The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#191

Post by jariel » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #154

jariel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we try to do so with climate and other things. "It will be positive for the environment" Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. " population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will…

> Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. That is one of the most egregious example of not controlling for confounding factors i can think of. People with high carbon emissions are in the group having less children. It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children.

"It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children."

Except that it does. Literally from the article, they state "women entering the workforce, education jobs etc" - which increases income, and this is 100% correlated to increased consumption of all forms. It's consistent everywhere.

FYI this is the de-facto neoliberal plan (not being conspiratorial here). It's more directly apparent in China's ambitions i.e. Belt and Road: "The stated objectives are "to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets" [1], but it's not like it's their 'new' idea.

The objective of the wealthier nations is to get the remaining 4 Billion people driving cars, eating Cheetos, wearing H&M (fast fashion, ie 'disposable') and living in IKEA (i.e. trendy, but generally low-quality furniture, that can be replaced every several years).

This is effectively 'the plan'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#192

Post by Zarath » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #81

grugagag wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also education and contraception that have a role. I’d also add the high cost of living too as well as rising inequality.

Those are excuses that people make up to soothe their egos. The real reason people do not have children is selfishness. They think that the financial and time cost will deprive them of other material joys. It’s as sad as it is misguided.

You're getting downvoted but I think there is some truth to this statement.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#193

Post by m0zg » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

> migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option

Looks like the projections contradict this in at least two ways:

1. The population of the United States is projected to grow slightly, so it's not "all nations"

2. The population of two of the most currently populous countries, China and India will drop so precipitously that I'm not sure where they expect the "migration" to come from.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#194

Post by zanny » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #72

i think the main question is if people want kids but aren’t having them for economic reasons or if they simply don’t want them. the latter seems fine to me but we still need to solve the problem of paying for the social security ponzi scheme and will have to deal with increased labor costs (which could be a good thing)

There is a ludicrous amount of wealth in almost every industrialized nation. Every single one has way in excess of the ability to guarantee minimum income to all citizens without exception let alone just a social security equivalent for the elderly. Its just a question of if they will be interested at all in keeping said people alive in the future.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#195

Post by arp242 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #80

empath75 wrote: post #27

Why is immigration not the answer to this? Eventually developed countries are going to have to get over their bigotry and open the borders.

It depends on what you define "this" as. If the problem is simply "not enough people," that of course is easy to remedy. I hear zoos have trouble getting pandas to mate. Why don't they just add some polar bears, or leopards, or even rabbits? What do you think the pandas would say if they could talk?

Ehm, those are different species? Are you suggesting that humans are made up of different species?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#196

Post by jariel » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

walleeee wrote: post #184

jariel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we try to do so with climate and other things. "It will be positive for the environment" Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. " population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will…

Calling it a tremendous risk doesn't seem warranted given that it will not produce a significant drop in the earth's total population this century (see my comment above). A top-heavier age spread may strain political and economic systems: these are the social effects you mention. But from an ecological standpoint, not much will change for some time. There is tremendous risk in covering the planet with ourselves and o…

"not much will change for some time"

If you look at it from much longer term perspective, it's scary because it's happening extremely fast (1 generation) within nations that have reached a certain level of material prosperity and stability.

It's also 'scary' because it's never happened before.

'100 years' when we will really see the effects more globally, is not a 'long time', it's a 'quite a short time'.

We only ever knew 'one natural direction' and though it's exploded since the industrial revolution, it was at least, in normal times, 'up' to the extent the system could support it.

So yes, it's not 'scary' right now, and as you point out, Mother Earth could use a break from all of us. But thinking about the next 'few hundred' years, it's spooky.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#197

Post by manquer » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

One aspect this article does not address at all is the massive sex ratio imbalance in India and China (for different reasons) at around 1,100 men for every 1000 women.

This means there are 100 million girls less today in these countries alone, finding a suitable partner becomes harder and there are lesser number of couples will be there in the first place who can have kids

The 2.1 replacement is perhaps not adequate at all. The models are outdated and largely considers IFMR and few other factors, it does not factor really in issues such as the gender imbalance, hikikomori, much later age pregnancies ( higher chances of miscarriages etc?) and slightly more controversially also same sex relationships / marriages .

I do not mean to imply same sex relationships are bad or anything like that, What I mean to say is that everyone needs to have more kids as it is harder for same sex couples to have biological children ( while adoption is great and purest expression of parenthood it does not increase the population)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#198

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #134

hammock wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you actually mean there's a "top" that is dictating human sexuality I am deeply, deeply interested in seeing a schematic diagram for how that system works. Access to birth control and abortion, social services and welfare, trends in divorce and family court ... All of these things are top-down forces that create a tapestry heavily influencing human sexuality and the choices men and women make. One only has to lo…

Premodern society where women were effectively property, where religion dictated their role, where marriage and a woman staying at home were the social norm. You're trying to pretend like social policy is a new thing when the Catholic Church has been controlling the rights of individuals for a very long time. To such an extent that Kings were generally subservient to the Pope. And then those Kings and Queens did acti…

Perhaps the "premodern societies" that are emphasized in educational settings had those qualities. Maybe that says more about our educational values than about premodern societies. Many ancient people didn't emphasize property in the first place. Many others were more matriarchal than patriarchal. Sure, Catholicism was fairly irredeemable...

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#199

Post by inopinatus » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

Guy2020 wrote: post #190

snowwrestler wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO a greater magic trick is convincing folks like you that these rich people are actually powerful enough to control fundamental behaviors like sex and reproduction. It's a profoundly dis-empowering and anti-democratic message, which is of course why a lot of those rich people are happy for you to believe it. The reality is this: in every instance we know of, making education and birth control available to women (no…

Are you saying there are no mechanisms that allow wealthy people to influence human behavior on a large scale? Please read "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays.

The problem with your thesis is that it overlooks the centuries-long advancement of feminism in favour of a conspiracy theory.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#200

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

Guy2020 wrote: post #129

jjoonathan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old calculus: "I need to have lots of children so they support me in my old age. No matter the cost." New calculus: "Between retirement accounts and welfare, society will support me in my old age. Children are really, really expensive." It's economics, plain and simple. Of course there's a "top" and the "top" does dictate the structure. If you doubt that, ask: what percent of your income do you pay in taxes, and what…

This, but also people used to see having a family as being the meaning of their lives. In the modern world, the alternative meaning of life invention is the Career™. This alone, that people have been influenced to believe a career is a replacement for having a family, is highly suspect of "top-down" influence. We don't even have the perspective of how ridiculous career driven culture is.

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