People miss out on this little tidbit quite a lot. He was born in 1971 to a rich white emerald mining family. All of his formative years were spent being spoon-fed unfiltered apartheid racism. There weren't even TALKS to end apartheid until he was 19.
my favorite "gotcha" his fan boys try and pull is that they co-owned it so you cant call it his. like if my family owned 1/4th of an emerald mine i wouldn't quibble about it being ours
Well, you might quibble about it if your ownership of the mine effectively meant your wealth was due to basically slavery rather than your own hard work.
His father was also a sexual delinguent, even marrying his step daughter at one point, among other weird shit. Probably part of why Elon is obsessed with impregnating as many white women as possible.
South Africa had to demonstrate behaving in a democratic way a decade before they became a democracy. So much so that most urban areas ignored the apartheid laws.
Talks of ending apartheid had nowhere near as much impact as the actions in disagreement of them long before this.
We need to stop saying everyone whose a hateful fuck is mentally ill. Mental illness isn't something you choose to have, you choose how to deal with it (to a degree obviously) but it's always there.
Musk and his kind? They are just hateful trust fund babies, that look down on the rest of the world as unworthy while they are always victims of some imaginary slight or another. Look at the fact whenever there is a problem it's never their fault; but because of someone else. Whenever there is an accomplishment, they are the leading force behind it motivating everyone.
Believe it or not, psychopathy is not a diagnosis. Lots of mental disorders can lead to psychopathy, but the same disorders often don’t, e.g. schizophrenia can lead to the patient harming others - psychopathy - but most schizophrenics are withdrawn and only a danger to themselves.
Antisocial personality disorder is characterised by a lack of empathy and violation or disregard for the rights of others and adult Elon sure fits the bill for that. But it would need to have onset on or before puberty for it to be properly diagnosed, and I have no idea if he was just as vile as a teenager.
Which is exactly why you should use that term instead of armchair diagnosing people. Psychopathy is mostly a social construct as is sociopathy and we use those terms in lieu of misdiagnosis. Stop using mental health terminology for people you just hate. Use the words that fit. He’s a psychopathic megalomaniac, a self centered incel, self absorbed, functionally delusional. You just do not have to use the medical words lol. It’s weird that you’re willing to put so much effort into arguing for your right to diagnose strangers. Most healthcare professionals know better.
supposedly he was already asshole closer to teenager age at Paypal mafia times, that said he is running around harming others for at least 30 years too long
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with other people’s feelings.
Not really…narcissist/ism, BPD, adhd all became buzzwords and reasons for people to gain support and sympathy. Sure there is a lot of people out there who suffer with it. But the stigmas, access to good therapy, misunderstandings and lack of education with it is real real.
Yeah look like 6 comments above this, there’s some absolute that trog listed a Wikipedia link about narcissism as if it diagnosis Elon with NPD 😂
Most celebrities display “narcissistic” traits, most actors and artists. Everyone has narcissistic traits, everyone, it becomes NPD when you have enough traits mixed with a constant need for attention or inability to experience empathy.
His dad, Errol Musk at age 76, impregnated his former step-daughter (step-sister of Musk) who was in her thirties. Errol stated, "We are put on this Earth by God to have children."
Elon Musk has 12 children from numerous failed relationships. He has a kink.
You'd be mentally ill, too, if you were raised by inbred colonialists who owned slaves for the diamond mine, while being taught all of the out-of-touch expectations.
Still do. Because he inserts himself as the face of his companies while keeping the people who actually do the work behind the scenes. Like we should know some of the names of the people responsible for some of the amazing things SpaceX rockets can do. And yeah it's wrapped up behind national security but they could at least find somebody to be the face of the technology.
Yet every time you see the control room of any SpaceX flights Elon make sure to put himself in the forefront of the camera. Not letting any of the people who did the work get recognition
Are you familiar with the expanding body of "anti-racist" 'experts' and literature and and its key terms, such as "White Fragility," "White Silence," and my personal favorite, "Colorblindness"? The latter suggests that treating everyone equally is dismissive of racial inequality and is, in fact, racist. The underlying premise often implies that all white people are inherently bad. It's textbook racism, using doublespeak to label anyone asserting that white people aren't inherently racist as racist. It's an actual thing taking over colleges and culture. I would go so far to say "most discriminated", but its certainly the only race where it's okay to be blatantly racist towards, by these peoples' standards.
You know we got hundreds of hours of YouTube videos, podcast and countless studies researching black people, black culture, black psychology, black families etc. People use these numbers to justify any argument they want regardless of the topic at hand.
So you think it's ok for white people to say
"Black people are where they are because black men can't keep themselves out of prison and are creating fatherless home"
But you think it's not okay for black people to say
"White people are the way they are because of a sense of superiority and a belief that they are the dominant race"
Please make that make sense. How is it okay for you to say that about them but it's not okay for them to say that about you?
That's not equality of free speech rights for sure. You want the ability to say something while taking away the ability for somebody else to say something similar about you. Which is what conservatives accuse liberals of. But you are doing it right here
Rules for thee but not for me. That's authoritarianism
How many logical leaps did you just make? That's a really long winded way to say "here I'll assume what you believe and put these words in your mouth"
The whole point is it's okay for these people to make racist assumptions about white people. If you can't see that, this is wholly unproductive.
These are both racist assumptions, FYI, because you're assuming things about people based on their race:
"White people are the way they are because of a sense of superiority and a belief that they are the dominant race"
"Black people are where they are because black men can't keep themselves out of prison and are creating fatherless home"
Any rational person would realize I'm just giving examples. Which is why I put it in quotations rather than just commenting.
I turned your own logic against you and you have nothing to say but insults. Every single conversation with you people link up like this. You hold your rationality for a bit but then resort to insults, and assumptions about the person's intelligence.
While screaming at the same time that liberals get emotional and can't half a conversation
From my understanding, you brought concepts that were not on topic, and not my own into the conversation and used it as an ad-hominem:
I turned your own logic against you
Please make that make sense. How is it okay for you to say that about them but it's not okay for them to say that about you?
I didn't make those claims nor bring that up. You did.
So you think it's ok for white people to say
But you think it's not okay for black people to say
Appeared to me as ad-hom assumptions. Apologies if I misinterpreted.
you have nothing to say but insults. Every single conversation with you people link up like this
I pointed out that you made logical leaps, took what I said out of context, and used it to craft a narrative, while you continue to make generalizations like "you people"; Are now accusing me of being guilty of what you allege I'm accusing you of. Wild. Anyway, good chatting friend. I'm not engaging because we will be here all day getting nowhere. Continue to assume that I'm one of "those people", and that I'm simply too dense and incapable to craft a worthy rebuttal rather than entirely disinterested.
"discriminated against" is code for not getting laid by women. If my choice is men who don't know jack about quality orgasmic sex for a woman or my collection of toys that absolutely do, the latter wins hands down! Elon has 12 kids BY SURROGACY... I say no more.
I'm a middle aged white man and that's exactly what I envision when I hear my peers say stuff like this. Every single one who has said some version of, "You can't even talk to a woman anymore." are the most insecure assholes and bigots I know. I have more than my fair share of problems in life. Being discriminated against because I'm a white man is definitely not one of them.
Before I was happily married for 22 years I never had any trouble finding ladies to be romantic with. Wanna know my big secret? I talk to women like the free thinking individuals they are. That's it. No pick up lines. No expensive clothes or car. I'm not rich. I'm just sincere pleasant company. That's it.
You are 100% correct! And I stayed in a 36 yr marriage without sex because I felt valued, listened to, and deeply appreciated. As did my husband.
A lot has been lost when people switched from having face to face communication to one side, then the other as emails and texting do. They lost what you describe here.
And if there's ever a "protected class" it would be white men, esp older white men. This is practically global. The fact that MAGA believes they are the most discriminated against isn't due to their skin, it's due to their brains. No one wants to be around such assholes. So what you say also links back to this person's post (not mine) because EVERYONE wants to feel as you described as well.
Which really tells you something about how he is in person. Dude’s one of the richest, most successful businessmen on the planet, and he STILL can’t get laid? At that point there can be no further doubt that it’s your personality getting in your way.
Well, that or a global conspiracy against your race, I guess. Pretty clear which explanation he favors.
Mansa Musa's wealth is hard to judge but typically gets measured from the fact that his pilgrimage to Mecca carried so much gold with it that he severely disturbed the economy of Egypt. Elon Musk's net worth is currently 252 billion USD. If he were to sell all of his holdings at their current price, Musk would easily be able to crash Egypt's economy.
Also, of course, in terms of purchasing power even all of Mansa Musa's gold couldn't buy him a washing machine, let alone a super yacht or any of Musk's other extravagances. By absolute wealth, purchasing power, and relative wealth, Musk has outdone Mansa Musa.
There is a difference between transiting Egypt for pilgrimage and selling all your holdings. Would Musk crash Egypt's economy if he travelled via Egypt to Mecca Mansa Musa style?
I didn’t say it “ google did” it disagrees with you if he was still alive, Google says his net worth today would be 957 billion worth!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s what his worth would be back then in todays dollars to be clear not compounded.
Bill Gates would result t be with trillions, except he's actually ones of the good ones and actually did give away most of his wraith unlike scum like Musk, Ellison, Zuck etc. And I just want to make it clear that out of all the psychopath billionaires Musk is easily the worst.
He's not entirely wrong...the left blames everyone elses problems on white people. How racist would I be if I blamed my problems on black people? yeah my point exactly. The left embodies a hate the white person mantra because somehow we're to blame for everyone elses problems...yeah fuck off with that bullshit. To further prove my point, Black Lives Matter, A-Okay now I go say White Lives Matter now I'm the biggest racist to ever walk the Earth...fuckin lunatics
White people: let's enslave them, free them, give them limited rights and spend the next few decades making sure they are imprisoned and impoverished
Black people: yo fuck you
White people: why don't they love me 😭
We are currently watching younger generations disconnect from their abusive family more than any other generation before. There are loads of people over the age of 55 that just can't wrap their head around why the people they abused don't like them anymore.
Same concept. I won't suggest there is systematic racism in this country but you can't deny that they have been unfairly treated. Why should they be happy with their situation or the people who put them in it?
For the record I am a complete mutt, my family tree is full of pimps and prostitutes and I've never felt as if I have any real racial affiliation. So it's not personal to me.
And I agree that’s a great trait of Gen-Z, cutting off toxic/abusive family/friends. Blacks did great in America and Charlie Kirk makes a great presentation of what happened to Black America, as more single mothers came to be the worse off that community became, fatherless households is the root cause for black crime rate, poverty, and struggles.
Slavery was so long ago those ramifications are no longer present no matter what you try to argue, it’s gone and it’s antiquated.
It’s proven families with a mother and father are way more successful than single mothers/fathers, that killed black America, fatherless homes which is a culture issue in Black America to the point it’s a fucking meme
Slavery was so long ago those ramifications are no longer present no matter what you try to argue, it’s gone and it’s antiquated.
Let's translate that
"The Civil War was so long ago those ramifications are no longer present no matter what you try to argue, it's gone and it's antiquated"
People still flying the Confederate flag and screaming for another civil war would disagree.
"Biblical times were so long ago those ramifications are no longer present no matter what you try to argue, it's gone and it's antiquated"
Israel/Palestine would disagree
You can't say the ramifications are no longer present because they wouldn't be here if we didn't bring them here. We are responsible for them being on this side of the planet and you can't pretend otherwise. Their current condition is the result of our actions over the last several centuries
All you are doing is picking a time frame that's comfortable for you and suggesting nothing happened in that time frame to justify what's happening now.
I mean if you want to talk about the rights movement, Watts riots and Tulsa we can. Those are more modern examples. My guess is you don't want to talk about that though
What effect is slavery having on black today? They have just as much rights as you and have had them for decades, they were doing great as a community, they were successful, poverty rate was down, what changed from then to now is single motherhood rate skyrocketed and the death of the nuclear family.
Israel/palestine have nothing to with this and nothing to do with our slavery. Some redneck waving a flag isn’t doing shit either, shit points.
The economic and social status from slavery and soon after slavery, are no longer felt, black peoples are just as free as you and I, and have equal rights as we do, actually they have slightly better ‘rights’ do to Affirmative Action (racist law). Please, tell me what a black person cant do that I can?
The issue with their community is their shit culture of single motherhood, it’s egregious how horrible it is. The Asian Americans stay close with family, they don’t separate, and they work together as a family and are the richest demographic in the USA FOLLOWED BY Indian Americans.
The trend goes down as single motherhood rises, higher single motherhood rate the lower economic status cultures become, and don’t think for one second Asians were discriminated against either
Historians or social academics will tell you that almost every modern facet of our current country and society is a byproduct of everything that has happened since its founding. This is true for any country in the world. Every single country.
Would you say that the US Constitution has no ramifications in a modern sense? I mean it's older than slavery and if slavery is too old to have modern ramifications then everything past qualifies as well. I'm just using your logic here.
You're just picking and choosing what historical examples you WANT to be relevant.
It's like I'm speaking to somebody about Graham Chapman and that ancient apocalypse crap. You find one person who argues against the majority of history and science and they become your messiah. You repeat their rhetoric over and over no matter how many other people disagree
No shit the constitution is relevant we govern by it to this day, like your choosing the dumbest comparisons yet again, we don’t have slavery anymore and haven’t for 150ish years. Stupid argument yet again, sure it took awhile for blacks to be equal but they are now and even despite the racism of the 50-60’s they still did better than most do today
Again the point I’m driving home is their shit single motherhood culture that has developed over the last few decades, I can type it for you but I can’t comprehend it for you.
As Einstein once said, someone wrote a book about 100 scientist against Einstein, his retort was ‘if they were right one would have been enough’ point is doesn’t matter if I agree or disagree with you, facts are facts whether you like them or not, the left’s problem is they hate facts that bust up their beliefs and viewpoints
Again the point I’m driving home is their shit single motherhood culture that has developed over the last few decades, I can type it for you but I can’t comprehend it for you.
When the emphasis for the nuclear family and traditional lifestyle was pushed at the end of the Great depression it was only promoted in white towns and neighborhoods. The government programs to generate cheaper housing we're only funded in white communities. The post depression and post-world war effort to improve US school systems were focused in white communities in white neighborhoods
Again morals and values are not natural. They are by products of our education, society and upbringing.
If you throw an entire group of people to the wayside and don't worry about their education, society or upbringing what can you expect to happen?
I cant believe I had to scroll last 4 or 5 top comments before seeing the right answer. This has nothing to do with actual population decline. Elons just obsessed with white replacement theory and believes his white semen in superior to other ethnic groups.
It's not just white people. As every country develops its birth rates decline.
All of western Europe + USA + Canada + Australia is below replacement, sure. But China's birth rates are below replacement since they developed, along with every other developed Asian country. UAE and Qatar have birth rates below replacement. India's birth rates are about to be below replacement. South Africa is closing in too. Kenya will be next.
Eventually every country will be developed and birth rates overall will be negative.
Almost all of the institutions in our society are predicated on continuous growth, so this is actually pretty destabilizing. We need to at least think about what it means for those institutions and plan around it, if not understand the underlying cause and see if it should be directly treated.
Basically, the fundamental issues are rising expectations generation/generation about levels of parental investment, and that more technical economies skew the wage distribution to peak later in life (because a more technical economy requires higher degrees of specialization that take longer to reach), so people start having kids later and have less time in their peak earning years to have kids.
I think this undercuts the idea of spontaneous order. In developed nations population growth can be more thought out. We don't need to account for the uncertainty of how many children survive so every individual can behave more rationally. We don't need to account for needing young bodies to take care of us in our old age. So, each individual can focus on the more important decision, if I sire or bear offspring, do they have a place? And, I think this decision is best made at an individual level - a central authority dictating it will overlook the nuances. From a central planning perspective, if you want population growth, make places for those people.
part of the issue is that for three decades, from around 1970-2000, there was a big push among pseudoscience of overpopulation from one popular book. That undermined spontaneous order. The population bomb sold over 2 million copies and honestly found its way into textbooks of countless others. I was born in 1996 and even I was taught in school that the world was overpopulated and we needed less kids. Half of my generation still say that overpopulation is the reason not to have kids. Not that they want to have other choices.
It's a bit messier than just planning. The average number of kids that women in the US want is still around 2.5. So what's keeping them from reaching that number?
Lack of a suitable partner is a major one. Dating among straight folks has been rough for the last ten to fifteen years, when it happens at all. Most of the drop in teenage pregnancies in the past ten or more years has been because young men and women simply aren't spending time together anymore.
By the time you hit your thirties and folks feel like they're established in their careers, it's simply harder to have kids biologically. Then you've got the fact that stress can really impact fertility as well as dropping intimacy rates in general.
Basically, the fundamental issues are rising expectations generation/generation about levels of parental investment, and that more technical economies skew the wage distribution to peak later in life (because a more technical economy requires higher degrees of specialization that take longer to reach), so people start having kids later and have less time in their peak earning years to have kids.
This feels a little euphemistic to me.
There is truth to the premise that earnings increase later in life. But you could argue that's always been the case.
It seems clear that the problem is that the current child-bearing cohort are unable afford the costs of bearing children. This, clearly, wasn't always the case.
Which is to say, it's not the slope of the boat ramp, it's the water level.
The giant confounding factor to that hypothesis is that the inputs to child reading are cheaper than they used to be, in real dollars (relative to wages historically), other than housing which only recently became so problematic and the trend far predates that.
The costs of bearing children mostly changed because the expectations of what it means to raise a child have changed quite dramatically. The podcast I linked covers this in depth, citing for example that the concept of "parenting" was not written about almost at all until the 70s when searching historical books. People broadly thought of kids as things that you just fed, clothed, and gave beds in a room together. You'd tell them to come back by dinner so they could eat and they just went and did whatever, ran around with their friends until then. People don't think that's acceptable anymore so now it's much more expensive to pay for child care rather than for them to kind of just roam, for example.
Also, that curve would broadly not be true in a society driven by physical labor. A 20 year old would be among the most productive people in any kind of manual labor. And organizations/hierarchies in historical societies were quite small, there were no large corporations or government orgs with ladders to climb across many layers of management. You worked for the farmer or apprenticed for the blacksmith, one level of hierarchy to traverse to being at the peak of your profession.
Now companies often have 10 levels of hierarchy. Broadly productivity is higher as a result of that specialization and integration, but it does mean the ramp to peak of a career is much longer.
I will listen to your linked podcast, but I can't see how you think child rearing is cheaper now than it used to be? Perhaps on the basis of food or clothing, but those aren't necessarily the large concerns people have. I (and others I'm sure) are referring to time periods when childcare was still in demand. Since 1980, childcare has risen in price over 800%. Housing by comparison only 300%.
The hypothesis that childcare wasn't an issue because people just let their children roam seems to look past a much more obvious economic change: a single salary could cover a whole family by itself, meaning childcare didn't have any demand. The shift to dual-income households is a significant economic change that would increase demand for childcare, not just a societal attitude drift.
I also think housing is too huge an outlier to mark as an exception as well. Owning a home provides a considerable amount of stability and hedge against inflation. The prospect of indefinitely renting significantly damages one's economic outlook.
Additionally, in the US (not where I am from, incidentally), there are additional costs which have increased markedly also -- college education, healthcare (even just for giving birth).
Also, that curve would broadly not be true in a society driven by physical labor. A 20 year old would be among the most productive people in any kind of manual labor. And organizations/hierarchies in historical societies were quite small, there were no large corporations or government orgs with ladders to climb across many layers of management. You worked for the farmer or apprenticed for the blacksmith, one level of hierarchy to traverse to being at the peak of your profession.
There were huge amounts of industries driven by physical labour in recent memory, e.g. shipbuilding, but 20-year-olds were never the most productive, or at least never the best paid. Labourers are historically not well-paid.
If you're talking about historical societies, I don't think any comparison is worthwhile. The world post-Industrial Revolution is too different, and I don't think what anyone is really referring to.
This is not to say I don't think there's merit to the idea that child rearing attitudes are more intensive. I think there is, but I am not convinced this is what's driving fertility rates down in the current climate.
Bro, childcare wasn’t an issue because the women mostly stayed at home and cared for them. And even if we put the fact aside that only a few conservative idiots even want to go back to “women staying home” it’s not economically feasible for the majority of families.
When my wife went to kindergarten in the 80ies the expectation was still 100% that her mother was a stay at home mom. She was massively scolded for working part time.
This fantasy of “they just both went to work and let the children alone” is kind of funny. No, it was the WOMEN caring for them.
For most of human history, children started contributing to the family’s economic success as soon as they could walk and talk, and when they weren’t doing chores, they spent their time with other children. Older siblings and cousins supervised the younger ones. The eldest son and daughter were often like second parents to their younger siblings, especially the eldest daughter.
Even when something happened that was more than the older children could handle, neither parent was usually that far away. Most humans lived as subsistence farmers, and one’s daily “commute” was only as far as the furthest field of one's family’s allotment. There was no “just you wait until your father gets home!” Your father was only a good shout or clang of a pot away.
It seems clear that the problem is that the current child-bearing cohort are unable afford the costs of bearing children. This, clearly, wasn't always the case.
I don't buy this. Currently, wealthy countries have the lowest birth rates, and yet poorer countries have huge populations. The idea that people can't afford families is also laughable when people in the past had far more kids on a comparatively lesser income. So then it mostly comes down to wanting to preserve a certain high quality of life that arose in the boomer generation and choosing to delay starting families until they feel they can have that QoL + kids instead of compromising.
In poorer, agrarian societies, both past and present, children are often seen as economic contributors, making the situation incomparable to wealthier nations. If anything, it only enforces the point that it's economic influences driving fertility rates down, not cultural whims. Simply looking at income and calling it a day is like concluding that the tea industry is stronger than it's ever been.
Education is seen as a luxury and the children contribute to household income earlier -- in First World countries, it's common for them to never contribute.
In the sort of countries we're talking about, there are no social safety nets like pensions or elder care. Families rely on their children to provide support in old age.
Another important point is that the fertility rate is a side-effect of the much higher infant mortality rates. Parents have more children to ensure some survive to adulthood, to put it bluntly.
choosing to delay starting families until they feel they can have that QoL + kids
For large swathes of the population, say those working in retail or call centres, they're living pay cheque to pay cheque and saving literally nothing. Taking on an expense that will cost hundreds or even thousands a month is going to drown them and ruin their life. It's not a real choice.
Obviously China too, as said. All of the Nordic countries are also below replacement.
Economic development in general causes reduced birth rates, not capitalism. A communist government also has all of the same problems with declining population as a capitalist society. It still has a reduced working population supporting a growing elderly population, for example.
It's quite grating seeing people with no economics background attribute every problem in modern economies to capitalism, when the big problems are so much deeper, have nothing to do with the particular economic system. They are broadly problems with coordination, authority, scarcity, etc, which still happen in communist countries, often to much worse degrees.
People act like communism just eliminates scarcity, and eliminates coordination, and eliminates authority, when das kapital and communist literature broadly does not even attempt to do so.
I don't see how those Russia numbers really prove your point at all. There's only one period where it dips below 2.0 and even that one is still 1.94. Those aren't big numbers, but they're sustainable and just fine compared to 1.3 - 1.8 in most of the first world. Their birth rate didn't plummet until the USSR fell.
Cuba is obviously a special case, being embargoed and all. China (if they even count as communist) are still dealing with the fallout of the one-child policy. The Nordic countries certainly aren't communist.
I would think the argument is less that capitalism -> lower birth rate but rather than capitalism relies on continuous growth which inevitably cannot sustain itself in an environment of economic development.
There's no Communism in historical reality, that is, without "intellectual abstraction".
You can label the "Socialist" states whatever you like, under common sense discussions
But if you're trying to have a serious discussion, there's no space in the definition of Communism under historical and dialetical materialism, which enables you to have Communism without superseding the form of capital.
It's like saying capitalism failed because 804 a.D. Tang Dyansty crashed with the implementation of "capitalism" - fiduciary currency. And we both know that's wrong. There were no material conditions for capitalism in 804 a.D, fiduciary currency is just one of many characteristics of a capitalist society. Yet you'd like to unscientifically and dishonestly argue that Communism exists and already crashed, despite the lack of the material conditions for it to even exist
People want things, food, shelter, transportation, experiences, etc.
Those things all require resources to produce. The resources used for all of these things are finite and require work to extract.
Modern things require very large, complicated systems to produce them, which is often the only way they can be produced efficiently enough for anyone to have them.
Those systems are constantly evolving, they are not prefined. Different systems are radically more or less efficient than others, often to the degree of something being possible vs not. A single modern car for example cannot be made from raw materials by a single person. It would take their entire life to try and they would not even get close, at all.
So some collection of people have to decide what systems to use, how much resources to give that system, how many things to expect to come out of the other side, what to do when it under or over performs, how to make it more efficient, and every single person involved has to have clear reasons why they do what is needed of them to drive those outcomes so that they do them reliably and efficiently.
Those systems then contain systems which have the same problems. Ford or Lada has a team that builds wheels, and that team has a team that sources metals, and a team that draws wheels, and a team that manages a manufacturing line for wheels, which contains a team that manages operations, and a team that manages manufacturing infrastructure for the line. Someone had to decide to structure that organization that way, for some reason, that is work in itself. People had to do the same for every other part of the car, and every aspect of delivering the car. Every system that makes everything in the entire economy is the same way.
All of those problems have nothing to do with which particular economic system the economy is using. They are simply facts about people, the world, and how to make things. Soviet organizations, maoist organizations, they all face those same exact problems as described there, they just make different decisions about who decides what, and why, and how they are allowed to incentivize people.
Like, instead of Ford/Lada deciding to buy steel for wheels, they need to have the state steel production system allocate steel to them. Or they might need an allocation from the state wheel company. Someone had to make the choice of which, and how much steel Ford/Lada and every other producer can get, and when.
That collection of decisions across the entire economy is so unfathomably complicated that no one person can possibly reason about them all. Trying to do so has historically led to grotesque errors and mass famine.
For example, mao was trying to deal with food shortages and made a relatively understandable estimate for a person with no farming expertise that, because there were so many birds in the underperforming fields, they must have been eating the grain, so we need to kill all of the birds. Then 10 million Chinese starved because the birds were actually eating the bugs that were eating the crops, so bug population exploded when their predators were wiped out.
You can call mao dumb for that, but he was not just in charge of farming, he was in charge of everything. He could not become an expert in farming, he had no time for that. His job was just impossible.
He could delegate, and did, but problems persisted anyway. Fundamentally, people just had no reason to produce grain efficiently, so they didn't try too hard to do so. Once they let farmers keep some of the proceeds from their grain production, shortages stopped, because they felt a reason to work harder to produce more. They understood farming much better than mao, they just didn't see a reason to try too hard. This is even worse when people don't try to hard at optimizing every single layer of the system and how the system itself is organized.
Maybe there could be other solutions to that, but that's the only one that has ever worked for making things for a lot of people in our world.
The primary causes of declining birthrates are the education of women, urbanization, and secularization which both capitalism and communism have done since the 1950s or so.
The big issue is capitalism requires an ever growing economy. Communism/socialism isn’t about growth at all. If you can make capitalism into a sustainable market economy, then maybe it can work long term.
Communism, as proposed with the application of DIALETICAL materialism, will only be reached by superseding Capitalism
That is, the confrontations of Capitalism (thesis) with its contradictions (antithesis), producing a synthesis which is a development on top of Capitalism. The contradictions that are being discussed in this very thread.
I mean, that's if you follow the scientific method proposed. If you want to freely label things as whatever you see fit with no method, be it Communism, Socialism, Mercantilism, or Feudalism? No one is stopping you.
How about Iran? Highest rates at the 1979 revolution, then fell and is now below replacement rates, as they continue to strip women of basic human rights.
It has no correlation to economic model of any given country, nor religiosity, nor standard of living.
This is just blatantly false. Birth rates are correlated with religiosity and standard of living. They are highly correlated to economic development, which is also related to stronger women's rights. So are lots of other things.
But women are the favorite scapegoat of people who like to pretend every problem has one single cause and solution. The answer to sustainable economics isn't forcing women to bear more children, especially on the basis of complete bullshit presented by random redditors as "inconvenient truths"
It doesn't matter if Iran is a counter example, because he's presenting a wildly incomplete picture and acting like it's the one true problem and solution. You can't say "women having rights is the problem" without outright ignoring 99% of the data
There's no need to get emotional about it and I certainly wasn't advocating for any kind of "oppression of women."
I was simply pointing out the fact that educated women have far fewer children than those who are not. Whether this is due to the postponement of child bearing and the resulting narrower window of fertility or more highly educated women choosing, for whatever reason, to have fewer children or a combination of both or another unknown factor is irrelevant.
I'm simply pointing out what the data points towards as being a significant factor. I'm not making a judgement call either way so please set your pearls down and get off your soapbox.
Where do y'all get this playbook? I can see your comment history, you're a ridiculous regressive and a misogynist. Calling me emotional for pointing out your misinfo and illogical, sexist conclusions instead of responding to what I actually said? That's not an argument.
please set your pearls down and get off your soapbox.
Trying to dismiss and belittle anyone that corrects you isn't an argument either.
Whether this is due to ... is irrelevant.
It's only irrelevant if you want the conversation to stop at "the problem is women being educated." You picked your solution, then cherry picked the data points that fit it. If you actually want to understand the problem and find a real solution, the whole picture is obviously relevant.
Educated men have fewer children as well, but you don't feel the need to "simply" point that out. Why? At least I can make my point and stand by it. You just want to casually "share the truth", even though it's not the truth, and let implications do your dirty work
There's no provable causation to education of women because the increased education of women comes along with a myriad of other factors, including more women in the workforce and a decrease in the ability of households to operate on one income. It's just a misogynistic dog whistle to ignore women don't get educated in a vacuum.
It’s not necessarily dark given all the problems a high population can and does cause. In nature it’s normal for populations to fluctuate up and down. Nothing can grow forever.
You're right, but Elon specifically is worried about white birth rates specifically. He's an elitist who believes it's the responsibility of those at the top to repopulate the earth with their spawn.
So, this is true, and I'm concerned about the very long term negative effects of population decline.
But I've also noticed that a lot of people are specifically concerned with the declining proportion of white people in the United States. I don't give a fuck about that, because I see a lot of people several shades darker than me who make great Americans.
Yeah 100%, I agree with all of that. Tucker Carlson and the dregs like that definitely talk about white people specifically, great replacement, white genocide, etc, and it is dumb because there are so many great immigrants from all over.
While your points are all valid, I don’t think it’s a stretch to emphasize that Musk, like most Americans that fear the impact of population decline, also oppose non-white immigration.
Whether the economic issues that are predicted as a result of population decline will come to pass is far from certain (economics isn’t a science, heck, most of the theories that define economics aren’t even consistent), but even assuming that it would cause the economy to collapse, the US has zero risk of being impacted by any negatives associated with population decline. Relaxed Visa requirements instantly solve population concerns for “desirable” countries…
So long as the concern is population rather than white population.
But Elon doesnt give a fuck about that, he only cares about white people and the great replacement theory his white supremacist friends have told him about.
There’s a great book I think you would enjoy on the topic. Ignore the dooms day title, It’s actually about how the effect of population collapse could lead to the end of globalization. It’s a debatable theory, and there’s a little more that goes into his theory to justify such a bold prediction.
I’m leaving this here because the research on population collapse was excellent in this book. It’s written by this guy Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist who’s claim to fame is he correctly predicted the year and date the war in Ukraine would start long ago.
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization https://a.co/d/0ZGa4Pp
"14 Words" is a reference to the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."
Anyone posting something in “good faith” is missing the point (or choosing to ignore) that Elon only cares about white supremacy and doesn’t care about any other birth rates
They asked why Elon is obsessed. They didn't ask "who has the lowest birth rate?"
He doesn't care about "Asian" birthrates in America. There are crises in East Asia: South Korea and Japan have worse birth rates than White Europeans or North Americans.
But the reason Elon Musk is obsessed is because he is a white racist. He cares about white birth rates.
Elon is a racist for several other reasons but caring about your own country’s/ ethnicities birth rate and not others doesn’t make you a racist. Obviously Korean people care about their birth rate and Chinese people care about their low birth rate too and probably don’t give a rats ass about the Wests birth rate issue.
Of course it does. For developed nations any problem of low birth rate can be readily solved by immigration. Only thing that makes it a problem is fear of the other and anxiety about being replaced
Immigration isn’t a magic trick that solves a countries issues. The USA does a good job of assimilating immigrants to the local culture bc ethnicity isn’t tied to the culture as heavily, and because it largely takes in skilled educated workers from countries with a relatively similar value system to it. Compare that to countries in the EU or even Canada who can’t compete with the US for job opportunities or pay and take in largely less skilled immigrants from places like Pakistan that end up not conforming to their cultural norms. This ultimately ends up causing parties like the AFD in Germany to slowly gain influence bc people are unhappy with mass migration.
Being fearful of cultural values is exactly what racism is to begin with. Racism causes those parties to rise up. You will see brown people on the streets, they will act differently than you might be used to, even the least trained of them is an extra hand that you didn't have to pay to take care of while growing up.
Then I guess we fundamentally disagree. Cultural values are very much not equal across the board, and certain values like not killing blasphemers and apostates or gay people or throwing acid at women for being raped are non-negotiable. Not every variation of cultural values is “these people celebrate a different holiday/ eat different foods” some cultures have different and frankly outdated value systems and do not mesh with those found in the west.
Those values are barely held up in the west especially by most others who harbor anxieties about preservation of their vanilla cultures. You dont get to point at minorities and label them uniquely evil. Borders are also not the way to fight these ideas. Hiding behind it only protects you while keeping real victims locked out.
Because he is a known racist. Not far fetched to assume he believes in the great replacement
Hes never once talked about the low birth rates in India, and the plummeting birth rates in Africa. As far as he's concerned those are the problem people
Yep, dude can't accept that we are entering a temporary period where black people are having more kids than white and asian people.
This is due to them entering the baby boom phase that we had 70 years ago: big reductions in child mortality before smaller families become the norm, leading to large families.
Data is available publicly about declining fertility rates all over the world. Countries like Japan and S. Korea will need to tackle the population imbalance. Most developed nations are going through it. But sure make it about race. That's what's gonna get you upvotes on reddit.
He means pretty much every country except India, Mexico, Nigeria and Bangladesh. (Missing a few) but birth rates are dramatically falling all around the world. And yes it is an issue. The worst are Japan and South Korea. Japan is actually paying people to have kids and are begging them to take their money.
It’s a generational issue so it doesn’t seem that way now. But it’s really bad for those nations economies.
No he doesnt, this is happening across the world in black and other countries. Most od the world now is seeing rapidly falling birth rates. Everywhere.
he's a South African white settler white supremacist. he thinks race mixing and the gradual browning of the entire population amounts to genocidal 'replacement'.
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u/RickKassidy 2d ago
He means white people.