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Re:America's Prison Population Is in Serious Decline by lo_zamoyski on Thursday June 26, 2025 @08:31AM (#44386782)
Absolutely. It serves as a filter, if people are being honest. It also highlights the bizarre dating culture and view of life we've adopted. This dating culture has produced a good deal of rotten fruit.

The ultimate purpose of dating is to meet your future spouse. We're turned it into some kind of senseless sexual escapade, and this has poisoned the relations between men and women. It makes them exploitative and dehumanizing in spirit: sprinkling them with the waters of "consent" doesn't change that, as the subjective cannot abolish the objective. We've reduced sex to something that is merely pleasurable and contradicted its intrinsic and essential function which is procreative by employing an array of technologies that impede and interfere with healthy procreative processes. This creates a mindset not unlike that of a drug user who is obsessed with getting another hit with no thought given to the damage, or the bulimic who wants the sensual satisfaction of eating, but not the calories.

The psychophysical reality of sexual intercourse is much more than some passing physical pleasure. It mobilizes processes in us that are completely oriented toward bonding and the strengthening of the relationship in preparation for children. Whence the stereotype that men will often exit quickly in the morning after a one night stand with a strange woman? Because both can feel, if only subconsciously, that the processes of bonding are taking place, and who wants to bond — and in such a profound and intimate way — with someone they've just met? In this regard, the character of Julianna in Vanilla Sky makes an astoundingly profound and accurate remark for a movie coming out of Hollywood: "Don't you know when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not?" Our capacity for sexual intimacy is likewise dulled.

(Masturbation is even worse. Those processes bond us with a fictional harem of the imaginary and close us within ourselves. For social animals like us, this is a recipe for misery.)

We thwart and ignore our biological nature to our own detriment. The procreative prime spans the mid-twenties into the early 30s. Statistically, most people should be having families by their mid-20s. Our culture confuses people and creates a pointless obstacle course that leads them to postpone such things either because they're too immature (and encouraged to remain so, also by this unserious dating culture) or because they believe they must achieve some arbitrary milestones first. Furthermore, family and community support has been dashed by a culture of hyperindividualism.

The causes of demographic decline are not a mystery. People simply either don't think deeply enough, or they don't want to make the cultural changes necessary to restore normalcy.

Re:America's Prison Population Is in Serious Decline by DiggyJohnson on Thursday June 26, 2025 @10:58AM (#44388095)
This is a much more reasonable position than many will believe. I think writing like a 19th century nonfiction author probably contributes to that aha

Edit:

To be clear I appreciate this comment and agree with it in the large. It’s hard to talk about these things without being quickly dismissed in the current zeitgeist.

Re:America's Prison Population Is in Serious Decline by tsunamifury on Thursday June 26, 2025 @11:07AM (#44388162)
You have far too much of an obsession with sex here and really need to stop and take a breath.

Dating culture is evolved to help you find a mate based on YOUR choices and capability not your parents or class level. This allows you to “trial” compatibility over shorter time and find better fits.

Please don’t let your hangups around sex (correct or not) become a world view. It’s not a healthy obsession.