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Robert A. Heinlein postulated that morality = "women and children first"

Rumpel said:
Heinlein sounds German ….. was he German?
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TMK he only identified as American. Not sure about his ancestry, the only thing I ever heard him say about was "I'm a mutt, like most Americans."
 
Goshin said:
Pretty sure I never advocated forcing women to have 8+ kids.

But I think letting our birthrates fall below replacement levels (2.1 kids per couple average) is an indication that something is badly out of whack.
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It might be a good thing birth rates are falling, I think of it as like a cooldown period.
 
Goshin said:
Well, the first way to possibly address the problem is to discuss it... which I've been attempting to do.

As to immigration (pardon me for not putting it aside so quickly), that has many caveats. Among them is that it is not a permanent solution, as subsequent generations of immigrants also have lower birth rates. Cultural issues, etc.

I'd say that first, we have to agree that it is a problem... which some deny, apparently.
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What specifically are the problems with lower birth rates?
 
Heinlein is very german
 
bomberfox said:
What specifically are the problems with lower birth rates?
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There are many, rather well documented issues that come with birth rates falling below replacement level.

An aging population, fewer workers, more retirees/pensioners/elderly with fewer young workers "paying into the system" can cause many economic issues: slowing economic growth, higher costs associated with an aging population (the elderly consume far more medical resources and contribute little productivity), and so on.

Socially, fewer children have siblings, and sibling relationships are often strong bonds that provide support, emotional and otherwise, over the course of a lifetime. Fewer cousins, aunties and uncles, fewer family ties and family resources in general, leading to fewer family resources for an individual to draw on during a time of difficulty, leading to greater reliance on gov't social programs and greater cost for same... in a time where productivity and revenue are down.

There's quite a bit of information and studies on the subject, available online if you're actually interested.

Even an exact-zero pop growth has some of these problems, but maintaining exactly ZPG is nearly impossible anyway.
 
Goshin said:
There are many, rather well documented issues that come with birth rates falling below replacement level.

An aging population, fewer workers, more retirees/pensioners/elderly with fewer young workers "paying into the system" can cause many economic issues: slowing economic growth, higher costs associated with an aging population (the elderly consume far more medical resources and contribute little productivity), and so on.

Socially, fewer children have siblings, and sibling relationships are often strong bonds that provide support, emotional and otherwise, over the course of a lifetime. Fewer cousins, aunties and uncles, fewer family ties and family resources in general, leading to fewer family resources for an individual to draw on during a time of difficulty, leading to greater reliance on gov't social programs and greater cost for same... in a time where productivity and revenue are down.

There's quite a bit of information and studies on the subject, available online if you're actually interested.

Even an exact-zero pop growth has some of these problems, but maintaining exactly ZPG is nearly impossible anyway.
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I can see with social security although since the federal government is a sovereign currency issue it cannot go broke unless politicians decide to not pay out. Pension
Problems however dont seem to be a result of lower birth rates, but the result of job instability, the gig economy, and politicians mucking about as well as replacing them with 401ks.

I can see your point.
 
bomberfox said:
I can see with social security although since the federal government is a sovereign currency issue it cannot go broke unless politicians decide to not pay out. Pension
Problems however dont seem to be a result of lower birth rates, but the result of job instability, the gig economy, and politicians mucking about as well as replacing them with 401ks.

I can see your point.
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There are numerous historical examples of how getting too enthused about government's "sovereign currency" power leads to serious problems... starting with Rome debasing silver coins, continuing with the Weimar Republic's hyperinflation, and so on. Too much of that and the economy tends to collapse.
 
Goshin said:
There are many, rather well documented issues that come with birth rates falling below replacement level.

An aging population, fewer workers, more retirees/pensioners/elderly with fewer young workers "paying into the system" can cause many economic issues: slowing economic growth, higher costs associated with an aging population (the elderly consume far more medical resources and contribute little productivity), and so on.

Socially, fewer children have siblings, and sibling relationships are often strong bonds that provide support, emotional and otherwise, over the course of a lifetime. Fewer cousins, aunties and uncles, fewer family ties and family resources in general, leading to fewer family resources for an individual to draw on during a time of difficulty, leading to greater reliance on gov't social programs and greater cost for same... in a time where productivity and revenue are down.

There's quite a bit of information and studies on the subject, available online if you're actually interested.

Even an exact-zero pop growth has some of these problems, but maintaining exactly ZPG is nearly impossible anyway.
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As with BomberFox I see your point.

The other side of the coin is that when you start looking at long time horizons (measured in 100's if not 1000's of years) continued population growth has it's own problems in an environment with finite resources. Populations can grow to the point where the population needs of food, energy, resources exceed availability.

As that happens the upper crust of society consumes resources at to maintain their status, and the lower crust is left in squalor, eventually rising in conflict to reclaim the resources the upper crust have horded for themselves. Countries war against their neighbors for their resources and you have genocide through famine and disease running through highly dense populations.

Oh for a time you can do things like "Hey, we can irrigate the desert to grow more food." or "We can cut down old growth forests for building materials." But those again are short term as you are using water at a rate higher then it is replaced in the aquifer by the water cycle. The old growth forest ecosystem disappears and the benefits it provides are lost. Increased consumption doesn't solve the problem, it accelerates it (in the long term).

WW
 
To repeat: Heinlein was an interesting thinker, an anvilicious writer, and an excellent gadfly. Ginny took him from an experimental leftist scribbler to a nearly-fascist author, and helped him ruin his art along the way.

He also wrote about incest a lot.
 
I fail to see why immigration as population replacement is disparaged, even if only tacitly. This in America especially where the experiment has embraced, since after the civil war around the turn of the 18th century, a “melting pot.”

One of the few things true about the idea of American exceptionalism is that this country/system is one giant talent finder. It finds the best talent from all over the world and attracts it to itself. Or, at least it did historically. There are no “original” Americans even if we’d like to call the native peoples “native Americans.” It was not “America” until Europeans showed up.

A lot of Americans have some idea that Americans are “white people” and immigration brings less-white people, and that this is somehow bad. That’s a silly idea and anybody with sense knows that there is only one species of human left on the planet. We are all essentially the same.

Another bad idea is that immigrants don’t assimilate. The reason they don’t is because many of them are stuck in the margins between legal/illegal status. Some want to throw the illegals out, while their brothers next door employ them illegally to gain advantage over their business rivals in a competitive environment. This drives prices and wages for services down in a race to the bottom.

There are cultural and religious differences and we deride the extremist religions of other cultures while simultaneously allowing or tacitly condoning our own Christian extremists as though they were somehow better for society.

America could easily get back to being the great melting pot and even better than it ever was. Prosperity all around makes people want to pair up and ****.
 
So I am going to comment on the OP before I read any other post. And of course because of the character limit, this will be in two parts.
Goshin said:
For starters, we're encouraging (from elementary school!) children to identify as other-than-hetero. The only explanation for the massive swell in non-binary/trans/etc youth (beyond all historical levels) is we've made it somehow *cool* to be "other than het".
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I don't see where Heinlein would have seen this as a problem. When you look at his stories about group families, particularly with Lazarus and Michael, there is, at the least, no discouragement from same sex interactions. Furthermore, he does place sex and reproduction as separate things. While all of his stories do focus on male/female relationships, I think some of it was him being a product of his time, and some of it being not pushing the envelope too far so the stories got out.

Goshin said:
The massive emphasis on climate doom is discouraging many young adults from parenthood. Many of them believe it would be irresponsible of them to "inflict another human on the world", and/or inflict the "doomed" world on another child.
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While out country might be not currently at replacement levels, last I knew the world was still at more than replacement levels. More people are starting to think globally, not locally. At that point, it's a matter of opinion as to whether or not this is a bad thing.

Goshin said:
Society has made marriage an undesirable burden. You're an independent woman, you don't need no man right? And sex is easy so who needs a wife. Many consider the odds of divorce and the consequences of it and feel a lack of incentive to marry.
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I'm going to disagree with this. I think what we are seeing is a decline in the legal marriages yes, but an increase in many of the marriages such as Heinlein had in his stories. Looking at Time Enough for Love, we have the story where he is on the frontier planet, and he ends up marrying the (no longer) little girl he rescued from the house fire. Their marriage was nothing more than simply declaring they were married. From the descriptions, it also seemed to be that many of the marriages on Tercius (sp?) were also of this type. So is marriage an undesirable burden, or is it just taking form other than legal? We have people out there who have been living together, and having children, for decades without ever getting the legal status.

Goshin said:
Women of prime child-bearing years are encouraged to pursue career before family, and are accepted in combat units in the military. Whatever you may think about this personally, it doesn't help the starting premise.
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Given that Heinlein often put his women characters in the military or in positions of combat, and willingly so, I don't think he would see this as a problem. Further, I don't recall him writing such that one took priority over the other.

Goshin said:
There's the "incel" phenomenon... some say because 80% of young women are only interested in the top 5% of men, and ignore any man who doesn't have a movie-star face and abs, plus style, verve and of course, money to burn.
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I think the incel phenomenon is more due to the attitude of the incel, than that of the women. Not denying the shallow women that are out there, but even us nerds/geeks were getting a decent amount (once past high school) because women we seeing that they were treated better by them than by the men who thought they were God's gift to women. Women started placing a priority on what they wanted instead of who they could get. And sadly, what gets the attention are the shallow ones who are picky and want to have their cake and eat it too.
 
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Part 2
Goshin said:
On the right, there is resistance to aid for impoverished children and mothers, helping ensure they will fail to meet minimum standards of success as adults and likely end up in the prison system.
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Talk about the dilemma. On the one hand Heinlein would have been all for the society helping to keep other afloat. On the other hand he was a firm believer in TANSTAAFL. I think in his case, he would be less about the government providing these things and more about how the people should be doing so on their own.

Goshin said:
Men are discouraged from being men.
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I had to address this alone. This is too easy to set up as a stereotype. This was the kind of line that was used when seeing a little boy playing with baby dolls, saying he wouldn't be a man, instead of saying that he's practicing to be a good father. I agree that there is a lot that is discouraging men from living up to the old stereotypes, but many of those stereotypes were very damaging and actually discouraged good family life. The whole concept of men's work and woman's work is poison.

Goshin said:
Their importance as husbands and fathers is widely disparaged in media. Everywhere you look, the majority of 20-something young men behave like sophomoric frat boys, more intent on parties and hook-ups than building a life or having a family.
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I disagree. I see constantly a message of fathers being with their kids, both in ad programs to encourage parental interaction of men, and in media where the man is shown regretting not having been there for the kids, or is a strong part of their lives, even to the point of being a single father.

Goshin said:
All this despite many studies showing that children do best in a household with both mom and dad.
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I'm going to dispute that with a social confirmation bias skew in the data. Only now are we getting the marriages between same sex couples and also with kids being raised in poly families. Before we didn't really have those families included in the data studied. I recall one study a while back, and even when the lesbian or bi women were with other women long term, they still counted them as single mothers, and never studied how the children were really doing in a two parent household vs a true single parent household. There have been some initial studies that indicate that children do really well in multi parent families, where they have more than two adults to aid in the child rearing. I would like to see some studies that looked at parents who are long term living together without the legal marriage, as well as the same sex marriages, and the poly families.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Robert Heinlen wrote fiction.

"Science" fiction.


I usually don't put a lot of stock in the philosophies of fiction writers.
And while it was a unique shift, moving it into an anti-transexual rant is cheap.
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So did Roddenberry. But that didn't stop either of them from using the vehicle of fiction stories to address social issues and dilemmas. Basically, they told highly entertaining parables.
 
VanceMack said:
I doubt Heinlein could have foreseen a time when people would become so perverted that many would insist that anyone can be a man, woman, or child, if they really really really really wanted to.

Gender roles have been under attack since the 60s. Life has been constantly devalued. I doubt he would recognize what we have become. With what the Marxist left has done to society in just the last 10 years, I can imagine what it will be like in 50 years.
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Obviously you have not read Heinlein. As a specific example. Andrew "Slipstick" Libby, at one point transitioned into Elizabeth Libby. Now granted this was not the same as what happens now. Heinlein postulated that we would be able to not only create clones, and manipulate the DNA to make a true male or female from what was the opposite. They had also perfected transfering the mind from the old body into the clone. Which is what happened when Libby went from male to female. But Libby stated that she always felt more female than male. And that was by far not the only example. Off the top of my head, All You Zombies and I Will Fear No Evil also had example of this, albeit in different way. And I'm sure there are others I can't think of at the moment. No, Heinlein would not have had a problem with transgenders.
 
maquiscat said:
Obviously you have not read Heinlein. As a specific example. Andrew "Slipstick" Libby, at one point transitioned into Elizabeth Libby. Now granted this was not the same as what happens now. Heinlein postulated that we would be able to not only create clones, and manipulate the DNA to make a true male or female from what was the opposite. They had also perfected transfering the mind from the old body into the clone. Which is what happened when Libby went from male to female. But Libby stated that she always felt more female than male. And that was by far not the only example. Off the top of my head, All You Zombies and I Will Fear No Evil also had example of this, albeit in different way. And I'm sure there are others I can't think of at the moment. No, Heinlein would not have had a problem with transgenders.
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Historically...transgenderism has been an accepted reality....that there were men that for whatever think think they are women. That is hell and gone from the lunacy the idiot left has promoted...that they actually ARE women...and that the modern day sickness should be pushed onto children.
 
maquiscat said:
I don't see where Heinlein would have seen this as a problem. ... etc et al...
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You could have a point. Heinlein's social and political views evolved and changed over time, and the societal structures he explored experimentally in his stories were all over the map.

He probably leaned more libertarian-ish (small L) than anything else, especially in his later years. He wouldn't have approved of government mandating by force-of-law that people live their lives in a certain way, or were required to form traditional families under penalty of law.

I'm not advocating that either. I don't think you can cure what ails society by passing laws. Society has to cure itself.

Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities begins "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I feel that way about the modern age, while being aware of the irony that the quote could apply to most times in history.
Much is better than it was. Some, maybe not.

I guess we'll see how things shake out.

I'm not going to lose sleep over it, as there's very very little I can do about it anyway.
 
BirdinHand said:
Robert Heinlein had a history of divorces, failed relationships, poverty and poor health. If it wasn't for his 3rd wife, nothing he actually wrote would have ever made it to publication because the man was a disorganized mess of a human.
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Not true.
 
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