ALL perspectives are useful (from very new to very experienced), and I'd be happy to pay you a few dollars for 15 minutes of your time ($10?) on Zoom. Please direct message me if you can help or comment below and I'll message you.

Cheers :)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26799933

Points: 4

# Comments: 2

The state shouldn't be in the business of certifying christenings or bar mitzvahs, nor should it be in the business of marriage for the same exact reasons.

Wealthy black people moving into a neighborhood of other black people, and displacing them, gets no attention. Wealthy POC moving into a poor white neighborhood happens all the time in Atlanta, no mention of gentrification.

The word may having a different meaning in the dictionary, but it’s actual use almost always seems to be racial, and almost always about white people displacing non whites

I don’t recall the exact numbers but even just considering how many sexual partners people have can drastically change average likelihood of eventually divorce - with virgin couples above 80% AFAIK (some overlap with religious communities likely). Even a few decades ago when survival was still pretty easy marriage had higher success rates.

The culture probably has a lot more to do with the rate of successful marriages than our safety or lifespan

I think the distinction should be socio-cultural: if you don’t accept that this civil union is “till death do us part”, then by definition it shouldn’t be marriage - it’s a civil union. All the same benefits of marriage with none of the cultural components.

While obviously not that consistent, as a kid I perfectly accepted that logic. If I try to place myself in that same mindset, I think I’d find the definition of “marriage is together until further notice” far more concerning than knowing some divorced parents.

Right now, Hitler was evil, Jesus was good, Ghandi is good, Rome was important, Greek philosophy matters, etc

But in some future time or different place, history is different. Columbus used to be a hero, now he’s a far more controverisal figure. Maybe some fascistic future would see Hitler cast as a hero much like George Washington. History will have changed.

The past happened how it happened, but how that past is filtered and turned into the narrative we call history happens in the present

Women being barred from the workplace (by law or stigma) meant we lost half of society’s talent and those women who wanted to work couldn’t. Once the most eager to work start working, the other families see the incredible benefits of a two income household in a single income household world. It’s almost a no brainer to start working too, as you’re nearly doubling your family income.

Enough iterations of that, and now we live in a two income household world, where the “family expenses” of childcare, homes, college education, and so on are priced for two income homes, and everyone else (single people, the young, students), are stuck in unaffordability and also getting married at later ages.

Then, women didn’t have to work but couldn’t work anyways. Now, women work and couldn’t quit anyways.

I’m a man, I’d love to stay at home and work on projects while my wife works. That’s just not feasible in today’s world for most. Maybe it’s easier to say this as a man, but was the social change for a minority of women who wanted to work really worth the cost to society? I wonder how much would actually be different, and if the women advocating for a place in the workforce would reconsider if they saw our world today.

Obviously I don’t hold anything against women, these are bigger topics than that. The societal impact is real in either direction.

Meanwhile your government can dictate whether your child can live or die based on their calculated prognosis - and won’t let you leave the country for a second opinion.

Beyond the observational evidence: that fact that every culture to ever exist in all parts of the planet value some degree of conformity, the conceptual points are just as strong: efficiency, harmony, unity, happiness and many other traits are higher in more uniform groups.

What if everyone in the classroom spoke a different language? What if everyone in the classroom had a different set of values and ethics? These commonalities ARE a degree of conformity, and they made interacting and the rules of engagement clear and simple so more important things can be focused on.

Obviously there are drawbacks: if everyone was the same person then there’s nothing new. One could argue that everyone having the same religion is worth it because now everyone has more in common to agree on, one could argue that removing that freedom comes with too high a cost to the new and interesting.

In summary, conformity is certainly useful, but comes with side effects and drawbacks.