This reminds me of something I saw years ago, it was like a variant of Gulliver's Travels.
There was this one bit where he finds this ghost town, and after some investigation, he discovers that they were so emotionally-driven, they were dancing around enjoying the sunlight so much, they forgot to eat and drink, and they all died.
Later he finds their opposite, a bunch of scientifically-minded highly-intelligent near-emotionless beings, one of which was looking at a cucumber under a microscope. The guy asks what the scientist is doing, and the scientist looks at him like he was at least 50 IQ points below his own and had just asked the stupidest thing ever, because it was so glaringly clear--to him--what he was doing.
A little more prying led to the scientist eventually responding "Is it not obvious? I'm trying to extract the sunlight from this cucumber."
This reminds me a little of the Greek creation myth.
First, the gods created men out of gold. But they did nothing but sit around and enjoy life. So the gods destroyed them and made men out of iron. But these men did nothing but work constantly. The gods destroyed them too, and finally made men out of flesh and bones - strong enough to work sometimes, but also able to appreciate the joys of the flesh sometimes.
Korea is a performance driven society, which leaves little room for children. The wealth disparity is also pretty big, creating a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone is competing with each other in order to make sure they at least get a roof over their head and not end up dirt poor.
Then insert feminism.
For fun I also asked perplexity:
South Koreans are having fewer children due to a combination of social, economic, and cultural factors:
Economic pressures: The high cost of living, especially housing prices in cities like Seoul, and expensive education deter many young couples from having children. Many young people face financial instability and difficulty affording a stable home, making parenthood seem unattainable
.
Work culture and gender inequality: South Korea has a demanding work environment with long hours and significant gender pay gaps. Women often face a trade-off between career advancement and motherhood, as having children can mean quitting jobs or losing promotions. The country's work culture is not family-friendly, and parental leave is underutilized due to workplace expectations
.
Changing social attitudes: Younger generations, especially women, increasingly prioritize personal freedom, careers, and individualism over traditional family roles. Many reject the societal pressure to marry and have children, and there is less stigma around choosing to remain child-free. The patriarchal expectations and "perfect parent" myths add to the reluctance to have children
.
Declining marriage rates and stigma: Marriage rates have dropped significantly, and since most births occur within marriage in South Korea, fewer marriages mean fewer births. Additionally, social stigma against births outside marriage remains strong, limiting alternative family structures that might increase birth rates
.
Government policies insufficient: Despite large government spending on parental support and childcare, these measures have not reversed the trend due to deeper structural issues like labor market inequality, work culture, and housing costs. Experts call for a paradigm shift in policies to address these root causes effectively
.
The fertility rate in South Korea has fallen to a record low of 0.72 children per woman in 2023, far below the 2.1 needed for population stability, with projections indicating a halving of the population by 2100 if trends continue
.
In summary, South Korea's ultra-low birth rate results from economic hardship, demanding work culture, gender inequality, shifting social values, and ineffective policy responses, all contributing to fewer marriages and a growing number of women choosing not to have children
.
They wanted to boost the economy by introducing a feminist workforce and instead ended up hamstringing the birthrate, undermining the country in the long run. Thanks, feminism.
They’ve got such a massive issue with everything. I wonder if the hyper speed rate of industrialization that Korea, Japan and China underwent compared to the Anglosphere is a potential root cause of it all.
That’s it. That’s the whole problem. Poor people all over the world have tons of kids. 99% of our ancestors were desperately poor. Economic factors are a cop out. Feminism is the entire issue. There is no reality in which society encourages and supports women spending their entire fertility window not having children without a resultant collapse in birth rates.
Yes, exactly. If economic pressures were the cause, birth rates would have collasped during the great depression and also in poorer countries around the world.
Feminism is cancer but women will never take accountability for it.
That first one is what kills me. She spends twenty entire minutes acting like a brainrotted zoomette half her own age. Complete with desperately trying to be "hip" using modern slang. It's painful.
This is exactly why a lot of men have just said, "No".
The thing I found is that once you get past the age where you're too old to raise a family, you find that women are too insufferable to be around for any other purpose.
Looks like even Korean men ripe for starting a family have already come to that conclusion early.
Then-conservatives cried and said, "No, no, we love women."
Men don't like women. We love them, and occasionally hate them, but we don't like them. They hit all our stress points. Few man would voluntarily spend time with a woman who didn't have his kids.
Idk wtf happened but, over the last 15 years or so narcissism has taken over the average female’s mind in every single way, manifesting in an ever-growing list of behavioral, monetary and physical requirements a man has to measure up to if he wants sex or god forbid, a committed relationship that might lead to a family someday. Even if you are successful for awhile hitting those requirements, the moment she feels like you’re trying too hard to keep her happy, or she sees a man who appears to offer a little bit more than you do looks or money wise, she’s already got one foot out the door looking for any excuse she can use to blame you for the failed relationship, so she can avoid any sense of guilt in the aftermath. The most frustrating part of it all is how at no point will she ever spend a single second considering what she brings to the table besides sex and looks, or what she could do to make you more satisfied with the relationship. Yes women have always been a pain in the ass, I’ve been dating them since the 90’s but at least back in those days, they generally put a comparable effort into keeping you as happy as you put into keeping them happy, plus they actually cared to stay fit, and even though pretty much all women under 45 years old had what we consider to be an exceptionally sexy body nowadays, they didn’t all see themselves as perfect tens who deserved the very best men on earth. Whatever is happening with women now is different, this extremely delusional sense of self worth and their entitled mentality borders on mental illness.
Social media was a huge force multiplier, but we’ve been on this course since widespread adoption of birth control, divorce, and women in the work place.
The last controls on hypergamy failed, and then social media happened. Women have always been silly, delusional little bundles of neuroses that would go horizontal for a strange man if he was handsome enough, or dropped enough coin on her table.
But now, there are no controls on women. Religion cannot enforce their chastity, the law cannot enforce their contracts, and families cannot discipline their daughters.
Korea is an ancient and noble civilisation and it's terribly sad to see it destroyed in mere decades by American liberalism. It's weird that North Korea, a literal fucking starving hermit kingdom is a genetic lifeboat of the Korean people.
EDIT
I don't actually think Korea or any other country will literally collapse because there will be a minority of people that reject this, and they will have enough kids that will grow up into an empty society that will be bountiful for them. They will be the next baby boomer generation.
there will be a minority of people that reject this, and they will have enough kids that will grow up into an empty society that will be bountiful for them. They will be the next baby boomer generation.
That seems super obvious to me. I’ve said it myself many times. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen that agrees.
I’m not so sure about that. What’s stopping all the Muslims, Indians, and Africans being imported to fill the gaps like what’s been done other places? You think a handful of native Koreans are going to stand a chance against that?
Jews replacing high-IQ populations with easily-controlled golems is kind of a separate issue. They’d be doing that even if every woman had 10 kids.
But they use the low birth rate as an excuse to do it. It’s just an excuse; just a lie. It should be opposed regardless of the excuse given.
All I’m saying is that I’m not convinced that a declining birthright is a long-term problem, because I think we are selecting for women who want kids even in the modern environment, and selecting against women who are susceptible to feminism/consumerism, etc
Because the counter point is obvious, you need a discrete number of engineers to maintain clean water and sanitation, you need a certain number of people willing to maintain sewers and fix downed power lines late at night in storms.
The competency crisis threatens this, if we make it through the population squeeze it will be bountiful on the other side for your children and grand children.
Genetically, but North Korea is more destroyed than South Korea. Communism doesn't preserve previous cultures, traditions, or morays. It rapes them to death, and sometimes wears a skin suit of one if it becomes a useful weapon. North Korea is less Korean than South Korea is. South Korea isn't just dealing with Western Liberalism, they are also dealing with Communist subversion. Most of the Feminist movement in South Korea is sponsored and working with North Korean Communists.
North Korea is now waging a demographic war against South Korea.
Not sure why this was down voted. It is completely true, look no further then China as a perfect example, they obliterated and obfuscated so many of their traditional customs because it was not in service to communism.
Compare the culture of China to Taiwan, and its night and day, with Taiwan having a culture more reminiscent of the original Chinese culture in terms of cultural practices and celebrations.
Besides just bringing up all of Mao's horrors, one article I read is a good example of this.
The author was a Chinese entertainment journalist who had seen Kung Fu Panda 2, and said it displayed traditional chinese values, traditions, and morays better and more morally than anything that she had ever produced in China. She was a bit angry and confused why only the Americans, using cartoon characters, were able to do this, and not the people of China.
If you have to look to Jack Black for a Romantic Traditionalism, you are truly in a Modernist or Post-Modernist hellscape.
I remember when a korean woman was subtly throwing shade at me for not wanting to date korean women 10 years ago, saying they were super in demand overseas. I just lolled silently
If its in English and not Korean, its propaganda designed for America.
Dating, like many things in Korea, is too rigidly structured. It is too the point where everyone does their first date along the river in central Seoul.
I wonder, what if they made having children illegal with a something like a $100 fine. Would that decrease their birth rate further, or would it increase it because people want to do what is forbidden to stick it to the government?
Wouldn't work. Teenagers don't do what is against authority, especially not the girls. The authority figures said to rebel against their parents back during the hippie era so they did.
Koreans are so hyperfocused on enjoying nice things that they forgot to reproduce.
This reminds me of something I saw years ago, it was like a variant of Gulliver's Travels.
There was this one bit where he finds this ghost town, and after some investigation, he discovers that they were so emotionally-driven, they were dancing around enjoying the sunlight so much, they forgot to eat and drink, and they all died.
Later he finds their opposite, a bunch of scientifically-minded highly-intelligent near-emotionless beings, one of which was looking at a cucumber under a microscope. The guy asks what the scientist is doing, and the scientist looks at him like he was at least 50 IQ points below his own and had just asked the stupidest thing ever, because it was so glaringly clear--to him--what he was doing.
A little more prying led to the scientist eventually responding "Is it not obvious? I'm trying to extract the sunlight from this cucumber."
EDIT: Well, what do you know. It WAS Gulliver's Travels.
This reminds me a little of the Greek creation myth.
First, the gods created men out of gold. But they did nothing but sit around and enjoy life. So the gods destroyed them and made men out of iron. But these men did nothing but work constantly. The gods destroyed them too, and finally made men out of flesh and bones - strong enough to work sometimes, but also able to appreciate the joys of the flesh sometimes.
Oh man have I delt with a lot of the microscope guy in my life.
That passage was deeply personal to me.
Korea is a performance driven society, which leaves little room for children. The wealth disparity is also pretty big, creating a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone is competing with each other in order to make sure they at least get a roof over their head and not end up dirt poor.
Then insert feminism.
For fun I also asked perplexity:
South Koreans are having fewer children due to a combination of social, economic, and cultural factors:
Economic pressures: The high cost of living, especially housing prices in cities like Seoul, and expensive education deter many young couples from having children. Many young people face financial instability and difficulty affording a stable home, making parenthood seem unattainable
.
Work culture and gender inequality: South Korea has a demanding work environment with long hours and significant gender pay gaps. Women often face a trade-off between career advancement and motherhood, as having children can mean quitting jobs or losing promotions. The country's work culture is not family-friendly, and parental leave is underutilized due to workplace expectations
.
Changing social attitudes: Younger generations, especially women, increasingly prioritize personal freedom, careers, and individualism over traditional family roles. Many reject the societal pressure to marry and have children, and there is less stigma around choosing to remain child-free. The patriarchal expectations and "perfect parent" myths add to the reluctance to have children
.
Declining marriage rates and stigma: Marriage rates have dropped significantly, and since most births occur within marriage in South Korea, fewer marriages mean fewer births. Additionally, social stigma against births outside marriage remains strong, limiting alternative family structures that might increase birth rates
.
Government policies insufficient: Despite large government spending on parental support and childcare, these measures have not reversed the trend due to deeper structural issues like labor market inequality, work culture, and housing costs. Experts call for a paradigm shift in policies to address these root causes effectively
The fertility rate in South Korea has fallen to a record low of 0.72 children per woman in 2023, far below the 2.1 needed for population stability, with projections indicating a halving of the population by 2100 if trends continue
.
In summary, South Korea's ultra-low birth rate results from economic hardship, demanding work culture, gender inequality, shifting social values, and ineffective policy responses, all contributing to fewer marriages and a growing number of women choosing not to have children .
They wanted to boost the economy by introducing a feminist workforce and instead ended up hamstringing the birthrate, undermining the country in the long run. Thanks, feminism.
They’ve got such a massive issue with everything. I wonder if the hyper speed rate of industrialization that Korea, Japan and China underwent compared to the Anglosphere is a potential root cause of it all.
Hyper speed of westernization. It goes hand in hand with degeneracy.
North Korea really was Best Korea.
They’re highly efficient bug people, so of course they’re speedrunning the feminist collapse.
That’s it. That’s the whole problem. Poor people all over the world have tons of kids. 99% of our ancestors were desperately poor. Economic factors are a cop out. Feminism is the entire issue. There is no reality in which society encourages and supports women spending their entire fertility window not having children without a resultant collapse in birth rates.
Yes, exactly. If economic pressures were the cause, birth rates would have collasped during the great depression and also in poorer countries around the world.
Feminism is cancer but women will never take accountability for it.
"This serum understands me more than most men I've dated"
Yeah, I'm out.
That first one is what kills me. She spends twenty entire minutes acting like a brainrotted zoomette half her own age. Complete with desperately trying to be "hip" using modern slang. It's painful.
This is exactly why a lot of men have just said, "No".
The thing I found is that once you get past the age where you're too old to raise a family, you find that women are too insufferable to be around for any other purpose.
Looks like even Korean men ripe for starting a family have already come to that conclusion early.
Yep. 40 and other than sex I don't much care for the company of ~90% of them.
Long ago, feminists said, "Men hate women."
Then-conservatives cried and said, "No, no, we love women."
Men don't like women. We love them, and occasionally hate them, but we don't like them. They hit all our stress points. Few man would voluntarily spend time with a woman who didn't have his kids.
Idk wtf happened but, over the last 15 years or so narcissism has taken over the average female’s mind in every single way, manifesting in an ever-growing list of behavioral, monetary and physical requirements a man has to measure up to if he wants sex or god forbid, a committed relationship that might lead to a family someday. Even if you are successful for awhile hitting those requirements, the moment she feels like you’re trying too hard to keep her happy, or she sees a man who appears to offer a little bit more than you do looks or money wise, she’s already got one foot out the door looking for any excuse she can use to blame you for the failed relationship, so she can avoid any sense of guilt in the aftermath. The most frustrating part of it all is how at no point will she ever spend a single second considering what she brings to the table besides sex and looks, or what she could do to make you more satisfied with the relationship. Yes women have always been a pain in the ass, I’ve been dating them since the 90’s but at least back in those days, they generally put a comparable effort into keeping you as happy as you put into keeping them happy, plus they actually cared to stay fit, and even though pretty much all women under 45 years old had what we consider to be an exceptionally sexy body nowadays, they didn’t all see themselves as perfect tens who deserved the very best men on earth. Whatever is happening with women now is different, this extremely delusional sense of self worth and their entitled mentality borders on mental illness.
Social media happened.
Very much this. Social media is an absolute poison for most people, but for women it seems especially evil.
Social media was a huge force multiplier, but we’ve been on this course since widespread adoption of birth control, divorce, and women in the work place.
The last controls on hypergamy failed, and then social media happened. Women have always been silly, delusional little bundles of neuroses that would go horizontal for a strange man if he was handsome enough, or dropped enough coin on her table.
But now, there are no controls on women. Religion cannot enforce their chastity, the law cannot enforce their contracts, and families cannot discipline their daughters.
Well said
Korea is an ancient and noble civilisation and it's terribly sad to see it destroyed in mere decades by American liberalism. It's weird that North Korea, a literal fucking starving hermit kingdom is a genetic lifeboat of the Korean people.
EDIT
I don't actually think Korea or any other country will literally collapse because there will be a minority of people that reject this, and they will have enough kids that will grow up into an empty society that will be bountiful for them. They will be the next baby boomer generation.
That seems super obvious to me. I’ve said it myself many times. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen that agrees.
I’m not so sure about that. What’s stopping all the Muslims, Indians, and Africans being imported to fill the gaps like what’s been done other places? You think a handful of native Koreans are going to stand a chance against that?
Jews replacing high-IQ populations with easily-controlled golems is kind of a separate issue. They’d be doing that even if every woman had 10 kids.
But they use the low birth rate as an excuse to do it. It’s just an excuse; just a lie. It should be opposed regardless of the excuse given.
All I’m saying is that I’m not convinced that a declining birthright is a long-term problem, because I think we are selecting for women who want kids even in the modern environment, and selecting against women who are susceptible to feminism/consumerism, etc
Because the counter point is obvious, you need a discrete number of engineers to maintain clean water and sanitation, you need a certain number of people willing to maintain sewers and fix downed power lines late at night in storms.
The competency crisis threatens this, if we make it through the population squeeze it will be bountiful on the other side for your children and grand children.
Look at South Africa.
Genetically, but North Korea is more destroyed than South Korea. Communism doesn't preserve previous cultures, traditions, or morays. It rapes them to death, and sometimes wears a skin suit of one if it becomes a useful weapon. North Korea is less Korean than South Korea is. South Korea isn't just dealing with Western Liberalism, they are also dealing with Communist subversion. Most of the Feminist movement in South Korea is sponsored and working with North Korean Communists.
North Korea is now waging a demographic war against South Korea.
Not sure why this was down voted. It is completely true, look no further then China as a perfect example, they obliterated and obfuscated so many of their traditional customs because it was not in service to communism.
Compare the culture of China to Taiwan, and its night and day, with Taiwan having a culture more reminiscent of the original Chinese culture in terms of cultural practices and celebrations.
Besides just bringing up all of Mao's horrors, one article I read is a good example of this.
The author was a Chinese entertainment journalist who had seen Kung Fu Panda 2, and said it displayed traditional chinese values, traditions, and morays better and more morally than anything that she had ever produced in China. She was a bit angry and confused why only the Americans, using cartoon characters, were able to do this, and not the people of China.
If you have to look to Jack Black for a Romantic Traditionalism, you are truly in a Modernist or Post-Modernist hellscape.
Correction, "morays" is "mores."
Hmmm. I think I may have been taught wrong.
It is pronounced "morays"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mores
Noted, thank you.
What else are they gonna do for entertainment? It's not like anyone other than Fat Boy has electricity.
I remember when a korean woman was subtly throwing shade at me for not wanting to date korean women 10 years ago, saying they were super in demand overseas. I just lolled silently
How dare you not conform to her preconceived notions of how foreigners were supposed to treat her!
It has truly come to this.
I remember when pulling your phone out at a meal was considered rude, let alone a date.
Couldn't resist it, had to leave a comment on the video.
We'll see if anyone takes the bait.
Edit: literally less than 5 minutes 🤣
If its in English and not Korean, its propaganda designed for America.
Dating, like many things in Korea, is too rigidly structured. It is too the point where everyone does their first date along the river in central Seoul.
I wonder, what if they made having children illegal with a something like a $100 fine. Would that decrease their birth rate further, or would it increase it because people want to do what is forbidden to stick it to the government?
Wouldn't work. Teenagers don't do what is against authority, especially not the girls. The authority figures said to rebel against their parents back during the hippie era so they did.