British culture - Is there any such thing?

[Kermit power]

QJumper said:

Kermit power said:

Can we really call it "Westernised"?

That makes it sound like the falling Western birth rate is a complete individual lifestyle choice.

Having said that, the infant mortality rate in India is 7.5x that of the UK, so continuing to procreate at the same rate would make for some pretty massive families!

I dunno, I just meant that they quickly adopted the local approach of having fewer children.

It is an individual lifestyle choice, isn't it?

That's debatable. Those freedoms that women fought for a few generations back have arguably turned out to mean just swapping being shackled to the kitchen sink for being shackled to a job if you want to afford rent or a mortgage, and not also being able to afford childcare.

There are of course people who just don't want kids, but there's also a lot who'd like them but just can't afford them and somewhere to live.

[Kermit power]

Ashfordian said:

chrispmartha said:

You've been gaslighted to believe that that's all down to immigration though.

What's your solution then when all those issues are down to the increasing population? Stick your head in the sand?

We need to stop the population Ponzi scheme until those and the other issues are in reverse/resolved.

What makes you think they're all down to increasing population?

Any problems that increasing population might cause the NHS is absolutely swamped by the fact that for most of the past 40 years our healthy lifespan has pretty much plateaued whilst our actual lifespan has increased. Just go and look at rates of obesity over that time, and the cost to the NHS of having to treat people younger and younger for the metabolic diseases it causes. We've got pre-teens being treated for T2 diabetes, FFS!


If people looked after themselves instead of expecting the taxpayer to do it for them via the NHS we could save literally tens of billions every year directly, and just to make you happy, the NHS wouldn't need to import as many immigrants to treat them either!

Once you've got people looking after themselves, they can also work for longer, which would be a good thing as nobody on average wage pays enough tax in their lifetime to come remotely close to funding 20 years of State pension. That would also reduce the number of immigrants required to replace them, so happy you again!

Then there's rail. Again, that's got sod all to do with immigration, especially since Covid because passenger numbers have declined. You can simply look to lack of investment for that one, and guess what we could be doing if we were saving tens of billions every year through reduced load on the NHS and pensions!

As for floods, part of that is down to changing weather patterns, and part of it is down to completely irresponsible building, not particularly because of immigration but because of developers looking to max their profits.

[QJumper]

Kermit power said:

QJumper said:

Kermit power said:

Can we really call it "Westernised"?

That makes it sound like the falling Western birth rate is a complete individual lifestyle choice.

Having said that, the infant mortality rate in India is 7.5x that of the UK, so continuing to procreate at the same rate would make for some pretty massive families!

I dunno, I just meant that they quickly adopted the local approach of having fewer children.

It is an individual lifestyle choice, isn't it?

That's debatable. Those freedoms that women fought for a few generations back have arguably turned out to mean just swapping being shackled to the kitchen sink for being shackled to a job if you want to afford rent or a mortgage, and not also being able to afford childcare.

There are of course people who just don't want kids, but there's also a lot who'd like them but just can't afford them and somewhere to live.

I would agree with that too. Whilst the increases in freedoms of choice and opportunity are a good thing, there's also been an elemennt of out of the frying pan into the fire.