I have a friend who says that the US bans on gender affirming care and other trans rights seem parallel to Nazi Germany beginning to ostracize Jews via legislation during the first phase of what would one day turn into their genocide.

The idea of politicians creating a boogeyman is not new. I know that. However, I wish to ask are politicians really trying to create a boogeyman out of the LGBTQ community? Are they really advocating for a genocide long-term? I'd like to have a long discussion, so any opinions you wish to express on this topic, feel free!

I was wondering that. He used to be the youtuber with the most subs. I used to watch some of his video game videos because I never had video games at home. But I later never watched him again. I am assuming most of this fans watched video game videos and especially when his later commentary content.

One video intro was him watching a Hitler speech and nodding to it. What? Another clip was him paying a Jesus impersonator to say Hitler did nothing wrong. What the fuck?

I think there are more examples. I get that he is joking, but isn't it kind of normalizing Nazi behavior? Is there any proof he increased the number of Nazis and far-right people?

I will try to keep this question as neutral as possible without steering it in any particular direction. Since the US is still an existing country, unfortunately it is not possible to ask this question without including the last 20 years.

The question is exactly the same as the title. I am only writing this body to make clear that it is not intended as speculation, a bad-faith question, or soapboxing.

Edit: I previously asked the same question on r/AskHistorians, but it was removed and I was told to post it without a body. When I did that, it was removed again and I was directed to another subreddit, where it was also removed. At this point I had to make the question this defensive to avoid further removals. If the mods allow it, I can add the original post body.

Edit: these are two separate questions, I’m talking about the tendency to go extreme in either direction, either far-left into communism like the USSR or far-right like fascism in Nazi Germany. The second question is more to do with the rise in popularity among far-right groups in places like France and Germany. Calm down American conservatives, don’t be so damn defensive.

So I've been trying to put the puzzle of sexes and genders together for myself, and so far, some pieces aren't clicking together right. I've been trying to find a safe space to look for answers, because obviously this particular topic can get toxic real quick. My main question which most others boil down to is this: what value would gender identity have in a progressive, 'ideal' society? The way I've been thinking was: centuries or millenia ago, when gender was not really a thing and noone distinguished between gender and sex, the value was in who do you have to match to whom to have babies, as well as other things related to physiological differences between men and women (like, who gets the harder physical labor et cetera). Over time, this lead to development of distinct social roles which we now associate with genders. But then the industrial and post-industrial revolutions happened, and although we still can't reproduce without regards to sex, a lot of those established roles (a majority of them, I would say) got obsolete, along with their inherent restrictions and privileges. The goal of progressive social movements, is, therefore, to reestablish social norms so as to bring them up to speed with our current level of technological progress and to bring equality to the areas of behavior where inequality remains as a habit of tradition only, without any underlying hard basis. If we continue to advance technologically, it seems reasonable that no hard basis for gender disparity will survive, not even reproduction, and then all inequalities associated with genders will be available to simplify away. How then is that different with eliminating the concept of gender altogether, why are progressive movements making the defence and protection of gender identity a cornerstone of their ideology and why the most bigoted of those who would oppose them insist on the concept of gender not being real, if actually not making it real seems to be the Holy Grail of an equal rights society?

Im not American and I don't live in the US. I've repeatedly noticed on Reddit something that I find difficult to understand - the normality of hostility toward China and, sometimes, to Chinese people.

What strikes me isn't that people disagree with Chinese government, but its how readily negative attitudes toward China seem to be taken for granted, even in discussions that have nothing to do with any specific Chinese action.

China is so distant from US that I suspect that most ordinary americans have relatively limited knowledge of its political system and society beyond what they encounter in media. Yet, the hostility seems to me remarkably strong and almost self-evident, like as disliking China requires no particular explanation.

Im interested in how this developed and became so socially widespread?

I also find it interesting in comparison with Japan and South Korea. They are also Asian countries but the tone of discussion about them is different. This makes me wonder whether racial prejudice plays role in hostility to China, while also suggesting that race alone may not explain the difference.

I am aware that reddit is not representative of American public opinion, and Im not claiming that all americans share this attitude.

So my question is: What does social science can tell about how such strong negative attitudes toward a foreign country become normalized among people who may have limited direct knowledge of that country? In particular: what explains anti-China sentiment in US, and how can the effects of geopolitical rivalry, media and political framing, social conformity, and racial prejudice be distinguished?

Taking a look at East Asian countries where people just aren't having children anymore, there seems to be a real panic about how it's gonna play out in terms of demographics over the next few decades. Especially in Japan, SK, China. The most obvious issue seems to be a big population of elderly people that aren't able to be supported by younger people. The other issues, by my understanding, are that the world's economies are based on constant growth, and that's just not going to be sustainable.

Pretty much every western country is under the replacement rate right now. And it seems extremely hard to convince people to have children, and countries who are trying to do that seem to go about it the wrong way, or just through incentives like cheaper housing instead of tackling the actual reasons people aren't having children, such as the difficulty for working women to have children, no paternity leave, and so on. It doesn't seem like thats working, Japan and SK have been trying but are still in free fall (although I've seen cheaper housing incentives work in SK, not enough to offset it though).

Africa is the only exception, although the rates are dropping. Projections are dubious there though.

So, populations in decline, doesn't seem like it'll change without some radical changes. Immigration is really the only option. Why are some governments not trying to promote immigration as a good thing, if done right? It's the hot topic literally everywhere that's seeing low fertility rates, USA. Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain (which has one of the lowest fertility rates in Western Europe).

I realize it's specifically right wing, conservative, whatever you wanna call it, parties that are staunchly anti-immigration, but it obviously forces the opposite sides to also start playing that game. They can't directly say "immigration is a good thing, we need it."

Is this just short-sightedness? Do they believe they can do it without immigration? It just seems bizarre that this became such an issue, and that they don't seem to acknowledge the demographics.

Or is this issue overblown altogether and doesn't matter much? A couple decades ago, overpopulation was the problem, now it's the opposite.

Another extra question, im a few decades, at this stage, do you think countries that failed to "fix" this issue will start resorting more heavily to immigration? It seems likely, for instance, that we'll see Japan starting to bring in the population surplus from Africa on short term visas and such. It feels inevitable that we'll head towards a world with a lot more population movement especially between Africa and the rest of the world.

What do you think?

It's been frequently mentioned online and in news stories that today, roughly 50% of gamers are female. However, I haven't been able to find any actual statistics on this anywhere which would include the methodology used to reach these figures.

In particular, there's rarely any sort of breakdown used to differentiate between the person who plays solitaire on their phone or work computer a few hours per week, and the person who owns a gaming PC or console and plays AAA games 25 hours per week. So, for example, this study counts anyone as gaming who plays at least 1 hour per week on a pc, console, phone, etc. https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Essential-Facts-2024-FINAL.pdf

Or this study, which simply asks "do you ever play video games?", and then breaks this down by sex and age and so on. https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2015/12/PI_2015-12-15_gaming-and-gamers_TOPLINE.pdf

The general feeling that most people have, backed up by the makeup of the people found in voice chat in games or in forums and subreddits about games, is that the great majority of gamers are male for most games, with exceptions for some games highly appealing to women, and for casual mobile games. The statistics claiming this is false seem counterintuitive to many people, so I'm trying to see the details on these statistics, if they're available anywhere.

i know that the world is incredibly diverse and even countries are very diverse. i heard a new (to me at least) racist claim that "blacks haven't made any civilizational contributions" or "held any major powers"

some things i am aware of:

• the US and EU and Russia constantly COUPing africa and asia and south america basically non-stop. any time a power gets too big for their liking, boom there's a new coup or civil war fomented by one of these intelligence agencies.

• african americans, and POC in europe and all over have done major scientific contributions, and artistic contributions, like jazz, and scientists like George Washington Carver, James West, Charles H. Turner, Mae Jemison, Percy L. Julian, Neil deGrasse Tyson, David Harold Blackwell, Marie Maynard Daly, Patricia Bath, Ernest Everett Just, to name a few.

• i also know that race is a social construct, which kinda gives me an easy out to just reject that argument's premise, which i suppose i could do. but if i can do one better and be more knowledgeable in the process i'd much prefer that.

• i also understand that i'm asking this more for my betterment than to convince that person, as i dont expect this person to have conversations on this topic in good faith.

edit; there seems to be people misunderstanding me. i'm not here making those racist arguments. i dont believe that shit. i am asking for help in shutting that shit down when i see it. i am a song writer and i study US politics, i'm not an expert in the social sciences. so my language might sound lacking, because my learning on it is, which is why i'm asking for help. so some of you that are attacking me, you're attacking the wrong person.

So Germany for example utterly failed in integrating its turkish population, with their decendants being more reactionary than the average person living in turkey. In Michigan, Hamtranck for example the muslim-majority city council banned pride flags. Obviously pushing migrants into enclaves and not giving them economic opportunities often turns them reactionary, but how does proper integration and ideological acclimation work, and where did it?

Hi everyone,

I'm curious about the topic of unconscious bias, specifically whether there is expert consensus on its existence and impact against people of African descent. Are there reputable studies or expert opinions that confirm this type of bias? I'd appreciate any insights or sources you can share on this topic.

My boyfriend and I got into a heated debate about this

I’ve been getting a lot of videos on my FYP about race and it’s brought some thoughts/questions I’d like to talk about. when I look at a non-white person I do not think of their skin Color even subconsciously. All humans are just that to me, human. At the same time I actively recognize that the system is so deeply rooted f*d and the history behind the complexities of where we are today which is so far beyond cruel, unfair, and unacceptable. Something that I have seen while scrolling, is that sometimes YT people with good intentions using language that they shouldn’t such as “colorblind” get so much heat when they really just need to be educated as to why they shouldn’t say certain terminology. Also to not bring up race at all can sometimes lead to further conflict and actions can get lead to “oh it’s because I’m (insert race)”. Why is this conclusion sometimes made? Why is not acknowledging race an issue? Why are people with good intention and poor use of language met with the same level of anger as triple k level racists? And is it possible that we can all just coexist without race being an underlying topic, just humans, is there a solution without revolution? I’d like to think that I am not a racist but I do understand that all people born white have had it ingrained in us in ways we don’t understand. I would like to understand and to learn to better myself and those around me.

I've been a member of this sub for years, and it occurred to me that I can't recall a single example of "Ask Social Science" responses* contradicting American progressive political activists.

Does "Ask Social Science" ever disagree with progressive activists, about anything? How far back in time do we have to go to see the last time that science, according to this sub, disagreed with progressives?

It's an odd contrast to other social scientific groups, for example /r/AskEconomics. Over there you'll see blunt disagreement with all sorts of political perspectives, and often. Why don't we see that in this sub?

*By "response" I mean a top-level response that was upvoted, or at least not downvoted.

DISCLAIMER: I know that, at least a very substantial amount of feminists don't advocate for the matriarchy. This is more of a anthropologic question, for people that studied the matriarchy.

I was watching ShoeOnHead's video on Male loneliness epidemic, and apparently there's this guy called Andrew Tate, who is famous among men, who says that men aren't born inherently valuable (as opposed to women, I suppose). The argument goes that women are seen as inherently beautiful and desired and men want them anyway even if they just stay at home and "do nothing", and what Tate is calling "being valued", I'm calling objectification: one gender is valued because of what they become, their traits, they actions, etc, while the other gender just be and it's valued just because they are, just like an object (to be beautiful, to be raped, to raise children, to do domestic work...)

I think the commentary is directionally true, perhaps capitalism makes it worse or makes it better, but it seems to me that across history, where there is the patriarchy, there is women objectification and women are valued by men regardless who they truly are, just because of their bodies.

I know lots of people have studied matriarchal systems, either going to some place and doing ethnographic work, or through theoretical work, and therefore my question for sociologists is: in the matriarch, are men objetified? If so, how the nature of this objectification is different from women's under the patriarchy?

I ask that, because while doing some mental experiments while reflecting on the video, I came to the conclusion that under the matriarchy there would be substantial male loneliness, because women mostly don't need men (as I have heard from some feminists in other contexts). But I'd like to double check with sociilogists that have put much much more time in thinking about it.

I'm not here to be judgemental, just to understand what the mainstream social science thought is on the matter.

In the USA it is very common for Junk Food to be less expensive than Healthy Food, therefore the majority of people who suffer from obesity are those in poverty.

However, for whatever reason, Poor Blacks suffer from this more than Poor Whites. Why is this?

I assumed it was because of where they live: Black people in poverty tend to live in urban areas while white people in poverty tend to live in rural areas. Giving poor whites more access to fresh produce.

But what do you think?

On approach to sexual violence is to see it as an extension of violence. This can domestic violence within a family translating to sexual violence to family members or political violence leading sexual violence against enemies. Similarly, physical violence being normalised in militaries often leads to sexual violence being normalised, to both the enemy and its own members.

Organised crime is often violent to it members. So thus it should follow that sexual violence is frequent in organised crime. Is this the case?

Now, I am fully aware that this is a very touchy subject, as such as I will not make too many comments.

Conventional wisdom suggest that clothing increases the likelihood of sexual assault and this is something that activists have campaigned tirelessly to debunk, as evident here, here and here.

Given the limited research that I have done, it seems that the activists are the in the right, clothing does seem to have very little impact on the risks of sexual assault, as evident from this study on sexualisation., this study here on workplace sexual harassment/assault which did not point to clothing as a cause and finally the often cited 4.4% found in many articles advocating for this idea.

Recently however, I have also came across some studies which seems to suggest the contrary, such asthis one, which states that clothing and modern fashion may lead to greater objectification which in turn may induce sexual violence, relying heavily not on crime statistics but survey results.

In light of this, I am thus asking this Sub-Reddit to clear up this apparent conflict, in light of current findings, does clothing really affect the likelihood of sexual assault? If so, how strong is the effect and how does it affect the chances of sexual assault?

According to this

We all share these concerns for the known psychological and mental damage that these sexually explicit and pornographic materials can cause students at the middle school developmental level which ages range from eleven to thirteen.

They are referring to these books that contain homosexual and sexual themes...calling them pornographic.

[They even go as far as saying](https://archive.ph/Q6NIX]:

Besides being outright pornographic, many of the children's books had aggressive homosexual (and lesbian) themes.

Now I think that they think this encourages sexual and homosexual activity. Are they right though? If not why?

History shows that high ranking men in East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East kept large harems. This is still done in Africa, and polygamy with up to 4 wives is still practiced by around 1% of Muslims in countries where it is permitted.

But it’s extremely rare for men in the modern western world to choose this lifestyle. I wonder why that is given that it has historically been a coveted choice for powerful men in number of societies.

One might say that it’s not legal or accepted here, but men do all sorts of things that are neither legal or accepted in order to satisfy their desires. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio’s habit of dating 20 year old girls for a few years and then dumping them at 25 is unusual. Elon musk maintains strange relationships with Grimes and Shivon Zills, but neither are his girlfriend. Both DiCaprio and Musk have the means to maintain a harem, but it is evidently not in their interests. We almost never see powerful men that openly parade around with two girlfriends. Many such men cheat, but they keep that discrete while having one official wife or girlfriend they admit to. Almost no one openly claims to have two long term girlfriends with the expectation that these women be faithful to him.

Hefner was an exception, but he almost the only one that comes to mind. He set curfews and strictly maintained who his many girlfriends could invite over in efforts to keep them faithful. But generally, a powerful man in the west only expects fidelity of his wife or main girlfriend. Trump seems somewhat typical of a powerful man who desired more than one woman in that he would expect fidelity of Melania, but not of Stormy Daniels who he secretly cheated with.

What’s the reason polygamy, which came with a rigid expectation of multiple women’s fidelity to one man, was not that uncommon throughout the world, but modern men very rarely pursue it?

I realize this is a touchy subject but I was just curious to know if there was actual data or evidence to back up the claim that a woman's clothing makes no difference about the likelihood of her being raped.

The prison system must feel that it's better than forced integration. Outside, in the free world , segregation is frowned upon. Thoughts?