10 ms·

It didn’t just happen. It happened through struggle and its continuation is not guaranteed. Look at all the reactionary movements springing up around the world.

It didn’t just happen. It happened through struggle and its continuation is not guaranteed. Look at all the reactionary movements springing up around the world. This is not an area I believe we can settle on “good enough”.

somenameforme 1y ago
I think societies somewhat naturally wax and wane on most topics, probably because it seems we're simply unable to maintain a middle ground on anything. We always end up taking things to an extreme which, regardless of what that extreme may be, tends to lead to unpleasant scenarios which causes society to start bouncing back in the opposite direction only to repeat the cycle in the equal but opposite direction some time later. You can see this playing out in real time with religion which went from societies that were highly religious to secular to militantly anti-religious, and now gen-z is suddenly some ~400% more religious than previous generations. [1] The most interesting thing is that that's also a global trend, probably owing to the relative global homogenization of societies in many ways. [1] - https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/religious-young-people-christianity-rise https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/religious-young-people-chri...
- shafyy 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Thorrez 1y ago
    Most communist countries haven't been such a utopia as you describe. >He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
    - okasaki 1y ago
      Cool story from an alcoholic traitor > On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his own prime minister, began a major economic and administrative reform ordered the liberalization of foreign trade, prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilization", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilization programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tighten money and restrict credit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending. > In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare programs.[108] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell. Hyperinflation, caused by the Central Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.[109][110]
      - lupusreal 1y ago
        Communism in Russia proved to be great at producing alcoholic traitors, because the material conditions and quality of life it produced was abysmal. So yeah, people drank a lot and got the fuck out when they could.
      - Thorrez 1y ago
        If you know of a communist country that has had good civil rights and good prosperity, let me know.
        okasaki 1y ago
        Could say the same thing about capitalism. Is it the US with a $7 minimum wage and bankrupt medical treatment? Is it the UK where the average salary is $37k and houses cost 500k, and a single train ride is 10% of monthly salary? Is it Germany where they arrest you for displaying a Palestinian flag?
  - jajko 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - bpt3 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - shafyy 1y ago
      I should have said "should have...", maybe this was not clear. I am not claiming tha there's a "perfect" country. Some countries come pretty close though, where you have affordable public transportation, affordable housing and affordable health care. For example and Germany and Switzerland (two countries where I have lived for long periods of time), nobody will die because they can't afford health care. Nobody will be homeless because they can't afford an apartment (yes, I know, there is also homelessness in these countries, but for a variety of other reasons). Doe that mean it's perfect? No, of course not, there is always room for improvement.
- chongli 1y ago
  That story is trying to paint this as a revival of Christianity but looking at the Pew report and the data paints a different picture. Conservative Muslim countries show a pattern of overwhelming male dominance in religious service attendance. At the same time, over half of the Muslims in the US are recent immigrants [1]. This raises the question to me: is the resurgence in religious service attendance among men driven primarily by a broad return to the Christian church? Or is it largely an effect of the growing Muslim population in western countries? [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/14/muslims-in-america-immigrants-and-those-born-in-u-s-see-life-differently-in-many-ways/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/14/muslims-in-a...
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    I'm not a huge fan of Axios, but chose to link to them for two reasons. (1) They leave their stories bullet pointed instead of feeding them into an LLM, or a human LLM, to add 5,000 words of fluff, and (2) they use extensive citations. Here [1], for instance, is a recent Pew study they linked to. All the studies have Christianity as the driver. And FWIW church itself is not a neutral term. Church => Christian, Mosque => Muslim, Synagogue => Jewish, etc. A neutral term would be 'attending religious services' or whatever. The sex issue also seems to be just Axios' spin. By their own numbers it looks like church attendance is up 3x for women and 5x for men amongst Gen Z. Definitely a significant difference, but not really in line with their spin on the topic. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/PR_2025.02.26_religious-landscape-study_report.pdf https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025...
    - chongli 1y ago
      I do appreciate their citations but the spin is a bit much. I’m still very skeptical about the interpretation of a “return to religiosity” rather than religious immigrants continuing their religious observances in their new home countries. To show a proper “return to religious observance” (any religion, not just Christianity) means showing a large number of people who attend religious services regularly but whose parents do not.
- Adverblessly 1y ago
  I can't speak to other countries, but here in Israel at least, religion is highly correlated with number of children. Focusing on jewish women, fertility rates for different levels of religion in 2021-2023: Ultra-orthodox 6.48 Religious 3.74 Traditional-religious 2.81 Traditional, not so religious 2.20 Not religious, secular 1.96 So naturally over time the religious portion of the population grows.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    And this follows globally - fertility is one of the most interesting and critical issues of our time. It's going to change the future in ways most absolutely do not appreciate. On this topic most people see the world as inevitably becoming more secular because that's how society has trended during most of our lives, so it seems almost like a natural law. Yet even fertility alone means that society will almost certainly become substantially less secular over time. This also has implications for the long-term population of Earth. The claim we'll reach a "max" population sometime this century is quite silly. It'll be a local max, not a global max. Because if even a single group maintains a positive fertility rate, that group will eventually drive the population to start increasing again (and basically take ownership of the gene pool while they're at it).
    - mathgeek 1y ago
      > It'll be a local max, not a global max. There really isn’t any way to know this for a fact. The future could hold technology that allows us to expand far beyond the current population, but it also could lead to setbacks that the population never recovers from. It is reasonable to guess it’s a local max.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
        I think this argument would make more sense if it were external constraints that were driving a declining population. But the population is only decreasing because the majority group of people stopped having children. So they will remove themselves from the gene pool, the minority will become the majority, and away we'll go again. As an interesting factoid the Roman Empire, which for many people of the time would have had some analogs to 'the world', also had a fertility collapse prior to its end, that they tried to combat with quite strict laws, but ones which were ultimately ineffectual. Of course that was hardly the end of the story!

somenameforme 1y ago

I think societies somewhat naturally wax and wane on most topics, probably because it seems we're simply unable to maintain a middle ground on anything. We always end up taking things to an extreme which, regardless of what that extreme may be, tends to lead to unpleasant scenarios which causes society to start bouncing back in the opposite direction only to repeat the cycle in the equal but opposite direction some time later. You can see this playing out in real time with religion which went from societies that were highly religious to secular to militantly anti-religious, and now gen-z is suddenly some ~400% more religious than previous generations. [1] The most interesting thing is that that's also a global trend, probably owing to the relative global homogenization of societies in many ways. [1] - https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/religious-young-people-christianity-rise https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/religious-young-people-chri...

shafyy 1y ago
[flagged]
- Thorrez 1y ago
  Most communist countries haven't been such a utopia as you describe. >He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
  - okasaki 1y ago
    Cool story from an alcoholic traitor > On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his own prime minister, began a major economic and administrative reform ordered the liberalization of foreign trade, prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilization", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilization programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tighten money and restrict credit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending. > In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare programs.[108] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell. Hyperinflation, caused by the Central Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.[109][110]
    - lupusreal 1y ago
      Communism in Russia proved to be great at producing alcoholic traitors, because the material conditions and quality of life it produced was abysmal. So yeah, people drank a lot and got the fuck out when they could.
    - Thorrez 1y ago
      If you know of a communist country that has had good civil rights and good prosperity, let me know.
      - okasaki 1y ago
        Could say the same thing about capitalism. Is it the US with a $7 minimum wage and bankrupt medical treatment? Is it the UK where the average salary is $37k and houses cost 500k, and a single train ride is 10% of monthly salary? Is it Germany where they arrest you for displaying a Palestinian flag?
- jajko 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - bpt3 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - shafyy 1y ago
    I should have said "should have...", maybe this was not clear. I am not claiming tha there's a "perfect" country. Some countries come pretty close though, where you have affordable public transportation, affordable housing and affordable health care. For example and Germany and Switzerland (two countries where I have lived for long periods of time), nobody will die because they can't afford health care. Nobody will be homeless because they can't afford an apartment (yes, I know, there is also homelessness in these countries, but for a variety of other reasons). Doe that mean it's perfect? No, of course not, there is always room for improvement.
chongli 1y ago
That story is trying to paint this as a revival of Christianity but looking at the Pew report and the data paints a different picture. Conservative Muslim countries show a pattern of overwhelming male dominance in religious service attendance. At the same time, over half of the Muslims in the US are recent immigrants [1]. This raises the question to me: is the resurgence in religious service attendance among men driven primarily by a broad return to the Christian church? Or is it largely an effect of the growing Muslim population in western countries? [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/14/muslims-in-america-immigrants-and-those-born-in-u-s-see-life-differently-in-many-ways/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/14/muslims-in-a...
- somenameforme 1y ago
  I'm not a huge fan of Axios, but chose to link to them for two reasons. (1) They leave their stories bullet pointed instead of feeding them into an LLM, or a human LLM, to add 5,000 words of fluff, and (2) they use extensive citations. Here [1], for instance, is a recent Pew study they linked to. All the studies have Christianity as the driver. And FWIW church itself is not a neutral term. Church => Christian, Mosque => Muslim, Synagogue => Jewish, etc. A neutral term would be 'attending religious services' or whatever. The sex issue also seems to be just Axios' spin. By their own numbers it looks like church attendance is up 3x for women and 5x for men amongst Gen Z. Definitely a significant difference, but not really in line with their spin on the topic. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/PR_2025.02.26_religious-landscape-study_report.pdf https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025...
  - chongli 1y ago
    I do appreciate their citations but the spin is a bit much. I’m still very skeptical about the interpretation of a “return to religiosity” rather than religious immigrants continuing their religious observances in their new home countries. To show a proper “return to religious observance” (any religion, not just Christianity) means showing a large number of people who attend religious services regularly but whose parents do not.
Adverblessly 1y ago
I can't speak to other countries, but here in Israel at least, religion is highly correlated with number of children. Focusing on jewish women, fertility rates for different levels of religion in 2021-2023: Ultra-orthodox 6.48 Religious 3.74 Traditional-religious 2.81 Traditional, not so religious 2.20 Not religious, secular 1.96 So naturally over time the religious portion of the population grows.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  And this follows globally - fertility is one of the most interesting and critical issues of our time. It's going to change the future in ways most absolutely do not appreciate. On this topic most people see the world as inevitably becoming more secular because that's how society has trended during most of our lives, so it seems almost like a natural law. Yet even fertility alone means that society will almost certainly become substantially less secular over time. This also has implications for the long-term population of Earth. The claim we'll reach a "max" population sometime this century is quite silly. It'll be a local max, not a global max. Because if even a single group maintains a positive fertility rate, that group will eventually drive the population to start increasing again (and basically take ownership of the gene pool while they're at it).
  - mathgeek 1y ago
    > It'll be a local max, not a global max. There really isn’t any way to know this for a fact. The future could hold technology that allows us to expand far beyond the current population, but it also could lead to setbacks that the population never recovers from. It is reasonable to guess it’s a local max.
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      I think this argument would make more sense if it were external constraints that were driving a declining population. But the population is only decreasing because the majority group of people stopped having children. So they will remove themselves from the gene pool, the minority will become the majority, and away we'll go again. As an interesting factoid the Roman Empire, which for many people of the time would have had some analogs to 'the world', also had a fertility collapse prior to its end, that they tried to combat with quite strict laws, but ones which were ultimately ineffectual. Of course that was hardly the end of the story!