The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#201

Post by rayiner » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #152

Guy2020 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have extraordinary wealth and they have the ability to set economic incentives, policies, and cultural influences for certain types of behavior to emerge. There's a hierarchy to our societies, there are people with great power and people with little to no power. I guess the greatest magic trick of the modern world is to make people believe such things do not exist.

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…

Parenting is hard and expensive, especially these days in the developed world where people have children late and most people don’t live near extended family. My parents moving near me totally changed my wife and my outlook on having a third (from “no way, too sleepy” to “hey remember when the little one was just a baby?”)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#202

Post by Ericson2314 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:14 AM UTC

Yes, finally we get off this stupid econ, pop, and everything else growth wagon.

Too bad this isn't an intentional march to Fukuyama take 2, but a sign of the Keynesian feedback loop being broken.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#203

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

Guy2020 wrote: post #151

hammock wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're downvoted. Your point strikes me as worthy of consideration

Because the truth is painful. People don't want to believe things are bad. People will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their perception that we are living in some sort of utopia and that everything is sunshine and rainbows. I don't blame people that want to look the other way...it's not a pleasant sight.

It's sure ain't easy but if you take a look at the history of mankind it sure is paradise. War and famine have has been the standard, things we complain about are totally different now.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#204

Post by arp242 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

jstewartmobile wrote: post #148

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.

get over our bigotry against female genital mutilation, honor killings, and acid attacks. got it.

These problems are not wide-spread in most underdeveloped countries, even Muslim-majority ones.

I don't want to "whataboutism" here, but to offer a comparison: the US clearly has a problem with police violence, but we don't judge the entire country's population by it.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#205

Post by mchusma » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are saying this is good for the environment. Having 20% fewer people won't do that. Clean energy and other technology will.

You can easily fit 100B humans on earth, with more of the earth dedicated to nature preserves. (Maybe a trillion people https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc) Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people.

You can fit quadrillions in ONeil cylinders just in our own solar system.

We shouldn't shrink into extinction, we should ride to the stars and populate the galaxy with consciousness.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#206

Post by thehappypm » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

Give it a few generations.

In the past, having a family was status quo and basically required.

Now, it’s a choice.

Natural selection will heavily favor those with the “I want kids!” gene.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#207

Post by mr_woozy » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #152

Guy2020 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have extraordinary wealth and they have the ability to set economic incentives, policies, and cultural influences for certain types of behavior to emerge. There's a hierarchy to our societies, there are people with great power and people with little to no power. I guess the greatest magic trick of the modern world is to make people believe such things do not exist.

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…

Wouldn't rich people or powerful organizations be able to influence family planning decisions in exactly the way you just described?

Funding cheap ubiquitous birth control on a global scale.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#208

Post by frank2 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #146

The good: a lower total population is good for climate change. Additionally, humans can focus on living in the most habitable, productive areas, improving per capita efficiency. The neutral: day-to-day things are unlikely to be affected much. Fewer farmers, but fewer mouths to feed. This applies to most consumables. The mildly negative: for knowledge intangibles, a lower total population means a lower number of scien…

>older societies where each person working has to support multiple other people are sclerotic societies.

I don't hear any horror stories out of Japan about how grim life is there.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#209

Post by mr_woozy » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:19 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.

There should be a godwins law for people who attempt to use this method of ending a discussion.

"go read this book which explains my point because I can't explain it well enough to others." is not a convincing argument in the least.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#210

Post by mindfulhack » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

ken47 wrote: post #165

mindfulhack wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support this sentiment 100%. In human population, we should be aiming for quality, not quantity. Quality also means diversity. If higher quantity unavoidably brings a higher proportion of human suffering, then we have no other choice but to promote quality over quantity. I fear for the future of our species. Our evolutionary instinct to multiply combined with the tech we've created is now bringing this planet to th…

People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues? Without getting into a long spiel, human intelligence appears to actually be extremely limited, compared to a theoretical perfect intelligence, and any explic…

> People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues?

Yes, in a way. But with mindfulness, one can choose different thoughts to attach to that innate survival feeling of wanting to exist and multiply. Instead of, 'We need to always multiply / population control is evil', make it, 'We need to create a better world for our species and those around us'.

> IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death.

Also agreed. I've read the big AI books like Nick Bostrom's and Max Tegmark's. Given their monumental knowledge, the sentiments around population control are not so much about saving so much as managing. More importantly, it's about saving the possibility of AI and superior forms of evolution to arise in the future, which are far more significant than current Homo sapiens.

One way to put this into practice is to choose to adopt a child as your own, instead of producing yet another one. I may do this in my life.