The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#211

Post by thehappypm » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #114

cbsks wrote: post #40

My wife’s theory is that there will be a lot of babies born in about 6 months (9 months after the quarantine started), but only for first time parents. Being quarantined with a child is the absolute best birth control.

pffft. no way. didn't slow us down at all and I got a 10 and 12 year old. Wife isn't having any more for medical and conscious decision reasons. We just feel that 2 for 2 is plenty a replacement rate for our middle class efforts.

The parent is referring not to sex, but unprotected sex.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#212

Post by scarmig » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #186

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…

> " A society where younger workers having to pay taxes 2x higher or more than they do today... " Most likely social welfare programs for the elderly will simply be allowed to collapse. Nothing will motivate the young to vote like having their paychecks eaten away. I feel bad for young people graduating now; if they're not able to save the _entire_ cost of their own retirement over the course of their career, they ar…

Retired voters, and voters approaching retirement, will fight denture and nail against that. The likely result is some claw back of benefits for them, but young workers would still carry a much heavier tax burden than the retired class did, preempting their own retirement savings. That causes them to defer or forego marriage and children as well, causing a continuing downward spiral.

Without an attestupa or genuine efforts to improve fertility rates, we're in for very grim times in most countries. There's a kind of virtuous cycle here, though, as a government that does figure out how to mold its age demographics in an effective manner will be a much more attractive destination for young emigrants.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#213

Post by Guy2020 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #199

Guy2020 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny how people dismiss things so readily by labeling them "conspiracy theory." I just can't imagine looking at a world with such great wealth inequality and coming to the conclusion that this is an equal playing field where everyone exerts the same influence on the evolution of humanity.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#214

Post by nmfisher » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:22 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.

I think there's definitely something to this, and I'd agree that career driven culture is very toxic.

But I'd also hesitate to call it "top-down" influence. That would drastically downplay the autonomy we have in first-world countries. Nobody is forced to prioritize their career over everything else. In most countries, I'd say it's the complete opposite - tax incentives and benefits are usually structured to encourage child-rearing.

It's too easy for everyone to blame "the man" or "society" for a mindset that is entirely self-inflicted - with the exception of the US system tying healthcare to employment. That is definitely a top-down influence.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#215

Post by logicchains » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #94

young_unixer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of that problem is that most nations have a pension system where the active work force pays for the pension of the elder instead of each person paying their own pension by saving/investing troughout their lives.

Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments. Retirement financing in general relies on future economic growth for future cashflow. That said, you don't necessa…

>Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments.

The core unit of the economy is not cash, it's value. Saving roughly corresponds to avoiding consumption and preserving value; in a very basic economy, this would take the form of e.g. preserving grain in a granary rather than eating it all. People or government savings systems that save for retirement are then able to consume the value they saved when they retire; they don't require any value transfer from the working population.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#216

Post by walleeee » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

jariel wrote: post #196

walleeee wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

I would agree but for the fact that if we look at habitability prospects from that same longer-term perspective, we see an ocean of scarier things happening just as fast.

Humans have endured and are generally resilient to population fluctuations. We and our industrial societies are not resilient to e.g., significant departure from the Holocene equilibrium[0].

[0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#217

Post by jstewartmobile » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #204

jstewartmobile wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we all have just as many stones to throw, why are they coming over here? Why aren't we going over there?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#218

Post by Guy2020 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

mr_woozy wrote: post #209

Guy2020 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What good are books if we can't direct people at them? That book makes my case. The fact that Bernays was a major advisor for the media complex of America makes the book an even more significant piece of evidence for my position.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#219

Post by rayiner » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:26 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…

“Premodern?” The US fertility rate fell from 3.65 in 1960 to below replacement in 1972. In that time, the labor force participation rate of married women went from 32% to 42%. Then it’s been pretty stable since then between 1.8-2.1, even as the labor force participation rate for married women went from 42% to 67%. We are talking about much more recent social trends at issue.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#220

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

jariel wrote: post #196

walleeee wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

The transition from 2B to 7.8B was also kind of fast: 90 years. The exponential growth we've seen recently is unique in human existence. Before the last several centuries human population growth was much slower. In fact, it seems unlikely that population growth will become that slow again without some sort of disaster scenario.