Does the world’s richest man really believe that the West might be saved by the same sexual practices found in a Chinese imperial court?

Elon Musk allegedly has at least 14 children with four separate women.

Musk is also allegedly building a series of properties – a baby compound some are calling it – to house his various families.

“A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilisation faces by far,” he tweeted in 2022. “There’s really no time like the present. Just have kids. You won’t be sorry. It’ll work out.”

If all these pronatalists want legions of children, perhaps it’s time they started being better fathers.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    discussion about family values and having babies is split into two extreme camps – the trad-wife Right and the “abolish the family” Left

    What is this nonsense? Assuming there even is an “abolish the family” left, it is so tiny and niche that I’ve never even heard of it. Certainly nothing as vocal and prevalent as the trad-wife people. I rather suspect that this author just had to find, or maybe make up, something so they could both-sides the topic and feel superior to everyone.

    • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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      Seems like a run of the mill liberal whose information about “the left” comes from far right talking points:

      But there is a problem with the way in which discussion about family values and having babies is split into two extreme camps – the trad-wife Right and the “abolish the family” Left. For any young couple starting out, the choices seem to be to either raise your non-binary child in defiance of the nuclear family, or to go full homestead and demand that your wife wear gingham and churn her own butter amongst a multitude of children.

      Like, what the fuck is this shit?

      The discussion about “family values” might seem like this if you only listen to what conservatives are claiming about what “the left” wants.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        Yes, this is a common thing Conservatives do in America. They take traits they don’t like about the opposition, make up absurd caricatures that dial up all those traits to 11, then rail at the caricature like it’s reality, pulling the rest of the country rightward with them.

        It’s how we get to immigrants in Springfield eating the dogs. It’s how we get to kids who identify as cats using litter boxes in school instead of toilets. And it’s how we get to liberals wanting to “abolish the family” simply by recognizing that gender may be a social construct and have fluidity. In the Conservative Cinematic Universe, all these things are happening, and are key plot drivers to what happens next.

      • Wilco@lemm.ee
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        That was written by someone who has lost touch with reality.

        The “left” is not attacking family values … capitalism is. The minimum wage was supposed to slide up and curb poverty, but that was one of the first things to go in the late 1960s … a little bribery by corporations and they decided it did not need to automatically adjust up with inflation.

        This is what is killing family values. People can afford the “trad” family.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      For conservatives, “family” is just a dog whistle for patriarchy. In other words, they’re just butthurt about womens’ lib and male heads of households not having absolute power to abuse their wife and kids.

      • obre@lemmy.world
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        Hey that’s not fair, it’s also a dogwhistle for homophobia. They’re butthurt about gay rights too lol

    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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      I’m not even impressed by the headline. A harem is a very specific thing. Musk does not have one. He’s just abusing* women, then bragging about it.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      “Abolish the family” leftist here.

      This is really referring to the modern nuclear family, not the entire concept of family. It’s so strange how liberals can acknowledge It Takes a Village and then get mad when we take that to its logical conclusion i.e. extended village family and chosen family.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        It takes a village means that everyone in the community should care about everyone else’s well being. It has nothing to do with nuclear of extended family. Your conclusion is not logical.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          The saying is that it takes a village to raise a child. The nuclear family doesn’t work, you need so much more than a single set of parents.

          The nuclear family is a recent invention. It’s just a way to oppress women and atomize us as modern individuals.

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
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      The Left is typically critical of the “nuclear family” because most of us want the rest of the family back in the picture. It takes a village to raise kids and only in the last century or so has this notion of “two working parents can manage it” arisen.

      So we want to abolish the family by making our families bigger, with cousins etc playing more of a role in our lives than Western media typically portrays.

      • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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        Or to put a different spin on it, people on the left believe that just because someone is related by blood doesn’t actually make them your family. We believe strongly in found family - no matter what form that family comes in.

        This thought is an existential crisis for sexists, racists, and assholes of every type, because it teaches people that they are allowed to leave their abusers and find happiness outside of tradition.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        No the left is not critical of the “nuclear family”. The left more more typically feels that people should mind their own business about what other people feel is a family. If you want a traditional ma, pa, and kids family, that’s great, you do that. But if I want two dads and adopted kids, I should be able to do that too.

        we want to abolish the family by making our families bigger

        Yeah, that makes no sense at all.

    • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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      There are people on the left who critique the myth of the nuclear family that was pushed starting in the 1950’s, but that’s not what that quote is about.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    It’s way creepier and unethical than a harem.

    If all he was doing was basically paying women to fuck him, that would be maybe unsavory but not terribly weird.

    He’s promising to pay women to bear his children, but uses artificial insemination if they agree to it. Then he sends them an NDA and if they won’t sign he claims the baby isn’t his.

  • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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    It isn’t even a fun harem. No dancing ladies or neat see-through clothing, just an IVF jar and a botched penis implant.

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    Republicans, and the right more generally, have always been hollow shits. “In-groups to protect and out-groups to bind”, as they say. They’re the worst people and should be removed from power.

    They’re infuriating. They don’t want abortions, but they don’t want sexual education or contraceptives. They want a stay at home parent, but they don’t want to have wages high enough to support that. They are like children screaming they want to eat their birthday cake but don’t want it to go away. We need to stop taking them seriously and instead put them down for a nap.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    Sorry.

    Go back to the 1960s. Ronald Reagan had divorced his first wife to marry a hot blond bimbo. People said that Conservatives would never elect such a wild rake. All Ronnie had to do was throw them some red meat and suddenly a Hollywood pretty boy who’d skipped WW2 became a Founding Father.

    • FloMo@lemmy.world
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      I got curious so I did some searching:

      Wyman divorced Reagan in 1949, Reagan married Nancy Davis in 1952

      So not entirely accurate to say he divorced his first wife to marry another (by some accounts, Wyman divorced him and moved on).

      That being said, fuck Reagan all the same.

  • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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    “Family Values” is just a stand in for Anti-LGBTQ or even Anti-Interracial relationship. Like you see the words “family values” on dating profiles of conservatives below the “looking for” section, even on profiles of multi divorced people. Basically it’s just code for “only bigots apply”

  • Grizzlyboy@lemm.ee
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    The problem is you thinking it’s possible to reason with these voters. They howl family values but vote for rapists, pedophiles and convicts. Musk only started using his child after the killing of the POS exec, because now he has a human shield.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      As if he’s brave enough to leave his house mansion fortress Soviet-chic bunker without a dozen goons sanitizing his environment.

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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    Look, if a partner wants to stay home, cook, clean, have and take care of babies and the other wants to work and is all consensual, fine.

    I don’t see any people lining up for that life though.

  • Kompressor @lemmy.world
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    Oh they’re just teeing up to bring back a particular modern revelation that was super epic and cool and not totally fucked up, weird, sick, depraved and entirely self serving to the personal desires of the few. Classic human shit to be honest. Genetics is gonna come back swinging hard on these dipshits thankfully it has a knack for correcting this sort of thing

  • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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    This guy is worried about birth rate but isn’t ivf daughters? Women are substantially more valuable then men when it comes this.