Beli_Mawrr

Beli_Mawrr t1_jdn4bb1 wrote

Reply to comment by Paladin327 in TIL: Thanks to poor internal communication at NASA, information about a spacesuit water leak wasn't properly communicated. Later, Astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned on a July, 2013 ISS space walk, his helmet filling with several liters of water before they could get him back inside. by OvidPerl

Right, that's what I'm saying. Pop a tiny hole in it, Watney-style, then the vacuum of space hopefully sucks the water out through it. When it's done, plug the hole again. If it gets bad again, open 'er back up!

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Beli_Mawrr t1_jdmomji wrote

Reply to comment by Tribaal in TIL: Thanks to poor internal communication at NASA, information about a spacesuit water leak wasn't properly communicated. Later, Astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned on a July, 2013 ISS space walk, his helmet filling with several liters of water before they could get him back inside. by OvidPerl

You could poke a hole and then plug it if you wanted to. If you ended up just plugging it with whatever nearest, including skin, you would end up with a hickey but nothing else.

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Beli_Mawrr t1_ixbaydy wrote

Reply to comment by AngryWookiee in ‘Without enough Latvians, we won’t be Latvia’: eastern Europe’s shrinking population | Latvia’s population is 30% smaller than it was in 1990 and by 2050 numbers will be in decline in over half of Europe’s 52 countries. by mossadnik

I'm of the opinion that almost all culture has value and thus value is lost if the culture is lost. For example, Mexican food is a cultural item - it would suck to lose it!

I also think it's not racist to say that some cultures are better or worse. After all, you essentially can choose your culture. I make no claims about whether immigration would improve Latvian culture, it may well, but that isn't a guarantee. For example, imagine them absorbing a culture with morally offensive values - racism, sexism, phobia of religions, etc. Such things are possible and it would be tragic to see a country's culture adopt those values due to immigration or cultural absorption.

Now to be clear here, I'm not implying that's going to happen, I'm just saying that sometimes culture may be worth preserving as its own merit.

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Beli_Mawrr t1_ixalcri wrote

Reply to comment by gingerisla in ‘Without enough Latvians, we won’t be Latvia’: eastern Europe’s shrinking population | Latvia’s population is 30% smaller than it was in 1990 and by 2050 numbers will be in decline in over half of Europe’s 52 countries. by mossadnik

Yeah, when I was writing this, I was thinking to the USSR, who even so far as gave an award to mothers (which to me seems a little bit weird but you gotta do what you gotta do). I'm not taking a strong stance on whether or not it should be encouraged, but I am saying that hand wringing about it is probably not going to do anything effective.

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Beli_Mawrr t1_ixa92pb wrote

Reply to comment by DividedContinuity in ‘Without enough Latvians, we won’t be Latvia’: eastern Europe’s shrinking population | Latvia’s population is 30% smaller than it was in 1990 and by 2050 numbers will be in decline in over half of Europe’s 52 countries. by mossadnik

ya know what's ironic is these population crunches actually are really good for the working class. That's something that's not talked about very much because it's an awkward subject.

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Beli_Mawrr t1_ixa69c5 wrote

Reply to comment by SuperGameTheory in ‘Without enough Latvians, we won’t be Latvia’: eastern Europe’s shrinking population | Latvia’s population is 30% smaller than it was in 1990 and by 2050 numbers will be in decline in over half of Europe’s 52 countries. by mossadnik

cities don't need to turn forested lands into lawns, they can turn lawns into Paris.

I mean going child free sounds great until you're in the country with the collapsing population. I don't think we've ever experienced that in large scale, but we're about to.

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Beli_Mawrr t1_ix9nma6 wrote

Reply to ‘Without enough Latvians, we won’t be Latvia’: eastern Europe’s shrinking population | Latvia’s population is 30% smaller than it was in 1990 and by 2050 numbers will be in decline in over half of Europe’s 52 countries. by mossadnik

If you're a Latvian, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, American, etc country looking to improve your demographic odds, here're a few good strategies:

  • make sure daycare is affordable and plentiful. Offer stipends to help pay for it. Lower the barriers to entry for daycare companies.

  • alternatively, make motherhood more attractive by offering equivalent stipends to families or indeed mothers who aren't working.

  • make housing affordable by building more of it and discouraging low density uses such as single family homes

  • national campaigns to make raising a family a patriotic duty. Offer tax benefits, scholarships, etc to people raising families.

These demographic changes are reversible!

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