Hmmm. Never actually considered that.
Tubes of You is a magna font of info. Innerestin’
Apparently, China is full of empty spaces, and may p’rhaps be lying about its actual population.
The effects of its One Child Policy and the hits from COVID may p’rhaps decimated the actual number of folks in the Dragon Lands moreso that officially reported.
Hospitals, public and private, are going bankrupt at double the rate of prior years. The largest maternity hospital – coincidentally located in Wuhan – shut down a few months back, with its employees going months without pay.
Bon Jovi’ing all up in this piece … living on a prayer. Take my hand, but we’re not gonna make it.
Schools and daycare centers are shutting down at exponential rates. Airports, shopping malls, subways … all empty.
Where are 1.4B people? How does one misplace 1.4B people?
Well, the nation is the world’s jetaway destination for organ harvesting, so that may p’rhaps ‘splain some things, but still.
There are huge cities with no people.
There are tech hubs with no people.
There are rural villages with – take a guess – no people.
Makes one wonder.
Vampires? Sinkholes? Teleportation?
Actually, the Tuber mentioned something much more banal.
Moral corruption and financial bankruptcy of the society. Hmmm …
But that’s everyone/everywhere/everything. So what’s the diff?
Recounted a story of a man who, while working a 4,000 yuan/month job (about $600), managed to save/borrow 188,000 yuan as the bride price for a woman he wanted to marry.
Ready to pull the trigger, as it t’were, when the woman’s family demanded another 30,000 yuan for the “3 Golds” … gold ring, gold necklace, gold bracelet. Said all her friends got that, so …
So … he took his money and a leave of absence from his job and went traveling throughout China, said guess my blood dies with me, totes OK w/that.
The really real problem? Same everywhere, in every country, and in every society.
Money, and the lack thereof.
People, ordinary folks, who earn wages do not earn enough to afford the life that is being sold under the social contract. Unearned income – investments, start-ups, VC – are imminently more profitable and gatekept like a sect of elite child-molesting cannibals.
Oops.
There is that.
When a guy making $600/month has to cough up over $25,000 just to get married, no thanks.
Traveling seems nice. Traveling seems good.
Governments around the world are offering financial incentives for folks to get married and breed, but the offer is getting pimp-slapped by the long-term cost of the act … $300,000 to 18? For one kid? Seems the focus is on the wrong end.
Seems the masters of mankind done grifted themselves right out of a future for everyone.
Must say … totes admiring the fact that women worldwide are foregoing the breeding process, just saying no thanks to that … get the TIFs to do it. Womb donation / an untapped market.
Triggering some of the menfolks tho’, who claim/believe/bleat that reproduction is the debt women owe to men for building society.
Welp, should have built a better society … built in less stress / less struggle, p’rhaps.
More joy, less pain.
Ain’t nobody takin’ time fahdat.
Good on women. Methinks keep up the good work.
But.
Beware the breeding farms/pens.
Because marriage boot camps are just the beginning.
Men, particularly those in power with the most to lose from the collapse of this economic system, will not go quietly into that good night.
Trust.
Welcome to Gilead.