Suicide by Culture (2017)

You mean, no chemical birth control. Different cultures employed various mechanisms of birth control - some of which the article describes.

Japan during much of the Tokugawa period (after 1700) is an example of that kind of self-stabilizing population. They used:

* Abortion

* On-birth infanticide (don't be quick to judge)

* Delayed marriage (which also means more years of celibacy before marriage I guess?)

https://international.uiowa.edu/sites/international.uiowa.ed...

and AFAICT this was not government-enforced or even strongly-government-encouraged.

>Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding

This is really not the case, in the western world fertility dropped steadily through the 19th century. People had some control over the reproductive process even without the pill/latex condoms. By the year 1900, TFR was already under 3 in France.

I wonder how much more prevalent anal sex was as a method of birth control then.

all those people without hands, but plenty of animals, had to let it out somewhere I guess.

Knew a soldier who'd deployed to Iraq. Had stories about the things seen on patrol through night vision goggles.

You know, I've never actually seen someone squatting in line at Disneyland, pooping.

Though without the killing and forced sterilization people assume when they hear the term "eugenics".

I've read both of them (actually, I've read the former before this was posted).

The problem with the second article is the belief that conservative patriarchy was and is still the only way to sustain/grow population levels. This can problematic in an anthropological angle (there are still debates among anthropologists over how some prominent ancient societies were more matriarchial than we've realized), but more importantly I find this belief limiting our imagination as to the various ways in how humanity can manage to have and nurture kids. Familial values aren't only compatible with patriarchy, it can also mesh well with matriarchy (The fertility of women becoming important can also lead to women having more power over men, vice-versa). And is family the only way we can have childcare? Maybe we might have a society where everyone collectively cares each other's kids? What would happen if we have artificial wombs, wouldn't it significantly lower the barrier to having offspring? Obviously the hyper-individualism induced in our current configuration of capitalism is a huge cause for the fertility crisis, but I don't think old rehashed conservative values are the only solution for this individualism.

Now the first article (written by Nick Land), is much more nuanced, and doesn't strictly limit itself to patriarchy being an 'ultimate' evolutionary destiny. It's trying to dissecting the historical dynamics of population inside cities and between other cities (as a global phenomenon), and plotting the future trajectory of political theory from there. It states a fundamental problem of modernity which I can maybe agree with (although I have other problems with the author in general, mainly him also frequently spouting out right-wing reactionary politics)

At least in the US, opportunity costs are likely dwarfed by actual costs in many cases, particularly as you move up the income scale. Despite heavy assortative mating you do usually end up with income disparity between spouses, so you give up less than half of the income for the time(s) that the mother cannot work; when the opportunity cost becomes great enough, then paid child-care starts looking like a win. Lower on the income bracket child-care is often subsidezed.

Then the richer you are, the more it is typical to spend on your kids. I live in an affluent area; my daughter just finished 6th grade and several of her friends are going to middle-schools with tuition in the low $30k range (yes, there is more than one in that price-range in town).

I would also argue that there is a cultural expectation you don't let your kids just wander about and take care of themselves as people used to do decades ago makes it harder as well. Now if you aren't concerned there is a pedophile around every corner, you're the crazy one. If you don't take an instagram photo of your child every week, you clearly don't care much for your kids.

People are way too uncomfortable with other people spending their time "idling."

Looking at the history of contributions to science, software, and engineering by amateurs we probably lose out on a lot of productivity because of this.

Ectogenesis seem to be the only potential solution, the fertility rate will not go back above 2 in the coming decades in these developed countries.