Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said a new bill would tackle the “ideology of childlessness.”

Russia’s fight against the West and its values has taken aim this week at an “ideology” that the Kremlin and its allies say threatens the country’s very foundations: people not wanting to have children.

Lawmakers have proposed a ban on “propaganda of conscious refusal to bear children,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday.

It is the latest effort by authorities to combat the demographic strain of falling birth rates, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin says could threaten the country’s long-term outlook. In July, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Russia’s declining birth rate “catastrophic for the future of the nation.”

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    You know, I would bet there’s tens of thousands of Russians that would be interested in having children if they didn’t all have a case of unnecessary deadness. If only something could have been done to avoid that.

    • Draghetta@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      But if you can’t send them to get gunned down in a foreign land, what is even the point of having more children? Do you hear yourself?

  • barsquid@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Can we get the .ml crew in here to explain why this is actually good and freedom? Because I’m a little confused.

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Why does ml crew defend modern day Russia? Modern day Russia is not a communist country. I’m confused why any communist would defend the USSR in general, especially after Stalin took power. Makes no damn sense to me.

      • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Because they’re supported, and ‘west bad!!!’.

        They support the hell out of chairman pooh as well, and he’s one of the world’s major billionaires according to the paradise papers.

    • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Come on, .ml, tell us how the west has fallen and Russia is the last true bastion of civilization and people’s rights. We’re waiting.

      • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        found one

        A commendable effort by Russia to discourage the promotion of human extinction.

        The nation starting wars and extracting fossil fuels is soooo concerned with the extinction of humanity.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      2 months ago

      I too am curious what this has to do with socialism and how it is not simply campist brain rot.

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      At the most the only thing that can be said is that the article says “could” and a law is “proposed”. That is already concerning but it is not reality yet at least.

      I don’t know enough about Russian law if this maybe just means the guy told another guy while taking a piss in a toilet or if there was an official meeting and tomorrow it is voted on.

    • a Kendrick fan@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      this is why .world is full of mostly braindead folks who’ve never had to think for themselves, only what their master propagandists feed them

      to be fair, i didn’t have to respond, i did to bust your cocky egos. in what world do supporters of the American Empire think they’re superiors to fanboys of the Russian state? isn’t the repeal of Roe v wade even worse than whatever this Duma member is threatening?

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I get why, from your interactions with .ml peers, you would immediately jump to the conclusion that any opposition to any country means that person is a turbofan of all its adversaries. That’s actually a big part of what I am mocking here. Thank you for confirming it is so ingrained that you cannot conceive other people aren’t like that.

      • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        You actually didn’t respond really. At best you barfed a whatabautism and then assumed everybody is American.

        Feel free to give a real answer if Duma allows you to.

      • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        to be fair, i didn’t have to respond, i did to bust your cocky egos

        Lmfao do you actually think you sound like the cool vanguard of the people here?

    • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      💡If we simply make it illegal to… not have children? No, that’s not right. Not want to have children? No, impossible to enforce. Ah, it must be illegal to profess the lack of desire to have children. What a beautiful and simple law that will certainly address the root cause of falling birth rates.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Citizens stop having kids because they can’t afford them, government fines them and makes rape, I mean traditional values, more acceptable instead of making rich people stop hoarding all the cash.

  • Cris@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Does anyone know the strategic reason for right wing authoritarians prioritizing people having kids? Like project 2025 talks about it a bunch, but nothing totally clear cut comes to mind as to why. At least not that feels like it fully justifies how clearly important it is, and that isn’t just me dismissing it as meaningless control or whatever. It feels strategically important

    In this case it’s clearly important militarily, but that’s also not likely to help in the present conflict in Ukraine. It’ll take a long time for those kids to grow up, but at least they’d help mitigate population loss

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      2 months ago

      Traditional values used to subjugate women. That’s really it. The same reason they hate abortion. Pregnancy and children are traditionally ways to control womem. “Keep em barefoot and pregnant” and so forth.

    • Sop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      More working class children means that there will be more people to exploit in the future. The size of the working class population is extremely important for the generation of wealth because they’re basically the only ones doing productive labour.

    • shaun@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Corporations need consumers (constant growth model). Military needs more living soldiers.

      • Cris@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, I guess that feels like the obvious reason. It just feels like there’s gotta be something more immediate and tangible. Maybe there isn’t though 🤷🏻‍♂️

        • med@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Having kids makes you think differently. It makes you think about longer term plans, and immediate plans. It makes you yearn for stability. It makes you more succeptible to scare tactics. It makes you less likely to rock the boat.

          It made me personally accept shittier situations personally (work) for the percieved benefit of ensuring stability for my baby. You can imagine how that extrapolates across an authoritarian society.

          Even knowing it would probably be fine to advocate for myself, to push for what I deserved; knowing that it was purely biology pushing me to make the choice, I still picked percieved stability. I just couldn’t bring myself risk being fired.

          Counter-intuitevely, we think of parents as being primed to defend their children from any and all attacks and threats. That works monkey to monkey, but at scale, it breaks down. Being parents makes both men and women more vulnerable.

          As for immediate effect: I’d be a lot easier to coerce if you had access to my family.

          Edit: It also makes you busy as fuck. Ain’t nobody got time for nothin’ when they have a kid. Certainly not for uncertain outcomes, like resistance groups or political disident work

          • Cris@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            This is kinda the first reply that really gave me a new angle to think about- multiple in fact. Both “vulnerability to fear tactics”, and “keeping people occupied” are a lot more immediate systemic impacts that can benefit maintaining the status quo than the things that had come to mind for me.

            Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I wouldn’t have had the perspective to consider it from your angle and I appreciate it!

            Hope you have a good one :)

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      They want to grow the population in order to have more workers and consumers. There’s also a white nationalist component where they’re afraid that white people will become a minority and they’ll use this demographic power to agitate for more equality, which is basically oppression to those people (because if it was only about economic growth, they’d be pro migration).

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The wealthy are running a massive pyramid scheme and need a constant influx of plebs to support the bottom tiers.

    • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      No idea what kind of level prioritising is meant, but all governments should provide benefits to children since any country needs their population to be healthy and not decline. You want young working able people to replace old population so that there are enough workers and taxpayers to keep country going.

  • Richie Rich@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Russia is like, “Sons! We need sons for the fatherland so that they can fight in the field against Ukraine!” How inhuman can Russia be?

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I find it disturbing that they apparently expect that their 3 day operation will be ongoing two decades from now.

      • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        So I just did a quick analysis of war lengths after and including WWII, and given that this isn’t my area of expertise, but they tend to run around 30 years on average. You either get out quickly or you’re there for generations. Russia is losing troops at a rate that worries me and I’m on Ukraine’s side of the war.

  • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Keep making life shitty and it will happen all on its own anyway. Hell making it a law might Streisand Effect it.

    Here’s this one cool hack they don’t want you to know about. Governments hate it!

  • resetbypeer@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I hate headlines with the word could. Remind me when it has or is. I could become a billionaire but it’s highly unlikely I will. Just like her fine or the arrest of Putin.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I think there’s a time between “This thing is possible I guess” and “you’re already fucked” that I’d like to hear about things.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    This is why US First Amendment standards for freedom of speech need to be adopted everywhere, not with hundreds of “but this kind of speech is harmful to society” exceptions.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    3 months ago
    NBC News - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

    Information for NBC News:

    MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
    Wikipedia about this source

    Search topics on Ground.News

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-calls-international-scheme-promoting-russian-values-rcna165338
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-proposes-ban-child-free-lifestyle-rcna172616

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