Anna Louie Sussman on fertility decline; Alice Evans on same; The Zvi on the smart phone moral panic; Michael Baharaeen is not persuasive regarding Mr. Trump
"Many possible causes of the decline in fertility strike me as self-correcting."
There is zero evidence for that and frankly it seems like wishful thinking in the hope that there might be some path to reversal that doesn't rely on state intervention or at the very least completely radical changes in family policy. It really has nothing to do with politics or 'hate'. The left favors helping women at the expense of men, so there's not much mystery behind the political polarization, but that's not why people aren't matching up, marrying, and having kids.
The fertility decline has been happening in nearly all developed and middle-income countries for several generations now without any indication of self-correction anywhere, and on the contrary one sees continuation of steady, rapid deterioration. Since they arrived in the Americas 400 years ago, I suspect that there isn't a single generation of Puritan descendants who weren't less procreative than their predecessors.
These things don't self-correct unless by 'self-correct' you include the possibility of extinction combined with replacement with different people with different cultures. I don't think most people would say that qualifies as "correction" but it's a matter of perspective or philosophy I guess. That's kind of like saying that the fiscal problem is self-correcting because per Stein's Law it can't go on forever and so won't, but then including the possibility of "total social and economic collapse, invasion, then imposition of a new order" in the category of "corrections" as opposed to "consequences of failing to correct."
Once upon a time the ancient Romans ruled Western civilization and for centuries Italians - especially those with deep roots in the area around Rome itself - imagined themselves to be the descendants of those ancient Romans. They aren't.
When we compare modern Italian genes to those we can get from the remains of some ancient Romans, it's clear the Romans as a biological ethnicity practically vanished over time and were simply replaced by genetically and culturally distinct countrysiders ("pagans") and various immigrant groups. To be fair, a shocking number of urban dwelling kids failed to survive to maturity until fairly recently in history, so it's not like they weren't trying, it's just that their motivation fell below the point necessary to perpetuate themselves as a people, and thus, that people no longer exists.
That's the possibility that makes me think it need not be self correcting at all. If the damage is being done at a later state of the process, say public schooling, then the inputs don't matter quite so much. It also explains why the political gap is so gendered, as public schools are geared to treat girls and boys differently, and are run such that they feed into the natural tendencies of girls more than boys.
The statement: "In the next generation, the men raised by liberal parents could almost all be liberal, and the women raised by conservative parents could almost all be conservative." implies a strong correlation between parents and children, which without solid data I don't believe is true. Liberal/conservative differences are very sloppy anyway. Is supporting a modern day Nazi equivalent organizations like Hamas liberal and woke or conservative and the ultimate reactionary response in favor of middle-age religious barbarity?
These are such mushy labels, I am not sure what they really mean. Maybe I am just too much of a hard nosed scientist with preference towards solid observational data to believe these check-boxes are useful.
"I don’t think I paid a price, but it’s not an RCT."
I suppose the first question is whether you watched about the average 21 hr/wk, more, or less. The next question is whether you are someone more likely to be harmed. I would bet you are on the low end of both.
1. I don't think we can be sure the causality is Polarization -> Bad dating market. I would put more confidence in the reverse being more true (though they can both be true to an extent).
The anecdotal cases of RL relationships that I am familiar with, even if the male isn't more conservative generally the partner with more testosterone is more right wing than the partner with more estrogen, and when two people get married the politics of the latter tend to gravitate more towards that of the former.
My running theory is the same technology that allows for enormously powerful substack braintrusts on the one end and things like massive furry conventions on the other can probably explain what happened to men and women.
Living in a society normally involved people suppressing or having suppressed their own personalities to better manage relations with people with brains wired differently from you. Social media is about finding people with similar psychological bents and pushing that bent as far in that direction as possible. Male vs. Female psychology is the largest such division.
2. In my experience taking notes during a lecture can backfire. I would end up concentrating too much trying to write everything down than understand the semantic content. The only part of the lecture worth copying are the steps in the exercise. Not taking any notes is also a problem because even if you're 100% engaged, you might forget the material within a few hours.
3. RE Bahareen: Democracy is a brand not a process. It doesn't describe electing someone on a platform who appoints people to see that platform carried out. It defers all practical policy making to a clique of professionals. Public opinion is an effect and doesn't cause anything. If it doesn't move ignored it gets ignored, if it can't be ignored it gets ridiculed and if it can't be ridiculed it gets suppressed.
That being, for those of us who don't enjoy Ceremonial Democracy. Trump isn't serious or ruthless enough to do anything about it.
Re: the introduction of TV etc., this early 80s expose on "computer addicts" who spend - wait for it - hours a day on one is amusing in retrospect: https://youtu.be/jbu0kmCeLSI?si=nGqihM546Q0B_eO_
As for pervasiveness of tech influence on kids I am fully convinced, but would add that adults are susceptible to the entrancement. Like you (we're of similar age), the "Three Stooges" was a favorite show for me and our one and only TV was in our semi-finished basement. We also had a water softener system in the basement, routinely serviced by a couple of Amish men. My mother used to tell the story of how one day after they'd gone down into the basement she noticed they were taking longer than usual. She went down the steps to find both grown men standing behind the couch where my brother and I were watching the Stooges, pointing and laughing, engrossed in the antics on the screen. Perhaps this is sort of a parable of how adults - even those whose in-group forbid types of tech - are bewitched by the amusement and eventual dopamine, becoming as hooked as their kids.
The baby of the family, I used to steal into the den earlier than anyone else was awake, and turn the TV on with the volume as low as possible (less out of a consideration not to disturb than a wish not to be disturbed), obliging me to watch Speed Racer about 8 inches from the convex screen.*
Later on, the reverse - staying up long past my parents to watch the late movie, getting increasingly bleary-eyed as the record club and car wax commercials got longer and longer. If it was an especially long movie, like “Those Magnificent Young Men with Their Flying Machines”, I might make it all the way to the waving flag and the static fuzz.
TV and newspapers were my education, such as it was, my parents in our suburban setting having had little to impart, and little inclination to do so, to any of us.
But like any education, you could be done with it. After I left home at 18, I didn’t feel the need to own a TV set despite having been the family’s most ardent TV watcher. In 30 years I’ve never seen my husband turn on a TV.
The internet does not strike me as something you can as easily walk away from.
*I think Speed Racer, with the shocking Racer X reveal, really prepared me for the pivotal moment in Star Wars! Who needs the Greek tragedians!
I played around with your essay grader. First, I had it grade the essay from a center-left, center, and center-right perspective. It produced grades of A-, B, and C, respectively. I then pointed out to it that it appeared to have a mild left-wing bias: the "center" grade was closer to the center-left grade than the center-right grade. It agreed. I then had it re-grade the essay, and it gave it a C+:
"Grade: C+
The essay provides a detailed analysis of potential actions and risks associated with a second Trump presidency, which is useful and insightful. However, it tends to focus predominantly on the negative implications without adequately considering or presenting potential positive outcomes or the effectiveness of certain policies from a neutral standpoint. This lack of balance might lead to the perception that the analysis is skewed.
To improve, the essay should incorporate aspects of Trump's administration that were seen as successful or beneficial from a broader perspective, not just those that align with a particular political stance. Additionally, it should strive to present these potential outcomes in a way that is less charged, thus providing a truly centered analysis that appreciates the complexities of presidential powers and policies."
That is partially true I think, but I would qualify it insofar as in recent years the political has come to encompass nearly every aspect of daily life. Therefore caring about the politics of potential partners becomes really important, as much as religion used to be, because it will dictate questions of how you live, raise kids, etc. In better days political questions hardly mattered, but now the culture war is everywhere and just about every aspect of life.
A significant number of liberal Gen Z, especially biological females, are going to transition to the opposite gender and not be able to reproduce. And possibly not interested in reproducing.
“Within a few years, my favorite show was ‘The Three Stooges.’” An excellent preparation for your career as a policy and political analyst!
I wish I had more likes to give this.
"Many possible causes of the decline in fertility strike me as self-correcting."
There is zero evidence for that and frankly it seems like wishful thinking in the hope that there might be some path to reversal that doesn't rely on state intervention or at the very least completely radical changes in family policy. It really has nothing to do with politics or 'hate'. The left favors helping women at the expense of men, so there's not much mystery behind the political polarization, but that's not why people aren't matching up, marrying, and having kids.
The fertility decline has been happening in nearly all developed and middle-income countries for several generations now without any indication of self-correction anywhere, and on the contrary one sees continuation of steady, rapid deterioration. Since they arrived in the Americas 400 years ago, I suspect that there isn't a single generation of Puritan descendants who weren't less procreative than their predecessors.
These things don't self-correct unless by 'self-correct' you include the possibility of extinction combined with replacement with different people with different cultures. I don't think most people would say that qualifies as "correction" but it's a matter of perspective or philosophy I guess. That's kind of like saying that the fiscal problem is self-correcting because per Stein's Law it can't go on forever and so won't, but then including the possibility of "total social and economic collapse, invasion, then imposition of a new order" in the category of "corrections" as opposed to "consequences of failing to correct."
Once upon a time the ancient Romans ruled Western civilization and for centuries Italians - especially those with deep roots in the area around Rome itself - imagined themselves to be the descendants of those ancient Romans. They aren't.
When we compare modern Italian genes to those we can get from the remains of some ancient Romans, it's clear the Romans as a biological ethnicity practically vanished over time and were simply replaced by genetically and culturally distinct countrysiders ("pagans") and various immigrant groups. To be fair, a shocking number of urban dwelling kids failed to survive to maturity until fairly recently in history, so it's not like they weren't trying, it's just that their motivation fell below the point necessary to perpetuate themselves as a people, and thus, that people no longer exists.
Progressives don't birth and raise their progressive descendants- they convert them in the school system, and all across the country.
That's the possibility that makes me think it need not be self correcting at all. If the damage is being done at a later state of the process, say public schooling, then the inputs don't matter quite so much. It also explains why the political gap is so gendered, as public schools are geared to treat girls and boys differently, and are run such that they feed into the natural tendencies of girls more than boys.
Hey hey hey! Guess who got a major name drop in today's New York Times!
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/briefing/college-protests.html
>>> The Zvi goes in for very long posts.
Ha! That's why we have you :-)
The statement: "In the next generation, the men raised by liberal parents could almost all be liberal, and the women raised by conservative parents could almost all be conservative." implies a strong correlation between parents and children, which without solid data I don't believe is true. Liberal/conservative differences are very sloppy anyway. Is supporting a modern day Nazi equivalent organizations like Hamas liberal and woke or conservative and the ultimate reactionary response in favor of middle-age religious barbarity?
These are such mushy labels, I am not sure what they really mean. Maybe I am just too much of a hard nosed scientist with preference towards solid observational data to believe these check-boxes are useful.
"I don’t think I paid a price, but it’s not an RCT."
I suppose the first question is whether you watched about the average 21 hr/wk, more, or less. The next question is whether you are someone more likely to be harmed. I would bet you are on the low end of both.
1. I don't think we can be sure the causality is Polarization -> Bad dating market. I would put more confidence in the reverse being more true (though they can both be true to an extent).
The anecdotal cases of RL relationships that I am familiar with, even if the male isn't more conservative generally the partner with more testosterone is more right wing than the partner with more estrogen, and when two people get married the politics of the latter tend to gravitate more towards that of the former.
My running theory is the same technology that allows for enormously powerful substack braintrusts on the one end and things like massive furry conventions on the other can probably explain what happened to men and women.
Living in a society normally involved people suppressing or having suppressed their own personalities to better manage relations with people with brains wired differently from you. Social media is about finding people with similar psychological bents and pushing that bent as far in that direction as possible. Male vs. Female psychology is the largest such division.
2. In my experience taking notes during a lecture can backfire. I would end up concentrating too much trying to write everything down than understand the semantic content. The only part of the lecture worth copying are the steps in the exercise. Not taking any notes is also a problem because even if you're 100% engaged, you might forget the material within a few hours.
3. RE Bahareen: Democracy is a brand not a process. It doesn't describe electing someone on a platform who appoints people to see that platform carried out. It defers all practical policy making to a clique of professionals. Public opinion is an effect and doesn't cause anything. If it doesn't move ignored it gets ignored, if it can't be ignored it gets ridiculed and if it can't be ridiculed it gets suppressed.
That being, for those of us who don't enjoy Ceremonial Democracy. Trump isn't serious or ruthless enough to do anything about it.
Our leader is recognized as an expert this morning by the New York Times. My advice: distrust all experts! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/briefing/college-protests.html
Re: the introduction of TV etc., this early 80s expose on "computer addicts" who spend - wait for it - hours a day on one is amusing in retrospect: https://youtu.be/jbu0kmCeLSI?si=nGqihM546Q0B_eO_
As for pervasiveness of tech influence on kids I am fully convinced, but would add that adults are susceptible to the entrancement. Like you (we're of similar age), the "Three Stooges" was a favorite show for me and our one and only TV was in our semi-finished basement. We also had a water softener system in the basement, routinely serviced by a couple of Amish men. My mother used to tell the story of how one day after they'd gone down into the basement she noticed they were taking longer than usual. She went down the steps to find both grown men standing behind the couch where my brother and I were watching the Stooges, pointing and laughing, engrossed in the antics on the screen. Perhaps this is sort of a parable of how adults - even those whose in-group forbid types of tech - are bewitched by the amusement and eventual dopamine, becoming as hooked as their kids.
The baby of the family, I used to steal into the den earlier than anyone else was awake, and turn the TV on with the volume as low as possible (less out of a consideration not to disturb than a wish not to be disturbed), obliging me to watch Speed Racer about 8 inches from the convex screen.*
Later on, the reverse - staying up long past my parents to watch the late movie, getting increasingly bleary-eyed as the record club and car wax commercials got longer and longer. If it was an especially long movie, like “Those Magnificent Young Men with Their Flying Machines”, I might make it all the way to the waving flag and the static fuzz.
TV and newspapers were my education, such as it was, my parents in our suburban setting having had little to impart, and little inclination to do so, to any of us.
But like any education, you could be done with it. After I left home at 18, I didn’t feel the need to own a TV set despite having been the family’s most ardent TV watcher. In 30 years I’ve never seen my husband turn on a TV.
The internet does not strike me as something you can as easily walk away from.
*I think Speed Racer, with the shocking Racer X reveal, really prepared me for the pivotal moment in Star Wars! Who needs the Greek tragedians!
AI grader’s comments are amazing.
I played around with your essay grader. First, I had it grade the essay from a center-left, center, and center-right perspective. It produced grades of A-, B, and C, respectively. I then pointed out to it that it appeared to have a mild left-wing bias: the "center" grade was closer to the center-left grade than the center-right grade. It agreed. I then had it re-grade the essay, and it gave it a C+:
"Grade: C+
The essay provides a detailed analysis of potential actions and risks associated with a second Trump presidency, which is useful and insightful. However, it tends to focus predominantly on the negative implications without adequately considering or presenting potential positive outcomes or the effectiveness of certain policies from a neutral standpoint. This lack of balance might lead to the perception that the analysis is skewed.
To improve, the essay should incorporate aspects of Trump's administration that were seen as successful or beneficial from a broader perspective, not just those that align with a particular political stance. Additionally, it should strive to present these potential outcomes in a way that is less charged, thus providing a truly centered analysis that appreciates the complexities of presidential powers and policies."
If you're subjecting potential partners to stringent political litmus tests, you're already effin' the dog.
That is partially true I think, but I would qualify it insofar as in recent years the political has come to encompass nearly every aspect of daily life. Therefore caring about the politics of potential partners becomes really important, as much as religion used to be, because it will dictate questions of how you live, raise kids, etc. In better days political questions hardly mattered, but now the culture war is everywhere and just about every aspect of life.
A significant number of liberal Gen Z, especially biological females, are going to transition to the opposite gender and not be able to reproduce. And possibly not interested in reproducing.