Writing off an entire facet of life as toxic, is toxic.
Anything taken to extreme can be harmful, but some of the most grounded and successful (as in, living well) people I know are those with a self-aware religious foundation to lean on. People may bring up examples of religious cults as a reason to discard all religion, but surely the same could be said for the many secular cults. We shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, as they say.
Indeed, the suffix '-oid,' when appended to nominal stems, frequently functions as a significant etymological marker, often denoting mere semblance, superficial imitation, or, with particular pertinence to the present deliberation, an inherent spuriousness or ersatz quality. Accordingly, the primordial definition of 'factoid'—a term whose coinage is frequently attributed to Norman Mailer—designates an item of information presented as if it were an established fact but which is, in reality, unverified or demonstrably fallacious, yet achieves widespread acceptance as truth through its persistent promulgation, especially within journalistic or mass media contexts. The subsequent, more contemporary construal of 'factoid' as merely signifying a 'trivial' or 'minor piece of information' represents a notable semantic deviation, a misconception whose widespread dissemination has been paradoxically facilitated by the very media channels implicated in the term's original, pejorative sense. Ergo, in a compelling instance of recursive irony, this now prevalent, albeit technically inaccurate, understanding of 'factoid' (as a diminutive datum) has itself metamorphosed into a quintessential exemplar of a 'factoid' according to its original definition: an unsubstantiated assertion that has gained popular currency through sustained, uncritical repetition.
But public perception doesn’t necessarily reflect actual levels of corruption. Having dodgy planning approved is not the same as buying a seat at the head of the government for a quarter billion dollars.
Corruption is always measured by perceptions. There are many reasons for this but when it comes to high level corruption it's especially clear - high level corruption, in most countries, is rarely pursued, let alone prosecuted. And efforts to do such may themselves be driven by corruption. And people's actions, as on all things, will be guided by their perceptions. And so things like corruption's influence on things like starting a business will be driven largely by perceptions.
> Societies always have a taste for fascism/authoritarianism.
But so too can religious and parental belief systems, so a balance must be struck. Children belong to neither parents nor society, they are simply different guardians and stakeholders of them at different points in their lives.
I think this attitude is exactly why the birth rates are down so much. Humans are intelligent, and do things for a reason. Including having, or not having, children.
There used to be reasons for having children in the west. They were your pension, and they were the financial success of both you personally, your village, even your country.
Today such systems survive: certain factions expect to win through children, and see it both as a way to attack and an exploit "against the west" (an exploit against human rights regulations). The most egregious example of that is in Palestine. There, if you have a kid and they attack "the enemy", mostly their mother and father get money for life. The more "enemies" killed, the more money. Paid with UN money.
(note that the wikipedia article is not accurate. In the description of the fund on the PA website it does NOT say "violence against Israel". It does not even say "Violence against Israeli", although it does refer to persons. Another inaccuracy is that the fund was ended. It was not. It was renamed and the conditions changed, slightly, as discussed here:
