Good riddance. ;)

What a weird thread. The Finns have so many basic benefits that US citizens will never, ever, have. There is no real comparison.

Maybe I could get work as a circus freak, get groupies and such. :)

Carl

If you drill down the 'war on sex for fun' was really rules with the purpose of keeping the more valuable females from being impregnated by the wrong guys. Rules for guys were always lax, because they didn't get pregnant.

The rules are totally obsolete, fertility control is now accomplished with pills, and it doesn't actually matter so much if girls go through a party-a-lot phase. But attitudes, among the more conservative sorts, don't adjust quickly.

Those who are concerned by declining birthrates in their favorite hereditary identity group need to work to end birth control available on demand to females. Have to go back to the days when married women needed medical grounds and three doctors had to sign off on it. Otherwise, forget it. Nothing else will work.

It is the irony of the progressive society...the disappearance of children from its spaces.

Most women want to have children, but 'later.' The procrastination results in fewer or no children in enough cases that the birthrate falls below replacement.

Another of those situations where individual interests and the 'welfare of the group' don't line up. If you think the 'welfare of the group' is real enough to limit some freedom for some people, a lot, you favor getting unprogressive here.

I think 'the welfare of the group' looms larger in people's minds when the group is biologically threatened, and smaller when it isn't. Some people are a lot more sensitive on this point than others. You are correct, progressive cultures that promote peace and prosperity are bad for group-centric ethics.

This leads to the authoritarian notion that 'war is the health of the state.' But I'd amend that to 'preparation for war is the health of the state.' Actual war in modern times is so destructive that it's not healthy for anyone or anything. So the tendency of authoritarians to seek war for 'the glory of the group' tends to be the worst thing of all for the group.

Maybe instead of the authoritarian 'stick' of outlawing birth control, progressive 'carrots' would do the trick. Fight the procrastination with incentives. Big incentives for mothers and kids, for kids born before mother is 25, perhaps. All one needs do, I think, is nudge the birthrate up a few 10ths of a percent....

I believe the birthrate is fine, just is some (thinking Eugenics) perceive for the wrong crowd.

The world is vastly overpopulated and with fewer and fewer resources and employment opportunities a day of reckoning will soon be here.

Barney

It's completely true that there's no problem here, except if one is concerned for some certain 'favorite group.' Such groups are quasi-biological, but their importance is totally emotional.

Not only carrots: Ideology is needed to de-energize the thought that moving on up is overwhelmingly more important than children.

An intrinsic love of children needs to exist and the ever lessening of the unease/queasiness re abortion works against such love.

Probably in the future an increase in robots and a useful guaranteed basic salary will make the coming of children less threatening.

Overpopulation? Africa, Australia, North and South America, Russia and Central Asia.