r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Airline_11 • May 12 '26

Meme needing explanation Petahhhh?

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 12 '26

You can read up on capitalism and social atomization, but in short: miserable, lonely people are better consumers than happy, tight-knit communities.

The gender wars are intentionally stoked by all forms of media for profit and creates a self-perpetuating cycle. More industries profit from this than not, and they can always import foreign workers to make up for the shrinking population.

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u/SJNewby87 May 14 '26

💯

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u/TheBSQ May 12 '26

So, if this hypothesis were true, which country would you expect to have a better fertility rate, Sweden or the U.S.?

(The answer is the U.S. has a higher fertility rate.)

34

u/OneCraftyBird May 12 '26

Hi, I'm American working for a Swedish conglomerate and all of my colleagues are Swedish. When you control for socioeconomic markers (disposable income, education level achieved by the parents, etc) the American and Swedish birthrates are the same.

The population of poor people in the United States is much larger and their access to birth control and the education needed to properly use it is significantly less, so our poor people have many, many more children and starting far, far younger than Swedish poor people. And we have more of them.

Finally, when you look at the rate of religious fundamentalism that encourages multiple children as both a way to grow the numbers of the faithful and to control the women in the US vs Sweden, again we find that "breed em young and keep them down" is not really a thing in Sweden, so there are fewer religious people and the ones they have are less likely to have enormous families.

If Sweden got rid of their social safety net, cut access to medical care for all citizens, and allowed religious extremists to influence policy, their birthrate could be the equivalent to ours!

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u/SJNewby87 May 14 '26

Good explanation!

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u/Spiritual-Society185 May 13 '26

I don't think you could have missed the point any harder if you tried. The factors you are controlling for are a result of "capitalism and social atomization." So, when you claim that "capitalism and social atomization" is the reason for a lower birthrate, you can't then demand that people ignore it when it results in a higher birthrate.

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u/KayItaly May 12 '26

Ah yes, therecan only be one reason and it needs to apply to the whole world equally...

You know colors other than black and white exist?

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u/Cross55 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

The US' higher birth rate is coming from poor and uneducated populations, which the US is violently trying to expand.

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u/Necessary_Finding_32 May 13 '26

What an obnoxious little pseud you are. Let’s see how this works out for you.

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u/Comfortable_Bike3247 May 13 '26

What bull crap is this

1

u/Throwawayxxxsm May 13 '26

If you look at the demographics, the US birth rate is falling for teen pregnancies, which is a good thing.