It's literally in the western hemisphere and colonized by Spain and Portugal. If you're really talking about having a connection to European cultural history, it clearly fits. But if we include it, then again the decline disappears. Guatemalan immigrations to the US can't be a non-western invasion.
What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".
Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine. That web is fundamentally global, as much as that annoys chauvinists. And globally, the world is getting richer and more equal at a rapid pace. Mortality is falling. The population is not in decline, although it has a good shot at plateauing in the coming decades, which will be a good thing.
Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades, and the serious prospects for massive social unrest going forward both in the States and in Europe, which often get discussed here, how in the world can you say that. "The World" (since you apparently are one of those who think the term "Western Civilization" is racist), in my judgement, is looking at the most global security risk since the lead up to WWI. There's well documented demographic shifts in Europe that could lead to a fundamental cultural re-imaging of the continent. We might be careening into another financial crisis.
No, it is not "clearly doing fine."
In the last two decades, the share of humans living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 10%. And child deaths under age five were cut in half.
So where's your data?
I will add that I don't think "western civilization" is racist, even though the term gets coopted often by racists. I happen to be proud to be part of a scientific civilization and want to see it flourish. But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines.
You're going to run into problems if you start using one-dimensional measures like extreme poverty (which has a shifting definition) as a proxy for systemic risk in our system.
For example, the Afghanistan war from 2001 to the present has killed somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 people. This makes it very small by the standards of 20th century wars.
In the 1990s alone, there were at least eight wars an order of magnitude bigger than that (Congo, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi, Rawanda).
And yes, we can add up Syria and Iraq too, and that is a much bigger number, but I can likewise keep adding up 1990s wars. It turns out that was a more violent decade in terms of actual battle deaths.
> though I could argue the actual starting point is Pakistan or maybe even Indonesia
You could argue that, but you would be hampered by the fact that casualty numbers in those countries are minuscule by the standards of actual wars.
> not to mention terror in Europe.
Terror is Europe is up a bit but still far from the highs it was hitting in the 1970s.
http://www.datagraver.com/case/people-killed-by-terrorism-pe...
The panicky "things are worse than ever and deteriorating" position is just not supported by hard evidence. It's stoked by an eager media ecosystem that profits from fear, and an aging generation that wants to externalize it's own perceptions of decline.
Many of the people saying "the west is declining" are in fact just baby boomers who are declining who can't accept that they are not equal to "the west".
This might be the worst possible way to think about the present security situation. In aggregate numbers are there less lives being destroyed today than in the 1990s? Maybe. But what does that have to do with total risk of all out war? You're measuring everything by casualty numbers, and not the actual potential for catastrophe, to say nothing of the risk of actual civil war in Europe precipitated by rapid demographic changeover. Scoff at that all you like, but you'll struggle to find a time in history where they was such a significant culture clash that didn't result in violence.
>You could argue that, but you would be hampered by the fact that casualty numbers in those countries are minuscule by the standards of actual wars. >Terror is Europe is up a bit but still far from the highs it was hitting in the 1970s.
That argument is so, so tired. What level of casualties would make you actually take this serious? Do Jihadists need to be killing people monthly? Weekly? Do we need to have a major 9/11-like incident or more Nice style attacks?
>Many of the people saying "the west is declining" are in fact just baby boomers who are declining who can't accept that they are not equal to "the west".
In my experience boomers are the ones acting like everything is just fine and it's actually folks who are a bit younger and look at history on a munch longer timeline than just the last ~200 years who think we're in for some rough times ahead.
I'm so tired of these sorts of facile statements. They're so smugly wrong-headed.
Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. It has massive social and economic value.
Territory matters, access rights to said territory matters matters, to literally every living thing on Earth. Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.
What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?
The idea of boundaries isn't some new thing. It's essentially the reason we developed laws and civilization in the first place, to manage territory in a rational way. Territorial delineations aren't just "imaginary lines."
Are laws just imaginary words to you? Are title agencies imaginary businesses? Does money only have imaginary value? Why not give it all away then.
Your perspective seems absurdly detached to me.
> Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't.
I agree. But I think that a real estate sale is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults, and it's none of your business if I want to sell some of mine to someone who happened to be born slightly too may miles away to end up on the "right" side of some border.
Nativists like to pretend to be defenders of human liberty, when they're just nanny staters with different preferences.
> Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.
Yes, but why does it matter if the other organism you're competing with was born in El Paso vs half a mile away in Juarez? The nativist position is that one is vigorous, dynamic market competition and the other is a foreign invasion. When really they are exactly the same.
Sure, all living things compete (in addition to cooperating -- all ecosystems and markets feature a network of both). But that does not explain the fetish for treating certain people as OK to compete and others as not.
> What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?
Obviously we are only discussing human immigrants here, so unless you're making an underhanded comment about the inhumanity of foreigners, where are you going with this analogy?
Realize that's not just snark -- the whole argument rests on the idea that there's a bright line between two sets of people. That line is completely imaginary. I guarantee you couldn't find it in an experiment, if I got to pick 50 American citizens and 50 non-citizens and you had to tell who was who just by talking to them.
Does it seem impossible to you that cultural differences could spark a civil war? Do you disbelieve that native populations can be essentially wiped out by a competing or hostile culture within a few short generations, similar to the fate of the Native Americans?
Why should someone believe that all cultures are equal when some cultures and nation states are much, much more successful by almost any quantifiable metric?
Do you recognize that your argument can be applied to literally any culture that wants to ethnically preserve itself (just replace "white" with "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Nigerian" or whatever)? You are arguing that any civilization that wants to preserve its ethnic character is fundamentally illegitimate, which is ironic because that view is at root a direct outgrowth of the European universalist enlightenment tradition. You think you are better than other cultures, and you are using that to self-righteously argue for their destruction.
My argument is contingent on the idea that behavior/personality is somewhat heritable, and that culture and ethnicity co-evolve to a certain extent - statistically, people are more likely to be better suited to their own culture. Finns are better at being Finns than they are at being Italians, and vice versa.
Yes, cultures which want to preserve their ethnic makeup are racist. I think they’re wrong and won’t support that aspect of a culture spreading around me if I can help it.
That I support certain enlightenment era egalitarian values doesn’t in any way diminish my ability to speak up for cultural diversity that doesn’t rely on ethnic identity.
You seem to be implying that all cultures must be accepted as complete packages, without negotiation on any facet. That seems facile.
In concrete terms, do you think Japan would become a better place if it had fewer Japanese people and more non-Japanese? This isn't a question about Japan's so-called population problem - keep the population the same but make it have fewer Japanese-descent people.
>such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction
I've always thought it was funny how people are perfectly fine saying height is genetic but saying intelligence is genetic is unthinkable. Research shows intelligence is just as, if not more so, influenced by genetics
Or behavior, and then purchase a specific dog because of that breed's selected behavioral characteristics.
Also thanks for calling my existence "illegitimate" in 2017.
Most of the stuff in the article that looks like bias to Western readers, in fact, could sound perfectly reasonable to Japanese readers for whom it might have originally been written. Japanese society is incredibly conservative when it comes to family norms.
>As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies.
>The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communities. Strong communities create prosperous cities. Prosperous cities create successful nations. Successful nations advance humanity.
Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries. "We've always done it this way" isn't proof, and the way our society was before ~50 years ago was actively bad and oppressive for many members of society, particularly women who really were second-class citizens, unable to vote or hold most jobs.
Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.
There are studies that show that single parent homes correlate with certain social outcomes. The next dozen leaps, however, are way out there or patently false.
Are you implying there was some kind of poll tax or equivalent suppression of the female vote until the 60s?
I think ~50 years ago referred more to this type of thing, while stuff like voting rights was just included since it's relevant to the struggle as a whole.
But the polyamory community doesn’t look anything like polygamy. Like, not at all. More like polyandry, but most polyamorous folks I know have a single primary (and that primary lasts way longer than the average married couple, in my personal experience) and the rest of the business sees women finding multiple partners much more easily than men.
But it’s a complicated and open scene, YMMV.
But close enough.
Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.
So? As you said, "What does it matter?" Those societies didn't survive. I don't really get how to treat the quip "you're looking at thi[s] through the lens of western history", other than as an attempt do disqualify what's literal fact by saying that it was observed by "westerners."
>Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.
I'm never going to understand this sentiment. "It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing and attempts to subvert it are introduced at our own peril - at least until we actually have total command of controlling said biology.
>"It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing
You're missing the point that contraceptive technology is here now, and not going away, so what may have worked in the past is no longer applicable because of this. Contraception changes everything.
If you want to accelerate western societal collapse, this is the way to do it. What would likely occur is the richest will have a large number of wives and children causing huge amount of tension and unrest in a society.
The problems this causes are likely why monogamy is such a strong factor in the major world religions. Societies in which there is a massive imbalance in the opportunity to have offspring is ripe for turmoil.
As an introvert, this is my idea of hell. I have one wife, one child, and two cats - and that's about the maximum I can currently handle, emotionally and... attentively? Adding more significant relationships in my life would be really, really, really taxing.
There's no requirement in polyamory for everyone involved to have multiple partners.
Other people to take care of the kid would be fantastic, but traditionally that's done by the extended family - grandparents, siblings, etc.
As for extended family, what if they suck? A lot of people don't get along with their extended family. Why be stuck with your blood relatives when you can choose the people you live with instead?
Yes, because we've lived with roommates as a married couple. As an introvert, again, this kind of sucks.
And I don't choose to live with my extended family, either.
In any world derived from our own, polyamory would be allowed, not required.
If you’re worried you’d be judged harshly for raising a child with only two parents, as many on this thread are judging single moms... well, you’re probably right. But maybe that’s an argument for a little more support for everyone, not for less support for the more-than-two-grown-ups-per-household folks?
More like millennia. You should ask yourself why/how the concept emerged independently across many cultures and civilizations what that signals for its usefulness in building social structures that are able to respond to negative external stimuli (war, disease, environmental catastrophe etc).
>Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.
Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, since the opposite is true.
I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data.
Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model:
"Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriage." Users create their ideal marriage agreement and match up with a suitable partner.
Unlike typical dating sites that match people based on personality, Keiyaku Kekkon matches people based on their marriage contracts. Users can spell out exactly what they want out of marriage and exactly what they have to offer."
[1] http://keiyakukekkon.com
Thanks to the parent comment we know that this is self-serving to a certain extent since they they're selling a solution to the problem.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting point to make. It's one thing if people don't want marriage and reject it as such, something else if they do want to get married and don't/can't make it happen. Do they truly want marriage in the sense of what it's traditionally meant - exclusive and permanent, but externalities mentioned in the article hinder it from happening?
Or do people just want a big party when they're young and a friend when they're old, and attach "marriage" to the sentiment?
The only real externalities mentioned are that
1.) You cant keep up with Jones if Jones have two incomes and you have one (It kinda assumed that if we both have to work it counts as external obstacle to marriage. E.g. the assumption seems to be that people want 1960 middle or higher class marriage and don't bother when they cant get exactly that).
2.) No one arrange "suitable" marriage for you and there is no societal pressure to marry for you.
I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry. I would also say, that both points are you making marriage decisions based on social status it brings to you, in which case I am quite happy you are not my partner.
That was my point - sometimes people have stances on issues without really knowing why they believe what they do. I was just postulating another option that the article didn't explore. In other words, could the more conservative folks here wave this article around and say "see, people have an innate desire for lifelong monogamy!", or is it possible that some of the cultural aspects of marriage could manifest in other ways that would then cause a person to say "nah, I don't need marriage now"?
> I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry.
Nah. I benefit from pressure to do lots of things that are good for me. Working out, accomplishing things at work, contributing to a retirement fund, getting to the doctor, etc. Yeah, peer pressure can take you to dumb places, but it's not inherently evil.
There is nothing about monogamy in the article.
In the unmarried pool, male and female strategies are incentive-incompatible. Both parties in that pool have unrealistic expectations for what they are able to offer (not making normative judgments here), hence the difficulty in finding partners in the first place.
Believe it or not, the culprit here, again, is wealth inequality.
I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.
> The decline of marriage correlates strongly with reduced fertility rates as well.
Further, it looks at the data in aggregate so there can be lots of "but I.." comments without invalidating the data or the affecting the analysis.
That's a well established definition of the word; if you Google 'define illegitimate' you'll get:
I don't think it really does to be offended by such things, I didn't read it as coming with any judgement from the author.http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-am...
To my eyes, this is purely a data driven analysis and doesn't spend a lot of time moralizing on the topic.
I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience.
It's like midnight here and I'm going to bed, but feel free to leave questions or contact me if you want to know more about anything. Peace!
My sense is that the US market for this is not very mature at this point. There is only a little talk of fertility rates, and in fact there are news stories floating around [1] that tout the environmental benefits of having fewer/no children.
1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...
The Jews want small ethnic groups filled with willing sex slaves. The Jews want to break up marriage so that the non-Jewish populations are filled with sexually available single people.
The Jews want to turn the world into a fucking zoo.
Literally. A fucking zoo.
I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.
I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.
What about the government telling other people what to do about your relationship? If one of you were seriously hurt, would the hospital accept the other's instructions as a medical or legal proxy, etc?
If so then what happens when your father is gone?
Just curious, do civil unions not exist where you are? I kind of assumed in my mind they were a pretty normal thing at this point.
Without the contract of some sort in place, its not so different than operating a business without a contract. You may think you know the outcome of an interaction, but without a contract its completely unknown in actuality.
On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things may work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.
I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.
All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.
edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).
Yes, this is a horrible outcome. We must admit that we have something here that is worth preserving. If we continue to fail in this we are in a very sorry state indeed.
Everybody should watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA
It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids.
Some secular communities actively seem to discourage children and belittle people who care about them. It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.
I usually get attacked in forums for bringing this whole topic up.
Needless to say if not believing in God means you don't want to reproduce, then the advent of birth control will guarantee a 100% religious future. Not only are ideas passed from parent to child through cultural mechanisms but if there is any biological basis for religiosity it is now being strongly selected for.
In an ultimate cosmic irony those who deny evolution on religious grounds seem to have higher fitness.
I have my own hypothesis about this. I think there may be a philosophical "uncanny valley" (fitness valley) between pre-rational superstitious thinking and true rational thought. IMHO this valley has not been crossed. A true fully formed rational worldview would manage to carry everything forward including fertility and spirituality. So far every attempt at conceiving such a thing has landed in New Age lala land but maybe we should not give up.
Atheists don't genuinely seem to believe in natural selection, it's ironic.
Many people turn to religion when they have kids for this reason. There's just nobody else in society and culture that acknowledges the importance of this aspect of human existence or provides any social framework for it.
Another hypothesis I have is that there exists some kind of deep cognitive link between the emotional basis of religion and the emotional basis of parenting and fertility. "God the father," etc. When I hear God spoken of it is generally as a kind of idealized parent. Most religions seem to have a strong fertility cult aspect.
Secular philosophy refuses to touch this. Maybe this comes from its general phobia of anything emotional, aesthetic, or "spooky." Secular philosophy has a similar reluctance to touch things like "consciousness," which gives us the bizarre spectacle of conscious beings experiencing themselves proclaiming that consciousness does not exist.
Of course religion has its own denialisms and refuses to look at certain things. When we decide that we believe in a philosophical framework, generally we start discarding anything that doesn't fit neatly into it. This IMHO humanity's greatest cognitive weakness. Finding a way to short circuit this would be a path to super-intelligence.
Well, it is not like really conservative christians would seen women as equally capable as men - it just seen as natural that women cant naturally compete and thus is better off at home. (And dont tell me no, I read local conservative christians journals, have friends in that community and occasionally visit catholic church with conservative priest.)
The only real difference is that one group see moms as throwing away skills while the other as never having them in the first place.
[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1995/do...
But, conservative catholics are quite open about women "wanting to be men" when they are attempting to be effective, no liberal talked with straight face about men being head of familly, lectures about husbands being expected to manly hit the table with fist to get his way, and women not being real women if she states openly what she wants (you are supposed to gently manipulate). The fist thing is priest during wedding and manipulation psychologue in journal article. The "you are not scared" question when I wanted to drive car with kids came from conservative catholic collegue, otherwise nice to talk with dude. But in his world, women is expected to be afraid of such feat or something.
So I mean, I have respect to Catholic feminists, but some of theirs cobelievers are whole another level. Plus there may be difference in location - we are more conservative place in general.
I did, however, spent middle and high school having the notion of gender equality in the workplace inculcated to me by priests, nuns, and lay teachers.
My wife stays at home with our boys and I've heard her mocked and derided directly to her face. The interesting thing that it's been exclusively by women (even family members). I've never heard a man question it and some seem jealous that we don't need that second income.
The middle-aged atheists I know are mostly in families with children. And they seem to have similar beliefs as religious people when it comes to the amount of care they take raising their children.
If you bring up generalizations like this with no backup details, are you surprised that you "get attacked" for bringing it up?
This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward? My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence. Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.
But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.
As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.
Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.
I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs. People are different colors, genders, etc but religion can be used to bind it together.
You and all other humans exist because of what you say you believe would "destroy society".
Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history. There are existing kinship models where the "husband" is the father of all of his wives' children, even if he's 80 years old and has ED. Native American courtship rituals placed women in control of their relationships with multiple partners. There's more than one way, and humans have done them all for millennia.
The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.
Just because you don't think you or the other products of your society could handle it doesn't mean an entire species is de facto incapable.
Except his personal experience seems to map onto the general history of the emergence of marriage in society as a useful social technology to do exactly what he says: take males out of competition for mates and put them to use for society so their kids don't starve.
>Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history.
This is not true in the slightest. Even the iconography of sex throughout ancient history explicitly links sex to pregnancy. We started domesticating animals at least ~15,000 years ago. We did not "recently" discover this unless I'm misunderstanding your time horizon.
>The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.
What is "modern understanding?" That your biological parents don't matter? As others have pointed out, if you want to accelerate societal collapse that's the fastest way to do it.
Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.
>...leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.
This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"
>Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.
Uhh I guess, sure I can concede that.
>I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs.
I am also agnostic and I agree that religion is important however not for the same reason you do. Yes religions bind societies but only to a certain extent and for only so long. See the conflicts between early Christians and Jews, or the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Or current extremist Muslims, hell extremists of every religion. As much as religion binds people together it even more so tears people apart.
Because if you're not passing on your genes, who cares. One of the best historical indicators of more violence or unrest in a society is a gender imbalance. Idle males who don't/can't find a partner end up acting out. If you're talking about men higher up the IQ or socioeconomic ladder, then sure they might find happiness or value in life outside of marriage/child-rearing. We encourage people to put off children at our own risk.
Edit: This is the paper [1]. The finding: "Gender is a well-established individual-level correlate of crime, and especially violent crime (50). It is a consistent finding across cultures that an overwhelming percentage of violent crime is perpetrated by young, unmarried, low-status males (50–52)."
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569153/
Marriage limits a man to one women, IVF would allow one man to impregnate essentially infinite women and other factors like personality wouldn't factor into the OPs nearly anonymous genetic propositioning.
>This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"
Yes, look into the studies on young men in the US and Japan who are coasting because they see no reason to work hard. They have video games and are happy. The alternative to apathy is violence. Neither is good for society, apathy leads to lack of progress and violence destroys society
https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is-t...
The selection bias that you indirectly refer to is already happening. And with the availability of ivf, what I am referring to is already happening as well amongst lesbian and gay couples and single educated women who haven't met the right person yet. And what's to stop it? If people who are smart, successful, but haven't found the right mate or don't want to get married, go gamete shopping and find the ideal set of genes, and produce the ideal child - how do other children without these advantages compete against them? My guess is that other potential parents then start going the same route, especially if marriage is on the decline anyhow.
I don't think it leads to violence and truthfully it's not something I even condone without further thought.