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.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        but you see how this is exactly what eugenicists would do, right? create propaganda to discourage undesirables from procreating and create ineffective propaganda for their preferred demographic group. the intention doesn’t matter, to me. it’s all eugenicist propaganda as far as I’m concerned.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          You just love that word, “propaganda”, but where did “undesirables” come in? I never mentioned targeting anyone, or even running an information campaign at all. I’m pointing out the reality that fewer people would be better. You can’t argue against that, so you make a bunch of ridiculous assumptions and attack those.

          I think that when this topic is discussed, people should be honest and rational about it. You clearly don’t.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 year ago

              Then I gotta wonder why you haven’t. All you’ve claimed is that there are other options. All things being equal, a world with fewer people needs fewer resources. If we get the whole world on solar, that will still be true. If we get everyone to give up meat, it will still be true. If we stop polluting our waterways it will still be true. You have not argued against that, and you can’t do so in any rational way.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            I never mentioned targeting anyone, or even running an information campaign at all.

            you ARE running an information campaign.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            I think that when this topic is discussed, people should be honest and rational about it. You clearly don’t.

            i think calling your advocacy propaganda rubbed you the wrong way, and you can’t see what i’m saying.