thett3

Here are mine which are probably all wrong:

Biden does not drop out. He has few if any “senior moments” from here on out because access to him will be carefully planned and limited and he will slowly claw back support, but too much damage is done and Trump wins. It’s a relatively weak victory all things considered, his 2016 map + Nevada and a popular vote margin of +1%. All the talk of Trump winning Virginia, Minnesota, Maine, etc is a pipe dream. This isn’t the Republican 2008, but it could’ve been with a better candidate. 

In the senate the GOP wins West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio but predictably chokes in the other close states. In the house the republicans keep their majority but it’s a similarly weak showing to 2022. 

Thomas and Alito retire in the first years of Trump’s term. Trump is about as unpopular as he was in his first term, give or take a few % either way. None of the “project 2025” stuff happens. Trump doesn’t do much of anything as POTUS.

Very little happens on immigration because both sides quietly realize that a growing population is key to economic growth and a real decline in living standards is the one thing the population absolutely will not tolerate. However there will be some change to the antiquated, post WWII asylum system. Smart Dems realize that hoards of dependents being able to overwhelm the border and stay in the country on taxpayer dime if they say a few magic words is a long term strategic threat to their party. The fiscal situation continues to get worse as Trump extends at least some of his tax cuts without meaningful spending cuts. There is a free and fair election in 2028, democracy doesn’t end and Trump leaves with his ego satisfied. Entitlements are not touched.  Biden is remembered as the guy who let Trump back into office 

I've written before on South Korea but it's endlessly fascinating to watch a society that's in a death spiral get worse each year. South Korea had 6% fewer births in Q1 2023 than in Q1 2022...which itself was a record low year of births. In fact, every year since 2016 has had record low births after decades of steady decline. Their estimated Total Fertility Rate for the year is 0.74.

As a result, their population pyramid looked like this in 2021 and it's only gotten worse. Note how there are over 4x as many people in their 50s, who will be leaving the workforce in the next few decades, than there are infants to replace them. 0.74 is unfathomably bad. If that didn't change, the population structure would look like this:

Generation 1: 100 

Generation 2: 37

Generation 3: 14

I just don't know what's going to happen to the young people who remain. Many are assuming they'll just be tax cows/slaves to the elderly majority, but I'm not so sure. Like all government, at the end of the day the mandates of a democratic government come at the point of a sword. If you try to make serfs out of the only people in your society who are still capable of violence I don't think it'll work out too well for you.

It's very sad to see this happen to a people as accomplished and capable as South Koreans, but hopefully what happens to them serves as a lesson to other peoples. I've read interviews with young South Koreans and it seems like they almost universally think of their childhood as something they don't want repeated, and I can't say I blame them. Going to a hypercompetitive school all day, then going to some cram school afterwards for five hours every day, never seeing your dad who work in his office helljob until 11 PM every night...I wouldn't want to live that way either, or bring another soul into this world for that sort of life. On top of this all of the prestigious jobs are in a single metro area which I've been led to understand is almost as expensive as southern California when compared to incomes. 

But at the end of the day it's an entire country and the survivors will inherit it. What will be left I have no idea. What I do know is that if you're fortunate enough to live in the US or Western Europe there's basically infinite upside to having kids as the world is about to get way more weird and open. Your countries getting flooded with immigrants isn't ideal, but I would take being born in the USA or even somewhere like the UK in 2023 100 times out of 100 over South Korea. If you dislike the system it will be increasingly easy to just opt out. Perhaps our children 25 years from now can make a living doing odd jobs a few months a year for the masses of aging and college educated South Korean cog people living in high rises and spend the rest of their time four wheeling in the abandoned countryside exploring ruins and chilling with their personalized AI assistant. 

In some recent threads on this forum people have asked in response to info about crime rates by race “why does it matter” or “what do you want people to do with this?” 

I’ll give an example that I think demonstrates why this info needs to be pressed into people’s minds again and again and again. The other day in New York City, a pregnant white woman was just off a twelve hour shift was harassed by a group of young black men who tried to steal a bike she had rented to get home. They claimed that THEY actually were the one who rented the bike and she was trying to steal from them. They threatened her, touched her stomach, insulted her baby, and posted the whole thing online. She was the one who got doxxed, received countless death threats, had her name and face plastered across the world from several news outlets including NBC, and was put on leave from her job. Turns out she had the receipts! They were the ones trying to steal from her, as anyone with half a brain would’ve automatically known. 

People’s mental heuristics are so off due to decades anti white propaganda and decades of this sort of information being suppressed that the majority see a video like that and think “yep, definitely likely that a pregnant white woman who just got off a twelve hour shift would pick a fight with multiple black men.” Those of us who understand reality immediately knew the story as presented was bullshit. How often do white women commit crimes against black men? How often do pregnant women commit crimes? How about white NYC healthcare workers, are they a particularly criminal population?  The number of crimes committed by pregnant white women against black men probably number less than ten a year. 

This isn’t an isolated incident either. In fact most of these “Karen” videos are debunked upon further investigation but the damage is already done. The demand for white supremacist oppression outstrips the supply so greatly in America that an out of context video where you don’t show the appropriate deference to our societies socially privileged groups can end in the destruction of everything you’ve ever worked for. 

The disgusting and extremely creepy narrative about “white women tears” being a threat to black men is actively harmful to women who are socially punished for standing up for themselves if the men harassing them are the wrong color. The reality of who is a threat to who is the exact opposite: due to vastly different rates of crime between men and women and interracial crime between whites and blacks there are large swaths of this country where white women are the ones who can not safely walk. As an aside, in almost all of those places the housing, food, medical care, and education for the citizens living there are all paid for by white peoples tax dollars.

This is why information about crime rates matters. Because it’s true and it helps people better navigate the world. Were it more widely known perhaps fewer innocent people would be punished for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

 

I recently came across this article from an individual who spent almost five years working at a pediatric transgender center. The author who identifies as "left of Bernie Sanders" is also married to a transgendered man, so she is a biased source in favor of this form of "care." I distinctly remember at least three times on this website I've argued someone into a corner about how barbaric and damaging these practices are, only for them to eventually retreat to "well we need to trust the experts" and ignoring everything I've had to say. Unfortunately, experts can be just as ideologically blinded as the rest of us and it's often the case that someone who chooses to focus their career in certain fields may be more ideological than most. This article is interesting because it provides a first hand account of what minors have to do to get on "gender affirming" drugs, and what those drugs actually do. Needless to say, it's beyond obvious that offering these "treatments" to mentally ill minors doesn't have a defensible basis. Some choice quotes below:

On the explosion of "transgender" identification among mentally ill teenaged girls:

"Until 2015 or so, a very small number of these boys comprised the population of pediatric gender dysphoria cases. Then, across the Western world, there began to be a dramatic increase in a new population: Teenage girls, many with no previous history of gender distress, suddenly declared they were transgender and demanded immediate treatment with testosterone. 

I certainly saw this at the center. One of my jobs was to do intake for new patients and their families. When I started there were probably 10 such calls a month. When I left there were 50, and about 70 percent of the new patients were girls. Sometimes clusters of girls arrived from the same high school. 

This concerned me, but didn’t feel I was in the position to sound some kind of alarm back then. There was a team of about eight of us, and only one other person brought up the kinds of questions I had. Anyone who raised doubts ran the risk of being called a transphobe. 

On how minors qualified for access to untested treatments with lifelong consequences: 

"To begin transitioning, the girls needed a letter of support from a therapist—usually one we recommended—who they had to see only once or twice for the green light. To make it more efficient for the therapists, we offered them a template for how to write a letter in support of transition. The next stop was a single visit to the endocrinologist for a testosterone prescription. 

That’s all it took. "

Examples of the side effects:

"When a female takes testosterone, the profound and permanent effects of the hormone can be seen in a matter of months. Voices drop, beards sprout, body fat is redistributed. Sexual interest explodes, aggression increases, and mood can be unpredictable. Our patients were told about some side effects, including sterility. But after working at the center, I came to believe that teenagers are simply not capable of fully grasping what it means to make the decision to become infertile while still a minor."

.... 

"We found out later this girl had had intercourse, and because testosterone thins the vaginal tissues, her vaginal canal had ripped open. She had to be sedated and given surgery to repair the damage. She wasn’t the only vaginal laceration case we heard about.

Other girls were disturbed by the effects of testosterone on their clitoris, which enlarges and grows into what looks like a microphallus, or a tiny penis. I counseled one patient whose enlarged clitoris now extended below her vulva, and it chafed and rubbed painfully in her jeans. I advised her to get the kind of compression undergarments worn by biological men who dress to pass as female. At the end of the call I thought to myself, “Wow, we hurt this kid.” 

There are rare conditions in which babies are born with atypical genitalia—cases that call for sophisticated care and compassion. But clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals—and most of these teens haven’t even had sex yet. They had no idea who they were going to be as adults. Yet all it took for them to permanently transform themselves was one or two short conversations with a therapist."

"Doctors" using these life altering drugs with poorly studied long term side effects as a catch-all treatment:

"That same thought came up again with another case. This one was in spring of 2022 and concerned a young man who had intense obsessive-compulsive disorder that manifested as a desire to cut off his penis after he masturbated. This patient expressed no gender dysphoria, but he got hormones, too. I asked the doctor what protocol he was following, but I never got a straight answer. "

In 20 years when this stuff is viewed the same way as we view lobotomies, nobody is going to admit they were in favor of it. What an abject failure and betrayal by the very people who take an oath to do no harm. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that an unknown, but likely six figure, number of children have fallen into this trap. Their mental illness manifests in dislike of their changing bodies, so under the flimsiest of justification they've been prescribed cancer drugs, chemical castration drugs, or given permanent surgeries. Their minds and bodies are permanently altered chasing an impossible to reach goal, one that the so called experts lied to them about.  

What are your early predictions for the American elections in 2024? 

Unfortunately as of right now I predict Donald Trump will win the republican nomination and he will lose by a much bigger margin than he did in 2020. The Republicans will probably retake the senate anyway because the map is just so good for them but they’ll likely leave several seats on the table as usual. Hope I’m wrong but that’s the vibe I’m getting. What about all of you? 

Trend: Conservatives have more kids than liberals do. Exactly to what extent this is true is unknown and obscured by factors like immigration (which tends to increase fertility for the first generation) and race. The white liberal total fertility rate seems to be around an abysmally low ~1.2ish. The correlation between the white total fertility rate by state and Trump's 2020 margin was a strong .79 (source: own research.) However, liberals convert more kids from conservative families than vice versa.

Trend: Immigrants tend to vote Democratic but as they and their children assimilate they start to behave more like the American public. For every new immigrant that's naturalized, there's a second or third generation immigrant who gives the GOP another look, or a second or third generation immigrant who no longer thinks of themselves as distinct from the majority of the population in any way and no longer behaves differently from a generic American.

Trend: Whites tend to vote Republican and minorities tend to vote Democrat, and the number of minority voters is gradually increasing. However: even though America is becoming extremely polarized around *ideas* regarding race, actual voting behavior by race is becoming much less polarized. Minority voters have moved right faster than white voters have moved left, but there are many more white voters so the trends more or less cancel out. Generally Republicans either retained or increased their share of the minority vote in 2022.

Trend: Young voters vote Democratic by huge margins. But: apolitical youngsters in recent cohorts have become conservative leaning voters later on. In 2008, 18-29 year old's voted 66-31% Democratic, 28 points to the left of the country. In 2020 those voters were now mostly in the 30-39 category which voted 51-46% Democratic, about in line with the country. Obviously exit polls are very flawed and imperfect but the trend is clear--the Dem margin was probably a lot higher than 5 points in this group, but it definitely wasn't anywhere near 35 points as in 2008.

Conclusion: Politics in the US will probably remain at a stalemate for a long time, anybody saying that one side has definitely won or lost, can never win again, etc. is most likely just wrong. American politics seems to have reached the point where "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" and one side has to screw up royally to be at a distinct disadvantage 

Search "exit poll" below to see voting behavior by demographic

A recent political advertisement in the state of Georgia has been widely criticized which alleges that Democratic policies are discriminating against white people. You can watch it here: https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1587645902730280961

The NAACP, an organization with an annual budget of around $25 million, has sent a letter to stations in Georgia demanding that the "misleading" ad be taken down: https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1588182223471054848

I find this quite bizarre because I believe that every single claim in the advertisement is objectively true. As I see it, the advertisement made three major claims and I will analyze each one individually: 

This one is just objectively true, and was proven in federal court. The Biden administration attempted to dole out relief funds to restaurants that were closed due to the pandemic based on race. White males were so far to the back of the line that there was a serious risk of the fund running out entirely before they were allowed to access it. Fortunately, the court stepped in and ruled that this discrimination was violating the law:

In addition, this decision was held up at the appeals court: https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2021/06/03/federal-appellate-court-rules-that-biden-administration-cant-deny-covid-relief-funds-to-white-restaurant-owners/?sh=4d3780d2d996

In addition, federal court slapped down an attempt to give money to nonwhite farmers, and only nonwhite farmers: " https://nypost.com/2021/06/12/judge-halts-bidens-4b-aid-program-for-farmers-of-color/ The judge in the case wrote: 

"The “only consideration in determining whether a farmer or rancher’s loans should be completely forgiven is the person’s race or national origin,” Griesbach wrote. “Plaintiffs are completely excluded from participation in the program based on their race.”

Verdict: This claim is objectively, indisputably true. The administration did attempt to ration COVID aid by race, with whites so far to the back of the line that they may not have gotten anything. 

This is by far the weakest claim in the ad, but I don't think it's misleading at all. Here is the clip so you can see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rM7oITGdjnY

Harris is specifically talking about hurricane, says that "communities of color" are most impacted (despite the hurricane in question hitting communities that were around 85-90% white) and stating that we need to be "giving resources based on equity." 

Verdict: This is the weakest claim, but it still holds up as true

This is the most inflammatory claim and unfortunately, it is true that COVID treatments were rationed by race in certain jurisdictions.  

Aaron Sibarium did some excellent reporting on this which you can read here: https://twitter.com/aaronsibarium/status/1479482941067743233 but in New York, minorities were automatically eligible to receive monoclonal antibodies, which were in short supply, "regardless of age or underlying conditions." In Minnesota, the "ethical framework" used to determine who could get this treatment prioritized black 18 year olds over white 64 year olds, even though the latter were clearly more at risk. In Utah (!) the formula which determined eligibility for the treatment gave more points for "Latinx ethnicity" than a history of "congestive heart failure."

In addition, when the vaccine was first being rolled out, the decision was made not to prioritize the elderly, who were actually dying, but frontline workers. Part of the rational, as I documented at the time here (https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/5351-a-great-example-of-the-actual-purpose-of-identity-politics) was because the elderly (again, the people who were actually dying) were too white of a population to deserve access to the vaccine first.

In Vermont and Motana(!) white people were given access to the vaccine later than people of color were: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-04-05/vermont-covid-19-vaccine-priority-minority-residents

Verdict: This claim is objectively true, although fortunately this did not happen everywhere. Nonetheless, discrimination against white people in accessing COVID treatments likely led to thousands if not tens of thousands of additional deaths in the white community.

I'm confused why this ad is getting any pushback at all since all of the claims made are factual. White Supremacy is a really weird system I suppose, when white people can be denied financial aid and lifesaving medical treatment and are shamed for complaining about it.

Was inspired by a post from Ramshutu below: 

“I am incredibly left wing when it comes to how things *should* be; but am an incredible realist and am much further to the Center when I consider how things *can* be. I think that Post-scarcity communism - as with Star Trek - could potentially be possible, but it took a hundred years, first contact and global nuclear war; and A -> B is not practically possible right now…

By radical but not controversial I mean that very few people are advocating for the position and it’s completely off the political radar but isn’t culture war adjacent and wouldn’t offend many people 

I’ll start: Alberta and Saskatchewan are so different from the rest of Canada and such valuable pieces of real estate (especially when/if climate change really starts to kick in) that the USA should try to poach them from Canada

Most people don’t want to ban abortion entirely but also don’t think it should be legal up to the moment of birth. What do you think the limit should be and why?

Rumors are swirling that Biden is considering canceling a large portion, or potentially all, of federal student debt. 

I have mixed feelings on the matter. On the one hand making it more difficult for high IQ people to start families and have kids is obviously a bad idea. And a lot of students did basically get tricked as foolish 18 year olds into signing on to life ruining debt that isn’t dischargeable. 

At the same time this is incredibly unfair to the parents who scrimped and saved for their children education, or for the students who sacrificed retirement savings, vacations, home buying etc so that they could pay down their debt. Around 60% of student debt is held by graduate degree holders, so this would be a handout to some of the most privileged people  in society. Moreover it doesn’t solve the actual problem, which is continuously growing college costs driven in part by access to large amount of loans. 

My position is that something like a means tested forgiveness or making loans dischargeable in bankruptcy would be the ideal. I would also cancel the interest due on federal loans because we shouldn’t be usurious to our young people for getting an education. But I don’t think we should punish responsible people and perpetuate a flawed system. What do you guys think 

Saw this on Twitter and thought it might be fun here. Here are mine:

Biden: F

Trump: C

Obama: D

Bush: F

Clinton: C-

Bush: D-

Reagan: C

Carter: D

I am interested in debating systemic racism, with the resolution being “Systemic Racism is the cause of the majority of the difference in life outcomes between white and black Americans” as con. Any takers? It would have to begin in about a week and wrap up rather quickly, probably using the old DDO rules of 3 days a round. Three rounds or four if it’s “first round is for acceptance” style 

For the past year or so, I have been investigating the causes of political ideology, and why it is that the left seems to have more will to power than the right. I think we can chalk yet another point to the idea that most ideological differences come from personality differences that lead to differences in worldview. One such difference is how groups react to problems in the world.

Right wingers often mock the left for so easily going over to what ever narrative is popular in "the current year." And while much of the advocacy is indeed worthy of criticism (like changing your Facebook profile picture to support whatever is on TV, as if that makes a difference) they mock this at their own peril. Because ultimately this kind of behavior comes from an ever present feeling among many liberals that they must DO SOMETHING! And while this sometimes results in things that make you roll your eyes, it can also result in politically effective activities like pressuring major institutions when they step out of line, or ruining a persons life when they express an idea ~40% of the population believes in. We can see quite clearly, in the United States at least, how much more impact leftists have on almost all important institutions. They have even captured the upper echelons of the military at this point.

Whereas the conservative when confronted with the negatively of the world turns inward, or attempts to address things locally. While this is personally beneficial--conservatives have far lower incident of mental illness than liberals do, have higher self reported levels of happiness, have more children, etc--this is a severe detriment in the marketplace of ideas. It's all well and good to be a positive role model and live a good life but when the overwhelming majority of the people who feel a constantly oppressive need to DO SOMETHING (and therefore have far more influence over major institutions than those who don't really care) disagree with you...good luck preserving your values. That conservatives have as much success as they do in the United States owes mostly to the truly insane ideas coming from the top 5% most progressive members of the left successfully used as rallying points such as cutting off mentally ill fifteen year olds breasts, forcing two year olds to wear masks for eight hours a day, or decrying all white people as evil. Conservatives own ideas about how the culture ought to be are scattered and were mostly defeated decades ago, and its difficult to imagine a less popular economic platform than cutting entitlements in such a fantastically wealthy (and unequal) country. 

Like buttons are for Reddit, not a debate site. If you like someone’s perspective join in on the conversation 

If so tell him to get in touch with me

To all the members of DART, I am humbled and honored to unanimously be elected Vice President of this website. It’s a role that I have experience in on DDO, and I intend to do just as good a job here. I look forward to working with my esteemed colleague, our President-Elect Airmax1227 to restore this website to greatness. 

Since I last posted a poll, Wyled and RM dropped out, and TheHammer jumped in. Please vote in the following poll which will be my last one until the actual election: https://strawpoll.com/ed1dq36y3

I'm thinking about writing a Harry Potter fanfiction titled Harry Potter and the Great Conversion. The fic takes place in the 2017-2019 era. Some critical highlights:

Harry Potter has become an evangelical Christian who gives up magic, believing that it comes from the devil. He now votes Tory, hates Remoaners, and enjoys sharing Barry Stanton tweets with his cousin Dudley.

Ginny has gained 50+ lbs since the events of the Deathly Hallows and she and Harry sleep in separate rooms. Harry has not divorced her. He says it's because of his faith and that divorce is a sin, but really it's because they eloped as soon as she turned 17 and there's no prenup, and he doesn't know how he would make a living in the Muggle world. He reluctantly allows his children to go to Hogwarts but they spend most of the summer in church camp 

Harry's son is a Voldemort apologist who doesn't agree with what he did, but thinks that if he hadn't sold his soul to dark magic he would've been remembered as a great visionary. Jokes about being "only a quarter mudblood" to the great offense of his sister 

The Wizarding World has been demographically transformed after Tony Blair opened up the floodgates to immigration in 1997. Slytherin, the ambitious house, now has a negative reputation as the uncool striver house populated mostly by the children of Chinese and Indian immigrants. The remaining purebloods are mostly in Gryffindor 

Ron and Hermione had a brutal divorce, Ron's son hates women as a result and is kind of a wizarding Elliot Rodger

Flashback scenes reveal that Voldemort had an overwhelming cockney accent the entire time. "'Bout endadaline fa yew 'Arry Pah-Tah, innit? Moi dath aters wi sho ya what fa!"

What do you guys think? Trying to workshop this idea

Editing the OP with a poll that I think is better. If you already voted please revote in this one https://strawpoll.com/ukf3po5hz

It seems like "inheritance" is a bit of a dirty word. Virtually no one who has the opportunity to receive one turns it down, but it's something people don't really talk about. I understand this in some sense because it is certainly uncouth to brag and it's hard to talk about without coming off as a braggart. And of course people are going to be jealous. But it seems to come from something deeper than that, it seems as if people are embarrassed or ashamed to be living with the support of family money. I see all the time people making statements like "you're living off the fruits of someone else's labor" and other sentiments that make me think that people have a pretty dismal view of those who gain wealth that they didn't earn themselves.

Here is my basic position on inheritance: 

I disagree with the enlightenment (for lack of a better word) idea that the basic building block of a society is the individual. A society of solitary individuals is not a society at all. Not any more than solitary bears and tigers can be described as having a society. The basic building block of society is NOT the individual, but rather the relationships between individuals. The most basic, and the most powerful, of which is the family. So when money passes from parents to their children, I don't see it as a transfer of wealth from one person to another, but rather I see it as wealth remaining within the same entity, like how property and copyrights and such remain within a corporation even when there is turnover. It's the same entity. I also completely disagree with the Anglo-American/Protestant idea that as soon as someone is 18, their parents are done with them.

I not only support inheritance and intergenerational wealth transfers, but see them as a moral imperative. When I see parents with means allow their children to take on student loan debt and struggle to make rent, I see parents who are failing in their obligations and who are aborting their potential grandchildren. I believe that the entire point of building wealth is so that you can give it to your children, to ensure that they lead lives of high quality, and bear you grandchildren. 

My personal backstory is one of lots of financial support from my family. I've never received an inheritance and my parents never straight up gave me money, but they paid for my college and allowed me to live at home rent free for a few years before I got married. This constitutes a very significant wealth transfer, well into the six figures. It also resulted in me being financially ready to have a child long before most of my peers, so I think it will end up being a very good deal for their personal happiness. This is something that I want to do for my kids when the time comes, if not support them even further. 

If you receive in inheritance you have an obligation to take care of it, to keep it healthy and to pass it on when your time comes. The lazy bum living a lavish lifestyle off the sale of his dads company is acting immorally not because he has an obligation to society to work, but because he has an obligation to his family not to squander what previous generation have earned.

Politically this means I am opposed to an inheritance tax. The US has inheritance tax laws that only kick in at an extremely high amount of wealth ($11 million) so I am not really concerned with the law here. But I'm opposed all the same, because I view family money as remaining within the same entity, so an inheritance tax constitutes an act of double taxation. That money has already been taxed, just as a firms assets should not be taxed when the CEO changes a families assets should not be taxed when the makeup of the family changes. I am strongly opposed to the types of inheritance taxes  you see in European countries, which often kick in at very low thresholds of around $100-$300k. I would contend that a person should ABSOLUTELY be able to inherit millions of dollars without the government getting involved at all. Something I don't think most people would agree with. 

What do you guys think? What's your view on the morality of inheritance? I hope this didn't come off as preachy but instead articulated a viewpoint.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) = number of children a woman gives birth to over her lifetime. Historically TFR's have hovered around 5-7 children per women. Almost everywhere in the world, as economic and technological development takes place, the TFR falls dramatically In some places it's higher, in some places significantly lower than that. The reasons for the variance are complicated and not well understood. This is called the "fertility transition." The United States went through its fertility transition early, and other than during the baby boom the TFR has hovered around 2 or below since the Great Depression: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/ 

This fertility transition is now in an advanced stage almost all around the world. In fact, some analysts are predicting that this year will be the first time (ever?) that the world as a whole has reached below-replacement fertility. The causes of fertility rates are complicated, multivariate, and above all poorly understood. 

The future belongs to those who show up. So who IS having kids in America? Ethnically, Hispanic women have the most children, but their birthrates are crashing extremely rapidly as part of a greater phenomenon where the White and Hispanic populations are converging on several important factors. Black women have more children than White women and have for some time, which has allowed them to hold onto their historical 11-13% share of the population even as the non-hispanic white proportion of the country has dropped. But this fertility advantage is dwindling. Other than Asian women (who have rock bottom fertility rates of 1.1-1.3) all groups in the US are converging to around 1.7 children per women, or perhaps even lower than that. 

Politically the question is more interesting. For women born in the 1970s, self identified conservative women had around 0.25 children than self identified liberal women. This is a meaningful, but relatively small difference. However, this is a lagging indicator. For women in their 30's, the gap is a lot larger but it's possible that liberal women will in their 30s will have more later births than conservative women. But take a look at fertility rates by state (yes, I know this is from Twitter but this account is a pretty reliable source): https://twitter.com/BirthGauge/status/1460983673491279883 

Top 10 states: Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red. 

Bottom 10 states (and DC): Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Bluish-purple, purple, Blue, purple.

Not everyone having children in red states are white conservatives (in the south especially many are minorities) and not all children from conservative households stay that way so I don't think this portends a long term and inevitable conservative dominance. But I think it is still a socially/politically relevant fact that white liberals seem to be going the way of the dodo bird, genetically speaking. If this groups wants to continue to hold onto its share it must do so through conversion. 

What can't be denied is that clearly conservative areas are having more success at getting the youth to breed than liberal areas are. While this may provide conservatives a sense of smug satisfaction, this most likely has more to do with cost of living and urbanization rather than policy, as the "family values" party doesn't do all that much for families. But still, the numbers are what they are and liberals ignore this at their own peril. Anecdotally, I expect this trend to grow far stronger with the millennial's and gen-z. I am in my mid to late-20s right now, about the age that many of our parents had their firstborns, and the only people I know who have kids are conservative religious types. The people I know who are in a position to have kids in the next few years (stable relationship/married/engaged, economically secure, non-hedonistic) don't skew as conservative/religious but are far from leftist zealots. The most liberal people I knew from my youth are still status chasing in expensive big cities.

While it's true that kids from conservative families don't always stay that way I expect that 1) The people of my generation who have remained religious and conservative despite being run through the public school and social media ringer are far more likely to raise children who stay that way than their hapless boomer parents, and 2) Personality is extremely heritable, especially when the parents get an 18 year crack at the child's environment, so if conservatives are having far more children the countries culture and temperament will still change even if a large percentage of these children change ideologies. 

I also wonder what is going to happen when the number of childless adults rises. Given the already fragile mental state of people in my generation, I'm not bullish on their personal happiness thirty years from now when their parents are dead and their families aren't growing. It really makes me sad.

Wildcards: The US is peppered with small religious groups with ultra high fertility rates. Most famously the Amish, but also Hasidic Jews, Hutterites, conservative Mennonites, and to a lesser extent Latin Mass Catholics, fundamentalist Mormons, and Quiverfull Evangelicals. It's the same principle as compound interest--given enough time, something that starts out small can grow extremely large, which is why the Amish, who numbered about 5,000 a century ago, aren't really that small an ethnic group anymore, now boasting 360,000 adherents. There's basically zero conversion, that's purely internal growth. Continuing that growth rate would yield 26 million Amish people in 2121. The Amish as a whole have a TFR of 5-6, but certain conservative sects have even more kids, 7-10 per woman and so are growing even faster. Hasidic Jews are going to be around 35-40% of children in Brooklyn in the next decade, and will reach majority status very quickly if trends don't change. 

The past doesn't predict the future and the birthrates of these groups will eventually hit a wall....but when is anyone's guess, and what will happen afterward is unknown. Millions of ex-Amish and ex-Hasidic Jews filtering into mainstream society fifty to seventy five years from now is a political and social phenomenon no one is expecting but one that I believe is pretty much inevitable unless their TFR crashes to something resembling secular society very quickly.

Anyway I don't really have a point of this post. I was actually just jotting stuff down for my own purposes and thought maybe someone on this forum would find it interesting. I don't know what the future holds, but it's certainly interesting! If you're currently on the fence, you should have a kid.

The latest inflation data is out, and it aint pretty: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/10/business/inflation-cpi-stock-market-news 

Year over year inflation has jumped to 6.8%. For perspective, if you're in a household making, say, $75,000 a year that's a $5,000 paycut taken this year. If this continued unabated, it will absolutely doom Biden. 

What do you guys think? Economics is not really my forte. I tend to lean left on economic issues but I think this would be the nail in the coffin for any additional near term spending by a reasonable government. To what extent is this Biden's fault? I know he will get the blame for it, so politically he needs to find a way to fix it or he's done. But what could've been done differently? What should happen now?

I would like to wish all a very happy thanksgiving holiday

Anyone been watching this one? From what I've seen the case has not been going well for the prosecution at all. This is good because the entire incident was caught on video and it appeared to be clear self defense to me

Thread for discussing these elections which occur tomorrow

I am predicting a win by Youngkin (R) in Virginia, because he is 6'7". He also has my full endorsement for that reason

Post your early 2022 midterm predictions here. My prediction: Republicans take back both houses of congress, winning around 230 house seats and 52 senate seats

An extremely interesting and highly data driven study just dropped, and I think the findings will be highly useful to all young people on this site and elsewhere. In some sense it confirms what we all already knew, or expected, but it's still worth a look. The data is so comprehensive that you can literally search each institution and the specific majors they offer to see median salary outcomes, and return on investment relative to the median costs over a lifetime. Not all majors are present (mine wasn't), probably because some newer ones lack long term data, but the information is detailed enough that you can get a very, very solid idea about your prospects in a particular field. I encourage all young people on this site to read this article, reread it, and share it with their high school or college aged friends and siblings. Here are my big takeaways:

Unsurprisingly, the return on investment is always negative if you do not finish your degree. If someone drops out of college, the superior choice clearly would have been trade school or simply working a basic job rather than spending money/going into debt for a credential not received. There are not many majors where it would be a better choice to drop out, and if you are in that situation you're probably better off spending the extra time in college to transfer to a more lucrative major. Spending another year or eighteen months in college to swap an anthropology degree for an accounting  or economics degree would be well worth it in most cases.

Virtually all Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics degrees yield a positive ROI, generally above $500,000 over the course of a lifetime. Engineering in particular is impressive as 69% of degrees deliver a lifetime payoff of $1,000,000 or more. If you can hack it in one of these majors and you wouldn’t absolutely hate the next forty years or working life, you should get one of these degrees. 

A lot of science majors have lower ROI's than I expected, but as the report points out, this analysis only encompasses people who have a bachelors degree and tracks their earnings. Since so many science majors pursue higher education such as medical school or graduate school, those with only bachelors degrees aren't that representative of a sample. But if you have no interest in education beyond a four year degree, a biology degree is probably a bad choice. 

The most important decision, by far, is the choice of major. There are Harvard degrees with a negative ROI, and there are degrees from nominally unimpressive schools that return a positive ROI--some quite handsomely: "Moreover, 15% of programs at the cheapest schools (those with net tuition below $2,000) have a payoff above $500,000. At these inexpensive colleges, 82% of engineering programs, 51% of computer science programs, and 37% of health and nursing programs net their graduates more than half a million dollars."

If you can get your degree of choice at a higher tier institution, it might be worth it so long as you are confident in your ability to graduate. Unsurprisingly, the ROI of a degree is negative in 100% of the cases where a student drops out, and the probability of a positive ROI decreases the longer it takes to complete your degree.

My big takeaway is that the most important decision by far is the choice of major, followed by the type of lifestyle decisions that maximize your probability of graduation. Don't move halfway across the country to go to a marginally better school as a flex if being away from family and friends will make you miserable. State is fine, provided your choice of major is a good one. 

I’m trying to understand the leftist position as much as I can. Identity politics/racial justice/ whatever you want to call it is a very hot subject for the left in America right now but on both sides I mostly see partisan saber rattling instead of discussions on policy. So I am asking in good faith: what do you actually want to do? Reparations? Economic redistribution? Hate speech laws? Etc. And at what point would you consider the issue to be resolved?

I've seen too many of my peers make absolutely ruinous financial decisions. Mostly in regard to student loans, but also credit card debt, buying cars far to expensive for their incomes, paying as much for rent as they are allowed to, etc.

There are always going to be people who make poor choices, but the financial illiteracy of the average student coming out of High School (or really just Americans in general) is appalling. They don't understand compound interest, just how destructive credit card debt is or how powerful even small investments can become given enough time. They don't understand how to invest, how to save for retirement,  how to budget. Most importantly, many kids coming out of High School have absolutely no idea what things cost, or what reasonable income and saving expectations are. "Sure I'll be $80,000 in debt but the starting salary in my major is $50,000. I can pay it off in a few years, tops." Uhh...no. That is a decade, if you're lucky. I know people in this EXACT situation, who very foolishly made decisions to go to college out of state for exorbitant tuition when they never would have made that choice if they understood anything about personal finance.

I am convinced that a great many of the people I know would be substantially better off if they had even a rudimentary education on finance. It's absolutely criminal that our society allows 18 year olds with no assets or income sign up for non dischargeable debt that can reach to the six figures without providing them in their TWELVE years of education the information necessary to understand that decision. These kids are the future, if you cripple them at the beginning of their adult lives, the next generation isn't going to materialize at all.

Because of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, people are now clamoring to bring Afghan translators and others who assisted the US military during the war back to the states. But why? I would agree that these people should not be left to die, but there is a sensible middle ground everyone seems to be ignoring, which is to resettle them in countries more culturally compatible with their values. There are certainly Islamic countries willing to take them in, especially if the United States greases the skids for a tiny portion of the overall cost of this suicidal war.

Really the issue exposes the hubris of the secular, Western mind that believes everyone in the world would be just like us, if only they were enlightened enough! Even the Afghans willing to work with the United States are not compatible with the country at all. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan want Sharia law to be the law of the land. 61% say this should also apply to non-Muslims. 85% want to implement stoning as a punishment for adultery, and 79% support the death penalty for apostasy. There is absolutely no reason they should be brought here instead of settled in countries more compatible to their values. If they are brought here the culture shock will be a bad thing for both sides.

What are some conspiracy theories you believe? What are some you don't believe, but wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be true?

Conspiracy theories I believe: 

-General Patton was assassinated by the US government 

-The official narrative surrounding the JFK assassination is BS, although I don't know what actually happened 

-COVID-19 was made in a lab

-There really were significant numbers of American POWs left behind in Vietnam

-The Soviet Union held onto American POW's after WWII, and after failed negotiations they died in the gulags (this was originally in the second category, but a WWII veteran I met a few years ago who ended his war near Czechoslovakia told me out of the blue that he witnessed Americans in Soviet camps and that they never came home)

-UFO's are a government psyop 

-The official narrative behind the Las Vegas shooting is BS, but I don't know what actually happened

-Jeffery Epstein did not commit suicide, and may in fact still be alive

-Joe McCarthy was right about almost everything

-The 1960 election was stolen

-The concept of "conspiracy theories" is itself a conspiracy to cause a reflexive rejection among the populace against any explanation of that contradicts the official narrative

Conspiracy theories I don't believe, but wouldn't be that surprised if they turned out to be true:

-Obama was born in outside of the United States

-Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election 

-The official narrative around 9/11 is bunk

Conspiracy theories I don't believe, but want to be true: 

-The Manchu's still secretly rule China

-The phantom time hypothesis 

Anybody read this book? I would say it’s probably my favorite book of all time. The characters felt like real people in a way I haven’t seen before or since. Would highly recommend it, even though the first 100 pages are a bit slow (which says a LOT lol. The book is close to 1000 pages) 

Also the 80s miniseries with Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall was excellent as well. Would highly recommend it if you don’t want to work through a 1000 page epic 

Anyone read these books? I read them about two years ago and am fixing to reread them sometime later this year. I thought they were wonderful, although the third book was a bit messy. I actually liked the second book the most which is traditionally the weakest episode of a trilogy. If you haven't read them I would definitely recommend 

I was looking at my profile because I forgot what my self description was, and I saw this little green coin looking icon with a number next to it. what is this??

This is a question I've been grappling with on and off for over a year. We all know the power of confirmation bias and groupthink. We're all inclined to seek out information that supports our biases, and succumb easily to pressure from our groups. But where do those biases come from in the first place? 

I've been wondering lately why I'm right wing. I really don't have any answer.  I've had a conservative political orientation ever since I was old enough to think about politics, as young as age 12, even as my position on the actual issues has changed and continues to change. Some may say it comes from how people are raised, and perhaps it does, but my family NEVER discussed politics (my parents weren't even registered to vote) so if your politics come from the way you are raised, it's a lot deeper than just indoctrination. Unless I'm the oddball. Everyone likes to think that their politics comes from mind and logic. We've thought about the issues, and the other side is just WRONG! But following politics is one of my hobbies. I read books about politics. I've wasted countless hours online debating politics. I like to think I'm pretty smart, but who knows. And it's pretty obvious to me that while my actual ideas on policies might come from a rational place, my gut level choice of a "side" was absolutely pre-rational. Both parties have issues I believe they are objectively wrong on, and in roughly equal proportion, but the things the left is wrong about offend my sensibilities WAY more. Why? I truly have no idea. 

This isn't meant to be a diary entry. I just doubt I'm uniquely irrational, and if this is how I am it's probably how most people are. I've seen good evidence that "conservatives" and "liberals" have different brains, and while they say physiognomy is a pseudoscience, there's an obvious physical difference between groups....at least among the extremists. Go look up the mugshots of antifa vs. mugshots of people at the capitol riot. What I would suggest to people above all is that political orientation may as well be an immutable characteristic, so please extend as much grace as you can muster to the other side. It's fun to debate and important to understand where other people are coming from, but don't get carried away. While you might be diametrically opposed your brains are probably different enough that it's not that they are simply stupid or evil, but that they truly see the world differently in a way so fundamental that you that you're unlikely to ever change them.  

Identity politics as a means of social control is well documented. It is certainly better for Nike's bottom line that their major controversy in the mind of the consumer revolves around their work with a controversial football player as opposed to their disgusting labor practices which include slave and child labor, poverty wages, sweatshops, etc (https://qz.com/1811305/nike-apple-linked-to-forced-uighur-labor-in-china-report-says/). Meanwhile Amazon uses diversity as a part of its union-busting scheme (https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union), finding that diverse stores and warehouses are the least likely to attempt to unionize--consider this next time you see a corporation gleefully promote their workforce diversity.

A particularly disgusting example of this phenomenon recently surfaced in the New York Times. With the coronavirus vaccine being rolled out, some difficult decisions have to be made. As the article notes:

"Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”"

"No, you see, it has nothing to do with which groups are more valuable to capital it has to do with, uhh, hang on, yes, right we are saving black and brown bodies." The man in the top hat and monocle states as he nervously sorts through his notes.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable and their interests really are in saving the highest number of lives in the long term. But still note how they choose to pitch the decision to the generally liberal, well educated, and (ironically) white NYT readership. It's white this, minority that, black the other thing. Appealing to identity politics as a way to hide their true motivations, whether those are fair or foul. Think about this next time you see someone decrying the disproportionate impact something will have on the "black and brown." Maybe they are genuinely concerned...but more likely they just trying to get you to do what they want. 

-Trumpism is a viable electoral strategy

-The polls were horrifically wrong, worse than 2016 by a lot. Don’t pay much attention to them next time. 

-The “shy republican” vote was real

-Biden’s mandate is to not be Donald Trump. If he can govern respectfully and moderately he will be popular. If he tries to go far left, he will fail. 

-The “demographics is destiny” argument that democrats liked to make is dangerously wrong and extraordinarily toxic. I freely admit I believed in it and supported some pretty nasty things as a consequence 

-“It’s my or the left” worked for almost every Republican in a close race and almost worked for Donald Trump himself. It’s going to work in every close race in 2022 and 2024 if Biden doesn’t temper the more violent and anti civilizational undercurrents on the left.  

-Susan Collins is an unbeatable political goddess 

Any others? Throw your hot takes in here! 

You care enough to ask questions r-right guys?? H-haha I’m still cool and relevant right.......

Greetings all, 

Now that we have had some time to let the new moderation team settle in, it is time that a new chapter of this site begins. 

Our forefathers on Debate.org had a presidency for many years, and several DDO presidents accomplished great things. And let us not forget that when the institution was abolished the site met its fatal end shortly afterward. Virtuoso has been doing a great job as head moderator so far, but the people need a voice. Therefore, I formally propose that this site holds its first presidential election in June of 2020. 

does anyone have a way to contact him, if so please send him this. Zmike if you’re lurking here HMU bro

This years Hall of Fame election was quite the fiasco, resulting in four bans. Others, such as myself, were falsely accused of breaking the rules and were later totally vindicated. Just by looking at the main forum, there is still some confusion regarding the banning of TheHammer and Wylted. 

Everybody needs to be on the same page. For this reason, I am calling on Bsh1 to produce an official report that breaks down in detail the alleged attempts at Election Interference, the evidence he has, and the conclusions he reached. The public has a right to know what happened 

This thread is a teaser to formally announce that I intend to run for Vice President in the December 2019 DART election. Platform to follow. I hope that many of you join me on this journey 

Good evening all. 

I am holding this press conference to answer any and all questions about alleged interference in the Hall of Fame election.

Recently, there was a national news story about a grade school aged black girl who was held down by three white boys and had her dreadlocks cut. Like many stories of this nature, it quickly came out that it was a lie (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/girl-dreadlocks-lied-classmates-boy-virginia-hairstyle-hoax/), but only after national newspapers had uncritically run the story, and public figures had spoken out about it. In addition it's odd that, even if true, an incident of bullying between a few students warrants national media attention--unless somebody is trying to create a narrative. 

And it's obvious that the media is trying to spin a narrative. A narrative about hate crimes in Trump's America and violent white men going around oppressing minorities. But what do the actual facts say? According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (https://www.city-journal.org/democratic-candidates-racism-crime), in 2018 there were 593,598 violent crimes that involved black people and white people. In 537,204 of them, or 90%, white people were the victims. This statistic is even worse than it sounds, because for every black person in the United States, there are around 5 white people. If propensity to interracial crime was equal, white people would be the aggressor in 83% of these crimes, rather than 10%.

My intent here is not to libel all black people as criminals, when the vast majority are not. Nor is it to fear-monger (although 500,000 violent crimes a year is not insignificant even in a country as large as ours), nor am I trying to play up white victimhood. Rather I am honestly curious how progressives reconcile their racial narrative to what the statistics actually say.

My question to progressives is this: how do you reconcile the reality of crime and victimization in the United States with the narrative that white people are oppressing black people? Materially, what is it that white people currently do to black people that outweighs a net 500,000 violent crimes every single year? Please be specific.

Please do not vote for me 

Press F 

The Democratic candidates are tripping over each other trying to outbid the others, offering policies that range from perfectly reasonable (Yang’s. policy that if you devote 10% of your income to the debt for 10 years the remainder is forgiven) to the truly insane (Bernie “let’s destroy the stock market” Sanders.) 

As someone who has never had any student loan debt I can talk about this objectively. The lack of sympathy from conservatives on this issue really disgusts me. Not only were many students totally misled their entire lives about college, but this is a textbook example of the government messing everything up. No one would ever lend a jobless 18 year old fifty grand if student loans weren’t a special class of debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. The totally unlimited supply of credit available to jobless and broke 18 year olds for education is the true reason that tuition has skyrocketed to the extent it has. The real solution to student loan debt is politically toxic: end student loans entirely. Colleges would be forced to lower their prices to the point that the average person can afford to pay for college with cash or by working their way through school. 

What do you guys think?