Excellent LARP, sir. What I like most about it is the incongruity of the image: here strides a craggy chunk of testosterone from the Great White North, crowned by a halo of electronic murder-bats, his foes dangling from the gallows like so much overripe, intersectional fruit.
And what pearls of wisdom does he impart to the troops? A collection of luke-warm policy preferences, the bulk of which conform to basic notions of common sense, national interest and the general well being of the citizenry. It's a near-perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist: the rebel recast as a normal human baing, fighting tooth and claw for a return to a reasonable understanding of reality.
Although, given the hew and cry in the comments above, I would add one edit to the LARP:
"'The second class of drugs that will be prohibited are all forms of chemical birth control. Similarly, condoms, or other devices for the prevention of pregnancy, are not to be permitted.'
At this point in the address, a current of murmurs snaked through the crowd, accompanied by the occasional groan and catcall. The grumbling was punctuated by the sound of a lone shotgun being cocked.
The orator paused briefly before continuing, his eyes glittering with a mischevious glee.
'Of course, the precise rules regarding this policy will be subject to robust debate,' he added slyly."
FWIW, I didn't flinch at the anti-contaceptive spiel. My main criticism is that it reminded me of the lesson of King Canute and the tides, as delivered to his courtiers. Moreover, I think the long defunct social weapon of "shame" would be more effective in attaining the desired result, and less of a strain on the kind of min-max policing powers our rebels would desire. "County Condom Hunter" isn't exactly a job I'd like to subsidize at a societal level, and I have a feeling most willing candidates for the position might have some, uh, issues that may quickly become alarming when they are handed a badge.
Absolutely. Elsewhere in the thread, the Porn Question was raised for obvious reasons. That's more or less impossible to ban, which means that shame is the only way to get it under control. "You use birth control? Ew, gross, don't you know that makes you fat and bitchy?" Get the women to start saying that to one another and the Pill goes the way of the corset.
Recreational sex is even more fun than recreational drugs. It’s not advisable to ban condoms, there’s nothing fun about pregnancy and progeny when you’re just trying to get your leg over.
It’s a practical consideration as I see it; Were you making a religious argument or was it just a furtherance of your population argument?
Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Capital punishment, and guns two topics that guarantee severe condemnation by liberals.
Main thing is increasing the birth rate to replacement levels or, preferably, higher.
My thinking on that has evolved. See my Depopulocaypse pieces. Contraception had an effect but was not the largest effect by far; other means are necessary, and I have some suggestions.
Cool I’ll give that one anread. In fact I plan to read them all.
As for being anonymous I have also evolved, particularly based on the advice of one of your readers gave you, in response to my inquiry’s. Your reader is right. There’s a terrible risk if you were identified. We are at war. This is war, and the enemy will attack you with a fearsome vengeance.
Running a business with 5000 employees has taught me, slowly, haltingly, and over three decades, that there’s only one thing that matters in this life: the practical, the pragmatic, the every day. Upon that foundation, and only with this foundation can we seek to explore higher order considerations like epistemology. The Managerial regime is destroying the every day efficacy of our world based on their dogma avarice and lust for power. Even our brainwashed children feel it: and this from a rentier class parasite. My advice, hard earned and strongly held.
Great article. For the most part a compelling vision. Not sure about the birth control part, although I think I get the rationale behind it of wanting to boost the population organically rather than through globalist-promoted mass migrations: maybe it would be enough just to remove the artificial barriers and burdens that our culture places on parenthood and family life and DEFINITELY stop giving preferential treatment to females in school or in the marketplace or in the military -- "Hey, we're equal, and sexism is wrong, but you have lower fitness standards because you're a girl, but you still get the same pay." No more of that shit. No more punishing today's young men for sexism that occurred among prior generations, and no more lying to today's young men and gaslighting them by saying they are really very privileged as males and must therefore STFU and just let women run the show unopposed, even though everything these men see today tells them that for their generation gender privileges now run almost entirely the other way.
(Okay, lemme get off this soap box before I start giving a sermon.)
Anyway, like always, it was a compelling and thought-provoking read! Thanks for writing it!
I hesitated on the birth control part because I'm not sure on that either, frankly, but threw it in because why the hell not. It is by far the most controversial part of the essay (RIP my comments section lol).
Who knows, it could just be a knee-jerk reaction on my part, since that's heresy under the rules of polite society to suggest something like that could be good. Even if individual rights outweigh the arguments in favor of restricting birth control, it's at least worth discussing. Thanks for pushing the Overton Window open for a discussion about something in our culture that we take for granted as being a priori impossible.
Well, yes, but I mean, what if it’s out of wedlock? Or a product of adultery? Is marriage required? Are all children going to be accepted by all fathers? Will we need chastity belts? What are we going to do with all the bastards? (Lol.)
If the plan is truly population growth than it looks like polygamy is the way to go—group marriage so to speak. All children accepted, no paternity tests, multiple partners in case someone is infertile. Just spitballing here.
This was horrible. Where is the representation? I couldn't tell what skin color or sexual orientation any of the characters were.
No gun control? How will we stop mass shootings that happen at every gun show?
No birth control? How will heavy Tinder users manage that?
No condoms? Pure barbarism. The monkeypox will devestate the gay orgy community.
No incentives or quotas for women in the workplace? This just doesn't make any sense. Everybody knows that woman do the exact same job as men but do it for less pay. Companies rely on this loophole to cut payroll costs while maintaining the same output. That's why they have to be incentivised and/ or coerced to hire woman. Simple logic.
What will the homeless do with their time if opioids are eliminated?
With large families and no foreign workers teenagers will once again have to fill those seasonal agricultural jobs. That will seriously cut into there screen time which will probably destabilize the entire society. Children should not have to work until they graduate from college at 26-30 years old when their brains are fully developed and they can finally learn about work ethic.
Anyway, if you could make the bad guy a white male Russian Christian terrorist and throw in a strong black female lead who's best friend is non binary you might have something that can be made into a Hollywood movie.
Who says the protagonist isn't really the bad guy? All in perspective I suppose. As to Russians, in his physical appearance I had my boy Lukashenko in mind ;)
Quite possibly, yes. I intended this to be a conversation starter. For instance: why is contraception permitted, even encouraged, while steroids are banned? They're functionally similar.
I'm not sure steroids should be banned - but one type of birth control that should be banned and punished, as you imagine in your ...one might say....fantasy, is abortion.
I'm not sure steroids (or birth control, for that matter) should be banned, either. In fact, I'd argue that if one is permitted, the other should be, too - and vice versa, fair being fair.
But should they be encouraged? Should teenagers be given them?
No, they should not be encouraged for any reason. Birth control pills were the beginning of the cultural slide taking place since their introduction. I know the availability of birth control pills certainly encouraged my own sexual behavior...not in a good way.
They certainly have a negative impact on sexual behavior, by encouraging promiscuity which tends to interfere with deep emotional bonding. In my opinion that's especially destructive to female psychology. It also has deleterious health effects. In the main I think the widespread use of the technology has diminished human happiness, and especially that of women.
I think it’s significantly more nuanced than this.
Condoms may encourage promiscuity but I honestly think that hormonal birth control does not.
We used to live in a far more promiscuous and violent culture than we do (at least, raw violence among the populace… not coercive violence from the state such as we are now experiencing).
I’m making relative comments about what we’re experiencing now to what was experienced in the 70s to 90s.
It’s important for the brosphere on 4chan to understand how hormonal birth control actually works.
It doesn’t turn all women into nymphs screwing everything in sight. I’d argue that it turns the majority into fat lazy androgynous cows with no sex drive, sitting on the couch eating ice cream and bitching about everything.
It reduces their sex drive so much that they find the prospect of same sex relationships much more attractive, because they don’t need to deal with unwanted attention from the opposite sex (similar to a middle aged woman in a boring marriage who doesn’t care if her husband cheats).
If you think that’s an exaggeration, you haven’t spent much time around young women these days. I’m not necessarily talking about just the purple hairs either. I’m talking married women in their 30s. I’ve had married male friends of mine discuss their wives’ lack of interest in sex. (I myself didn’t figure it out til my 30s, either.)
I’m actually seeing this in young women (early 20s) I know who used to be feminine and attractive, and it’s the most bizarre thing I’ve seen. I know young women who have been on birth control since their teens without a single boyfriend. Why are they on birth control?
Not to prevent pregnancy.
They like the convenience of not having a period so they’ve got implants that are eliminating their periods for years on end. It’s become the reason.
I think this purpose has actually replaced contraception, quite frankly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if hormonal birth control is in large part responsible for many young women suddenly “discovering” they are bi or lesbians. While there are likely ideological and cultural influences, I think there is a lot more going on than meets the eye.
Something’s going on with the boys too. Many just seem to be sort of asexual.
Teens in general aren’t interesting in learning how to drive, have sex, or any of the things normal humans were interested in until the 90s.
<cue video of Monica shaking her cane, talking about walking uphill to school both ways in the snow, and shouting at the kids to get off her lawn>
Here’s MY experience with birth control pills.
I was on them when I was married in my 30s and only for 2 years.
That’s it.
I never took it outside of that in my serially monogamous 20s and (now) 40s. Because I absolutely hate the way my body feels on it.
I found was that it markedly reduced my sex drive, made me gain weight, and I was slightly depressed (in an apathetic sort of way).
So I wound up having far less sex on birth control while married, and far more sex without birth control while single.
(And I’ve never had an abortion.)
My experience may be atypical but that’s what I’m seeing in the younguns these days.
They aren’t having loads of crazy sex. They’re not having ANY sex.
Quite frankly? I think the decreased interest in marriage and families has much more to do with the destruction of the currency.
One of the young women I describe, on an implant with no boyfriend, who hasn’t had sex for years, tells me she wants lots of kids someday. The only thing she can afford to nurture is a puppy, so that’s what she’s getting.
Pets are kids and plants and pets to Gen Z.
Of course, there are some of us who will never be interested in having children simply because we are sufficiently weird. My husband (boomer) and I (Xer) were this way. We didn’t go to any extreme lengths to avoid children. We just never really felt the urge to have them because we had too many other interesting intellectual projects going on, and it just never happened.
100% true. Contraceptive techniques have been known and practiced since time immemorial, and where there's a will there's a way.
But, there's a big difference between shrugging and winking at what happens being the scenes - and the current regime, in which contraception by all means is actively encouraged. So, for instance, restricting birth control pills would almost certainly result in a black market, but, it would also make it difficult to actively encourage their use.
Yep. Which is exactly why, in this LARP, the majority of recreational drugs are fully legalized. Destroys the black market for them. There would still be a black market for opioids, but I do think that's a special case - historically, they're uniquely destructive.
And I freely admit that a birth control ban isn't really philosophically consistent ;)
Opioids are NOT “uniquely destructive “. The opioids are a drug with the most benign risk profile. The “crisis “ everyone talks about has many features I don’t have the time or space to delve into. Let’s talk at another time.
They're uniquely destructive in eliminating abusers who can't help "accidents". (Many also can't help theft and other crimes to obtain their opioids.) Perhaps (for a while, anyhow), Narcan should be kept a prescription item for those with legitimate high-dose opiate prescriptions and their care-givers. And of course, prosecute murder using opioids or anything else. What else are those gallows for?
As a mother of 3 ( adult children) I am ok with banning chemical birth control as it is destructive to the human body. Condoms should be allowed so couples can space their pregnancies according to their ability to provide. My mom had 4 kids in 4 years which is rather rough. The rest of your story was great 👍
My thoughts have evolved a bit on the contraception question. The key issue is getting the fertility rate back up to a sustainable level. The third instalment in my Depopulocalypse essays lays out the methods that I think could be employed to do this, without oppressing people or banning things.
As to the biochemical risks, I feel the same way about hormonal birth control as I do about steroids or, really, any other drug: your body, your choice. The state has no real business getting involved (except for opioids; that's a special case IMO. My thinking on that hasn't changed at all).
90% beautiful, 10% hideous. Without even getting into the abortion debate - your fantasy includes banning contraception? WTF. What happened to freedom and autonomy? Everything is allowed between consenting adults (great, I basically agree), except measures to prevent conception? You're now a fan of tyranny, so long as you confine it to a couple of aspects of life?
That's some fun LARPing :) I don't want to jump you too much since so many already have, but just want to toss one more card on the pile saying "Once you say the government can ban things because they are bad for you, you have said they can ban anything whether it is bad for you or not." Opioids, birth control, porn, driving nails through your dick, whatever you like or don't like, if you can ban them for someone else's good, someone is going use that logic to ban whatever they want later. It never works, but is so immensely compelling it might be the primary flaw of humans. We have parents when we are kids, then we have responsibilities and freedom when we are adults. Adding adults with the power and responsibilities of parents to us when we are adults just makes us kids again.
And please stop using "liberal" as a label for leftists or Marxists. :)
Sweet Jesus I don't ever want to live in a world where so many guys are driving nails through their dicks that people start feeling like maybe a law should be passed. *looks around nervously* We're not far off from that, are we?
Nope, probably not. People always get excited about banning things that are low percentages of the population. Trans, gay, opioids, drug abuse, dick nailing, whatever the crisis du jure all tend to be low single digits of people directly affected. My suspicion is that once things get above 15-20% of the population being directly affected, it is common enough for most people to have first/second person experience and agreement gets settled upon rapidly.
There's probably a sweet spot. If very, very few people are doing something, it's a curiosity, people say, well some people are crazy, whatever, doesn't effect me. If it's very common, it's simply not practical to ban. It's when something is still uncommon, but becoming more so, that the ban urge begins.
Aye. I think in particular for things that don't in particular directly harm others, like drug use or odd sexual proclivities, no direct experience tends to either let people over/under estimate the negatives a lot, so you get more dispersion. Lots of first hand experience gets you to either "Yup, too bad, must be banned" or "Eh... it's not ideal but probably fine if you don't get nuts" relatively quickly. Then you only have a smaller minority that cares enough to agitate. Only when the majority has no direct experience to work from do strongly held but opposite views hold.
I think alcohol prohibition vs say marijuana demonstrates the rule. Alcohol use was pretty much infinitely experientially available and very few people advocated for prohibition, only a tiny minority. The whole reefer madness thing arose because so few people were using pot, so almost no one knew anybody and so were willing to believe anything, good or bad. That allowed for a really large swing away from what makes sense, which is basically "Pot is a lot like alcohol, so maybe treat it the same?"
At least that's my theory on the matter: people making decisions on matters they don't have experience with tend to make bad decisions.
Japan is an interesting example in this regard. Most people don't know this, but a lot of drugs that have been illegal in the west could be bought openly and legally in Japan until very recently. Things like magic mushrooms and so on. The Japanese didn't care because the Japanese didn't use them. Then they'd be an incident, usually involving American servicemen, and the Japs would go, oh, that even exists? And it's legal? Fuck it, banned.
Huh, that is interesting. There's probably a lot of things like that, either new to the area or new to humanity, that behave like that. Hell, the internet and it's various applications come to mind. It occurs me to I should add a "Or the current interests bribe government to ban it" to account for things like Uber and AirBnB.
Sounds a little revolutionary, Mr. Carter. Be careful my friend, sometimes you have to be a "gray man". If you have ever read much in the prepping/survival area, then you know what I mean. However, this is still a great read which I will be linking tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
All I can say is, if you're the recruiter for the next rebirth of North America, sign me up!!!!
Are there things in your story that aren't perfect, sure, that's the same in real life. But it sure as hell is a better place than we are in now, or have been for a generation.
I too, would like to live in that world - but I wouldn't go so far as to completely outlaw opioids either. If you've ever been busted up bad in a vehicle accident (I have), you are gonna NEED some Morphine - no ifs, ands or buts about it. Tylenol or Aleve just ain't gonna cut it....
Sure. If you're in the hospital with a severe injury, no issues. But they should only be used under strict medical supervision. Not prescribed to take home.
That's worse than my proposal. Tylenol is not an analgesic (at least not for me), but does destroy livers. They compound it with opiates for the same reason methanol is used to "denature" alcohol. Committing suicide with a failed liver seems a horrid resolution to a car wreck. And if you need high-dose opiates after the car wreck, the prescribing physician ought also prescribe some naloxone.
Great point. That's extremely hard to enforce in practice, however. You'd need it to be illegal everywhere in the world, or people could simply use a VPN. Even if production were banned in every country, it would still get made: CP can't even get snuffed out, despite being illegal everywhere (and yeah, you could argue that maybe the upper echelons of society aren't as enthusiastic as they should be about stamping it out, but still).
Porn is best dealt with by denormalizing it. Promulgate unflattering associations about porn users, make it something shameful and embarrassing, and its use can probably be toned down to the more manageable level it was at in the 70s.
Great essay, once again, and enjoyed the perspectives on the main memetic topics of the day. What is proposed sounds very common sensical and I would love to see the state step back and/or recuse itself voluntarily from much of the social cultural landscape as is presented here. "RIP the comments section" indeed, I think folks are missing the link and outcome between self-discipline and the end of addictions to vice/weakeness/non-commitalness, in a general way. Being self-disciplined in theory negates some of that FUD and hesitancy at making a choice, sticking by it through thick and thin, in many forms, if I can put it that way.
There is a question of the Eurodollar created by the commercial banks to helped the Soviets work around the sanctions in 1970s. It’s larger than even American dollar.
Outstanding, you speak straight from my heart as I ponder the possibilites of a Recovery of America from the ravages of the past 100+years. You have covered all the bases, and I would be blessed to find myself alive in such a land as this.
Excellent LARP, sir. What I like most about it is the incongruity of the image: here strides a craggy chunk of testosterone from the Great White North, crowned by a halo of electronic murder-bats, his foes dangling from the gallows like so much overripe, intersectional fruit.
And what pearls of wisdom does he impart to the troops? A collection of luke-warm policy preferences, the bulk of which conform to basic notions of common sense, national interest and the general well being of the citizenry. It's a near-perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist: the rebel recast as a normal human baing, fighting tooth and claw for a return to a reasonable understanding of reality.
Although, given the hew and cry in the comments above, I would add one edit to the LARP:
"'The second class of drugs that will be prohibited are all forms of chemical birth control. Similarly, condoms, or other devices for the prevention of pregnancy, are not to be permitted.'
At this point in the address, a current of murmurs snaked through the crowd, accompanied by the occasional groan and catcall. The grumbling was punctuated by the sound of a lone shotgun being cocked.
The orator paused briefly before continuing, his eyes glittering with a mischevious glee.
'Of course, the precise rules regarding this policy will be subject to robust debate,' he added slyly."
LMAO indeed, if this ever serves as the basis for a larger story, I may edit it in just the fashion you describe, given the ... robust reaction.
And you got it perfectly. That juxtaposition was exactly what I was aiming for (and I had quite a bit of fun with the imagery).
FWIW, I didn't flinch at the anti-contaceptive spiel. My main criticism is that it reminded me of the lesson of King Canute and the tides, as delivered to his courtiers. Moreover, I think the long defunct social weapon of "shame" would be more effective in attaining the desired result, and less of a strain on the kind of min-max policing powers our rebels would desire. "County Condom Hunter" isn't exactly a job I'd like to subsidize at a societal level, and I have a feeling most willing candidates for the position might have some, uh, issues that may quickly become alarming when they are handed a badge.
Absolutely. Elsewhere in the thread, the Porn Question was raised for obvious reasons. That's more or less impossible to ban, which means that shame is the only way to get it under control. "You use birth control? Ew, gross, don't you know that makes you fat and bitchy?" Get the women to start saying that to one another and the Pill goes the way of the corset.
You tripped me up with the condom thing.
Recreational sex is even more fun than recreational drugs. It’s not advisable to ban condoms, there’s nothing fun about pregnancy and progeny when you’re just trying to get your leg over.
It’s a practical consideration as I see it; Were you making a religious argument or was it just a furtherance of your population argument?
Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Capital punishment, and guns two topics that guarantee severe condemnation by liberals.
Main thing is increasing the birth rate to replacement levels or, preferably, higher.
My thinking on that has evolved. See my Depopulocaypse pieces. Contraception had an effect but was not the largest effect by far; other means are necessary, and I have some suggestions.
Cool I’ll give that one anread. In fact I plan to read them all.
As for being anonymous I have also evolved, particularly based on the advice of one of your readers gave you, in response to my inquiry’s. Your reader is right. There’s a terrible risk if you were identified. We are at war. This is war, and the enemy will attack you with a fearsome vengeance.
I have no plans to reveal my identity.
Running a business with 5000 employees has taught me, slowly, haltingly, and over three decades, that there’s only one thing that matters in this life: the practical, the pragmatic, the every day. Upon that foundation, and only with this foundation can we seek to explore higher order considerations like epistemology. The Managerial regime is destroying the every day efficacy of our world based on their dogma avarice and lust for power. Even our brainwashed children feel it: and this from a rentier class parasite. My advice, hard earned and strongly held.
Condoms, because of course, are full of chemicals that harm your sperm.
Great article. For the most part a compelling vision. Not sure about the birth control part, although I think I get the rationale behind it of wanting to boost the population organically rather than through globalist-promoted mass migrations: maybe it would be enough just to remove the artificial barriers and burdens that our culture places on parenthood and family life and DEFINITELY stop giving preferential treatment to females in school or in the marketplace or in the military -- "Hey, we're equal, and sexism is wrong, but you have lower fitness standards because you're a girl, but you still get the same pay." No more of that shit. No more punishing today's young men for sexism that occurred among prior generations, and no more lying to today's young men and gaslighting them by saying they are really very privileged as males and must therefore STFU and just let women run the show unopposed, even though everything these men see today tells them that for their generation gender privileges now run almost entirely the other way.
(Okay, lemme get off this soap box before I start giving a sermon.)
Anyway, like always, it was a compelling and thought-provoking read! Thanks for writing it!
I hesitated on the birth control part because I'm not sure on that either, frankly, but threw it in because why the hell not. It is by far the most controversial part of the essay (RIP my comments section lol).
Who knows, it could just be a knee-jerk reaction on my part, since that's heresy under the rules of polite society to suggest something like that could be good. Even if individual rights outweigh the arguments in favor of restricting birth control, it's at least worth discussing. Thanks for pushing the Overton Window open for a discussion about something in our culture that we take for granted as being a priori impossible.
I guess the question is, in this society, should people have sex without the possibility of pregnancy? What are the repercussions?
Pregnancy. Which is the point.
Well, yes, but I mean, what if it’s out of wedlock? Or a product of adultery? Is marriage required? Are all children going to be accepted by all fathers? Will we need chastity belts? What are we going to do with all the bastards? (Lol.)
If the plan is truly population growth than it looks like polygamy is the way to go—group marriage so to speak. All children accepted, no paternity tests, multiple partners in case someone is infertile. Just spitballing here.
Same as it was before birth control - social pressure to save it for marriage, and social pressure to marry of accidents happen to those who don't.
Polygamy is a terrible idea. It's horribly socially corrosive.
This was horrible. Where is the representation? I couldn't tell what skin color or sexual orientation any of the characters were.
No gun control? How will we stop mass shootings that happen at every gun show?
No birth control? How will heavy Tinder users manage that?
No condoms? Pure barbarism. The monkeypox will devestate the gay orgy community.
No incentives or quotas for women in the workplace? This just doesn't make any sense. Everybody knows that woman do the exact same job as men but do it for less pay. Companies rely on this loophole to cut payroll costs while maintaining the same output. That's why they have to be incentivised and/ or coerced to hire woman. Simple logic.
What will the homeless do with their time if opioids are eliminated?
With large families and no foreign workers teenagers will once again have to fill those seasonal agricultural jobs. That will seriously cut into there screen time which will probably destabilize the entire society. Children should not have to work until they graduate from college at 26-30 years old when their brains are fully developed and they can finally learn about work ethic.
Anyway, if you could make the bad guy a white male Russian Christian terrorist and throw in a strong black female lead who's best friend is non binary you might have something that can be made into a Hollywood movie.
Who says the protagonist isn't really the bad guy? All in perspective I suppose. As to Russians, in his physical appearance I had my boy Lukashenko in mind ;)
I want to live in that world, but yes, outlawing contraception is a step too far.
Quite possibly, yes. I intended this to be a conversation starter. For instance: why is contraception permitted, even encouraged, while steroids are banned? They're functionally similar.
I'm not sure steroids should be banned - but one type of birth control that should be banned and punished, as you imagine in your ...one might say....fantasy, is abortion.
I'm not sure steroids (or birth control, for that matter) should be banned, either. In fact, I'd argue that if one is permitted, the other should be, too - and vice versa, fair being fair.
But should they be encouraged? Should teenagers be given them?
No, they should not be encouraged for any reason. Birth control pills were the beginning of the cultural slide taking place since their introduction. I know the availability of birth control pills certainly encouraged my own sexual behavior...not in a good way.
They certainly have a negative impact on sexual behavior, by encouraging promiscuity which tends to interfere with deep emotional bonding. In my opinion that's especially destructive to female psychology. It also has deleterious health effects. In the main I think the widespread use of the technology has diminished human happiness, and especially that of women.
I think it’s significantly more nuanced than this.
Condoms may encourage promiscuity but I honestly think that hormonal birth control does not.
We used to live in a far more promiscuous and violent culture than we do (at least, raw violence among the populace… not coercive violence from the state such as we are now experiencing).
I’m making relative comments about what we’re experiencing now to what was experienced in the 70s to 90s.
It’s important for the brosphere on 4chan to understand how hormonal birth control actually works.
It doesn’t turn all women into nymphs screwing everything in sight. I’d argue that it turns the majority into fat lazy androgynous cows with no sex drive, sitting on the couch eating ice cream and bitching about everything.
It reduces their sex drive so much that they find the prospect of same sex relationships much more attractive, because they don’t need to deal with unwanted attention from the opposite sex (similar to a middle aged woman in a boring marriage who doesn’t care if her husband cheats).
If you think that’s an exaggeration, you haven’t spent much time around young women these days. I’m not necessarily talking about just the purple hairs either. I’m talking married women in their 30s. I’ve had married male friends of mine discuss their wives’ lack of interest in sex. (I myself didn’t figure it out til my 30s, either.)
I’m actually seeing this in young women (early 20s) I know who used to be feminine and attractive, and it’s the most bizarre thing I’ve seen. I know young women who have been on birth control since their teens without a single boyfriend. Why are they on birth control?
Not to prevent pregnancy.
They like the convenience of not having a period so they’ve got implants that are eliminating their periods for years on end. It’s become the reason.
I think this purpose has actually replaced contraception, quite frankly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if hormonal birth control is in large part responsible for many young women suddenly “discovering” they are bi or lesbians. While there are likely ideological and cultural influences, I think there is a lot more going on than meets the eye.
Something’s going on with the boys too. Many just seem to be sort of asexual.
Teens in general aren’t interesting in learning how to drive, have sex, or any of the things normal humans were interested in until the 90s.
<cue video of Monica shaking her cane, talking about walking uphill to school both ways in the snow, and shouting at the kids to get off her lawn>
Here’s MY experience with birth control pills.
I was on them when I was married in my 30s and only for 2 years.
That’s it.
I never took it outside of that in my serially monogamous 20s and (now) 40s. Because I absolutely hate the way my body feels on it.
I found was that it markedly reduced my sex drive, made me gain weight, and I was slightly depressed (in an apathetic sort of way).
So I wound up having far less sex on birth control while married, and far more sex without birth control while single.
(And I’ve never had an abortion.)
My experience may be atypical but that’s what I’m seeing in the younguns these days.
They aren’t having loads of crazy sex. They’re not having ANY sex.
Quite frankly? I think the decreased interest in marriage and families has much more to do with the destruction of the currency.
One of the young women I describe, on an implant with no boyfriend, who hasn’t had sex for years, tells me she wants lots of kids someday. The only thing she can afford to nurture is a puppy, so that’s what she’s getting.
Pets are kids and plants and pets to Gen Z.
Of course, there are some of us who will never be interested in having children simply because we are sufficiently weird. My husband (boomer) and I (Xer) were this way. We didn’t go to any extreme lengths to avoid children. We just never really felt the urge to have them because we had too many other interesting intellectual projects going on, and it just never happened.
My experience exactly!
You could ban pills but not condoms? Or discourage its use as has been done with tobacco?
It doesn’t really matter what John wants to make illegal.
Women have known how to get rid of pregnancies for millennia, so what’s illegal is really neither here nor there.
More to the point, this kind of society will have very little support even from the most crazy religionists.
Laws come down to enforcement.
100% true. Contraceptive techniques have been known and practiced since time immemorial, and where there's a will there's a way.
But, there's a big difference between shrugging and winking at what happens being the scenes - and the current regime, in which contraception by all means is actively encouraged. So, for instance, restricting birth control pills would almost certainly result in a black market, but, it would also make it difficult to actively encourage their use.
(for instance, there’s a thriving black market for pretty much everything in North Korea)
Yep. Which is exactly why, in this LARP, the majority of recreational drugs are fully legalized. Destroys the black market for them. There would still be a black market for opioids, but I do think that's a special case - historically, they're uniquely destructive.
And I freely admit that a birth control ban isn't really philosophically consistent ;)
Little of this is philosophically consistent.
From Nazi to Nazi.... lol.
Opioids are NOT “uniquely destructive “. The opioids are a drug with the most benign risk profile. The “crisis “ everyone talks about has many features I don’t have the time or space to delve into. Let’s talk at another time.
That's genuinely delusional.
What about crystal meth?
They're uniquely destructive in eliminating abusers who can't help "accidents". (Many also can't help theft and other crimes to obtain their opioids.) Perhaps (for a while, anyhow), Narcan should be kept a prescription item for those with legitimate high-dose opiate prescriptions and their care-givers. And of course, prosecute murder using opioids or anything else. What else are those gallows for?
As a mother of 3 ( adult children) I am ok with banning chemical birth control as it is destructive to the human body. Condoms should be allowed so couples can space their pregnancies according to their ability to provide. My mom had 4 kids in 4 years which is rather rough. The rest of your story was great 👍
My thoughts have evolved a bit on the contraception question. The key issue is getting the fertility rate back up to a sustainable level. The third instalment in my Depopulocalypse essays lays out the methods that I think could be employed to do this, without oppressing people or banning things.
As to the biochemical risks, I feel the same way about hormonal birth control as I do about steroids or, really, any other drug: your body, your choice. The state has no real business getting involved (except for opioids; that's a special case IMO. My thinking on that hasn't changed at all).
Agreed👍
90% beautiful, 10% hideous. Without even getting into the abortion debate - your fantasy includes banning contraception? WTF. What happened to freedom and autonomy? Everything is allowed between consenting adults (great, I basically agree), except measures to prevent conception? You're now a fan of tyranny, so long as you confine it to a couple of aspects of life?
Hehe. Figured that part would get under people's skin.
That's some fun LARPing :) I don't want to jump you too much since so many already have, but just want to toss one more card on the pile saying "Once you say the government can ban things because they are bad for you, you have said they can ban anything whether it is bad for you or not." Opioids, birth control, porn, driving nails through your dick, whatever you like or don't like, if you can ban them for someone else's good, someone is going use that logic to ban whatever they want later. It never works, but is so immensely compelling it might be the primary flaw of humans. We have parents when we are kids, then we have responsibilities and freedom when we are adults. Adding adults with the power and responsibilities of parents to us when we are adults just makes us kids again.
And please stop using "liberal" as a label for leftists or Marxists. :)
Sweet Jesus I don't ever want to live in a world where so many guys are driving nails through their dicks that people start feeling like maybe a law should be passed. *looks around nervously* We're not far off from that, are we?
Nope, probably not. People always get excited about banning things that are low percentages of the population. Trans, gay, opioids, drug abuse, dick nailing, whatever the crisis du jure all tend to be low single digits of people directly affected. My suspicion is that once things get above 15-20% of the population being directly affected, it is common enough for most people to have first/second person experience and agreement gets settled upon rapidly.
There's probably a sweet spot. If very, very few people are doing something, it's a curiosity, people say, well some people are crazy, whatever, doesn't effect me. If it's very common, it's simply not practical to ban. It's when something is still uncommon, but becoming more so, that the ban urge begins.
Aye. I think in particular for things that don't in particular directly harm others, like drug use or odd sexual proclivities, no direct experience tends to either let people over/under estimate the negatives a lot, so you get more dispersion. Lots of first hand experience gets you to either "Yup, too bad, must be banned" or "Eh... it's not ideal but probably fine if you don't get nuts" relatively quickly. Then you only have a smaller minority that cares enough to agitate. Only when the majority has no direct experience to work from do strongly held but opposite views hold.
I think alcohol prohibition vs say marijuana demonstrates the rule. Alcohol use was pretty much infinitely experientially available and very few people advocated for prohibition, only a tiny minority. The whole reefer madness thing arose because so few people were using pot, so almost no one knew anybody and so were willing to believe anything, good or bad. That allowed for a really large swing away from what makes sense, which is basically "Pot is a lot like alcohol, so maybe treat it the same?"
At least that's my theory on the matter: people making decisions on matters they don't have experience with tend to make bad decisions.
Japan is an interesting example in this regard. Most people don't know this, but a lot of drugs that have been illegal in the west could be bought openly and legally in Japan until very recently. Things like magic mushrooms and so on. The Japanese didn't care because the Japanese didn't use them. Then they'd be an incident, usually involving American servicemen, and the Japs would go, oh, that even exists? And it's legal? Fuck it, banned.
Huh, that is interesting. There's probably a lot of things like that, either new to the area or new to humanity, that behave like that. Hell, the internet and it's various applications come to mind. It occurs me to I should add a "Or the current interests bribe government to ban it" to account for things like Uber and AirBnB.
Teehee - rainbow socks from the gallows!
Sounds a little revolutionary, Mr. Carter. Be careful my friend, sometimes you have to be a "gray man". If you have ever read much in the prepping/survival area, then you know what I mean. However, this is still a great read which I will be linking tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
You'll note this composition was carefully non-specific ;)
Thanks as every for the link!
All I can say is, if you're the recruiter for the next rebirth of North America, sign me up!!!!
Are there things in your story that aren't perfect, sure, that's the same in real life. But it sure as hell is a better place than we are in now, or have been for a generation.
Bravo!
I too, would like to live in that world - but I wouldn't go so far as to completely outlaw opioids either. If you've ever been busted up bad in a vehicle accident (I have), you are gonna NEED some Morphine - no ifs, ands or buts about it. Tylenol or Aleve just ain't gonna cut it....
Sure. If you're in the hospital with a severe injury, no issues. But they should only be used under strict medical supervision. Not prescribed to take home.
Why do you want to keep injured people in the hospital indefinitely, or contrarily, force the still-hurting into withdrawal?
That's worse than my proposal. Tylenol is not an analgesic (at least not for me), but does destroy livers. They compound it with opiates for the same reason methanol is used to "denature" alcohol. Committing suicide with a failed liver seems a horrid resolution to a car wreck. And if you need high-dose opiates after the car wreck, the prescribing physician ought also prescribe some naloxone.
Would be interesting to discuss a ban on ''adult entertainment'' too...
Great point. That's extremely hard to enforce in practice, however. You'd need it to be illegal everywhere in the world, or people could simply use a VPN. Even if production were banned in every country, it would still get made: CP can't even get snuffed out, despite being illegal everywhere (and yeah, you could argue that maybe the upper echelons of society aren't as enthusiastic as they should be about stamping it out, but still).
Porn is best dealt with by denormalizing it. Promulgate unflattering associations about porn users, make it something shameful and embarrassing, and its use can probably be toned down to the more manageable level it was at in the 70s.
This LARP sounds great
I enjoyed it
Me too!
Great essay, once again, and enjoyed the perspectives on the main memetic topics of the day. What is proposed sounds very common sensical and I would love to see the state step back and/or recuse itself voluntarily from much of the social cultural landscape as is presented here. "RIP the comments section" indeed, I think folks are missing the link and outcome between self-discipline and the end of addictions to vice/weakeness/non-commitalness, in a general way. Being self-disciplined in theory negates some of that FUD and hesitancy at making a choice, sticking by it through thick and thin, in many forms, if I can put it that way.
There is a question of the Eurodollar created by the commercial banks to helped the Soviets work around the sanctions in 1970s. It’s larger than even American dollar.
Outstanding, you speak straight from my heart as I ponder the possibilites of a Recovery of America from the ravages of the past 100+years. You have covered all the bases, and I would be blessed to find myself alive in such a land as this.
I love this! You should seriously consider making a novel based on it.
Heh. I’d rather make it a political program ;)