Why Childfree Living May Become the Rational Choice in an Era of Economic Instability, Overpopulation, and AI‑Driven Job Insecurity

The conditions of the world seem to have gotten much worse, and I am talking about e.g. insecure jobs due to e.g. AI and other reasons, housing unaffordability and other cost of living issues, rising aggression and polarisation, etc. So even if we ignore morality, not having children directly addresses all those problems e.g. if you don't have children then you only have one mouth to feed (your own), which is much better if your boss fires you. If you have no kids, you don't need to worry as much about housing unaffordability because you do not need a huge house. You can live in a sharehouse, a small microapartment, live with your parents, live in a car, etc. By not having a child, you can work more, and by not having a baby, your expenses go down so you can save and invest more. 

Looking at it purely from a practical, monetary perspective, having no children wins. And this I think is a strong contributor to the current TFR decline trend we are seeing worldwide e.g. recent news highlights that birth rates are collapsing in India and Phillipines. There seems to be opt-out cultures emerging everywhere eg NGSB/NBSB in Phillipines, solo-maxxing in the West, Tang Ping and Bai Lan in China, Sampo in South Korea, and Herbivore/Satori in Japan. 

These trends should be accelerated. Purely from a biophysical or environmental perspective, we have severe overpopulation. The carrying capacity of the planet is 2.5 billion and the only reason why we have 8 billion now is due to fossil fuel. As fossil fuels quickly deplete and EROI rises due to shale oil depleting as well as peak phosphorus, this will create a huge increase in cost of living which I am sure will price people out of procreation and birth rate will collapse even faster. This is when antinatalism will be more and more important and movements that provide a ideological basis and identity for low-throughput and frugal living will be necessary because the old life script of buying a McMansion, SUV, and having multiple kids will simply be too expensive and risky. The material conditions for 2026 do not support a 1950s lifestyle, so we need to evolve. We need to become frugal and hyperautonomous, flexible, and mobile. We need to do these if we are to survival and thrive in the near future when cost of living rises and jobs become more and more precarious due to AI.

Dealing with Vegan Stigma

Having been a vegan for about a year, I've found that the diet itself is simple. There is a huge abundance of vegan products on the market nowadays. Not only is there vegan meat but also vegan cheese, vegan milk, vegan protein shakes, and even vegan yoghurt. To be a vegan, all you need to do is do exactly the same thing you are doing currently but veganize everything gradually. For example, replace all meat with vegan meat, replace dairy milk with almond milk or soy milk, replace dairy yoghurt with coconut yoghurt, replace dairy cheese with coconut cheese (e.g. Bio cheese is now available in Australian supermarkets), replace whey protein with pea protein, and replace multivitamins with vegan multivitamins.

Many people assume that vegans do not get any protein in their diet or that being vegan makes you nutrient deficient. In reality, if you simply eat whatever you normally eat but replace it with vegan substitutes, your nutrient intake will be roughly the same as what it was when you ate an omnivore diet. This is because vegan substitutes are usually designed to have the same nutrition profile as the animal product they replace. For example, most brands of soy milk have the same amount of calcium and protein as dairy milk. Of course, some vegan food will have more of some nutrients (e.g. coconut yoghurt has more saturated fat than dairy yoghurt) and some vegan food will have less of some nutrients (e.g. almond milk has less sugar, protein, fat, and calories compared to dairy milk and soy milk). Regardless, if you eat a wide variety of food, it should all balance out, and if you are very paranoid, you can simply take a vegan multivitamin (e.g. Deva Multivitamin and Mineral Supplement from iHerb).

Social stigma

The biggest difficulty with being vegan is the social stigma and discrimination from other people. This is something I have grappled with for a long time. If you tell people you are vegan, all of a sudden they come up with assumptions about you. They will assume you're not getting enough protein or that you lack iron. Over time, I have discovered a way to deal with this. I simply don't tell people that I am vegan or vegetarian. I simply tell people that I am an omnivore who doesn't eat much meat because I don't like the taste whereas I like the taste of meat replacements such as tofu and beans. Even though I tell people I don't eat much meat, in reality I don't eat any meat at all, so that makes me a liar.

I don't eat out too much. It's easy to eat vegan at home. I make my own vegan sandwich that I take to work. However, if I am eating out with others, I always order the vegetarian or vegan option, and when people see this they usually ask me if I am vegetarian. I simply say no. They will usually just be confused but then change the subject. This happens most of the time. However, some people will say something like, "If you're not vegetarian, why are you eating the vegetarian dish?" The assumption behind this question is that omnivores must eat meat all the time. Obviously this is false. You can be an omnivore and eat meat, say, during dinner only. Technically, you can eat meat once every five years and still be an omnivore. You'd be 99.7% vegan, which still technically makes you an omnivore.

So how do I respond if someone asks me, "If you're not vegetarian, why are you eating the vegetarian dish?" I just look at what is in the food, e.g. tofu or beans, and say something like, "I am eating this because I like tofu. I like the texture and the taste." The bottom line is to be specific about the food, e.g. "I really enjoy this fried tofu. It is delicious. It is also healthy."

When you choose to eat something because you like the taste, there's no argument against it. If you eat tofu because you like tofu, there is no argument against that. If someone doesn't like the taste of tofu, that is their subjective view.

A particular conversation will not necessarily be the same as the example above, but the bottom line is to not use labels. Be a vegan, order vegan food, but just don't use labels. By doing this, people cannot use their preconceived stereotypes or prejudices, and it messes with their simplistic views of the world, which can annoy some people. It forces them to talk about the specifics and the detail, and you can use this as an opportunity to educate others on the scientific and factual basis behind the vegan diet.

Most people think in extremes. It's black or it's white. There are no grays. You are either vegan or not. The trick then is to act as if you are 99% vegan (and therefore not really a vegan but a flexitarian) but actually be 100% vegan. Practically speaking, being 99% vegan (and therefore an omnivore) versus 100% vegan makes no difference, but socially it means a lot.

Too often we apply labels to ourselves and to others and this often makes complex matters simplistic. When you're out and about and socializing, it is different to being on the internet or if you are among good friends or family members who really understand you. On the internet, you can focus on one topic in depth and there is time to think, but when you're out and about with people you don't know that well (e.g. work colleagues), discussions are meant to be superficial and light. Conversations also tend to wander around. The topic changes all the time. Because these conversations are superficial, they are based on stereotypes and prejudice, and most people recognize that you're not supposed to take these conversations seriously. Rather than fight it, go along with it, but stay vegan.

Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

I’m spending less time with my dad nowadays. He seems to want to catch up with me every Saturday and Sunday, but if I see him every day on the weekends, I will never have time to do what I want to do. I have a dream of becoming a digital nomad one day, so I need to spend time over the weekend teaching myself new skills, such as how to code. (I am currently using a site called Codecademy to learn how to code.)

There is a lot of work that I need to do, so I have tried to cut down how much time I spend with my father. Over the last two weeks, my dad has invited me for lunch four times, and I have rejected two times, usually on a Saturday.

I had lunch with my father today. It’s tough being vegan in a non-vegan world. When you see animal slaughter videos, you realize how much hell the animals must go through, and I feel like I need to do everything I can to help these animals. The problem begins with people buying animal products. If people stop buying animal products, the animal exploitation industry would be starved of funds, and they would not have enough money to cause more harm to animals. However, most people just don’t care. I told my dad that there is no need to eat meat, but he just made excuses that vegan meat is too expensive, and if instead of eating meat he eats beans, it wouldn’t taste good. This disturbed me because the suffering of animals clearly doesn’t matter to him. Something as trivial as the taste of food can influence whether he decides to slaughter a cow. It bothered me so much.

Everyone is different, I suppose. People have different values. I can’t really blame my father. That’s just what he thinks. I remember meeting up with a vegan friend a few weeks ago who told me that it’s important that vegans do not isolate themselves from the world. Veganism needs to go mainstream if it is to be successful. But I find it so difficult to be around meat eaters. I have always been different to others. Now that I am vegan, I am even more different.

I'm not too sure what I should do in the future, but I see two options. One option involves retiring early, buying a place in the country, and retreating into the wilderness where I can be left in peace. I will be like a modern-day hermit. The other option is the opposite. Rather than retire early, I can continue to be integrated into society. I will continue to work, continue to be a consumer, and continue to try to make a difference to society from within. You cannot change the system if you are outside the system.

Veganism is Easy

Many people say they cannot go vegan because it's too hard, but my experience has been the opposite. I actually find it is easy to be vegan, and it is easier than being an omnivore.

Going on a vegan diet doesn't require you to actually do anything. However, what it requires you to do is to not do something. For example, if someone serves you chicken, you don't eat it. Whereas previously you did something, now as a vegan you are not doing something.

The vegan diet is about not eating meat, not eating dairy, and not eating eggs.

What you do need to do, however, is learn how to say no.

I have always been a nice person. In fact, I am too nice. I am the type of person who has trouble saying no and would often try to please people too much, and over time I learned this was not healthy. Being nice is great, but if you're too nice, people take advantage and walk all over you.

Going on a vegan diet, it turns out, had helped me practice how to say no. When I stood up and defended what I ate, people seemed to take note that I didn't just accept whatever they put upon me, and over time they took advantage of me less.

So if you're too nice, if you're a people pleaser, then give the vegan diet a go. Not only will it help you practice being assertive, it will also help the environment and spare animals from torture and slaughter.

Assimilation - Being Socially Acceptable

Just as organizations have PR divisions dedicated to making sure the organization presents a socially acceptable image to the public, so too I am starting to believe that an individual needs to do the same.

For example, I do not make it a secret on this blog that I would love to one day save enough money so that I can live off my savings. I have found that if I tell people this, I come off as lazy. Maybe I am lazy. I certainly don't enjoy working. I believe that deep down everyone values laziness and idleness but for some reason there is a social expectation that you must be busy and you must work (read In Praise of Idleness). Certainly if everyone were to stop work, society would not function. Who would grow the food we buy to eat to survive? In terms of ensuring society continues to function, people need to work, but it's a question of degrees. That is, do most of us work too much? Is social expectation excessive? All you need is a small house in the country to put a roof over your head and a bit of savings to ensure you can afford to buy food for the rest of your life. But why is it that people think they need more than food and raiment? Why is it that people think you need to get married, have children, get a mortgage to buy a mansion, get a luxury car, and go on an overseas holiday every year? Instead of enslaving yourself for four to five years, you're enslaving yourself for forty to fifty years.

I have found that telling others that I want to retire early not only makes me seem lazy but it also opens me up to ridicule. People also think that because I am saving up like crazy to retire early, I must have a lot of money saved up and therefore I have people asking to borrow money. The risk of outright theft, blackmail, and torture are also very real. It just makes no sense to tell anyone anything.

That is why I am keeping things secret. Instead of telling people I have savings, I tell them I am in debt. What do I do when I have enough savings to retire? I will not actually retire but will have a socially acceptable story, e.g. I will go back to university to study, but what I will actually do is study part-time and online, studying subjects I am interested in. Because I intend to study part-time and online, I should have a lot of free time to spend on leisure, as I will be retired.

Social Influence is the Enemy of Thrift

A new personal finance blogger I am starting to read more about is Ramit Sethi. I have just been reading a blog post he has written titled 7 Lies We Tell Ourselves About Money.

One of the points he makes in this blog post is that you should not look to others as role models because most other people are failures when it comes to money. That is, if you see other people taking lots of vacations and buying luxury goods, you don't need to copy them. Ramit says the following:

Would you look at a bunch of blue whales for advice on losing weight? Then why would you look at your ordinary friends, who are making ordinary money decisions, and will end up with ordinary results — not having enough money — as role models? Refocus your financial aspirations to people you value and their conscious decisions...

Ramit has just told us not to be like everyone else. If other people buy a Mercedes, don't copy them. However, Ramit then goes on to say the complete opposite, that you should prepare yourself to be like everyone else, that you should save money based on the expectation that you will spend like everyone else.

People are delusional about what will happen in the next 10 years. For example, if you’re in your 20s, the next 10 years will bring kids, a new car, a mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, travel, life insurance, medical insurance….etc.

Every day I get frustrated people who tell me they’ve implemented all my strategies, yet when I tell them the next step is to implement the Ten Year Savings Strategy — where they save for the most likely things they’ll encounter within ten years — they become oddly dismissive.

This strikes me as being contradictory. Earlier he said that you should not spend like others and then suddenly he is saying you should spend like others. Should I buy the new car or not?

As a thirfty person, of course I am not going to splash out on a new Mercedes. I'd be spending $100,000 for a car when I can easily get a car for maybe $20,000. Given that the average child costs $250,000, producing a child is monetarily equivalent to purchasing a Ferrari. If you've committed yourself to never touching luxury sports cars, why wouldn't you apply the same thrift to children?

This children-as-luxury-goods concept is something I always talk about to people. It's one of those topics of discussion that everyone loves. Whenever I tell people I plan to never get married and never have children, more often than not they tell me that I say that now because I am young, naive, stupid, or a combination of the three. According to them, I will change. What they normally say is that when they were my age they thought as I did but over time they fell in love and subsequently their whole way of thinking changed.

Ramit even says something similar to this to some degree. In the blog post Why do Delusional People Think Their Spending Will be Different Than Other People’s?, Ramit says, "We like to believe we’re individual and different, but the entire field of social psychology illustrates how we mistakenly believe we’re in control of our own lives while systematically underestimating situational and social influence." Ramit's main point, I think, is that even if you believe you won't have children, save up for it anyway because chances are you underestimate social influence and will end up having children.

I will concede that I do understand what he is talking about. I am fresh out of university and with my new full-time job I have a new group of friends who are more cashed-up than my old university friends. Already I do indeed notice how much social pressure there is, not just to wear the best clothes but also to drive a nice car, to have a beautiful wife and children, to fill your weekends with fun social activities, and so on. Being the rebel that says no to all this can be draining as I have to explain everything in detail from first principles. I am going against culture merely for the sake of saving money. To refuse to have children or buy a luxury car for monetary reasons is equivalent to walking into a wedding function naked because you want to save on the costs of clothing. You will save $100 or so from not having to buy a suit, but you pay for that with non-monetary and cultural costs, namely by incurring the emotions of shame, self-consciousness, embarrassment, and so forth.

So then what is the optimal trade-off? To what degree do we incur pain for cash? Saving money is a tool I use to gain security in the future, which in itself is something I do to achieve certain emotions since financial stability induces within me emotions like comfort and confidence. The solution then is to do what suits you. Do you value social conformity or are you willing to incur the costs of shame and embarrassment so that you can attain stability and comfort (as opposed to anxiety)? It's a dilemma because you either face shame or anxiety. If you buy a luxury car or produce children today, you reduce shame and gain pride but at the cost of comfort in the future as your loss of money creates anxiety. If you sacrifice the luxury car or children today, you feel ashamed at being such a rebel but the abnormal cash you accumulate reduces anxiety in the future and gives you comfort and stability. What is better for you depends on your preferences.

Ramit says that it is important to save up a lot because you are likely to underestimate the extent of unseen influences (such as social influence) on you. But saving up a lot is often dependent on your being able to resist social influence. Many of the big costs that we incur--buying mansions, having children, funding lavish weddings, buying expensive engagement rings, and buying luxury cars--are the result of social influence. How then can Ramit say that we should be thrifty for the sake of conforming to social influence when social influence itself is the enemy of thrift?

I haven't read too much of what Ramit has written, but based on casual observation I have a feeling that Ramit makes his living mainly by rebelling against mainstream thinking, kind of like Penelope Trunk and Jim Betts. Mainstream thinking is filled with contradiction, but knee-jerk rebellion or doing the opposite of what is mainstream will not fix that problem.

Assimilating to Australia's Fat Culture

I have been reading an article that claims that weightism is more widespread than racism. According to the article, surveys show that most people believe it's wrong to discriminate according to gender or skin color but it's okay to discriminate based on weight.

Australia is the most overweight nation on earth with 60 per cent of the adult population overweight. This means overweight people here are in the majority and that normal weight and underweight people are a minority. Wouldn't this translate into more political power for overweight people and as a result discrimination against thin people?

Because the majority of Australians are overweight, this means that being overweight is part of Australian culture. When the Howard Government was in power here in Australia they introduced a citizenship test for people who want to become Australian citizens. Ever since then I have heard people say that migrants who come here to Australia must fit in and conform to the local culture. However, since most Australians are overweight, then a migrant who is optimal weight or underweight (BMI <25) is not fitting in since he or she has a feature (low weight) that makes him or her a minority. Under the doctrine of assimilation it is therefore essential that any healthy, optimal-weight migrant who comes to Australia must start eating more and more foods with lots of refined sugar and saturated fats. The migrant must also reduce the amount of exercise he or she is doing.

After logically applying the doctrine of assimilation to these new health facts on obesity in Australia, we also reach the conclusion that anyone in Australia who is currently not overweight is un-Australian.

Given that this result is absurd, doesn't this prove that the idea of assimilation is also absurd?

Do Pretty People Earn More?

Do Pretty People Earn More?
Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com

Studies show attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts. But how much do looks matter at work?

The ugly truth, according to economics professors Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, is that plain people earn 5 to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking.

These findings concur with other research that shows the penalty for being homely exceeds the premium for beauty and that across all occupations, the effects are greater for men than women.

A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts. In their report "Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers', Looks and Lucre," Hamermesh and Biddle found that the probability of a male attorney attaining early partnership directly correlates with how handsome he is.

Size matters, too. A study released last year by two professors at the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina found that tall people earn considerably more money throughout their careers than their shorter coworkers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay.

Read more at http://www.careerbuilder.com/...x_g_attractive_peopl...

The Relationship between Inequality and Polygamy

I am going to assume that when women want to marry they only care about how much money a man makes. This may or may not be true.

Some people say polygamy can be good for women because just about all women want to marry a man with lots of money and have babies with him. In a society where there is a huge gap between rich and poor, e.g. Australia under John Howard, this puts a lot of pressure in females to marry the rich men. The females go to huge lengths to compete with other females to marry the rich men before it's too late. If they don't get the rich man by the time they're 30, chances are they will be too old and will have to settle for the poorer guy, the Aussie battler. Why would any woman want to marry a man who both votes for John Howard and complains about him at the same time?

If polygamy were legalized, then rich men would naturally want hundreds of wives each. Women then have a good chance of fulfilling their dream of marrying rich men. The losers from polygamy would be poor men.

Monogamy then can be seen as protectionism by low-income males.

One could argue however that a female would not like to be with a man if she has to share him with hundreds of other females. Suppose a rich man is willing and able to spend $1000 on his wives per week while a poor man is willing and able to spend only $100 on wife per week. If the rich man already has 10 wives and a female is thinking about being his 11th wife, then assuming the $1000 is shared among all wives equally, each wife would get $90.90 (1000/11). That female would have been better off getting the $100 from the poor guy.

Clearly then the degree of polygamy in society will re-equilibrate itself to changes in social inequality. As inequality increases, the female demand for polygamy will increase. As inequality decreases, the female demand for polygamy will decrease.

Suppose a country only allowed monogamy. If all of a sudden there were an inequality shock and all the wealth in the country were put into the hands of one man, then one woman is lucky while every other woman is worse off because she wants to marry that rich man but cannot. We can see monogamy then as a welfare loss for society and women during times of high inequality.

What I would like to do is to collect data on countries around the world where polygamy is legalized and then, for each country, get data on the average number of wives each man has. Then I will see whether there is a statistical relationship between the average number of wives men in that country have and the Gini coefficients.

CRITICISMS OF POLYGAMY

One of the criticisms of polygamy is that poor or ugly men don't get any women to marry because all the alpha males have taken away the women. As I said before, monogamy then is a protectionist policy that protects poor males. If they were not protected then they may go crazy and do silly things. Tyler Cowen in The Economics of Polygamy talks about the problem of "sexually frustrated males who are led to revolt, thus destroying social order."

Economists argue that the wretchedness of losers is no excuse for protectionism. Instead, they recommend that it's better to allow free trade and then set up a redistributive system to transfer wealth from winners to losers. For example, some people believe that capitalism as opposed to communism is evil because not everyone is talented enough to make money. Some people are going to be poor because they are not skilled enough. Under communism it is each according to his needs, each according to his abilities, etc. However, economists recommend there be free trade so that wealth can be generated in the first place. Once the wealth is generated, then taxes take away money from the rich and gives it to the poor in the form of welfare. This is arguably better than the communist system because the communist system usually doesn't work and no wealth is generated, meaning the poor can't eat anyway.

Applying the same concept to the marriage market, what should be done then is that money is taken away from rich and given to poor. Then women will not be so willing to marry the richest men as much.

Even if each man has two wives, it is clear that many men will lose out. But this is not all horrible because if there is equality for males and females then not only will men be able to have multiple wives but women will be able to have multiple husbands. If we assume that women want money then it follows that women will want to collect multiple husbands as well.

I am Muslim. Help Me Assimilate

I call myself Muslim because of upbringing and habit. I came to Australia a year ago. I am a teenager and I go to high school.

Although my parents are nominally Muslim, as a family we try to assimilate to Australian and Western culture. I go to a Catholic school. At school, I am surrounded by sexual promiscuity. Students always talk to me about oral sex, bondage, and all sorts of other things. If I don't talk and do that sort of thing, I fear I will be
considered a baby and I will be ostracized and isolated.

Kids nowadays are highly sexualized. From memory I think about 1 in 5 kids aged 13 have had sex. Up to 70% of teenagers in the average American school have had oral sex and based on my experience I suspect that sex rates in Australian schools are similar. There is also evidence that in most cases boys seek out girls for oral sex, suggesting that girls are hunted like prey and don't enjoy giving oral sex because they are pressured into the act.

I am worried because, on one hand I want to protect myself from sex because I am young and I don't think I'm ready, yet on the other hand I don't want to isolate myself from Western culture and want to assimilate as John Howard says I should.

What should I do?

This also reminds me of another problem. Do I do as they say or do as they do? About 70 per cent of Australians claim to be Christians. In America the number claiming to be Christian is even higher at 82 per cent.

The bible says the following:

Malachi 2:16, "I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel."

Matthew 19:6, "What God has joined together, let man not separate"

Yet, according to Religioustolerance.org, "Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience."

So if I see many Christians telling me that divorce is evil yet virtually everyone does it, do I conform to what they say or conform to what they do? Suppose I am married. I have two choices. Either I divorce or not. If I divorce, I am going against the bible, the Word of God, and John Howard makes a big deal about how Australia has Judeo-Christian origins. If I do not divorce, I am not assimilating to the divorce culture that is commonplace in society. Either way, I am not assimilating to something.

So what do I do if I want to assimilate?

Source: http://groups.google.com.au/group/aus.politics/msg/8af2308bddf890ff

Image from Flickr by Shazron, posted under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Mary Byler and Amish Abuse

The Amish seem like good people. In fact, many of their philosophies seem very nice. E.g. they do not permit the taking of photographs in the hope that families do not compete with each other trying to produce the perfect family photo, which may lead to envy and other things the Amish consider sins. The Amish live without any technology and they isolate themselves from the rest of the world.

While all this may seem very romantic, there are downsides. The isolation of the community leads to inbreeding, which means that the frequency of heritable diseases are higher in the Amish community than it is in the general population.

Another fear I have is that because the community is so isolated it may be more difficult to detect or intervene in cases of child abuse. One case that pops to mind is the Mary Byler case. Mary was an Amish child who was sexually abused by her father at the age of 3 and then at the age of 7 she was raped by her cousins and brothers. When the girl told her mother, the mother blamed the girl. This I think is very sad.

I am not saying that sexual abuse is widespread only in the Amish community because, as we all know, sexual abuse occurs just about everywhere, but the Amish's isolation as well as their highly male-centric culture doesn't help protect the vulnerable. This I suppose is my own personal taste, as I simply prefer individualism over collectivism.

I am very uneasy about government interfering in the lives of ordinary citizens, but if it for the protection of basic human rights like the right to not be sexually abused, I'm more tolerant of interference.

Gentlemen and Snobs

Michael Bucci on Askmen.com has a guide on Etiquette of a Gentleman. Many people believe that being a gentleman means literally being a gentle man. The word "gentleman" however refers to the behavior of the gentry or the nobility. To be a gentleman then is to act like a snob. If someone admires gentlemanly behavior, it is a sign that that person is also a snob.

Rich Kids Get the Summer Jobs

Here is an article in The Times Online about rich parents who are able to buy summer jobs for their kids to help them make their resumes nicer. For kids from poor families, it's another explanation for why rich people tend to have children who grow up rich.

From The Sunday Times
July 8, 2007

The price of your first break

Competition among teenagers and graduates for jobs is so fierce coaches are charging them up to £5,000 for help onto the ladder

Sian Griffiths

It’s the start of the long vacation and everyone is milling around figuring out how to get their child a summer job. In my London patch openings are jealously guarded: mothers feign innocence when it turns out they have stitched up their teen’s summer with a – well-paid – stint in a computing company topped off by “just a few weeks teaching drama at Camp America”.

With three graduates chasing every graduate-level job, it’s no longer enough to have a good degree. A glittering CV needs a string of enviable holiday placements too. As the career wars hot up, a rash of companies and consultants is offering to give rich, privileged teens and graduates the edge – albeit at a price. But is a bit of work experience worth paying £5,000 for?

Heather McGregor is a former investment banker turned headhunter whose 17-year-old son’s CV already boasts the kind of summer jobs that could propel him into the journalism position he covets.

Robert has done stints at CNN, The Guardian and the Financial Times. But his mother, who also writes the Mrs Moneypenny column in the Financial Times, says she so loathed the wheedling she had to do to land them – not to mention the requests she herself gets to provide holiday jobs – that she is launching a company to offer “a taste of the workplace” to children of the “rich and privileged”.

She won’t be begging work placements for her youngest two children, she says. Instead they’ll do work experience at GraduateJobsNetwork, her new business. “I had to beg all Robert’s work experience. And I didn’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t do it again,” she says. “The other two can come through my programme and I’ll write a cheque for five grand for each of them.”

More at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/.../article2041379.ece

Pants that Looks like Jeans but Feel like Tracksuits

Jeans are worn by just about everyone. They look good. As humans we all have a desire to fit in and look good. This is the primary reason why I wear jeans. However, I find jeans uncomfortable. Even if I wear jeans that are loose, jeans tend to be rough and painful, especially to my groin area. I would pay good money to anyone who can produce pants that look like jeans but feel soft and smooth like tracksuit pants.

Protecting Freedom by Destroying Freedom

Inspired by Maddy McCann's kidnapping, Alan Burkhart wrote a piece in the National Ledger detailing many atrocities done to children. He then suggests some solutions to the problem:

Draconian enforcement of drug and immigration laws is desperately needed. Tons of illegal drugs and thousands of sexual predators cross our border with Mexico each year. Research by "Americans for Legal Immigration" shows that as many as 240,000 illegal alien sex offenders currently reside in the USA. Could your gardener be one of them?

[...]

Most importantly, Americans must return to the moral and societal norms of past decades. Our proud nation survived a brutal civil war and broke the chains of slavery. We fought and won two major wars against totalitarianism and later broke the back of the Soviet Union. But in our quest to become the freest nation on Earth, we have also freed those among us who would do harm to some of our nation's most vulnerable citizens, and we have lost the sense of personal responsibility that governs the actions of otherwise good people. It is not a loss of freedom or civil rights to penalize irresponsible behavior. It is not "cruel and unusual" to lock sex offenders and drug dealers away for the rest of their lives. By keeping repeat offenders in prison, we are protecting the rights of those who might otherwise perish in the dead of night while their families try in vain to find them.

We are constantly told by our so-called leaders that we must be tolerant and understanding of those who behave or believe differently from the rest of us. To a point, I agree. But when our young people become targets of opportunity, the line must be drawn.

Tolerance is a two-edged sword. The more tolerant we become, the more we will be expected to tolerate in the future. I don't know about you, but I'm done with being tolerant. I want my country back.

To Alan Burkhart,

Your article Madeleine McCann Mystery Highlights Modern Day Barbarism was very well written. All those cases of children being abused is sad, but your solutions seem very lacking. First of all you say that immigration needs to be tightened, e.g. the US-Mexico border. Automatically you suggest that American children are more important than Mexican children because, if sexual predators can't move from Mexico to America then they will stay and abuse children in Mexico. This would only be preferable if Mexican children are worth less than American children. Secondly, this solution suggests that Mexicans are more likely to harm children than Americans are. It is certainly possible that a Mexican migrant crossing the border may be a child molestor, but it is also possible that a baby born in the US will grow up to be a child molestor as well. So why stop at banning immigration, why not ban childbirth altogether?

You also say that America must return to the moral and societal norms of the past. You say, "Our proud nation survived a brutal civil war and broke the chains of slavery. We fought and won two major wars against totalitarianism and later broke the back of the Soviet Union." In other words, this country emerged as a force against dictatorship to preserve freedom. Child molestation and pedophilia occur because of too much freedom. In most countries, stories involving children being raped is illegal, but in America it is protected by the constitution. Pedophiles are allowed to organize, spread their views, and do anything they please so long as they don't actually have sex with children. All this is protected by the Supreme Court.

You want a society of morality and social norms, but in order to enforce and maintain morality and social norms you need force, you need totalitarianism. You needs cameras monitoring children 24 hours a day. Yet this is exactly the things that America was formed to prevent. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

What is Real Culture?

I spoke to someone named Lupus who said the following:

The goal of the capitalist/liberal democracy method is commerce. Culture, heritage and language are assimilated and blended out with this method. The final output of a civilization that only exists for commerce is a monoculture whose highest purpose is to consume.

Basically, he thinks that commercialism is destroying culture, which he doesn't like. My understand of culture is that it is the set of characteristics of a group of people. Suppose we had a capitalist or libertarian system whereby private property is defended, individual rights are defended, free trade is defended, and so on. I would think this would be the perfect political system for the preservation of any culture. This is because if there is any demand for a certain culture by consumers then because of economic interests there will likely be businesses willing to supply that culture. The American nation-state is not absolutely perfectly capitalistic but it is relative to other nation-states, so I will use it as an example. In America there is rich and diverse culture, e.g. hip hop culture, classical music culture, homosexual culture, and even pedophile culture. I doubt this sort of diversity and level of cultural preservation would exist in a totalitarian communist state because people are not free to consume as they please, hence some cultures are dead already and because the incentive to produce and supply culture is not there.

Of course, Lupus responded by saying the following:

Culture is not products and services, thus it cannot be marketed, bought, sold and remain genuine culture. Do not confuse modern entertainment and consumerism with any legitimate form of culture. Heritage and language are also not products and services. Culture, heritage and language have always been developed free of charge by countless generations devoting their lives selflessly to build something meaningful, lasting and larger than themselves.

But I don't know. Now that Lupas has said that culture cannot be bought or sold, I don't really understand what culture is now. One definition of culture says it is "the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization." Of course, different definitions say different things.

Take European culture. European culture is the attitudes and behavior characteristic of Europeans. So take the actions, attitudes, behavior, traditions, etc of all Europeans, find some similarities, and that is European culture. Now take homosexual culture. Using the same approach, homosexual culture or gay culture is the attitudes and behavior characteristic of gay people. So take the actions, attitudes, behavior, traditions, etc of all gay people, find some similarities, and that is gay culture. Gay culture may include things like mardi gras and different sexual positions just as European culture may include the teachings of Plato and other Ancient Greeks. In fact, there may be overlap as many Ancient Greeks were homosexual and Ancient Greek philosophers and great thinkers were known to practice pederasty, i.e. sex with young boys. So my main argument is what constitutes real culture? How do you distinguish between real meaningful culture and "entertainment or hedonism"? I have just shown how homosexual culture has all the characteristics I think are necessary for a culture.

Gun Incidents Continue after Virginia Tech

It's only been a few days after Cho Seung-Hui went on a murderous rampage in Virginia Tech and killed 33 people in an event similar to the Columbine High School murders. Today, however, a contract worker in NASA named William Phillips shot dead a hostage before shooting himself. In Northern California, a man, Jeffery Thomas Carney, threatened to go on a killing spree but turned himself in afterwards.

This of course is one of the problems with easy availability of guns. The right to bear arms is protected by the American Constitution as people need it for personal protection. On the other hand, if guns were outlawed, anyone who happens to obtain one illegally and go on shooting sprees would meet little resistance.

Swan Brooner on Living Dolls

YouTube - Living Dolls (1 of 9)

I have just watched Living Dolls on Youtube. It's about Swam Brooner, a five-year-old little girl who competes in child beauty pageants. Sometimes I wonder whether she wants to do this because she often seems sad. Her smiles on-stage seem fake. Her mother is extremely pushy and critical, telling her daughter to look up, not sing too low, etc. At the end, Swan wins $2500 prizemoney but the family has spent more than $70,000, so really the whole exercise was not profitable. If the same effort were put into trying to get her into college I think that might have been more profitable. With $70,000 you can get into quite a few universities.

I have recently heard that Swan's mother died and she is living in Alaska now. She is 13 and no longer doing beauty pageants. Even though she won some beauty pageants, she lost as well, and it was really sad to see her face when she lost.

Some of the comments on Youtube were about the observation that although many of the children in these child beauty pageants were very pretty, many of the mothers of these children were obese and homely. This suggests the possibility that these mothers are trying to compensate for their failures by succeeding through their children. That is, the parents are using their children to live their own lives.

Lying to Children about Santa Clause

Here is an email I received from a friend. He gave me permission to post it up.

I have a little girl named Lily who was a huge liar. She always lied and I always caught her lying. I then told her that lying is wrong and now she has stopped.

My wife told me a few days ago that Lily is old enough now to be told about Santa Clause. My wife is telling me to lie to my child about Santa Clause.

I am afraid because as Lily grows up she may learn that Santa Clause is not real and if she realizes that I lied to her then she has no reason to believe anything I say. Using me as a role model, she may even begin to lie again thinking it's perfectly okay because I did it.

I told my wife that I planned to tell Lily the truth, that Santa Clause is made up but my wife and the rest of my family were all horrified at me.

Since my wife thinks lying is okay then I plan to lie to her and tell her that I am not going to tell Lily that Santa is fake but I actually will and I will tell Lily to keep it a secret. Is this a good idea?

Are Stereotypes a Waste of Time?

Stereotyping is not a waste of time. Pretty much all humans do it. It is part of human instinct.

Stereotyping can be correct sometimes, but other times it can be completely wrong.

Through experience or conditioning an individual associates certain images, sights, smells, and so forth with pain and happiness. E.g. you may notice on TV that people with tattoos tend to be violent people and the violent people on TV scare you.

If you are outside on the streets and you know little about someone then you will judge that person based on what you know. You have subconsciously through conditioning associated tattoos with fear and so seeing a tattooed person evokes fear in you.

If in fact tattooed people are more dangerous than non-tattooed people then your probaility of survival increases but maybe the TV was wrong.

Another problem with human instinct is with sample size. The brain may be exposed to too few tattooed people to accurately predict whether the next tattooed person you meet is dangerous or not. This is the fallacy of hasty generalization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization