I also don’t believe the day Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation or the day the States ratified the Thirteenth Amendement ought to be celebrated with a day off. Apparently those who pushed for Juneteenth all these years feel as I do. Perhaps they, too, need a proper wagging..?
Not so unlike a comics’ section where lots of people do their best to overrecognize it and wag their fingers at everyone not joining their children’s chorus…
I can’t comment on the human population capacity of Earth—decades ago the thought of our world easily supporting seven billion people would have seemed impossible, yet here we are.
I don’t believe anyone here is demanding large families; I’m personally arguing that people shouldn’t put women off to having children (whether one or dozens,) especially with baseless scare tactics.
As a guy who became a father of two millennials just after hitting twenty, I can agree that our lives would have been easier had I had a career first, but such is life. We suffered and survived and thrived and today we’re all doing quite well. The serious long-term consequence being we’ve added a couple more very productive, very sweet people to the human race. Which I would do all over again. No hesitation.
You are right in saying we will not be in an immediate crisis, no.
But looking at the various nations of the world where this attitude—this choice—is prevalent, eg. Japan, we are seeing what the effects of not having children is having, eg. an aging population with no youngsters to take care of, much less replace, them.
The only way they (eg. the EU) are delaying the problem is by encouraging population transfers from parts of the world that do /not/ share this (career over kids) attitude.
Once this attitude takes hold, however, in those more populous parts of the world, they will have fewer people to spare to such transfers. That’s when the EU & Co. will really begin facing the costs of their choices.
When, for example, the next pandemic strikes, what population will they draw from to create the nurses, doctors and medical staff they need for care?
Don’t get me wrong—I’m all about agency and the freedom to choose. But spreading FUD based on falsehoods is vile and encouraging an attitude of career over kids (like, fer sure, it’s like waay besties!) isn’t necessarily a good thing.
People need to understand both the short AND the long term consequences of their thinking. Unfortunately, all too often it’s the short term that seizes the day, to the detriment of everyone, involved or not.
While a small percentage of women do encounter major medical issues during pregnancy, the vast majority do not—please stop spreading FUD.
As for choice, /only/ women can make that choice, meaning it’s down to half of all human beings on the planet to choose. And that choice can be made only within a relatively brief period (20 years or so) of their lives. Say half of women (I’m being generous) decide to forgo children—we’re now down to one quarter of the world’s humans having kids. And if many—if not most—of these decide only one or two children need be born?
…
Short term? It’s often great for women who prefer a career over kids. Long term? I wish these same women (and their enablers) well, bearing in mind that other humans—men included—also have the right to choose.
The old Gunther, before he traipsed off to Peru with Rosa, was a pretty timid guy. (The new Gunther is a bit more forward, but as his story with Bets plays out, we see hints of the old, timid Gunther peeking out.)
Regarding his shoelaces I exaggerated.
As for becoming an adult, people change, and having more responsibility added (eg. becoming a teacher’s aide)—having more opportunities for failure with real-life consequences—helps with that.
My position is “different sets of friends will have different sets of lines covering what’s private and what’s not.” Friendship includes testing those boundaries… as Gunther is learning from Bets, and as he’s shown Luann.
And had Gunther asked either Luann or Quill, who knows how either of them would have reacted (especially in high school, ie. before becoming adults)? If either of them were open about it to Gunther, would people still be blowing up over Luann as they are? Folks seem to be overly angry at Luann at having the audacity to ask—sorry, ’snoop’—acting as though she should be more like Gunther and being too timid even to tie her own shoes.
And where is this timidity getting Gunther today with Bets? Funny how no one gets equally pissed over Gunther not standing up for himself when he’s obviously uncomfortable with Bets’ posts. Ridiculous.
“So let’s not take it as ‘if you post on social media at all, you’re inviting people to snoop around…’”
Well, in a sense, this is exactly what you’re asking for. You do understand the term ‘internet famous,’ yes? Someone becomes well-known, eg. a Youtuber, but only on social media. Nonetheless, over time, we as a society have started treating the ‘internet famous’ as we do celebrities, ie. ripe for the gossip mill.
It doesn’t a great leap to apply the same rules to folks within one’s more local social media circle.
Does this make it right? Not at all. But making a public show of normally private affairs will make people wonder, and some brave souls will go further to find out all the juicy details. (And, like Bernice, those who aren’t brave enough will still be curious despite the ‘wrongness’ of it all…)
I also don’t believe the day Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation or the day the States ratified the Thirteenth Amendement ought to be celebrated with a day off. Apparently those who pushed for Juneteenth all these years feel as I do. Perhaps they, too, need a proper wagging..?