9 ms·

Suicide by Culture (2017)

97 points by ArkanExplorer 5y ago

srl 5y ago
(2017). Past thread here, from when the article was originally written: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830623
- dang 5y ago
  Year added above. Thanks!
- astrange 5y ago
  Lot of eugenics going on in that thread.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    Though without the killing and forced sterilization people assume when they hear the term "eugenics".
    - astrange 5y ago
      It mostly appears as immigration restriction or excuses for why you're doing so much better at your intellectual job than those other people. I was looking at the kind of off topic thread about how Mexicans shouldn't immigrate to Japan because they're genetically cursed to have unruly personalities…
- froh 5y ago
  thank you! the analysis from that thread which resonates best with me is the one quoting Elizabeth Warren and "The two income trap" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834496 housing prices, larger vehicle, or more vehicles, and other cost of living associated with more children are the private burden of the family. add to that the income loss of pregnancy and early motherhood and the cost of child care. and it becomes easily obvious that a young family calculates twice before having another child. and that's coming from a European country, where schooling is free. is anybody aware of an opportunity cost calculation for raising 1, 2, 3, 4 kids? what is the TCO, the true full package material impact of raising children? ideally per country?
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    I would also argue that there is a cultural expectation you don't let your kids just wander about and take care of themselves as people used to do decades ago makes it harder as well. Now if you aren't concerned there is a pedophile around every corner, you're the crazy one. If you don't take an instagram photo of your child every week, you clearly don't care much for your kids.
    - maerF0x0 5y ago
      There's also a wide range of costs for kids extracurriculars. Programming could be nearly free (get a $200 computer of craigslist, add internet and electricity), soccer is relatively inexpensive. IMO one of the major costs is because parents use their kids as conspicuous consumption symbols. "My kid does BJJ, equestrian, and snowboarding cause they're #blessed..." (cringe). Personally, I'll be leveling with my kids, if they want something beyond the basics it's going to be up to them to find a way to pay for it. Soccer/basketball/swim lessons etc is in, super expensive clubs are out, and mom & dad's love for them is not a function of money spent.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - swearwolf 5y ago
        I grew up with my parents behaving as you are suggesting. Anything extracurricular I wanted to do, beyond a token cost, was my responsibility to pay for. That ended up having some consequences you might not be thinking of, so I thought I’d share them with you. 1.) It made me way less likely to try any extracurricular because I knew I’d have to work to pay for them. This includes several that I was really interested in and showed aptitude for. 2. I had a job from age 12 on. I started with a paper route, then a dishwashing job, then a cashier at a mini mart. The result was that I was tired - the dishwashing and mini mart gigs kept me out until close to midnight several days per week. My grades, and my interest in school took a nosedive. My parents couldn’t figure out why. They thought it so impressive that I was so industrious to have these jobs. They loved the bootstrap narrative. 3. Working jobs in food service introduced me to all manner of drugs and alcohol. I was a regular smoker by 15, and binge drank with my coworkers from 16-19, and I smoked weed every chance I got. I don’t really hold it against my parents consciously; they were older and really bought in to the bootstrap narrative. They genuinely thought I could work part time in the summer and pay for college, in the mid 2000s, just like my dad did in the 60s. But I do hold it against them subconsciously. I know there are things I really wanted to do back then that my family could hav afforded to pay for, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow knowing that they refused to out of misguided principles. I didn’t really realize that until I met my wife, who was told that it was her job to go to school and get good grades, not make money. Her parents didn’t spend lavishly on her, but if she could make a reasonable case for why she should have something they’d pay for it. When she told me that, it made my own parents way of dealing with these things really sting. Anyway, thought that might be interesting to you as a parent.
- dmnd 5y ago
  Those comments link to two other articles that I found more interesting than OP’s article: https://jacobitemag.com/2017/06/20/modernitys-fertility-problem/ https://jacobitemag.com/2017/06/20/modernitys-fertility-prob... https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarchy/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarch...
  - lasagnaphil 5y ago
    I've read both of them (actually, I've read the former before this was posted). The problem with the second article is the belief that conservative patriarchy was and is still the only way to sustain/grow population levels. This can problematic in an anthropological angle (there are still debates among anthropologists over how some prominent ancient societies were more matriarchial than we've realized), but more importantly I find this belief limiting our imagination as to the various ways in how humanity can manage to have and nurture kids. Familial values aren't only compatible with patriarchy, it can also mesh well with matriarchy (The fertility of women becoming important can also lead to women having more power over men, vice-versa). And is family the only way we can have childcare? Maybe we might have a society where everyone collectively cares each other's kids? What would happen if we have artificial wombs, wouldn't it significantly lower the barrier to having offspring? Obviously the hyper-individualism induced in our current configuration of capitalism is a huge cause for the fertility crisis, but I don't think old rehashed conservative values are the only solution for this individualism. Now the first article (written by Nick Land), is much more nuanced, and doesn't strictly limit itself to patriarchy being an 'ultimate' evolutionary destiny. It's trying to dissecting the historical dynamics of population inside cities and between other cities (as a global phenomenon), and plotting the future trajectory of political theory from there. It states a fundamental problem of modernity which I can maybe agree with (although I have other problems with the author in general, mainly him also frequently spouting out right-wing reactionary politics)
    - gedy 5y ago
      Feels like the second just tries to redefine "patriarchy" as having more kids and investment in them. Not sure the point of that.
bitforger 5y ago
Reminds me of The Daily episode a few days ago about what's happening in Japan. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/podcasts/the-daily/japan-birthrate-ageing-population.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/podcasts/the-daily/japan-...
- ArnoVW 5y ago
  Reminds me of an interview with Hans Rosling. He mentioned that he had spent a dinner with a group of Japanese ministers. They asked him "pray mister Rosling, how do we increase the number of babies per woman?" To which Rosling replied, in typical Nordic candor, "perhaps organise your society so that women do not feel like their life is over once they have kids?"
  - pepperonipizza 5y ago
    Ectogenesis seem to be the only potential solution, the fertility rate will not go back above 2 in the coming decades in these developed countries.
  - swiley 5y ago
    People are way too uncomfortable with other people spending their time "idling." Looking at the history of contributions to science, software, and engineering by amateurs we probably lose out on a lot of productivity because of this.
- mrslave 5y ago
  Post WWII their birth rate has plummeted.[0] This coincides with the victor's rewriting of Japan's Constitution, including women's rights that are a radical deviation from their cultural norms.[1][2] [0] https://www.pop.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/birth-rate.png https://www.pop.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/birth-rate.pn... [1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/feminist-secretly-wrote-part-of-japans-constitution-20130113-2cnd4.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/feminist-secretly-wrote-part... [2] https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/no-steps-behind-beate-sirota-gordons-battle-for-womens-rights-in-japan https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/no-steps-behind-beate...
asimjalis 5y ago
This reminds me of San Francisco. Maybe because the general phenomenon here is local optimization at the cost of global optimization. NIMBY leads to city-wide failure.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Up until the pandemic, at least, San Francisco had not failed for the people who decided to run it the way they did. They got to live in a Disneyland for adults, never had to pay much property tax, and when they wanted to retire to Arizona they got $4 million on their way out.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    You know, I've never actually seen someone squatting in line at Disneyland, pooping.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      Sure, but where besides San Francisco and Disneyland is $13 a normal price for a sandwich?
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Sexual abstinence brought in the familiar zoo of weird behaviors, ranging from coitus interruptus to having sex with animals." Umm... abstinence causes people to have sex with animals? Count me as more than a little skeptical. This essay is a "just so" story, full of completely unsubstantiated assertions.
- novok 5y ago
  Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding once married until they became infertile, also puberty started significantly later. To have a society of single family children, they had to figure out how to stop having children, which was figuring out how to have way less sex and thus a bunch of sexually frustrated people.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    all those people without hands, but plenty of animals, had to let it out somewhere I guess.
    - selestify 5y ago
      Right, since we all have hands, that's why there's no market for fleshlights.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I don't think we can make a direct connection between bestiality and the lack of access to sex with members of the opposite sex, as it seems more likely that would lead to increase in masturbation. That said it is true there is a market for fleshlights despite people having hands, but I don't think we can say that the market existing proves the bestiality conjecture. I think to argue the bestiality conjecture you need to directly argue the lack of access to human sexual contact increases bestiality not imply it. I'm not saying it isn't so. Just that one can't blithely claim because A then C. on edit: should also note that the sex toys market is maybe primarily based on the marketing that these are better than masturbation. A very easy line can be drawn from people masturbating to buying sex toys based on a lot of marketing for them. But - I am unfamiliar with a material available at the time advocating use of farm animals as better than masturbation. Actually I think Pantagruel and Gargantua probably had some lines about it, but then it had lines about everything. on second edit: Gargantua and Pantagruel, preoccupied.
febeling 5y ago
Interesting how destructive shame can be. I think there is a parallel to how the whole west currently is shaming itself into oblivion for the many alleged unforgivable -isms.
JackMorgan 5y ago
I'd be curious to learn more about the economic landscape at the time: were there other external factors that led to this culture being adopted?

97 points by ArkanExplorer 5y ago

srl 5y ago

(2017). Past thread here, from when the article was originally written: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830623

dang 5y ago
Year added above. Thanks!
astrange 5y ago
Lot of eugenics going on in that thread.
- concordDance 5y ago
  Though without the killing and forced sterilization people assume when they hear the term "eugenics".
  - astrange 5y ago
    It mostly appears as immigration restriction or excuses for why you're doing so much better at your intellectual job than those other people. I was looking at the kind of off topic thread about how Mexicans shouldn't immigrate to Japan because they're genetically cursed to have unruly personalities…
froh 5y ago
thank you! the analysis from that thread which resonates best with me is the one quoting Elizabeth Warren and "The two income trap" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834496 housing prices, larger vehicle, or more vehicles, and other cost of living associated with more children are the private burden of the family. add to that the income loss of pregnancy and early motherhood and the cost of child care. and it becomes easily obvious that a young family calculates twice before having another child. and that's coming from a European country, where schooling is free. is anybody aware of an opportunity cost calculation for raising 1, 2, 3, 4 kids? what is the TCO, the true full package material impact of raising children? ideally per country?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I would also argue that there is a cultural expectation you don't let your kids just wander about and take care of themselves as people used to do decades ago makes it harder as well. Now if you aren't concerned there is a pedophile around every corner, you're the crazy one. If you don't take an instagram photo of your child every week, you clearly don't care much for your kids.
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    There's also a wide range of costs for kids extracurriculars. Programming could be nearly free (get a $200 computer of craigslist, add internet and electricity), soccer is relatively inexpensive. IMO one of the major costs is because parents use their kids as conspicuous consumption symbols. "My kid does BJJ, equestrian, and snowboarding cause they're #blessed..." (cringe). Personally, I'll be leveling with my kids, if they want something beyond the basics it's going to be up to them to find a way to pay for it. Soccer/basketball/swim lessons etc is in, super expensive clubs are out, and mom & dad's love for them is not a function of money spent.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - swearwolf 5y ago
      I grew up with my parents behaving as you are suggesting. Anything extracurricular I wanted to do, beyond a token cost, was my responsibility to pay for. That ended up having some consequences you might not be thinking of, so I thought I’d share them with you. 1.) It made me way less likely to try any extracurricular because I knew I’d have to work to pay for them. This includes several that I was really interested in and showed aptitude for. 2. I had a job from age 12 on. I started with a paper route, then a dishwashing job, then a cashier at a mini mart. The result was that I was tired - the dishwashing and mini mart gigs kept me out until close to midnight several days per week. My grades, and my interest in school took a nosedive. My parents couldn’t figure out why. They thought it so impressive that I was so industrious to have these jobs. They loved the bootstrap narrative. 3. Working jobs in food service introduced me to all manner of drugs and alcohol. I was a regular smoker by 15, and binge drank with my coworkers from 16-19, and I smoked weed every chance I got. I don’t really hold it against my parents consciously; they were older and really bought in to the bootstrap narrative. They genuinely thought I could work part time in the summer and pay for college, in the mid 2000s, just like my dad did in the 60s. But I do hold it against them subconsciously. I know there are things I really wanted to do back then that my family could hav afforded to pay for, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow knowing that they refused to out of misguided principles. I didn’t really realize that until I met my wife, who was told that it was her job to go to school and get good grades, not make money. Her parents didn’t spend lavishly on her, but if she could make a reasonable case for why she should have something they’d pay for it. When she told me that, it made my own parents way of dealing with these things really sting. Anyway, thought that might be interesting to you as a parent.
dmnd 5y ago
Those comments link to two other articles that I found more interesting than OP’s article: https://jacobitemag.com/2017/06/20/modernitys-fertility-problem/ https://jacobitemag.com/2017/06/20/modernitys-fertility-prob... https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarchy/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarch...
- lasagnaphil 5y ago
  I've read both of them (actually, I've read the former before this was posted). The problem with the second article is the belief that conservative patriarchy was and is still the only way to sustain/grow population levels. This can problematic in an anthropological angle (there are still debates among anthropologists over how some prominent ancient societies were more matriarchial than we've realized), but more importantly I find this belief limiting our imagination as to the various ways in how humanity can manage to have and nurture kids. Familial values aren't only compatible with patriarchy, it can also mesh well with matriarchy (The fertility of women becoming important can also lead to women having more power over men, vice-versa). And is family the only way we can have childcare? Maybe we might have a society where everyone collectively cares each other's kids? What would happen if we have artificial wombs, wouldn't it significantly lower the barrier to having offspring? Obviously the hyper-individualism induced in our current configuration of capitalism is a huge cause for the fertility crisis, but I don't think old rehashed conservative values are the only solution for this individualism. Now the first article (written by Nick Land), is much more nuanced, and doesn't strictly limit itself to patriarchy being an 'ultimate' evolutionary destiny. It's trying to dissecting the historical dynamics of population inside cities and between other cities (as a global phenomenon), and plotting the future trajectory of political theory from there. It states a fundamental problem of modernity which I can maybe agree with (although I have other problems with the author in general, mainly him also frequently spouting out right-wing reactionary politics)
  - gedy 5y ago
    Feels like the second just tries to redefine "patriarchy" as having more kids and investment in them. Not sure the point of that.

bitforger 5y ago

Reminds me of The Daily episode a few days ago about what's happening in Japan. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/podcasts/the-daily/japan-birthrate-ageing-population.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/podcasts/the-daily/japan-...

ArnoVW 5y ago
Reminds me of an interview with Hans Rosling. He mentioned that he had spent a dinner with a group of Japanese ministers. They asked him "pray mister Rosling, how do we increase the number of babies per woman?" To which Rosling replied, in typical Nordic candor, "perhaps organise your society so that women do not feel like their life is over once they have kids?"
- pepperonipizza 5y ago
  Ectogenesis seem to be the only potential solution, the fertility rate will not go back above 2 in the coming decades in these developed countries.
- swiley 5y ago
  People are way too uncomfortable with other people spending their time "idling." Looking at the history of contributions to science, software, and engineering by amateurs we probably lose out on a lot of productivity because of this.
mrslave 5y ago
Post WWII their birth rate has plummeted.[0] This coincides with the victor's rewriting of Japan's Constitution, including women's rights that are a radical deviation from their cultural norms.[1][2] [0] https://www.pop.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/birth-rate.png https://www.pop.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/birth-rate.pn... [1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/feminist-secretly-wrote-part-of-japans-constitution-20130113-2cnd4.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/feminist-secretly-wrote-part... [2] https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/no-steps-behind-beate-sirota-gordons-battle-for-womens-rights-in-japan https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/no-steps-behind-beate...

asimjalis 5y ago

This reminds me of San Francisco. Maybe because the general phenomenon here is local optimization at the cost of global optimization. NIMBY leads to city-wide failure.

spoonjim 5y ago
Up until the pandemic, at least, San Francisco had not failed for the people who decided to run it the way they did. They got to live in a Disneyland for adults, never had to pay much property tax, and when they wanted to retire to Arizona they got $4 million on their way out.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  You know, I've never actually seen someone squatting in line at Disneyland, pooping.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Sure, but where besides San Francisco and Disneyland is $13 a normal price for a sandwich?

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Sexual abstinence brought in the familiar zoo of weird behaviors, ranging from coitus interruptus to having sex with animals." Umm... abstinence causes people to have sex with animals? Count me as more than a little skeptical. This essay is a "just so" story, full of completely unsubstantiated assertions.

novok 5y ago
Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding once married until they became infertile, also puberty started significantly later. To have a society of single family children, they had to figure out how to stop having children, which was figuring out how to have way less sex and thus a bunch of sexually frustrated people.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  all those people without hands, but plenty of animals, had to let it out somewhere I guess.
  - selestify 5y ago
    Right, since we all have hands, that's why there's no market for fleshlights.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      I don't think we can make a direct connection between bestiality and the lack of access to sex with members of the opposite sex, as it seems more likely that would lead to increase in masturbation. That said it is true there is a market for fleshlights despite people having hands, but I don't think we can say that the market existing proves the bestiality conjecture. I think to argue the bestiality conjecture you need to directly argue the lack of access to human sexual contact increases bestiality not imply it. I'm not saying it isn't so. Just that one can't blithely claim because A then C. on edit: should also note that the sex toys market is maybe primarily based on the marketing that these are better than masturbation. A very easy line can be drawn from people masturbating to buying sex toys based on a lot of marketing for them. But - I am unfamiliar with a material available at the time advocating use of farm animals as better than masturbation. Actually I think Pantagruel and Gargantua probably had some lines about it, but then it had lines about everything. on second edit: Gargantua and Pantagruel, preoccupied.

febeling 5y ago

Interesting how destructive shame can be. I think there is a parallel to how the whole west currently is shaming itself into oblivion for the many alleged unforgivable -isms.

JackMorgan 5y ago

I'd be curious to learn more about the economic landscape at the time: were there other external factors that led to this culture being adopted?