Putin is urging women to have as many as 8 children after so many Russians died in his war with Ukraine

Stamau123@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 964 points – Putin is urging women to have as many as 8 children after so many Russians died in his war with Ukraine
businessinsider.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging Russians to have more children. 
"Large families must become the norm," Putin said in a speech Tuesday. 
Russian birth rates are falling amid war in Ukraine and a deepening economic crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country's population crisis.

Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm.

"Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, had seven, eight, or even more children," Putin said.

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I find it hard to imagine wanting to have kids just so your dictator has more meat to feed into his meat grinder. Perhaps the only good news is Putin hopefully doesn't have 18 more years in him, so the kids won't have to deal with him directly, but who knows who will sit in the throne next...

I doesn't work either. Appeals to nationalism, religion, and even straight up paying and providing luxury benefits to people, in order to have them start having more kids just did nothing in the long run. The world is different. Your children are more likely to become independent adults when you put your resources into a smaller number of children. The cost/benefits ratio of having large families to produce stability, and increase the chances at least one child will be successful, has completely reverse from 100+ years ago.

Putin will open rape/baby factories for female prisoners next. Just watch.

That might end up being the scary reality for the women and girls who have been abducted in Ukraine.

The scale at which they would need to do this would make even forcing pregnancy and birth not really sustainable. Especially when the child are being birthed into the world where the economics are against large fertility rates.

I think the irony is that you don't even need to do something like that. Just open a bunch of "orphanages" that are all about hammering absolute loyalty to the dear leader, offer to pay money for any kids that are left there, reap the rewards in a couple of years. As a double whammy, parents are also free to continue fully dedicating to work.

Libertarians would probably have the weirdest hate boner if that happened, selling kids (great!) to the govt (horrible!)

Christ my mind went somewhere else. I thought you were gonna suggest that after they open the orphanages and they get populated they would offer the kids a bunch of benefits once they were of age to start breeding. I bet a significant portion of those kids would take it in a heart beat since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

Legaly, all orphans who don't already own home, will get one from state. But governor wants 5th yacht too.

Not to say I would put trying out of the question. It just won't work either.

I don't know if or when they ended the Maternity Medal, Order of Maternal Glory, and Mother Heroine awards for having large families in Russia. I don't know much about the programs, just what a friend who emigrated told me about them (and what wikipedia says)

You're already projecting compassion he doesn't have by assuming he'd wait for them to turn 18. If he thought it would work, he'd march 5 year olds in bomb vests over the border then have Elon announce that Ukraine kills children.

Yeah "make more people for me to kill" doesn't seem like a winning message.

I mean it's unlikely Putin lives another 16 years, so even if they're sending 15 year olds to the front this won't help the war machine

It's more about long-term population loss. There's a reason combined-arms forces are used and mass infantry assaults are not. Problem is, Russian military hardware sucks for a lot of different and systemic reasons so that option isn't realistic over a large theater.

Putin is straight up bleeding Russia out and it's really sad that this many people are displaced and dying over one man's ego and lust for his station.

The hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die liberty will never perish.

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I wonder if women will start getting medals for babies, like soviet times? Another question, if these women are raising 8 kids, and all the men are dead in a sunflower field south of Avdivika, who the hell is supposed to be working in Russia for the next generation? Just banking on enslaving Ukraine to pay for the cost of enslaving Ukraine?

Thatā€™s probably what Russia was roughly planning to do, yeah.

This whole endeavor has been top to bottom stupid

From Russiaā€™s end: absolutely.

But also from the NATO end - why in the ever loving fuck arenā€™t we just giving Ukraine enough to actually restore their borders? All the counterarguments effectively stem from deeply wrongheaded and dated geopolitical strategies that Kissinger would have not only loved, but in fact specifically made efforts to personally support.

I think winning is not the goal of the Western military, the goal is to reduce the amount of military equipment in Russia to a historic low. This canā€™t be accomplished by winning quickly.

People need to understand the west aren't exactly acting in the name of moral good, but pragmatic egoism, instead. Just because helping Ukraine is good in this instance, doesn't mean governments do it for the same reasons for why most people think they should get help.

It's realpolitik, and human lives don't matter. As much as I despise that thought.

The west may be better, but it's still not good.

Currently, just like at any other time since they attacked, it's entirely up to Russia to decide how much equipment they will lose on the war. The speed of Ukraine defense won't impact the result.

Thatā€™s an interesting possibility that I hadnā€™t considered.

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Absolutely, and they pretty much have to commit to that plan at this point.
Before their losses started piling up the way they have been, I'd assumed his plan was to install a puppet government and "annex" useful provences into the Soviet Union Russian federation.
But with the population losses that require women to become livestock for the sake of the country, he's absolutely going to enslave able bodied workers in every region he's able to hold onto.

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They actually introduced pretty much that exact thing back in 2008, the Order of Parental Glory. Have more children to fuel the machine, please

Wait, what? Interesting. I didn't know about its existance.

Narayana Murthy: People should be working 70 hours/week.

Vladimir Putin: Why so few?

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Hey Putine, let me help ā€¦..

All you gotta do is excuse people from military service for being a parent. Pretty soon all military aged males will be parents and youā€™ll greatly reduce the number of deaths in Ukraine. Win-win

That's actually pretty brilliant. Although it would also grind new recruits to a halt. It's almost like he should retreat and take the L and try rebuilding

All you gotta do is excuse people from military service for being a parent. Pretty soon all military aged males will be parents and youā€™ll greatly reduce the number of deaths in Ukraine. Win-win

Sorta kinda exists, but you need at least 4 children below 18 years. But I don't think this increases amount of military aged males or any doctors being parents.

Oh, so you need to start at the age of 14 max.

I mean children's age))))

He meant that you'd have to start fathering children at 14 so that you could have 4 of them under 18 by the time you turn 18, which would be the age for military service.

Ah. I got it. So you won't be conscripted after school. Well, there are other ways to delay it like leaving country or getting professional or higher education.

Or you can start at 17, but you will need 4 of them. MIMO approach. Or MISO. Depends how you view it.

Yeah, I know. I was joking. The ol' Lemmy switcheroo.

That's one way to deal with an ageing population demographic.

Another way is to perhaps not throw every able-bodied young man into a militaristic meat grinder because you still yearn for the Soviet Union days.

He's probably yearning for the Russian Empire instead of Soviet Union.

Russian governmental officials have some really outlandish views for an average Russian person.

They're very religious, believe in conspiracies, actively anti-lgbt, don't support abortions, antisemitic to name a few. None of these qualities are present in the general masses. They are in their own informational bubble.

As far as I understand it, he believes that the Russian Empire and collective Europe were always at each other's throats, and that never changed for over 200 years. At the same time, Russia is a successor of the Russian Empire, and USSR is being omitted for some reason. That's the simplistic explanation of it.

For you to understand how crazy that is, Russians (in general) have little to no idea of how the Empire worked and what the views those people held. USSR essentially wiped out all of that culture.

Ah, so Russian women are broodmares for the state now?

Where are these women going to find suitable partners to pick from? The smart ones left or will leave, the others will be growing sunflowers.

Putin seems to be in a competition with Trump for the stupidest authoritarian prize.

Javier Milei, Matteo Salvini, Boris Johnson, Geert Wilders, Jair Bolsonaro & a frightening whole lot of others have entered the chat.

Well .. I don't want to say literally Hitler, but ...

Literally Hitler

(No need to thank me)

Not Hitler, not even close. Im not allowing what he did nor defending him, but what Hitler did compared with Putin is major difference. It does not change the fact that both of them deserve a special place in hell

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So, basically, Putin is telling Russian women to "get fucked for Putin"?

Thanks for helping me start my weekend with a laugh after a rough week.

Isn't that what Elon said too ?

If this is true, this has to be the ultimate way of not really dealing with the population crisis upon us. Not saying any government is doing a great job here as they are all beating around the bush and not addressing root causes, but this one from Putin has to be the most delusional of them all.

There is no population crisis, unless you mean there are too many people. Most of the work we do is entirely unnecessary and only exists to help billionaires become trillionaires. At least that's the case in countries that don't need meat to throw in front of bullets.

Necessary jobs are mostly farming, mining, manufacturing, and customer service. The first two have already been automated to need only a tiny percentage of the workforce they once require. Manufacturing is mostly there as well, and is getting closer all the time. Customer service still employs a lot of humans, but even those jobs are being replaced or augmented with physical or logical bots.

The crisis is that without enough babies, there will not be enough young people to support the older people. It is why places like Canada have such high immigration as it offsets the lack of births from Canadian citizens. Now, it is a crisis from a planet health perspective. No. It is the best thing that could happen right now as we really could use less people and their associated carbon emissions, but it will still impact the economy hard especially since it is becoming a steep birth rate decline in so many countries. Feels like a free fall right now and to address is going to take as much change as it will take to fix the climate emergency. Might even have some of the same solutions.

I say this as someone who had lots of kids - you cannot build an economy on a continuous explosion of population. That is ridiculous. There are enough people - the population of the earth has more than doubled in my lifetime. I'd much rather work till I die, than tell someone else they must reproduce. Let people who want kids have them, let people who don't want kids not have any, it's working out and population growth has slowed and hopefully population will decrease. That's fine, yes many of us will be old at once, that's not the fault of the non-reproducing people. There wouldn't be fewer old people even if everyone had kids, it has to happen before things settle back out.

Very much agree. Besides, it is looking like we really are entering an era of significant human life extension if you believe all the longevity breakthroughs.

Don't care, I'll be dead.

Maybe. There is serious breakthroughs with longevity tech with aging and diseases perhaps being a thing of the past in the decades to come. Maybe.

Lucky we have automation and AI making everyone jobless, will be plenty of people and machines to look after the older generations

That is a real crisis on the horizon as the evidence so far is that there is no support for those who get displaced. I am counting down the days till my career is replaced. I am Imagineering a VR Theme Park and am certain that in the years to come you will be able to ask AI to make you one via a prompt and it will customize it to your tastes. When that happens I need to find a new career. Unsure what but I am hopeful that new careers will open up that we cannot foresee today. That or we will all be in a hellscape of which I have positioned myself to weather.

I think if we don't change the system then we're going to have a world of hurt for pretty much everyone, if we do change the system into something that facilitate an existence where people can survive periods without work or with minimal work then it could become a golden age.

A lot of the big problems with that comes from legacy obsessions which persist even when technical solutions have displaced the need or reason behind them. Building sites are already nothing like they used to be, the cost of construction has fallen dramatically especially in labour time but house prices rise because they're not tied to construction cost but availability, which is often kept purposely low so rich people who run government can have big numbers in their balance s sheets. At some point this stress point will fracture.

Subtle automation already makes things like surveying and designing incredibly easy, we're not far from the point where ai assisted architecture tools are as easy to use as the Sims and will produce plans which can be automatically passed or rejected for the technical side of planning. Not only will more visible forms of automation like concrete shuttering and pouring become more widely adopted this again reducing the time and cost of construction but they'll have sensor driven analysis which can be uploaded to local authorities for instant inspection and verification. Likewise for cable routing, pipework, insulation, plastering, brickwork, roofing, decorating...

When a house can be demolished and rebuilt in weeks for the cost of machine rental and materials then the housing crisis will fade away, especially when industrial areas shrink due to efficiency of automation, office space gets repurposed, and transport infrastructure gains efficiency - areas like where I live in the UK with absurd property prices are almost certainly going to see automated construction tools take a lot of industry and transport underground - shooting cargo down small underground networks could replace a huge amount of road and rail usage which would be a huge positive for people and free up space for housing.

I got off track but what I'm getting at is we can use these things to solve major problems in our society, but we need to make sure people can lose their job and go through peeiods of adjustment without it ruining their life.

I agree, but as you pointed out, we already have many tools to solve most of our global issues, but instead we carry on like we like in a scarcity world. I am concerned about the AI disruption as I am not seeing evidence of us really caring for those impacted let alone the millions impacted daily by how the global economy is run. We can fix so many things, but donā€™t. Heck, even getting rid of day light savings is a cause too far it seems despite overwhelming support.

That is depressingly true, though I do think there's hope. I'm in a lot of open source dev and design communities, they're flourishing and growing steadily because they're able to build on all the prior developments. Every day people are writing code to improve design tools, and writing code to improve programming languages and development environments so that it's easier to make better design tools .. and the better the design tools get the easier it is to make better designs on them, easier to build on prior open source designs and improve or customise them.

I already use AI coding tools in my open source project, they're awkward and not always useful but for certain tasks they can save hours - for example I got it to divide a circle into an arbitrary amount of sections and return the quadrant coordinates, I could have worked it out and coded it myself but not doing things like that allows me to make much more progress. The easier it gets to code the more time I'll be focused on making it do useful things which will result in a far better product.

Likewise the complexity and quality of stuff I see on 3d printing model sites continues to improve, printers continue to improve... We can't be far away from ai assisted pick&place enabling complex electronics to be built into designs - there will be a cheap open source printer that can make everything except the magnets in the motors. A lot of companies are going to find the their entire product line is completing against items that can be made better and cheaper in any tech guys garage.

It wasn't eBay that took down Tandy and Maplins it was the people with any garage space buying the same bulk orders of components but selling them without the overheads. The same will happen to Hotpoint and Logitech, people who have bootstrapped high quality fabrication labs in the garage selling things made from open source designs.

They won't be able to stop it, they might slow it for a while but progress is as a river in that you can only hold it back so long.

This is encouraging for the open source movement. https://youtu.be/vaMxTSm53UU?si=EGygL-AZBkfsDr-q

Yeah it really is, I think we're going to see a lot more FlOSH starting to take niches in the market

The crisis is that without enough babies, there will not be enough young people to support the older people.

So you didn't read a word I said beyond the first sentence. Got it.

I do not understand your comment as my comment was building upon yours as you went down the billion support path and I just added the old age pension path.

Necessary jobs are mostly farming, mining, manufacturing, and customer service.

And elder care, which is set to be a real growth industry

That's fair, but even in that there is a whole lot that automation can do to address the ratio of elderly to caregivers. Japan is ahead of the curve on population decline, and they are not exactly fond of immigrants. That has been a huge driver behind the development of technologies for elder care.

That and healthcare are counted as services iirc, which can contribute to some confusion when you look at 70% ish of the economy being made up of that. But most jobs being created now are like the top commenter said, minimum wage service jobs that don't meet the needs of employees and aren't great for customers, either

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They've had a population crisis in Russia for at least 20 years.

More than that. We have a giant demographical pit starting down from 25 y.o. and bottoming out at around 20-22 y.o.

It's WW2 stacked on top of the economic collapse in the 90ies and now this. It is ugly.

I have a friend who left Russia to get away from bullshit like the Order of Maternal Glory.

Looked up. It is order of coutry that no longer exists. It is impossible to get one.

Maybe not exactly, but... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine

Mother Heroine (Russian: ŠœŠ°Ń‚ŃŒ-Š³ŠµŃ€Š¾ŠøŠ½Ń, Mat'-geroinya) is an honorary title that was used in the Soviet Union and now Russia, awarded for bearing and raising a large family.

On 15 August 2022 Vladimir Putin signed a decree reviving the honorary title.[2]

Also Putins intent is to turn Russia back into the Soviet Union so it's not at all surprising he's re-using things like this.

Also Putins intent is to turn Russia back into the Soviet Union

You wish. Straight to fucking Russian Empire.

Do not really see a problem with this one. Don't most countries recognize families with X number of children and give some benefits? It doesn't immediately mean everyone starts having 10 children families.

I know that in America they recognize it in the form of "thanks for the worker, here is financial assistance for diapers/food/etc if you meet under the poverty line of household income so your kids don't clog up our hospital system with your uninsured, diaper-rash-turned-infection starving children, and have some child care tax credits either way."**

In Sweden I think every newborn comes home with a huge box of diapers clothes formula if needed etc. And I think it's a monthly box for X number of months.

But large families aren't looked at as a status symbol like they're trying to make happen in Russia, and as it was in the Soviet Union. Literal Military Metals of Honor 3 levels deep for the amount of children you had (Level 1 was highest honor, level 3 was lowest).

**Except maybe for some certain sects of certain religions, like some of Catholicism and Mormonism. But that's for more messengers to spread the word of Jesus/Joseph Smith. That's all the frame of reference I have.

Actual medal does seem weird, true. I think I have heard Finland having a similar care package, sounds pretty cool and probably the best option to first of all guarantee parents do not get a monetary allowance that could be spent elsewhere, booze for example.

Looked into my country laws and in Latvia you get a monthly allowance based on total count of children up to realistically 18 or 20 years (depends if you continue education)

  • one child - EUR 25 per month
  • two - EUR 100 per month (EUR 50 for each child);
  • three - EUR 225 per month (EUR 75 for each child);
  • four and more children - EUR 100 per month for each child.

If you have 3+ kids you also can get a card that has benefits / reduced cost for various services.

Let's keep going until there's a 1:39 male to female ratio. That'd be ideal. Not strange at all.

Letā€™s keep going until thereā€™s a 1:39 male to female ratio. Thatā€™d be ideal. Not strange at all.

It's not about the ratio, it's about a total amount of bodies, regardless of gender, available to run/work the country, in the future generations.

They already took a big hit in World War II, and they're taking another hit now, and most nations taking two pop hits in a row don't recover well.

I mean, with Russia, it seems like it's just been constant: WW1, revolution, WW2, Stalin's reign, now this.

If anything, rather than WW2 and this being "in a row", that time frame includes probably the biggest gap in the past century without a grievous population loss.

For as much as we (Americans) regard Russia (as a state) with an adversarial eye, as far as Russians (the actual common people) are concerned, I kinda feel for them. Seems like their entire history is dominated by difficulty, hardship, and death.

Then again maybe that impression is precisely the impression that the American education system has very carefully cultivated...

If anything, rather than WW2 and this being ā€œin a rowā€, that time frame includes probably the biggest gap in the past century without a grievous population loss.

I'm speaking towards actual graphs I've seen before from education videos (RealLifeLore, etc.) on the subject that show specific peaks in population drops following war, and how they affect Russia directly.

I wasn't trying to elaborate on the whole history of Russia, just that they've had large population drops because of death via war.

It's like the copypasta about Russian history,

.... and then it got worse.

Maybe he doesn't realize it'll take a couple decades, and he'll be dead by then, for any women having children now to see them old enough to fight or have any impact on the country

I think he's under the delusion that he will remain in power until he's 90

Or he firmly believes his successor (whenever that happens) will glorify him as a savior of some sort and be left with a glorious country, full of opportunities for the young adults. Delusions are free, just like dreams

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Hmm. Sure, Vlad. Wait: how much will that pay, per child per month?

Children are an investment! After a couple of years, you can send them to the mines and reap all the rewards.

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I knew they werenā€™t winning, but I didnā€™t realize things were this bad. Fuck. I mean, yay for Ukraine, but damn, Putin is a horrible human being.

Things are pretty bad for Ukraine, too.

Both of them are relying on conscription and made it illegal for military-aged men to leave the country.

It is not illegal for military-aged men to leave Russia - only if you already have draft papers on hand.

The question is - which countries are still ready to accomodate Russians on their side.

only if you already have draft papers on hand.

Or with new laws if voencom marked you as drafted.

The question is - which countries are still ready to accomodate Russians on their side.

Btw which? Asking for a friend. Do not suggest Belarus or Kazahstan.

There are always Armenia and Georgia, but they are already overburdened with Russians. There are Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, there is Azerbaijan, there is Kyrgyzstan, there is Mongolia, there is Serbia, there is Thailand, there are less obvious/more expensive/more extreme options like Equador, Palestine (eh), the Bahamas, Mauritius, Marocco, Panama, and there are unrecognized countries like South Osetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria. And if you have time to prepare visa in advance there are many, many more options.

South Osetia and Abkhazia are Putin's puppets.

Thanks.

And if you have time to prepare visa in advance there are many, many more options.

Hmm... What are chances of getting visa somewhere in EU?

Slim, to say the least.

Still, you can try getting educational/work visa somewhere in Finland, or France, for example, and go from there.

Or, if you're in danger other than mobilization, you can try to request political asylum - things get worse with that too, but it's still possible.

The problem is under a dictatorship no one can really tell you things are bad, until that problem boils over into another generals line of authority.

Which for Russia, they are finding out, that even if they win this war, they will have to scale down production because they won't have the manpower for that production in 20 years

Which means even if they can hold Crimea, they won't have the production to work Crimea as well as the Ukrainians.

Thing is: Ukraine cannot work Crimea like it used to either because they face the same, gruesome problem

Terrible, but least they can hope for some kind of help after the war. Theyā€™re not an international pariah like Russia is.

The gruesome problem keeping Ukraine from working crimea is the Russian state's insistence on wiping Ukraine off the map. It's been 100 years of subjugation at best.

Ah yes, the ol Zap Braningan Strategy.

Brilliant strategy involving sending wave after wave of your own men to die until the war magically wins itself.

Good luck solving the fertility problem. I don't think any country has managed to figure it out yet.

It's not a problem. When us women have the resources to be able to educate ourselves in the realities of the bull shit that's been peddled to us, we stop being brood mares.

It isn't a problem. There are already too many people on the Earth.

There are enough resources, they're just not distributed correctly.

Nonsense. Sure, we are getting what we need out of the planet, but we are destroying it in the process. Modern agriculture absolutely cannot continue producing what it is now indefinitely. Fertilizer alone is massive issue, never mind the destruction of old growth forest for farmland, or the contributions to climate change.

Nonsense.

Close to one third of total agricultural production is wasted yearly, with almost half of that never even leaving the fields.

Fertilizers are another scarecrow but there is a never ending source of nitrogen and phosphor right at hand going to waste in many countries with no second thought: waste water treatment muds.

And there are more fields laying fallow today than there were 50 years ago in many countries.

More forest is cut down to be replaced by palm tree for oil than for conventional agriculture and the clearing for cattle is just bad manegement of lands.

Reducing our agricultural output by 1/3 wouldn't come close to making it sustainable, though it would certainly be an improvement. Fertilizer costs have been a big problem worldwide, so if using waste products were practical we would be doing it already. Shifting weather patterns from climate change are why a lot of those fields are fallow, and that's only going to get worse.

Countries that use less than average resources are working far harder to use more resources than rich countries are working to use less, and I don't see a plan to make that change. As individual choices go, no choice a person can make will reduce their impact more than having one less child than they otherwise would. We just don't need 10 billion people on this planet.

Adoption of new alternatives is not easy nor fast.

Try and give a call to your local waste water treatment plant and ask for a tour. Tell them you want to understand better what they are doing and how, what destination they give to muds, etc. You'll be surprised to know most countries sent those nutrient rich by-products to landfills for decades and only very recently the muds started to be valued.

And are you sure about that? Because I'd quicker point to population exodus from rural to city areas.

The discussion about cutting back on agricultural production is just starting. Too much goes to waste, when too many go without. The point is that by reducing production, resource management will be a forced point of action. Debateable but it is as valid as any other idea.

But like it or not, the human population will peak and stabilize at the 10 billion and we can sustain ourselves without burning the house down.

Name one society that has ever managed significant decreases in production of anything to help the environment. We've found ways to lower the impact of increasing production, and we've even found ways to reduce the impact of current production. I can't think of a single instance of a society broadly adopting a reduction of goods and services for the environment.

The fact is that, while there are many improvements to be made, every one of those improvements would work better with a lower population. There are also no realistic projections of humanity reaching a reasonable level of long term sustainability. We also have a long history of badly failing to reach projected sustainability targets. Ignoring a multiplicative factor that impacts sustainability in every area is just foolish.

Yeah, we are projected to peak around 10b. 9b would be better though, or even 9.9b. 1b would have been fantastic, though probably still too high. But what happens when you get all the lifestyle and efficiency increases you dream of? How do you know that population trends won't shift? It doesn't take much. Just a +/-0.2 difference in children per family can have a profound impact in one direction or the other. You are gambling everything on an assumption that trends won't change. Trends always change.

It never existed because it was never a problem.

And the problem here is not to reduce for the sake of environment but for the sake of not wasting resources for production: energy, water, machinery, etc. Things that cost money that can not be recouped. Environmental impact is a very welcome off shoot.

There are at least three possible scenarios to counter your position:

  1. nothing changes and current trend of population shrinking maintains

  2. everything gets better, standards of life improve and number of offspring decreases for increase of parental investment per child

  3. everything gets worse and either we kill ourselves or the planet does

Numbers, statistics, projections, whatever argument we put on the table, boiled down, comes to these.

You are both oversimplifying the reality and overcomplicating it at the same time. There are thousands of different aspects to sustainability, including many that we simply haven't identified yet. Modern farming methods that provide us such great yields are simultaneously robbing us of important nutrients that aren't being replenished in the soil. This has a knock on effect to meat and dairy as well. We are running out of fresh water for farming, residential, and industrial use. Forever chemicals are building up in the oceans, aquafers, soil, and air. Oceans and rivers are running out of fish. Noise pollution, light pollution, heat pollution, and just ordinary misplaced trash don't seem likely to abate any time soon. Good luck getting cooperation on any of these issues, when we can't even get people to wear masks in the middle of a plague.

Every one of these aspects of sustainability will relate differently to your scenarios. In the end, we are left with the simple truth that every effort to address every one of these issues will be aided by a reduced population. Either reduced from where it is today, or reduced from whatever future predictions you want to work from. (I've been ignoring the fact that humanity has generally been pretty shit about accurately predicting the future, because those predictions are entirely irrelevant to my point).

I'm not talking about culling the population, ethnic cleansing, forced sterilization, etc. People should be absolutely free to make their own family planning choices. But there are lots of ways to promote having fewer children without being coercive. Child free lifestyles should be more respected. Birth control should be more widely available. People should be more aware of the fragility of this planet, and the impact we have on it. Having one less kid than one would otherwise have is always going to blow away the impact of whatever other things we do to promote sustainability.

But there are lots of ways to promote having fewer children without being coercive

i don't believe you can do that without artificially selecting one part of the populace, but not another, or just having disproportionate impacts. even this comment was written in english, and even if it's well-intentioned, everyone who doesn't read english is not subject to the propaganda in it. by posting it on lemmy, you are also targeting lemmy and the broader fediverse as a demographic. so everyone who's not online is already immune to this propaganda.

Your pushing the boundaries of "propaganda" pretty extensively there. Sure, technically it could apply, but then it applies to any political opinion communicated in any way by anyone, including you.

Of course it won't be communicated equally. Neither will messages encouraging more children, something far more common from current governments. The right wing in this country (and others) explicitly encourages more "white Christian" children because of "replacement theory". That's far more sinister than suggesting that people in general should consider the impact before having more children.

Nothing in reality is ever totally fair, just like no society is ever totally sustainable. A perpetual motion machine is only possible in an ideal world, and so is a sustainable society. We will only ever be able to approximate sustainability, and that will require contributions systemic and cultural changes. That means "propaganda", and it means that some demographics will cooperate more than others, meaning it won't be "fair" regardless of the approach.

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Doesn't that also equate to we've managed to kill eight of your family members?

Well I wonder whose fault this was? Probably the guy who was so bloodthirsty and crazy that he actually annexed Chernobyl of all places

Meat shields arenā€™t free.

Literally repeating histories mistakes from 80 years ago. It will take a couple generations to even start to heal this wound.

2016-2020s really feels like the greatest hits of the crises of the 20th century. I guess the last ww2 vet dies and everyone decides to forget everything.

2016-2020s really feels like the greatest hits of the crises of the 20th century.

Yeah and it's not even a remix, it's just a clip show.

everyone decides to forget everything

You must be living under a rock somewhere

This is truly the greatest orphan grinding machine of All Time.

Maybe they can open the borders to immigrants?

Those also will be thrown into the grinder.

All they get are 70 year old alcoholics to lay back and think of the empire for.

I doubt any immigrant on its right mind would move to Russia, and even if some did, no immigrants on its right mind would fight a war for RuSsIA

More meat for the grinder.

Would you like to know more?

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Even Putler wants to flirt with the idea of turning his empire into fucking Gilead.

Create more children to be used as cannon fodder by a dystopian and antihumanism regime? I'm sure that will go over well.

To some extent, it actually does go over well, sadly.

he really needs to skip a step and go full Krieg and just grow his cannon fodder in tubes

edit: the difference is that Krieg is competant

So is this him just admitting he wants to start another war in 2042 or something?

also obligatory "Fuck Russia.. no not like that!"

He is 71 right now. He would be pushing 90 in '42. If he internalizes his inner Kissinger to live to 100, he can replay the "Great Patriotic War" of '45.

A bit of a dark shower thought, but wouldn't this whole terrible situation really, really benefit China who has a larger male to female population as a whole?

I think China has already been benefitting from having a useful senile neighbour for a long time, this just allows for more benefits.

The only reason China hasn't merged with Russia is because then they would have to build an infrastructure there. >!Partially/s!<

but is he willing to guarantee a sack of potatoes for each one that dies in his war, and can we maybe get a few of those potatoes up front

maybe get a few of those potatoes up front

It's good to see such unbridled optimism in these dark times.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm.

Putin's remarks come amid decades of falling birth rates in Russia that its invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent economic fallout have only made worse.

In October, the UK's Ministry of Defence reported that Russia has likely amassed up to 290,000 killed or wounded soldiers in the war against Ukraine.

Since coming into power 24 years ago, Putin has tried to boost Russia's birthrate by introducing a range of government incentives for those who have children, including payouts for families who have more than one child.

But the measures have had little to no impact, with figures from Rosstat, Russia's federal-statistics service, putting the Russian population at 146,447,424 as of January 1, lower than it was in 1999 when Putin first became president, Le Monde reported.

"Russia lacks workers," Alexei Raksha, a demographer who previously worked at Rosstat, told AFP in February.

The original article contains 409 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

But if Russians will have 4 children or more, who will he conscript? Certanly not his oligarchs.

Oh, right. His mafia controls gosduma.

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Ok I will come to Russia ā€œmotherā€land, have a sex change and pop out some Ruskie babies, at least 3 by next week. Line up boys!!

If that's the reason, then the Ze must be urging the women in UA to have as little as 162 children

Ordinary Western and US propaganda - no matter what Putin may do, it's a sign of his weakness. Whether he eats ice cream, smiles, fucks women, sleeps, urges the women to give birth to more children, washes his teeth or itches his left shoulder -- it's a proof that he's weak.

In reality, he's ever stronger and supported by the russians -- thanks to none other than the West and US.

Yeah the media have a tendency to exaggerate his flaws but this isn't a well thought out move, it's probably a mix of that white birther thing musk is into and general desperation at the industrial and military problems he faces.

The reality is Russia is not doing well economically, Russian families can't afford to bring up eight kids even in the poverty conditions they're getting increasingly used to. The Russian state can't afford even the shitty education kids get now so it's certainly not going to cope if there was a sudden baby boom.

This isn't a well thought out economic, social, or moral plan so what else is it beside foolish bluster and weak minded desperation?

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