its not something i follow closely, but i have seen a lot (i mean it, A LOT) of conspiracy types claiming the UN, pharmaceutical companies, and "them" are intentionally lowering our birth rates. for the usual conspiracy nut reasons: one world gubment, replace us with brown people, to kill god, easier to control, commienism, and on and on.

the reason for people rushing to engage in birth control is mostly economics. everyone i know who prevented birth at an early age explicitly did so because it would have fucked their life up to have a baby--financially, career dreams, and education dreams.

again, anecdotal, but every single person i know who prevented birth at parents young age, did this for those specific reasons. sure, sti protection are a piece as well but it pales in weight to the economics.

if we remove those barriers i have zero doubt the birth rates would rise almost overnight. and by remove those barriers, i dont mean like the ridiculous "thousand dollars to have a baby" or whatever laughable amount they're putting forward now.

for anyone curious, this wasn’t specifically trump, but it was indeed a republican congress bill. texas republican was the initial sponsor and then republicans lined up to cosponsor.

this was done to fuel their tax cuts to a small group of a certain people.

you can see all of the sponsors here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1/co...

> …removing expert humans from the loop is the deeply stupid thing the Tech Elite Who Want To Crush Their Own Workforce…

this is completely expected behavior by them. departments with well paid experts will be one of the first they’ll want to cut. in every field. experts cost money.

we’re a long, long, long way off from a bot that can go into random houses and fix under the sink plumbing, or diagnose and then fix an electrical socket. however, those who do most of their work on a computer, they’re pretty close to a point where they can cut these departments.

in every industry in every field, those will be jobs cut first. move fast and break things.

this seems strange to me, shouldn’t we expect a high quality journal to retract often as we gather more information?

obviously this is hyperbole of two extremes, but i certainly trust a journal far more if it actively and loudly looks to correct mistakes over one that never corrects anything or buries its retractions.

a rather important piece of science is correcting mistakes by gathering and testing new information. we should absolutely be applauding when a journal loudly and proactively says “oh, it turns out we were wrong when we declared burying a chestnut under the oak tree on the third thursday of a full moon would cure your brothers infected toenail.”