The following is presented as a speculative argument based on the initial premise, not necessarily as an advocacy of it.
Robert A. Heinlein postulated that essential societal "morality" was, or should be, based on protecting women and children, as they were the future of society.
The theory goes, if you don't protect and nurture women of child-bearing age, and children, then your society is doomed because there won't be a next generation. That's the short version anyway.
(What follows is my musings *based on that perspective*, not necessarily my actual opinion in all details, mmkay?)
By that metric, how well are we doing as a society?
Eeek.... not too good, it seems. Our reproduction rates (for native-born Americans) is falling below replacement level. The same in Europe and most "developed" nations. Instead of Ehrlich's "population bomb" we're looking at a population *implosion*.
Immigration is the only thing keeping our population growth positive at this point, and that has many caveats of its own.
What are we doing wrong?
Well, almost everything, from the perspective above.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Men are discouraged from being men. 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.
All this despite many studies showing that children do best in a household with both mom and dad.
Some young folks go so far as to embrace human extinction as a desirable outcome (at least in theory... haven't noticed them offing themselves in record numbers).
Heinlein postulated that survival was the sine-qua-non of any society ("without this, nothing"). As an extreme example, there were the Shakers, a religious group that practiced celibacy for all. At their peak in the 19th century there were perhaps 4,000-6,000 of them. Today there are three. THREE. All elderly and soon there will be zero.
Perhaps Heinlein was onto something after all.
Thoughts?
Heinlein was way out there on sex, incest, violence, patriotism, nuclear testing.. he did few things halfway. He was also a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was excellent at mathematics and a good practical engineer. During WWII he worked for the U.S. government developing high altitude flight gear, IIRC.what is true.?
I would say that this a total dismissal of the economic component: stagnant wages and all of the inputs that have come to define them, that struggle to keep up with the cost of living if they do so at all (see housing, health care and education) which have resulted in a gradual reduction of living standards and an increasingly untenable cost for raising children who need more education and investment than ever to succeed in the developed world.The following is presented as a speculative argument based on the initial premise, not necessarily as an advocacy of it...
I personally preferred All You Zombies over that one. And the film adaptation was extremely good, even if they did add to it.P.S. The best time travel story I ever read is By His Bootstraps, by Robert A. Heinlein.
Heinlein was way out there on sex, incest, violence, patriotism, nuclear testing.. he did few things halfway. He was also a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was excellent at mathematics and a good practical engineer. During WWII he worked for the U.S. government developing high altitude flight gear, IIRC.
Was he strange? Oh, yeah. He delighted in being an iconoclast in his writing, yet he was often conservative in his politics.
It's should not be forgotten that before Stranger in a Strange Land, he wrote a dozen young adult novels for Scribner's, often involving hard-fought battles with his editor, Alice Dalgliesh. He left for Putnam when Scribner's rejected Starship Troopers.
Heinlein was no angel, but many sci-fi writers speak highly of how much he helped them with loans and writing advice.. He was also big into appearing at public libraries, and for advocating and publicizing blood donation.
He and his first wife were married under a year, I think, he spent most of that time at sea and they developed a mutual dislike of each other. His second wife, Leslyn, was an extremely intelligent and beautiful woman, but troubled psychologically. There's was an open marriage and this likely didn't help her state of mind. This type of illness ran in her family.
Heinlein suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis for much of his life.
Heinlein was the first, and for a time the only sci-fi author to hit the NYT bestseller lists.
I read his two-volume biography by William Patterson, I don't want to say it sucked, but it did. It was an authorized biography and offered little criticism.
Heinlein became increasingly right wing as he aged and it hurt his work, it's often said.
Heinlein invented the words "waldo," "grok," and popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL, There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It should be noted he depended on his navy pension after he was invalided out, and also accepted a limited amount of public assistance during the Depression.
I personally preferred All You Zombies over that one. And the film adaptation was extremely good, even if they did add to it.
I think there has only been one other film, that I've seen, that was as accurate adaptation, and that was The Lion, The Witch and thePredestination is a great film.
I think one reason I like him is that I read him when I was young. I read Stranger at 15 then many of his other works while still in high school. This is also when many become fans of Vonnegut, I think. Iconoclasts make a big impact at that age.It is interesting to meet a fan of a writer you think is grossly overrated.
I never understood why people like Heinlein.
I didn't start Heinlein until my now wife got me Friday for my birthday in my late 20's/early 30's. He was writing about things I had always felt were right, or at least not wrong, and it really spoke to me. It helped me to realize I was not alone in these things, and was one of the key things that helped my to accept being poly.I think one reason I like him is that I read him when I was young. I read Stranger at 15 then many of his other works while still in high school. This is also when many become fans of Vonnegut, I think. Iconoclasts make a big impact at that age.
Nature self-regulates reproductive rates. It may be very natural that as we overpopulate nature puts the brakes on how much we reproduce.The following is presented as a speculative argument based on the initial premise, not necessarily as an advocacy of it.
Robert A. Heinlein postulated that essential societal "morality" was, or should be, based on protecting women and children, as they were the future of society.
The theory goes, if you don't protect and nurture women of child-bearing age, and children, then your society is doomed because there won't be a next generation. That's the short version anyway.
(What follows is my musings *based on that perspective*, not necessarily my actual opinion in all details, mmkay?)
By that metric, how well are we doing as a society?
Eeek.... not too good, it seems. Our reproduction rates (for native-born Americans) is falling below replacement level. The same in Europe and most "developed" nations. Instead of Ehrlich's "population bomb" we're looking at a population *implosion*.
Immigration is the only thing keeping our population growth positive at this point, and that has many caveats of its own.
What are we doing wrong?
Well, almost everything, from the perspective above.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Men are discouraged from being men. 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.
All this despite many studies showing that children do best in a household with both mom and dad.
Some young folks go so far as to embrace human extinction as a desirable outcome (at least in theory... haven't noticed them offing themselves in record numbers).
Heinlein postulated that survival was the sine-qua-non of any society ("without this, nothing"). As an extreme example, there were the Shakers, a religious group that practiced celibacy for all. At their peak in the 19th century there were perhaps 4,000-6,000 of them. Today there are three. THREE. All elderly and soon there will be zero.
Perhaps Heinlein was onto something after all.
Thoughts?
Why must the gov do anything about it?These arguments always, and I do mean always, come down to the same thing. What is the OP, or anyone else, propose the government do about this?
I guess let me add to this, any statement about morality or moral code is rather meaningless without some means to influence, if not enforce, that statement. If we stipulate that society should be based on "women and children first" as a statement of morality then the natural question is how to ensure it.
Just saying it, is pretend argument.
And you were doing so well.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".
I would say that this a total dismissal of the economic component: stagnant wages and all of the inputs that have come to define them, that struggle to keep up with the cost of living if they do so at all (see housing, health care and education) which have resulted in a gradual reduction of living standards and an increasingly untenable cost for raising children who need more education and investment than ever to succeed in the developed world.
The fact is that those of the Millennial and younger generations find it difficult to say the least to get all their ducks in a row as one should before they venture into having children, and this is due overwhelmingly to the unfortunate new economic realities and norms of today; exorbitant housing and health care costs, rampant student debt for an ever more critical and costly post-secondary education, historic job insecurity arising from devastated unions, outsourcing (including work Visas that are abused to outsource even skilled positions to cheaper foreign labour), AI, the rise of gig labour, a procession of economic crises from 2007 to COVID, and so on:
https://archive.is/kxEqA (paywall removed).
This isn't to say that economics are the entirety of the reason, but they are absolutely a big chunk of it, including per the self-admission of those not having children.
A decline in the global population is a good thing. We are already overpopulated, which is a problem.There is much disagreement with that sentiment. Many projections have population growth reversing to decline, globally, before 2100. Far sooner, in the western world.... if excluding immigration, western Europe is already below replacement level.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/birthrates-declining-globally-why-matters/
https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/26/sperm-count-declining-fertility-rate-decline/
How so? We functioned just fine when population levels were lower than they are now.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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