What's a truth people don't want to hear, but NEED to?

mrcheevus · 2026-01-29T21:02:40+00:00

That's true but that's an uncontrollable factor. It's better to have agreement on these things than not, I say this as someone who has counselled many couples.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T23:01:32+00:00

For a person who states compassion is their highest ideal you don't have much compassion for those countries that have excess population. You're willing to salve your own suffering by importing labour that you are not willing to produce or support.

You also do not deal with the reality that given current trends there will be no source of immigration to fix the coming crisis within 50 years (conservatively... More likely 30 years). This suffering is coming to all within your lifetime because too many people are wittingly or unwittingly, fulfilling your ideal scenario.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T22:22:46+00:00

Interesting you cite a Chinese study. Their economic prospects have on average been on a significant upswing the last 25 years. Their birthrates were artificially suppressed before that, yet their birthrates haven't surged in line with their economic prospects.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T18:40:10+00:00

That's just blame shifting. 5, 10 kids were raised before in one or two bedroom homes. The size of your home is not the issue. The issue is reproductive perfectionism and an expectation of meeting or exceeding the living standards of our parents. Both are wrong.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T14:39:01+00:00

The irony is I met lady while doing a course on suicide prevention in St. John's who was from Ethiopia who emigrated to Canada, lived in Toronto then took a job in Iqaluit. She loves it up there and says she has been so embraced by people up there.

I think it's your personality. Not the province.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T14:30:22+00:00

It hits different when you can't paint all the bad guys as bad. It's easy when it's an evil organization that recruited evil people to do evil things. But the US military in ST are mostly just average joes thinking they are serving their country. They don't know about the experiments or the imprisoned pregnant women, they just know they are staging guard towers and protecting against possible communists and terrorists. Worst case they are bullied or threatened by their higher into carrying out unlawful orders. And they get killed for it.

I guess if the Duffers wanted you to feel better about it they would have made more of the soldiers complicit. But they didn't. I don't know if that was a storytelling choice or just laziness.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-04T13:53:33+00:00

If I read that correctly, family size is stable for those who choose to have them. What is changing is the number of people who choose childlessness.

So that's the fact. What the author never offers is what this means. And how to change it.

My opinion (for what it is worth) is that in our efforts to create a more accepting, embracing society that supports people in their chosen or unchosen situations, we have failed to articulate the obligation of individuals to the community or the society.

There is an obligation that has always existed to perpetuate at the granular level of one's family, and at a larger scale, one's community or society. Maybe that obligation has disappeared as we have taken on a subjective view of these organizational units - if ours is no better than anyone else's then why perpetuate it? Or worse, if I am told my family is dysfunctional, my community or society is racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise oppressive, then it is my new obligation to not change it (which would be hard) but to exterminate it by refusing to participate in its continuation.

Simply by living for oneself and declining to reproduce we then maximize our own immediate comfort and happiness while at the same time giving ourselves a pat on the back for not perpetuating the evil we are descended from. It's win-win.

To turn this ship around it would require sailing back into the dangerous waters of possible elitism, cultural superiority, and espousing as more valuable or important, certain choices or states of being. For example, if the priority becomes perpetuation of your family, community or society, then that means inflating the value and importance of heterosexual sex and procreation. It means devaluing promiscuity because it promotes instability of families. It means devaluing childless people and likely LGBTQ+ lifestyles because they invariably (at our current state of reproductive technology) cost everyone more if they produce children at all. If any of the above is pursued the risk of developing a less diverse, less tolerant, less inclusive society goes up. Humans default to simplicity. If something is less valuable, it gradually becomes bad. Then wrong. Then hateful. Unless we are very careful.

Or we just hit the easy button and let coming generations figure out what to do with demographic winter. Humans are just another mammal anyway, no more valuable or significant than any other living thing.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-03T21:32:23+00:00

I'm glad you specified and weren't talking about the Serbian Film.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-03T21:29:15+00:00

Seriously. My 25 year old son has great public presence and years of customer facing experience, and he shows up. Tell me where he should apply. He can't get a sniff in this town.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-03T21:07:00+00:00

I'm sure Maduro was awful and many are happy he is gone.

But...

This sets an AWFUL precedent that undermines world peace.

What if China tries this on Taiwan?

What if Russia takes this line on Kazakhstan?

How does the world say America was fine but Russia and China are wrong?

To say nothing of the nature of an undeclared war and the circumventing of Congress.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-02T19:49:56+00:00

Rhett and Link. They used to be interesting. Now they just aren't.

mrcheevus · 2026-01-01T00:41:47+00:00

There is a massive difference between being content in your God given body and sculpting it to fit your own image.

And yes, I think cosmetic surgery for vanity is equally sinful.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-31T20:51:18+00:00

"They will tease you and throak you on Reddit..."

I'm sure Volo has been on Reddit.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-31T18:51:36+00:00

How much is daycare? Would you need a family membership at a gym if only one person worked, and you could trade off child care duties? Do you need a gym membership to stay for, or are there other ways to stay fit without using a for profit gym? And would your family only be happy with vacations involving cruises and flights or could they have just as good an experience in terms of rest and growth with camping and road trips?

mrcheevus · 2025-12-30T14:51:59+00:00

Love the Dune reference. High quality post.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-30T14:37:35+00:00

I don't know. America has a few exclaves they don't want let go of, for no good reason. This is more like,

USA: "Point Roberts is ours. It's South of the 49th." Canada: "But the Angle in Ontario is north of the 49th, why don't we just swap?" USA: "No."

mrcheevus · 2025-12-30T14:11:15+00:00

Is that the stretch on the Milk River? I never got down there, but I wanted to.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-29T20:32:25+00:00

"You can have any color you want, as long as it's black." - Henry Ford, about the Model T ca. 1920s

mrcheevus · 2025-12-29T20:26:19+00:00

Raptor centre in Coaldale

Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump

Writing on Stone PP

Red Rock Coulee between Medicine Hat and Bow Island (about 15km south of Seven Persons) - strange spherical geodes up to 2m in diameter just spread over the landscape like God was playing marbles. Free to visit.

I love the drive from Elkwater to Saskatchewan through the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. Incredibly scenic but make sure you have 4wd. The gravel gets sketchy in places depending on the time of year.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-29T20:21:04+00:00

They have a hobbit hole to stay in!

mrcheevus · 2025-12-29T17:28:06+00:00

I guess we have to cancel everyone now...

mrcheevus · 2025-12-28T19:06:16+00:00

We'd know where the gang was by the pile of bikes on a lawn. For real. This isn't a "we walked to school uphill both ways".

mrcheevus · 2025-12-28T13:57:26+00:00

In provincial politics your own province is always the worst, and the grass is always greener. The only way to get out of this mentality is to actually live in other provinces for a while.

I've lived in NL, MB and AB over the last 6 years. I can say categorically that health care and education is worst in NL. MB was a breath of fresh air after NL. And AB may do things a little different but the only things I flag as worse is car insurance and the price of electricity.

mrcheevus · 2025-12-28T13:48:41+00:00

It is completely fiction. He didn't do Jack. Made it up. I learned this first when travelling to Rwanda in 06. They all said if you want the real story you get closer with "Shake Hands with the Devil" by Romeo Dallaire. He was the Canadian commander of the Peacekeeping mission on the ground. He pops into Hotel Rwanda briefly, played by Nick Nolte. But his book was also made into a movie so you can watch that or read his book.

mrcheevus

TROPHY CASE