echolalia

I do believe that in order to achieve welfare/prosperity, not all the people have to work. And I do believe that there are more important things in life than working. I’d love to be a stay at home dad, but I can’t.

Being a stay at home dad is work. Raising children is necessary work that capitalism requires, because it requires laborers. We have engineered a system in which this work is uncompensated, and if you gender this work, it causes gendered oppression.

I will also point out that in America we have decided that unless you have a "job", society has decided that you pretty much don't deserve health care. Anyone who chooses a life of domestic labor in America puts themselves in a position where they are financially dependent on their spouse and their spouse's employment status. It doesn't have to be this way. We have forged these chains.

Whether doubling the workforce is a good thing - that I’d keep up for a debate.

If we had more workers, it could be that we wouldn't need those workers to work as long. Earlier retirement, shorter work weeks, whatever. The issue is not the size of the work force, the issue is what is chosen to be done with it.

Are you trying to imply doubling the available workforce is not good? Its usually a good thing. While their motivations are cynical, those leaders are doing good.

...or are you trying to imply that keeping women out of the traditional work force (by only allowing them to work unpaid in the home in domestic servitude, labor that capital does not value) increases the value of male labor through scarcity, which would be preferred?

Sorry that second question kind of reads as an attack. A shitty coworker of mine said that to me unironically and tried to play it off as a joke when I pushed back.

Ok... but is the picture art??? I don't think anyone would try to argue it is. Miyazaki was specifically talking about how no algorithm can produce art, and I agree.

What makes this screenshot funny is the human element, the performance! It's all ridiculous.

Glorified Matrix Algebra: [Presents an image of a caked-up gnome]

Internet goblin: "Make it's butt even bigger."

Glorified Matrix Algebra: "Sorry, that's a bridge too far for me."

I know right? Have any of these posters met a baby? They're too short for this.

Yeah, this shit is on purpose. These people have no respect for national security (and no respect for our allies), so it makes sense to me that at least one of them is playing dumb games. Pete should have never risen to this position in government.

As it stands, people who like the trump admin will see nothing wrong with these messages (if they even read them). Maybe they'll even think those goobers are doing a good job.

The people who hate the trump admin will not change their opinions of them after this (it can't possibly be lower for most people who hate these fascists). Critiques of the signal meeting will be met with comments like "so the journalist should be in jail for leaking!" or "Does it matter? Look at trumps men going after the terrorists! Do you love terrorists or something?"

Facilitating the of leaking this stuff is win/win if you don't value the lives of military personnel, records acts, security clearances, international opinion, etc.

Sorry, I thought this was in another thread that was actually talking about IQ. I've clicked through too many articles.

This article doesn't mention IQ at all, even though your response does. IQ isn't an absolute quantitative measure for intelligence even though many people conflate them - this is probably why the article doesn't mention it.

I'd dig into the Financial Times article that this Neoscope article is about but it's pay-walled. The neoscope article makes some case for intelligence declining (I don't have time to read those citations right now), but I'd point out this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with less intelligent parents having children. It could be evidence that the material conditions for us ordinary citizens is declining as a whole (I think we would both agree on that point). Cost of living is up, people are working longer. Long COVID probably has something to do with it, and stress.

Im not going to write some big long podt, just two things:

1. people, on average, are not getting dumber. Anything you noticed observationally about dumb people having more children does not seem to have any effect on the world. Human nutrition has improved vastly over the past 100 years, as has education, etc.

2. IQ increases every year. I don't think this is evidence people are getting smarter because I think IQ is a poor measure of intelligence. I'm pointing this out to you because your statement about "IQ drifting toward the bottom'" is factually untrue.

the kneejerk reaction that the statement always gets is annoying.

I agree with everything you said, but I'm going to point out something. If there is a common kneejerk reaction to some particular topic, there's probably a reason for that. You yourself said its annoying? I suppose its predictable then. If you can predict that people are going to react in some way, you can write with more explanation to clarify that you aren't actually supporting something like eugenics. The poster I'm responding to did not do this.

I took this lack of explanation as support (which, on reflection, might be leaping to conclusions). The overall tone of the comment is rather judgemental.

The commenter is also wrong; IQ hasn't been "drifting towards the bottom", the average IQ increases every year. Its why they have to constantly adjust the tests, because 100 is meant to be an average score by design. This is primarily why I chose to respond to him. He's not saying " which is why we should invest in family planning" or "we should invest in children's education", he's making an untrue statement, and then pretending that this will cause some sort of feedback loop. Dumb people making more dumb people.

IQ is not some absolute quantitative metric of intelligence. The people who treat it like it is... I find that a lot of them are pushing some sort of angle or simply don't understand it.

This is the plot to a fictional movie. Intelligence is a factor of many things, and most of those factors are not genetic.

Your observation seems close to the opinions of old school eugenicists. "The wrong people are having children".

I agree, we shouldn't be coddling folk triggered by messages like "Everyone is Welcome". They need to toughen up and learn to accept messages of inclusivity.

They SHOULD feel uncomfortable if they don't like this sign. It'll put hair on their chest.

Yes exactly. Without writing too much more, I'll just say I wish it had been done a bit different, and there's no shame in critiquing a finished product for what it is (within reason. I'm not a huge fandom person so I don't really know how toxic this all got for some people). It's still quite good.