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How do you conceive of these societal structures? What would a wealthy society, where people have more choice over their outcomes, have to do to put these “soc

How do you conceive of these societal structures? What would a wealthy society, where people have more choice over their outcomes, have to do to put these “societal structures” in place? It seems a lot of those previous societal structures came into being because of the limitations of previous lives. Couples got married at 20 and had kids because there weren’t really other options on how to live a life. Should we make it illegal for women to work? Tax single people over the age of 30? You blame liberalism but it seems the entire goal of liberalism is decentralized decision making and personal freedom. Are those things bad? It sounds to me like your suggesting modern society is centrally controlled.

bhouston 4y ago
> How do you conceive of these societal structures? What would a wealthy society, where people have more choice over their outcomes, have to do to put these “societal structures” in place? I think Japan is a wealthy society that has become pretty much completely atheist and this is what its future demographics are projected to be (this is the first link I found on Google, but there are many others that are similar): https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population Japan is unique in that it doesn't really allow for much immigration, so it is just going to shrink without much internal competition between different competing cultures. > It seems a lot of those previous societal structures came into being because of the limitations of previous lives. Couples got married at 20 and had kids because there weren’t really other options on how to live a life. Very true. > Should we make it illegal for women to work? Tax single people over the age of 30? You blame liberalism but it seems the entire goal of liberalism is decentralized decision making and personal freedom. Are those things bad? It sounds to me like you're suggesting modern society is centrally controlled. I am not saying I know the solutions, but I think we are not explicitly trying to find good ones in a way that will work. In many ways the current abortion debate is about reversing population trends, but this is sort of a crude hammer based approach derived from religious teachings, rather than being modern about it. I worry that this is generally how things will be solved in our society, not proactively by liberals but reactively by conservatives who advocate a religious solution. And this will happen increasingly as liberals become further out numbered because they do not have the fertility rates that religious conservatives have.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  > And this will happen increasingly as liberals become further out numbered because they do not have the fertility rates that religious conservatives have. While your argument is intuitively correct it seems like there are forces working against it. Religiosity has been declining in America. I wonder if there's sort of a cultural inequality that can occur. Religions have as strong cultural influence, but most pop culture is dominated by a secular liberalism. I imagine that secular libertal pop culture has a strong impact in religious communities. Either you choose to give up your religion, or you just realize you just don't want to live in whatever limited small town way that your religious upbringing necessitates. The stronger the progressive cultural forces, the more people born into religion that don't end up being conservative or religious long term. That along with liberal immigration policies may outweigh the birthrate impacts.

bhouston 4y ago

> How do you conceive of these societal structures? What would a wealthy society, where people have more choice over their outcomes, have to do to put these “societal structures” in place? I think Japan is a wealthy society that has become pretty much completely atheist and this is what its future demographics are projected to be (this is the first link I found on Google, but there are many others that are similar): https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population Japan is unique in that it doesn't really allow for much immigration, so it is just going to shrink without much internal competition between different competing cultures. > It seems a lot of those previous societal structures came into being because of the limitations of previous lives. Couples got married at 20 and had kids because there weren’t really other options on how to live a life. Very true. > Should we make it illegal for women to work? Tax single people over the age of 30? You blame liberalism but it seems the entire goal of liberalism is decentralized decision making and personal freedom. Are those things bad? It sounds to me like you're suggesting modern society is centrally controlled. I am not saying I know the solutions, but I think we are not explicitly trying to find good ones in a way that will work. In many ways the current abortion debate is about reversing population trends, but this is sort of a crude hammer based approach derived from religious teachings, rather than being modern about it. I worry that this is generally how things will be solved in our society, not proactively by liberals but reactively by conservatives who advocate a religious solution. And this will happen increasingly as liberals become further out numbered because they do not have the fertility rates that religious conservatives have.

mikkergp 4y ago
> And this will happen increasingly as liberals become further out numbered because they do not have the fertility rates that religious conservatives have. While your argument is intuitively correct it seems like there are forces working against it. Religiosity has been declining in America. I wonder if there's sort of a cultural inequality that can occur. Religions have as strong cultural influence, but most pop culture is dominated by a secular liberalism. I imagine that secular libertal pop culture has a strong impact in religious communities. Either you choose to give up your religion, or you just realize you just don't want to live in whatever limited small town way that your religious upbringing necessitates. The stronger the progressive cultural forces, the more people born into religion that don't end up being conservative or religious long term. That along with liberal immigration policies may outweigh the birthrate impacts.