https://www.nrk.no/norge/dramatisk-okning-i-andelen-barnlose-i-norge-1.13759502#:~:text=Andelen barnløse er på en,ikke ønsker å få barn.

No. Out of 50 that’s 40 who had kids, 9 who didn’t and regret it, and just 1 who didn’t and are content.

It’s a need in that it’s programmed into your biology, and most people can’t thrive without it. Surveys of middle-aged people find about 1 in 5 are child-free. Out of those, about 1 in 10 are so by choice. That leaves 49 in 50 that either have or wished, but couldn’t have, children.

Also bureaucracy and public ownership

and hyper-socialist policies

The Nordic Model isn’t really all that Socialist. It’s based on strong welfare and labor rights, but also very much on the free market. The most Socialist country in Europe is probably France

The effect of the 2 party system on how people understand politics and society is incredibly interesting

Maybe? We’re currently trying to implement a different economic transition, from pollution to green. I don’t think popular resistance to those changes imply that we should try for a happy medium instead. Similarly, the difficulty in achieving Socialism democratically doesn’t necessarily imply anything about how desirable the end state would be.

The big issue with “trying” communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.

Gradualist Socialism was the political project for Social Democrats in post-war Europe. They had 30-odd years to achieve it in several countries. The issue becomes that once they started notching up victories, radicalism decreased, and that when they’re not starving and oppressed people categorically will not vote to let someone collectivize their farms and expropriate their homes. It seems clear to me that in real-world conditions, a Socialist state can only come about through revolution, because the path in a democracy is far too long and leaves far too many angles of attack from a liberal opposition.

The TB one for instance found that TB gets worse whenever there is an IMF loan but not in the same circumstances when there is a loan from somewhere else.

Yes, because the countries taking those loans aren’t distressed.

There is a reason China’s loans are so popular.

They are popular because they come with very little oversight. Countries with higher transparency do not find them very appealing, as Italy’s recent withdrawal from the program attests.

You don’t seem to realize that IMF loan conditions have very specific governance requirements which directly impact governmental decisions around health spending.

They come with very specific governance requirements which impact governmental decisions about a whole host of things, because those governments have proven incapable of sound fiscal management.

Again, the IMF is in no way perfect and I’m sure there is a myriad ways the conditions of their loans can be tailored to minimize negative outcomes. But that does not mean they cause these problems any more than every cancer death being a failure of medicine means doctors cause cancer.

I’ve looked at all of the sources you provide, and they all point out the fact that countries experience bad outsomes after an IMF intervention, which nobody’s disputed. My argument is that countries in similar dire straights will experience even worse outcomes if there is no such intervention. As an example, I could name Venezuela, which experienced an extreme increase in child mortality, your favored metric, after leaving the IMF. The root cause is economic distress, not the IMF intervention.

Minimizing the negative effects of government failure is absolutely worth examining. Identifying the mistakes made by the IMF in past interventions is a noble goal. But we should not blame international organizations when poor governance causes countries to fail.

You will see a lot of bad outcomes following an IMF intervention for the same reason you will see a lot of bad outcomes following oncology visits. Once you’ve gotten to the point the IMF get involved, things are already going to hell. What do you believe the effect on infant mortality of bankruptcy to be?

China is way way worse than the IMF. The IMF restructures the debts of distressed countries to help them avoid bankruptcy. China sabotages this sort of help by refusing to negotiate on the same terms as other creditors, preventing the IMF from doing it’s job.

I don’t understand how your comment relates to mine. Do you believe that because I consider a cessation of hostilities where Hamas keeps their hostages a victory for Hamas, that I mean to say that rescuing hostages is the scope of Israel’s campaign?

It clearly isn’t. Israel intends to destroy Hamas and are appallingly callous about the collateral damage they cause in the process

A ceasefire where Hamas gets to keep their hostages is a huge Hamas victory. Advocating for something which gives Hamas a huge victory will be interpreted by some as support for Hamas.

These demonstrations are full of Palestinian flags, without an Israeli one in sight. It’s hard to argue against them being partisan