Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "Whatifalthist"
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On the note about their percentage of the population, I'd like to add that small percentages are actually a significant portion of the population. Take 3%, like he said the communists were in the Russian Civil War. It sounds like it isn't very large, since it shouldn't be, but the working age population of almost any country is only 60%. So that's already cutting off almost half of the population, and thus your 3% is almost 6%, at least in relation to who your actual opponents are. If you cut another half to get just men, you already have all working age (fighting age) men in just 30% of the population. Your 3% is now 10%. If you cut off below 30 you get to about 10% or less, and now your 3% has become 30% of your cohort. Now imagine 1 in 3 young men taking up arms. Give them those arms and suddenly they can dominate their cohort, and once they've done that their only resistance is the over 30 crowd who, though most of the modern population, are less capable in their overall physical capabilities and have far more to lose. Once you're above 45 you're basically incapable of fighting. And thus you're only fighting another 10% who is already slightly weaker. And every other cohort, quite literally cannot fight. Thus, by the time you get down to the relevant percentage, you've already wiped away the vast majority of the population who can actually oppose you, and so a small percentage only has to win against a relatively small share of the population. Because once that share falls, there's simply no more resistance to be offered. You've Nickled and Dimed your way to a very large percentage of the truly relevant population.
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@pincermovement72 They mostly are. They're not prime candidates. You can revise the upper number to 50 and lower to 16, but beyond that, it just doesn't really work very well anymore. You're drawing from non-prime cohorts and getting into the role of auxiliaries only. That can still be helpful, but they're not really fighting except in that most desperate immediate didn't have enough rifles for everyone due to a shortage at that location. Yes, you will have men who perform well and shine through, but it's in no way the norm, and for most purposes, it just doesn't work as well. You're not sending your 50 year olds to storm trenches. If you do that, you're asking for a waste of life. They're very much like women in service. It's not impossible, it's not even really that difficult to do, however, as prime fighting ages are concerned, they're really not. And it's what I was really trying to get across.
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@coreyander286 Yeah, I don't think I really need to explain that much at this point as I'm sure many others have added already but I'll add some notes.
First is that backlash isn't in the form of YouTube videos. That's nothing. That's "rabble rabble" and not what's referred to at all. It's the top at the center which keeps the extremes beneath at bay.
Secondly, The red pill isn't going anywhere. The problem with it is that it speaks broadly to general patterns of behavior regarding women. It's not something that's chosen, it's basically an active process that you can't really choose so long as you have enough interactions with women. Whatever YouTubers come out as bad people, you have 100 more who are about as clean as it can get for a person. It's nowhere near destruction.
Thirdly, yeah, you're probably right that they're getting off to that idea. But why would they even WANT to get off to that idea? If the current system was providing healthy and stable relationships, then why would it be at all an attractive thought? It's like people who are prepping for an apocalypse but hoping it won't happen, why might they want an apocalypse if the society wasn't basically crushing their soul in some way? Same with this sentiment.
What's building up is still very much on the fringes and for every guy who says "I hope it doesn't happen, but it's coming" who is actually going to participate in the action, there's 100 who have no intention of ever doing so. When men say things like that, it's never something they seriously want to do, unless they're so radicalized what they're already planning it. The difference is the planning stage. That's when it's serious.
As a final note: women are the only ones who can stop this via a change in behavior. When you push someone's buttons for too long, they're going to lash out, and at some point it's your fault for exhausting their patience if they've sat there with mostly no complaints or complaints which have been ignored for a long time, and this has been multiple generations of worsening conditions in this category. We already have incel extremists, now imagine 50k actually manage to organize, and thanks to the internet, that's not even a herculean task. There are enough of them btw, when by a conservative estimate, a third of men under 30 are virgins (which skews lower) with the number still rising, you're going to have enough men who can create a fire large enough to actually burn down the village and impossible to put out.
Jordan peterson was mocked for feeling sympathy for incels and saying someone should at least advocate for them. The problem isn't getting resolved any time soon because it's completely undisciscussed.
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Short term vs long term. Remember that in 1945 Africa was under complete English and French control while in 1845 it was completely left alone. 1845 Russia was a backwater state which hadn't even started industrialization to 1945 where it was the powerhouse of the East and dominated all of Eastern Europe into Germany. 1845 Japan was closed to 1945 having an empire being taken away from it. 1776 America was a colonial society of roughly 2 million to in 1876 around 90 million, industrial, and one of the largest economies on the planet. 1645 to 1745 Spain starts from the fringe of Europe to largest colonial empire. 1745 Spain is the master of the colony game, to 1845 stripped of nearly all of it. 1645 Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a powerhouse of Europe. 1745 Poland is depopulated, weakened, and soon going to be partitioned by Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
Why all of this? To reinforce the point that a century is a very long time. It's the time between the rise and downfall of nations. Really don't underestimate what can change in a century. You've only been around in this form for a single one. You're surrounded by completely non-functional governments and split ethnic identities. And frankly you have a history of being the core of a multi-ethnic empire united under Islam, with a good geographic core, an active industrialization, and honestly an economy and population on the upswing. Also EU is probably coming apart and Russia on the decline. You've got more in your favor than you realize and a lot of time to do it.
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The Indians seem to have not really reached the east side of southeast Asia and the Philippines, not really being on any trade routes, were largely kept out of the spheres so that seems like a non-starter. If there really was a lot of Chinese and Indian influence it'd be much more obvious much like in Indonesia where even more Islam takes a backseat compared to the Latin culture overtly present in the Philippines. Though clearly there are differences and they didn't dominate as a foreign people more as a foreign elite which of course limits how radically it changes the society, but it seems to have influenced society to a similar degree as to the degree Islam and Buddhism took the rest of southeast Asia since the previous cultural norms weren't actually that strong and it's how an identity was formed
It's also important to understand that cultural influences submit to local conditions and it's how you have African and Indonesian Islam for so long being radically different from how it is in its home soil. And unlike the rest of Latin America the foreign born population didn't come in and basically displace the native one making the population very much of which inherited those cultural norms so of course they aren't going to be anywhere near the level of cultural similarity. And even then the nations of Latin America are very different from their home country of Spain due to local conditions and various other influences as well as simple time factor. However, despite all of this it still fits in fairly well with Latin civilization even if it is of course closer to the rest of southeast Asia making it both much like how most of southeast Asia has most of its culture shared with each other even if significant parts of their culture end up as part of another civilization which seems to overall be the story of this civilization in a nutshell.
In other words: Southeast Asia, having come in too late, sandwiched between twin sons of civilization, and too isolated to ever be forced to make something themselves, are best seen as a mix of their neighbors, natives, and the other outside influences which came to them for several centuries.
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@senhox970 The biggest thing is that this works with an actual civil war, which can only kick off if the army participates. Either it fractures, and there are now relatively equal professional forces with which to base a force on force conflict, or it almost unanimously picks a side and crushes the rebels or the government.
If the military splits allegiances and you have lower officers breaking off, then there's no longer an easy win for the military and you have a conflict.
To give a point of reference, say in the invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine's forces really did simply fall over without much of a fight and Russia really did win in 3 days. That's what it'd look like if the army remains united and only picks one side. If it fractures, then you get the Ukraine war as it actually happened since there's now enough resistance to stop a knockout now. In that environment, recruitment, mobilization, production, now all play a role. And in that environment, that's when you see some guys go to a local bar to pick up some more boys and raid a federal building.
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28:07 As someone interested in physics and is in a physics related major, yeah sounds 2/3 like things we actually already do being anti-particle and particle balance, space-time being one fabric, and the third one sounds possible given that I'm unaware of any limits on the size of super massive black holes (scientific name btw) which makes it completely possible that literally everything in the universe is actually orbiting around one huge black hole. And frankly given the size of the universe it's completely possible to not even realize we're in orbit around something that way given the fact that we've only been able to even try to see these things for really about a century.
And even more frankly, trying to figure out that we're orbiting with a reference point of the Oort Cloud (where most of the solar system's comets are said to come from). For reference, Voyager 1 which passed Pluto about 12 years after launch, will reach the inner edge in 300 years and leave it (along with the Sun's gravitational pull) in 30,000 years, and the Sun already from Pluto is only the brightest star in the sky with a light level about 5 to 10 street lamps.
What all of that reference is to say, since the amount of time to even try to note the distance of travel is so great, it would be a very long time before we could really even try to figure that out.
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@azamatbagatov7161 First off: The part of the Mongol empire that ruled Russia, the Golden Horde, were actually a settled people who developed and thus did have governing institutions. Not to mention that the Mongol style of governance was to be listened to or die. Now, onto the list:
Moscow being the capital of Russia (capital of the Tsardom of Russia, originally the Muscovite Tsardom) , the elimination of the veche system and democratic culture of the Rus, the flourishing of Orthodox Christianity (which existed because the Golden Horde allowed it), The census and tax collection system, centralization of power and rise of Russian autocracy, the Russian Tsars (started by the "Grand Prince" title granted by the Mongols), the destruction of Kiev as a center of power and splitting of the Rus, Mestnichestvo hierarchy, 15% of Boyar families, postal road network, increase in capital punishment (used to only be used on slaves), use of torture as a criminal procedure, certain punishments introduced such as beheading for alleged traitors and branding of thieves, and also the fiscal system and military organization, since that last part was required to fight the mongols.
In a story, much like Korea and Vietnam, the Russians we know today took cultural forms from the mongols in order to fight them off.
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i am in an interesting predicament since from a young age i never really saw the Simpsons or John Hughes America. In fact, i never even had that delusion since I'd never watched any of that to a significant degree as a child. By middle school, so about the time i could become conscious, i could already see what was happening and following that YouTube rabbit hole of the modern culture war as it was gearing up. I already lived in a feminist and female dominated world with a single mother. So, to me, I've never had the delusion destroyed that i lived in a functional society, since all I've known from my window into society is dysfunction.
In fact, I've actually seen excitement at the chaos in the modern world, liking to see what comes next even if i have to go through it honestly quite excited to see what comes next and rise through it.
Though, of course, this is also profoundly stupid because i don't even have a proper girlfriend at 22, and my entire life was more about studying and grades while living in the capital of Latin America, and thus divorced from most of the decay in much of the rest of the US, though still feeling the effects of managerial bloat. So, quite different from this.
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It's worth noting that much of the reason for the current situation in Ukraine is that this is actually two armies who inherited a defensive doctrine from the previous state. The Soviet military knew that NATO would own the skies from day one. So they built masses of air defense and designed their planes in order to contest the skies. Built masses of tanks in order to conduct armored offensives in order to break through the lines under contested air, and made 3 line deep defenses as a way to defeat NATO forces. As well as loads of artillery in order to boost those defenses present.
Now, Ukraine used that very doctrine to contest the skies, break offensives using 3 deep line defenses and massive artillery, against an army who did not invest in SEAD or DEAD capabilities for their air force, and also had tons of armor. So, they use their massive artillery to push using infantry assaults. This is because ATGMs are very effective, and ISR is also about even due to intense drone penetration.
This invasion was conducted in mud season, using light forces, among strong choke points, with massive equipment losses due to logistical failures by the Russians. In short, since Ukraine did everything right, and Russia everything wrong, there has become relative parity, and the spear blunted, allowing everyone to dig in.
That is not anywhere near all wars.
First off, air supremacy changes this calculus greatly. Drone penetration only works when under contested air, and the opportunity exists.
Secondly, armored offensives fail under enemy air superiority. In fact, it's why Ukraine's counter-offensives failed, as they advanced without their AA, and so they were destroyed by Russian helicopters. In such a way as how Russia was destroyed when it lacked its air defense network in that first few weeks of the invasion.
Thirdly, America has insane levels of precision munitions in stockpile, with better precision, allowing them to target important locations like logistical hubs and command and control to make any army Iran fields completely disorganized and near inoperable. While also having a massive logistics focus.
In short, any war would be different. Not because of drones not being a revolutionary technology in warfare that wouldn't matter "in a real war," but instead because about half of the fighting is basically missing from the equation. It's back to WW1 because it's mostly recreated WW1 conditions. No planes, elaborate trench networks (which have always been difficult to break), nullified tanks, and massive amounts of artillery. US-Iran is, many planes, no trench network focus, no artillery focus, mostly nullified armor.
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I think I can't over learn the lessons of the war. But one of the issues with Ukraine is that the Russians messed up massively with their initial ambitions, and daddy America gave the Ukraine the info to avoid the worst outcome that Russia was trying to inflict on them. After a significant loss of equipment and personnel, they then sent their leftovers into areas that had 8 years behind them to get built up in fortifications during the previous war, and then grinded away during mud season while they were stuck on the roads and couldn't avoid anything.
Due to those failures and massive equipment and personnel losses, the Russian Army we see today is a shell of its former self having not been built for the war it intended to fight, and then never adapting it before the invasion thinking it would be quick. And had they invaded during the permafrost, and without daddy America's involvement, they may have actually won too.
And in fact this is something that applies to WW2 as well. The defense is actually quite strong and always has been. The issue with WW2 is that the defenses were always bypassed, which meant that they often didn't matter.
However, the urban fighting which characterized cities like Stalingrad showed that the defense really was quite strong.
Also, come on, you know better than to say that no military technology improved during the 1600s and Napoleonic wars. Pike and shot gave way to riflemen and lines of bayonets with muskets, which meant much more firepower could be massed while also killing off cavalry better.
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@Harry-fr1iz That would be incorrect. First off: Shale oil caused the price reduction in 2014 to 2016 of global oil prices as it came in and flooded the market.
Second off: shale oil gets turned off first not because of unprofitabiliy, but instead due to physical constraints. Traditional drilling can't really be turned off and on again at will. Once you drill, it just goes on until you seal it up or it runs dry. Shale kind of can. So you can turn it off with regards to excess production.
Also, no, Saudi Arabian prices of $60 are a relative norm and for 6 years from 2008 to 2014 the price was right around $100 per barrel minus 2009 and 2010 where it was $55 then $75.
Also, I don't know why you'd think fracking is logically the more expensive process. It takes less time to set up (by orders of magnitude), and by all measures, it seems far more efficient. At least in its current incarnation. Even in 2014, when it was in its relative infancy, Shale created that 2014 to 2016 price fall, which hit all oil prices (even Saudi oil which had to decline to compete in the 2015 year). So, I don't see anywhere where it's the more expensive process. It seems to be less expensive given all evidence. The traditional wells are already set up. That seems to be the only potential mitigating factor.
Also feel like it's worth mentioning now that the 2021 and 2022 oil prices for Saudi crude was about $65 and $95 respectively. Which covers the prices from 2008 to 2022, and demonstrates that there's been very few instances in which it was actually a lower cost producer compared to Shale.
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@no way I don't think it even gets that either as many ancient ones are arguably even worse, and the Mongols managed to wipe out an entire civilization in Central Asia. Basically, every time a new population has moved in the other populations were wiped out, but here the US literally didn't have to try in order to do it as the population was already 90% dead before most arrived, and it was more pushing them back just due to power and population imbalance rather than outright genicidal extermination of the population with evidence to events such as "The Trail of Tears" with the creation of the reservations, and events where we have recorded the attitudes of the natives fearing losing their land, pointing to the reason that the Native Americans basically have no presence in American society is that rather than being killed off is that they were relocated into the worst lands available. And of course, this was 200 years ago compared to the thousands other populations had.
As a wrap-up, I think the event that was American population replacement was much more akin to a what-if answer to "What if the Chinese invaded the nomadic horse archers rather than the other way around?" as it was the result of several wars where the Native Population would lose, but rather than the natives having the population advantage the invaders would have to simply work within, the invaders were the population steam roller to one who had just lost enough people to be outnumbered 100 to 1.
Latin America is the answer to the question but with the asterisk of "What if only the army settled there after conquest without bringing a lot of women from the homeland once they finished?"
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Another criticism I have of this is the explanation of the relationship between the Americans and Europeans as well as the relationships of the Europeans.
First off: the whole idea of America dominating clashes with the idea of France having an empire. If America dominates all involved, France can't have an empire.
Second off: realistically the 3 countries that the Americans care about in Europe are France, Germany, and Britain. The Americans have a vested interest in preserving the British and if France has an empire then in real terms Germany is on its own which would leave it being sucked up more into the orbit of a more militarized Poland gaining control of more of Eastern Europe due to the fall of Russia which has arguably always been the interest of Germany.
Third: the second most stable country demographically in Europe is Britain which means it should have the ability to stay alive. It's also reaching out to its former dominions to join together which all populations support. This is a union which would easily be approved by the Americans and so even if it requires the Americans to stay alive, realistically this is the power they'd take most interest in and culturally this would be the power it has the most interest sustaining even more than France and Germany, especially if France has its own empire.
Fourth: Poland, has almost as terrible a demographic situation as Russia. So it taking control of say Belarus makes no sense when it itself is losing in population because realistically it'd be too weak to join voluntarily or conquer. Realistically this would make an informal German empire in Eastern Europe made of economic dependencies. This is aided by the fact that Germany is more stable demographically than Eastern Europe and thus would have the pull to keep them in their orbit.
Fifth: Realistically the Americans are caring a Lot less about Europe now than they did before. Before, America was a European wannabe due to them being the great powers of the world. Now, America is the greater power and its issue was with Russia due to it being its ideological opponent. As time goes on, and especially as Russia falls, I can't see America caring that much about it. The entire argument of this as well is completely predicated on Europe having no way to function on its own, and having France at all powerful (which it is even now with no signs of it decreasing in power) would run counter to that whole idea. France still maintains control over West Africa even now to a degree that both realize they need each other. France still maintains relationships with its former colonies in a closer tie than Britain ever has since its decline. France is still a world power. There's nothing which endangers that in any of the places which it has power. Even in the Arab world it already has no power making its entire power base from its state itself and west Africa which are under no threat from any other power. And frankly the Americans would be happy to give control over to France as it would rather focus on other matters. Honestly the more great power allies the Americans can have, the better. And the Americans would be all too happy to encourage that reality.
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@Perceval777 So in that context I used the qualifier of "basically" which means that while yes they are there, they're so small they're negligible. They're a tiny minority who are, very often, LARPing and just hating on Christianity. Though I'll admit you are what you do and if you LARP hard enough you'll eventually start to believe. The point is that if you go on the street and ask what a pagan is, they'll look at you blankly or maybe reply about them in a premodern concept. They're probably about 0.1 of 1% if that they're so small.
I think otherwise you do have a pretty good understanding, but the nationalists in America, unless they're specifically white nationalists, aren't actually super government hungry, as they're fundamentally of the American national tradition which was created in liberalism. So it'll never truly escape that unless it's trying to pull on a European precedent such as that even less existent faction of American monarchists (rent a Hapsburg I guess).
On the note about their percentage of the population, I'd like to add that small percentages are actually a significant portion of the population. Take 3%. It sounds like it isn't, since it shouldn't be, but the working age population of almost any country is only 60%. So that's already cutting off almost half of the population. If you cut another half to get just men, you already have all working age (fighting age) men in just 30% of the population. If you cut off below 30 you get to about 10% or less. Now imagine 1 in 3 young men taking up arms. Give them a gun and suddenly they can dominate their cohort, and once they've done their only resistance is the over 30 crowd who, though most of the modern population, are less capable in their overall physical capabilities and have far more to lose. Once you're above 45 you're basically incapable of fighting. Thus, you're only fighting another 10% who is already slightly weaker, and possibly less willing to fight. Every other cohort, quite literally cannot fight. It's pretty crazy.
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@azamatbagatov7161 So, in the interest of my time as I need to get going, but I'll forget I'll keep this short:
French absolutism only came in the 16th to 17th centuries, and also failed.
Northern Russia, which wasn't under Horde control, was crushed by Moscow who was.
The Grand Prince title was granted in I believe 1389, by the Horde Khan himself, and was in fact because they were the Horde Tax collector and greatest collaborator.
The throwing off of the Mongol Yoke came 2 years after the destruction of Novgorod.
While I'm aware the title of Tsar is Bulgarian in origin, the Russian idea and effect, its worship by Russians and control over its nobles, was driven by the mongol example.
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8:08 Yeah no this is pretty normal writing. In fact, this is fantastic writing. Though i will say it is quite a lengthy section on the opinions others had on Goethe. However i do truly love that final quote there as describing an immaculate man who, though following his dreams, was still committed and noble. He just wasn't someone who would be good for studying law.
Also, Frederick the Great saying that the bard was essentially peasant trash and that Goethe should get his inspirations from France is just a very sad mark on Ferderick. It's France. Even though the Bard was occasionally crass, and did intend to show these to the masses, it's silly intellectual bickering. Especially with some of his later works being so magnificent. Even if Romeo and Juliet was just kind of silly (had he only seen that, I'd understand Frederick's opinion here).
But yeah no this is not a difficult read. This is at worst lord of the rings level of writing and that was a 5th grade read for me. The only problem with that section is the topic choice itself. However, as it's only 1 page out of a thousand, it's probably not really a problem and it is a relatively brief summary. There's definitely something to be said about the physical page length, as if you were to type that on a computer it'd look far smaller.
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@MrIke86 Welfare in the American context comes down to the systems that those in low income tend to use as they are under a certain income level and thus qualify for certain benefits in terms of subsidies and tax credits from the government. In this capacity, it is put into brackets with hard cutoffs. So the American system disincentivizes going slowly up the ladder as you'll lose the floor that it has given you once you make X amount of money. And so being one dollar less than that will give you more money than trying to say getting an extra 3k from another job. In this capacity, it incentivizes people to stay within that unless they've already built up a culture of working hard and genuinely fell on hard times. Someone who falls on hard times but is genuinely in a higher tax bracket will not benefit as much as someone who has always been in the low tax bracket as they will see a significant standard of living reduction despite being on welfare. This is the intention of welfare. It is not meant to be a replacement for income and only a temporary floor for people who'd otherwise go all the way to the bottom. However, what you will end up seeing in many cases are those who, because they were always in a low bracket and perhaps were never married, benefit more from staying on welfare than genuinely attempting to better themselves and get into a higher bracket or find a partner who can and is willing to support them. These are abusers of the system.
My question, because this has seemingly not been studied besides a general trend around the same period which has many factors, is if this contributes to the decline in marriage in many populations specifically. Of course there are actually situations where there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which eventually creates a cycle (such as the poverty created by drug addiction), and thus you do have to watch out for that as well. With marriage of parents being the NUMBER 1 determinant of the well being of a child from a given couple, I am wondering if welfare has this adverse effect of driving down marriage.
Why is this not related to any of the factors you've mentioned above? While those factors will create local poverty, they're largely not related to the function of marriage. Marriage, in the legal context, allows two people to tie themselves together and fundamentally tie together their economic power. If this economic power is not necessary due to receiving that power from the government, it would be a factor which pushes out marriage from many of the economic considerations.
I'm NOT asking if it has an overall effect on poverty. I'm NOT asking if it depresses wages. I'm not even asking if it is a bad thing. I'm asking in a very specific context, if it declines Marriage. Marriage, because it has such a strong correlation with these issues, is likely a confounding variable in poverty. It is enough that it is significantly correlative with economic power in general. Now it can often simply be a marker of social capital, but it's such a deterministic metric that it cannot be ignored.
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@MrIke86 Well that is when they started to decline. And then in the 1990s there was a spike which then mostly held flat until about 2000. 2000 is when everything started to again go down and we're actually seeing a slight uptick in the higher brackets.
However, I would like you to explain why income inequality would AT ALL cause this? Why would that matter in any capacity? It makes 0 sense as a corollary.
The cultural story, would actually in many ways support this as while yes you have a destruction in families, that in of itself creates a new culture in which it isn't respected which then continues the situation. Initial events can change cultures drastically as a result of them and have lingering effects for generations because something happened. It's the reason why blacks who's ancestors weren't slaves do better than those who's ancestors were. A manifestation of a reaction of one event will not simply stop having effects. Those effects take generations to die down. I'm very interested in looking at the book that you're referencing.
And actually it does demonstrate that in many cases. The institute of family studies shows that across demographics married couples are much less often to be in poverty. Regardless of educational level. It's a reduction of nearly 75%. There's nothing which is so connected to the chance of poverty as not being married and thus the idea that it's a cross section for race/gender/class is actually a lie on the face of it unless you know nothing about it. I'd love to compare the marriage rates of the US compared to Finland but it's really difficult to find comparable data.
And finally, I can't believe I have to say this, BUT I'M NOT JUST REFERRING TO THE USA. Yes the struggles of the jews and Chinese historically are not the same as those of the blacks in the US. However, looking beyond the scope of the industrial age and the USA, you find the story holding true of them being effectively the merchant classes as that is all that they're allowed to do and then they own the economies of multiple countries as a result. Horrible specific oppression on these groups and then they still pull off dominating the economy. A specific example of this is modern Indonesia where they're actively discriminated against and 2% of the population, but dominate 70% of all businesses according to a book published by Amy Chua and used in a paper published by the University of Hawaii.
And this is the type of result which leads to the ultimate conclusion that the benefits are in social capital within a given ethnic group that gives them a leg up on others and by the same token can doom them.
Australians and Canadians are on a mostly desolate rock and mostly frozen wasteland but are as wealthy as most of Northern and Western Europe. Norway is an oil state like Saudi Arabia but with none of the corruption. And then Russia has been basically in a continual downward spiral since the collapse of the Soviet Union and their men drink themselves to death.
This tangent is a bit strange to bring up, but they're a point here. These things all point to things which aren't simply structural but factors which are cultural. They show up on the macro level as well as the micro. Great potential can be wasted and literally nothing can become wealthy. This makes no sense if those structural and economic limitations are what's actually holding groups back. Our environment affects us that's not up for debate. However, we also have a culture that we build which in it has certain incentives that can lead people to success or failure. It's strong enough that you can pluck people from bad environments and they can be successful via almost exclusively a strength of culture. It's very interesting to see these things play out.
And while I know you're dead set on structural and institutional forces as that's basically the default position of a lot of people because it takes the blame off of the group (and said blame easily creates an attitude of racism) without realizing the lack of agency that it creates, but it's an attitude which continues to ignore the result of macro-effects of individual decisions or the result of cultural effects because it's not okay now to say that some cultures are actually better than others (because it also easily slips into racism). It's the type of thing which facilitates the reduction of envy. But it's really only one part of the picture and people seem to not want to accept that. Which is the entire point of my initial question: "did this structural change, induce a cultural change which has since lasted to today?" and thus the source of this argument.
Also worth noting that the political persuasion which is most present in academia (those who do the most research on sociological issues) since the 1970s has overwhelmingly been of one political persuasion. One in which believes in social constructionism and that people in many ways aren't actually individuals but simply formations of circumstance.
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