The global population pyramid • Hacker News Board

Re: The global population pyramid

#31

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:33 AM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

My worry is that at some point rich countries will start increasing in population again.

In the past we thought that overpopulation is going to be a big global problem. It turned out that rich countries naturally ended up having fewer and fewer children. This stabilized their populations. And now we expect that this trend will continue.

But why? What's to say that some shift in society won't trigger another population growth in rich countries? Then what?

Re: The global population pyramid

#32

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

>But on the other hand, modern society is unable to produce enough kids This is a contentious claim, as there are different measures of “enough kids”. Some examples I can think of are: Enough kids to support the economic 2% growth assumptions? Enough kids to reduce natural resource consumption to prolong the number of years the Earth is habitable? Enough kids to prevent another country or group of countries from walk…

The big problem we have is social programs. They redistribute wealth from young people right now to old people right now, but they are sold to young people as though they are investing into their future. As the ratio of young people to old people shrinks our social programs end up in more and more trouble. The fiscal gap is a problem in most developed countries.

Re: The global population pyramid

#33

Post by rayiner » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:42 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

>But on the other hand, modern society is unable to produce enough kids This is a contentious claim, as there are different measures of “enough kids”. Some examples I can think of are: Enough kids to support the economic 2% growth assumptions? Enough kids to reduce natural resource consumption to prolong the number of years the Earth is habitable? Enough kids to prevent another country or group of countries from walk…

> This is a contentious claim, as there are different measures of “enough kids”.

I don’t agree with the comment you’re replying to, but I should add that while there are different measures, the range is extremely narrow. Most western countries are at fertility levels where without immigration they will cease to exist entirely in relatively short order.

Re: The global population pyramid

#34

Post by stkdump » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:44 AM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

Who is to say that a smaller world pop is necessarily a bad thing? Many of the ecological problems we face today would be smaller at least. And who is to say that the current trend of shrinking pop in the long term stays the same. Maybe, once we solved the biggest problems we face today and possibly expand beyond earth, people will have more kids again. I can tell you that the families around me who are well off already tend towards 3 kids. That may not be universally true, but I don't see it as black and white.

Re: The global population pyramid

#35

Post by xixixao » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

ferrous69 wrote: post #30

koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

What are your ideas about more sustainable alternatives to our "democratic, equal" society? It seems to me a social movement that we cannot put the lid back on. It appeals ideologically (at its base level of "everyone is equal") and pragmatically to most people. Your points about sustainability are valid and we need to think about them, but what else can we do aside from progress towards a more egalitarian society wi…

I only just thought about this, so it might be a crazy idea but:

States could pay parents caring after children. In fact this already happens in modern western societies with some resemblence of a social state.

But I think the problem is that a "family" gets the benefit. And the "family" shares the benefit. And then the mentality is: I spend all day at work, and if I lose my job, we will lose my income. But no one is seriously thinking: If a stay-at-home mom/dad stopped caring for their child, they would stop getting the state benefit.

Of course these benefits are usually comparatively small to the full-time salary of a working person. But we could adjust those values. And we could say: This money belongs to the stay-at-home parent. They contribute: by caring for the children. Society should value this equally.

It's a bit of social engineering, but it could work quite well. It's related to the idea of universal income, in some ways.

I think the main problem with continued population growth is our unwillingness to build cities, tearing down old buildings. This is a serious problem that is causing unsustainable hike in cost of living. We also build expensively, compared to the 50s (in some parts of the world).

VR and remote-working might counterbalance this somewhat. Maybe new cities will be build. It all needs really visionary leadership, and increased willingness to move forward, a-like to the pink-glassed 50s.

Re: The global population pyramid

#36

Post by harimau777 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

It seems to me that the segment of the population that is most affected by societal/political policies are the young to middle age adults who are raising kids, establishing their careers, building wealth, etc.

My understanding is that in the past, due to shorter life expectancies, this was also the generation that was generally in the majority; so each generation got a fair shot at making sure society served their needs during those key years.

However, as life expectancy has increased, it now seems like there is a large enough cohort of people who have already established themselves that they can push for society/government not to spend resources on the policies that benefited them during their formative years.

Re: The global population pyramid

#37

Post by trabant00 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #27

bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

As I see it, in the complexity of modern life a family would greatly benefit from a dedicated administrator. There is simply no time after work to keep a grip on all the developing situations regarding issues that greatly impact us like: health, finances, laws rules and regulations, family ties, housing, etc, etc. In practice we seem to sacrifice everything for work.

I made up my mind a long time ago about "more women in tech". It's the same as "teach everybody to code". It's big co looking to get supply higher than demand so they can cut costs.

Re: The global population pyramid

#38

Post by threeseed » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #27

bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

Words fail me reading comments like this.

To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do.

Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the time and simply don't stick around.

And seriously to act like western society is forcing transgenderism is utterly ridiculous and ridicules the stressful and tough choices these people have to make.

Re: The global population pyramid

#39

Post by seer » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:54 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #27

bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

I find the Kibbutz experiments by the Israelis to be fascinating in that regard. Thats where they tried to create egalitarian "all are equal" mini-societies. But they really tried to think it through and make it work. For example care for the kids was sort-of-centralized, so that women would not feel burdened to perform more tasks than men, boys and girls were thought the exact same things throughout their lives, that kinda thing.

And it worked, kinda. People from those Kubbitz contribute disproportionately more to the economy, and those things are still going with several generations of people living in them.

However newer generations became much less strict about the egalitarian aspect, as a lot of women preferred just to take care of the kids and leave the men to go out and start companies. Leading to funny confrontations between girls and their grandmothers :)

Anyway I'm sure I'm grossing over a ton of stuff and its best to research on your own, but what I wanted to add is that different types of societies are possible, both free egalitarian capitalistic and even natural.

Re: The global population pyramid

#40

Post by wtdata » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #38

koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

Words fail me reading comments like this. To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do. Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the ti…

> To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do.

The OP says nothing of the kind. It's quite scary that so many people try to shut down any proper discussion about gender roles these days, with comments like this.