Wonder no longer: no.

If you average 10 mph on a bike, it’d be over 120 miles each way. If you have to spend like 5 or 6 hours each day just commuting, you probably should just move closer to your work.

Absolutely, we still have 3.6 million births per year, but the problem is teens and young adults. From the ages 15-19 the fertility rate is down 7% and it’s down 70% over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation till they’re more financially secure, maybe they haven’t found the right partner.

To your point, by the way, you said before we came on the air something really really important: which is we also have the technology to say “okay wait, you’re still going to have a healthy child, you’re still going to be fine because we can support pregnancies much better than we ever have before.”

Of course I want to add to that some downsides: there’s a higher obesity rate that interferes with fertility, there’s a risk of poly cystic ovary and endometriosis, there are more overall medical problems and diets are worse and then we’re talking about all the chemicals in the environment, ultra-processed foods; you might want to have a kid, but maybe as you get older you might not be able to.

My wife by the way, when she was 36 years old was going to have our second kid and I said to her obstetrician “She must be your oldest patient,” he said “She’s my youngest patient.”

Dana, people are having kids in their 30s now, not their 20s. And again, that’s leading to one thing I want to point out: the replacement rate is down to 1.56. Meaning every couple is having on average 1.56 children in the United States. We need 2 or above to keep the population at the same amount.

Maybe you watched a different interview than the one linked, he sounds like he belongs on Fox.

No matter what you purchase under capitalism, you are supporting bigotry and oppression to some degree. There is no escaping it. So instead of arguing about the arbitrary line at which the degree of separation is far enough removed before you can enjoy something without guilt, maybe start talking about actually dismantling the system that allows them to oppress others to begin with?

https://slrpnk.net/comment/21718703

I’m a little confused why you suddenly want to start drawing lines about what’s ethical.

Yeah, let JK Rowling do the entertaining, it was kind of her job.

In February 2023, Rowling participated in the podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, hosted by former Westboro Baptist Church member Megan Phelps-Roper and produced by Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. The show purported to add more nuance to the controversy surrounding Rowling, but in practice it mostly served as another pulpit for the author. Part of the draw was that Rowling gave a forthright interview on her beliefs about trans people for the first time. “I believe, absolutely, that there is something dangerous about this movement and that it must be challenged,” she said.

She then compared trans people to Death Eaters, the evil collective in the Harry Potter books that are often read as a Nazi analogue. “Some of you have not understood the books. The Death Eaters claimed, ‘We have been made to live in secret, and now is our time, and any who stand in our way must be destroyed. If you disagree with us, you must die,’” Rowling said. “They demonized and dehumanized those who were not like them.”

“I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious, misogynistic movement that has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society,” Rowling continued. “I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless, so I’m afraid I stand with the women who are fighting to be heard against threats of loss of livelihood and threats to their safety.”

https://www.thecut.com/2025/06/heres-what-j-k-rowling-has-really-said-about-trans-people.html

We can all laugh at the pure fiction she invents, and quietly ignore how the money we give her affects the world around us.

Wizarding World fans can no longer deny the rumors that JK Rowling is using her wealth to fund transphobia in the U.K. Many supporters of the “Harry Potter” author claimed that she limited her anti-transgender activism to social media posts…until Rowling admitted to funneling her immense wealth into a fund dedicated to revoking trans rights “in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.”

It’s rarely so cut and dry how the money you spend will be used to hurt people. And it’s also rare for such visible harm to be tied to something so unnecessary. You can move on from this 20 year old children’s book, I’m sure it’ll be okay.