dChan
Anonymous ID: 9031db May 24, 2022, 5:32 p.m. No.16335565   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5594

LElon Musk vs. The Malthusians

BY: DAVID HARSANYI

MAY 24, 2022

 

It’s refreshing to see Tesla’s founder push back against the antinatalists and alarmists.

Elon Musk wants you to have more kids. Or, at least, that’s what I think he’s saying.

 

And according to Wikipedia, Musk has eight children. His youngest, X Æ A-Xii — pronounced, “my dad is an unfathomably wealthy eccentric”— was born in 2020. Musk, whose offspring are scattered across numerous nations, continents, and mates, is doing his part.

 

Historically speaking, Musk is correct. The affluent tend to have fewer kids. Perhaps they wait too long as they pursue careers. Perhaps they see too many children as a burden. Whatever the reasons, the West finds itself under replacement levels (due to lockdowns, birth rates rose ever-so-slightly in the United States last year for the first time since 2014, but that almost surely won’t become a trend). While it’s unlikely that political factors are the leading cause of declining rates, or that Musk would frame the debate this way, we shouldn’t ignore the decades-long effort to stigmatize large families and normalize abortion.

 

The Malthusian case for treating human beings as if they were a disease was popularized in the 1970s. Abortion was no small part of the early environmentalist movement. The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t joking when she infamously claimed that she always assumed Roe v. Wade was “about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” The now-debunked fearmongering of “The Population Bomb” was folded into existing attitudes popularized by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who believed that life under difficult circumstances wasn’t worth living at all. Well, if you happen to be a minority.

 

An iteration of this outlook remains popular among contemporary abortion advocates. “Arkansas already struggles to support vulnerable children,” Dana Bash recently told Gov. Asa Hutchinson. “Nearly 1 in 4 children in Arkansas lives in poverty. More than 4,600 kids are already in your state’s overloaded foster care system. Do you really think that your state is prepared to protect and care for even more children if abortion does become illegal there?” The left has anesthetized the abortion issue to the extent that a television personality feels comfortable arguing that fewer “children” born to the lower classes would be beneficial for society.

 

Poor people have always had more kids, and yet America has consistently gotten wealthier. There is little correlation between poverty and fertility, as some of the wealthiest places are also some of the densest in the world. A baby born in Lagos has a far better chance of ending up in poverty than a child born in Seoul despite both having virtually the same density. Certainly, capitalist nations like our own have an abundance of resources. Setting aside the economic benefits of having more children, they also help create more vibrant communities and a more dynamic nation.

 

Climate change alarmism has given anti-humanists another pretext to push antinatalism. A recent Science magazine piece argues that “[b]y choosing to have one fewer child in their family, a person would trim their carbon footprint by a whopping 58.6 metric tons—about the same emissions savings as having nearly 700 teenagers recycle as much as possible for the rest of their lives.” In 2020, more than 11,250 scientists signed a declaration saying the best thing anyone can do is have fewer kids.

 

“There’s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told her 2.5 million followers a few years ago. “And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”

 

There is no such consensus. AOC’s generation is the safest and most prosperous that’s ever lived. And despite continued high fertility rates in developing nations, we see fewer hungry people than ever, fewer people dying in conflicts over resources, and fewer perishing from extreme climate. So it’s refreshing to see someone as famous as Musk, a techno-optimist and environmentalist, argue that humans are the ones propelling a decent world rather than the ones holding it back.

 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/24/elon-musk-is-right-have-more-kids/

Anonymous ID: 9031db May 24, 2022, 6:15 p.m. No.16335826   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5898 >>6074

24 May, 2022 19:53

 

YouTube boss explains Russia strategy

 

Tech giant banned Russian media globally but wants Russians to have the same information as the Davos set, its CEO told the WEF

YouTube has blocked Russian “state-sponsored media” globally but continues to operate in Russia so people there can access the same so-called “authoritative” information as the attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the CEO of the Google-owned video platform, Susan Wojcicki, claimed on Tuesday. The conflict in Ukraine showed how information can be used as a weapon, she added.

 

When the conflict in Ukraine broke out, YouTube “realized this was an incredibly important time for us to get it right, with regard to our responsibility,” Wojcicki said in an interview with Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell, part of this week’s annual meeting of the global forum.

 

“What we’re really seeing in this conflict is that information does play a key role, that information can be weaponized,” Wojcicki added.

 

YouTube has made “really tough decisions,”she said, such as shutting down accounts of Russian media, not just in the EU – which imposed a controversial ban in early March – but globally. This was done on the basis of the platform’s internal policy, although they had received “lots of requests from various governments” to do so, Wojcicki revealed

 

A new policy was enacted regarding “verified violent events,” which puts “denial or trivialization” of the conflict in Ukraine in the same category as denying the Holocaust, according to Wojcicki.

 

The reason YouTube continues to operate in Russia, she explained, is “that we’re able to deliver independent news into Russia. So the average citizen in Russia can access for free the same information that you can access here from Davos, which we believe it’s really important to be able to help citizens know what’s going on and have perspectives from the outside world.”

 

Moscow has punished other Silicon Valley platforms for their actions, throttling Twitter for censorship and declaring Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – an extremist organization banned in Russia over its hate speech policy.YouTube has so far avoided the same fate.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/556030-youtube-weaponized-ukraine-davos/

Anonymous ID: 9031db May 24, 2022, 6:20 p.m. No.16335847   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5859 >>5898 >>6074

24 May, 2022 21:08

 

Sentenced Russian soldier can be exchanged – Ukraine

The Ukrainian prosecutor general said it was possible but it depends on the politicians

 

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova has not ruled out the possibility of exchanging Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier sentenced for war crimes by a court in Kiev.

 

On Monday, the 21-year-old sergeant was sentenced to life for fatally shooting an elderly civilian named Alexander Shelipov in the northeastern Sumy Region of Ukraine. Shishimarin’s lawyers say they are going to appeal the court’s decision.

 

Speaking during the national telethon on Tuesday, Venediktova stressed that exchanges of prisoners of war were a matter for politicians and diplomats, so she could only talk about the case from the perspective of criminal justice.

 

“Our scenarios can be completely different. You can exchange a person after court rulings. Yes, technically it is possible,” she claimed.

 

Venediktova added that the Ukrainian authorities act in accordance with all humanitarian law requirements and, as “the whole world is watching such lawsuits,” Ukraine must set “high standards.”

 

The widow of Shishimarin’s victim, Ekaterina Shelipova, said during her appearance in court that she would like to see Shishimarin get a life sentence.

 

“But if he is replaced by our Azovstal defenders, I will not object,” she added, referring to the Ukrainian troops that surrendered last week following a weeks-long blockade of Azovstal, a heavily fortified steel works in Mariupol.

 

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was concerned with the soldier’s trial, especially considering Russia currently lacked the ability to “protect his interests on site.”

 

“But this doesn’t mean that we won’t consider the possibility of continuing attempts [to help the serviceman] through other channels,” he added.

 

Earlier, Peskov made it clear that the exchange of prisoners was “being carried out constantly in one form or another.”

 

Since the launch of the Russian military attack in Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev have been accusing each other of various war crimes.

 

Moscow has launched numerous criminal cases against members of the Ukrainian military over the alleged mistreatment of Russian POWs and the shelling of residential areas in the Donbass and in Russian regions bordering Ukraine.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/556034-soldier-sentence-exchange-prosecutor/

Anonymous ID: 9031db May 24, 2022, 6:22 p.m. No.16335867   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5898 >>6074

24 May, 2022 16:16

Hungary declares state of emergency

Prime Minister Viktor Orban cites the conflict in Ukraine to invoke extraordinary powers

 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, citing the conflict in Ukraine, just hours after parliament approved the measure as a way for Budapest to respond to crisis situations.

 

Orban announced the emergency in a video address on his Facebook page. The emergency regime takes effect at midnight, and the first measures will be revealed on Wednesday.

 

“To safeguard Hungary’s national security interests, to make sure we stay out of the war and to protect Hungarian families, the government needs room to maneuver and the ability to act immediately,” Orban said in the announcement.

 

Earlier on Tuesday, the Hungarian parliament passed a constitutional amendment giving the prime minister authority to declare an emergency if there is a war or humanitarian disaster in a neighboring country, in addition to the existing crisis categories. Orban’s critics claim this will allow him to “rule by decree” and bypass lawmakers.

 

Similar criticism was levelled against Orban in March 2020, when parliament granted him sweeping emergency powers to deal with Covid-19. He insisted the emergency would be limited in duration, and it was eventually revoked in June that year.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/556024-hungary-declares-state-emergency/

Anonymous ID: 9031db May 24, 2022, 6:25 p.m. No.16335883   🗄️.is đź”—kun

24 May, 2022 14:55

 

Moscow explains Ukraine operation slowdown

 

The move is intentional and allows civilians the chance to evacuate, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu says

 

The slowdown of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is intentional with a view to evacuating the population and avoiding casualties among civilians, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday.

 

Russia’s Armed Forces are creating humanitarian corridors and announcing ceasefires to ensure the safe evacuation of residents from encircled settlements, he said, despite this approach stalling the progress of the country’s forces.

 

“Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but it is being done deliberately to avoid civilian casualties,” he explained at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Council of Defense Ministers.

 

Unlike the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Shoigu said, Russian troops are not carrying out strikes on civilian infrastructure where there may be people nearby. Instead, identified firing positions and Ukrainian military facilities are being hit with “high-precision weapons,” he added.

 

The defense minister also noted that Western countries, fearing the defeat of Kiev’s forces, are expediting shipments of lethal aid to Ukraine and are sending military advisers and personnel from private military companies, adding that the number of foreign mercenaries in the country has already exceeded 6,000.

 

However, despite punitive sanctions on Moscow and the extensive help provided to Kiev by the West,Shoigu maintained that Russia will continue its special operation until all its objectives are achieved.

 

He again insisted that the current situation in Ukraine was the result of the West refusing to take into account Russia’s proposals to resolve key issues regarding its national security concerns, which included the cessation of NATO’s expansion to the east and the non-deployment of strike weapons near Russia’s borders.

 

“Everything was done exactly the other way around. The United States set a course for the complete dismantling of the existing international security architecture, accompanying it with the global deployment of an anti-missile defense system and the development of medium-range and shorter-range missile systems,” he said, adding that NATO was right on Russia’s doorstep and had significantly increased its combat potential.

 

Shoigu also noted that the US-led bloc had intensified its efforts to get Ukraine to join the alliance and deployed coalition military infrastructure on its territory and turned the country hostile against Moscow.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/556015-russia-operation-slowdown-explanation/