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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

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Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#261

Post by snowwrestler »

mr_woozy wrote: post #207
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…

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.

If you want some chocolate ice cream, and I sell some to you, does that make me a powerful person who influenced your ice-cream-eating decisions?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#262

Post by ken47 »

mindfulhack wrote: post #210
ken47 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

If you believe you're the sort of person who can potentially "save" the world, wouldn't you want to clone your inherited software to counterbalance the cloning of those who cannot or will not?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#263

Post by lotsofpulp »

corysama wrote: post #233
sumedh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially with all the doom and gloom we've always been fed Which is still true, if the billion Indians and Billion Chinese start having American lifestyles, that is just not sustainable for the planet.

I fully expect the Indian and Chinese population coming into wealth will go through a period of fairly outrageous conspicuous consumption. I have a hope that it will be fast-forwarded compared to the past 70 years of American history. Hopefully after a decade-long warmup and another decade of settling in, the novelty will wear off and there will be a move away from focusing on "More Stuff!" and toward focusing on "Le…

If those experiences involve moving mass long distances (such as flying to South America and hiking the Andes), then it’s all the same.

I don’t see any environmental reprieve short of drastic reductions in consumptions, including travel.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#264

Post by souprock »

thisiswater wrote: post #173
koolba wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nonsense. Anecdotally: I've had multiple discussions with employed, unburdened men and women (particularly women) in their mid 20s who have decided not to have children for one reason: Climate change. The planet is collapsing. Our children are likely to die of hunger, disease, or warfare as things become more destabilized over the next 50 years. We don't believe their lives will be better than ours, and we don't want…

People with different views are on an exponential growth trajectory, so good luck with that.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#265

Post by stubish »

thisiswater wrote: post #173
koolba wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nonsense. Anecdotally: I've had multiple discussions with employed, unburdened men and women (particularly women) in their mid 20s who have decided not to have children for one reason: Climate change. The planet is collapsing. Our children are likely to die of hunger, disease, or warfare as things become more destabilized over the next 50 years. We don't believe their lives will be better than ours, and we don't want…

I too have heard this from people. But when I do, I can't tell if it is the root cause or a rationalization. There is still intense social pressure to have children, although I certainly remember it dropping over the last 25 years. Having children is still the assumption for a heterosexual couple, and you are often expected to provide a rationale for why not, and you feel you will be perceived negatively if the rationale is seen as selfish, and people who do choose to have children still sometimes take your choices as a criticism about their life choices. So you come up with some banal reason to deflect the conversation you have had too many times already. Or a reason to justify the decision to yourself, because social pressures are telling you it is a selfish decision and that selfish decisions about your own life are somehow bad.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#266

Post by scarmig »

frank2 wrote: post #208
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.

Scleroticism doesn't imply horror stories. What I'd expect for it to do is drive out-migration and a lowered quality of life. And, looking at hard numbers, more Japanese people are emigrating and more young Japanese are committing suicide, in a country that already has high suicide rates. I'd be curious about the relation between aged societies and those numbers across the OECD.

The subjective stories I read don't suggest a particularly bright experience for most younger Japanese, though I'd be the first to point out that those are often more interested in painting a narrative for gullible Westerners than offering any real analysis.

I agree that Japan is a useful canary, and policymakers should watch its experience closely to evaluate how serious the problem is and potential solutions.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#267

Post by tingletech »

snowwrestler wrote: post #187
corysama wrote: post #90

This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere: We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forwa…

Here are two scary storylines that get discussed pretty regularly here on HN: a) AI and machine learning will raise productivity so much that they will steal millions of jobs from people. b) Global population will eventually go into decline, which will crash the economy by killing growth. But, these two stories look far less scary when considered together. In fact they seem directly complementary, although the timing…

now if we could just get the robots to pay social security

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#268

Post by inopinatus »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #251
inopinatus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mary Wollstonecraft was not rich, and (ironically given this discussion) died due to the complications of giving birth to Mary Shelley. The claim that the wealthy are controlling everyone's fertility is as short-sighted as it is parochial. Given that elsewhere in this thread you explain how this is all the work of a shadow government , the label hardly seems unwarranted.

They're controlling the economy in ways that influence reproductive choices.

Social progress influences choice, which in turn influences economies, which influence people.

There is no cabal of They. The "shadow government" thesis is straight-up conspiracy batshit.

Unless you mean the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China who certainly authorized the two-child law just a few years back, but they're not really a shadow government. They're a regular one, just not very transparent.

Ultimately both Chinese communism (via Hegel) and Western feminism (via Wollstonecraft) trace their origins back to the French Revolution, so maybe you are being controlled by Robespierre.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#269

Post by Guy2020 »

tomerico wrote: post #256
Guy2020 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The idea is not that books are not useful, but that you should make effort to summarize the main point of the book while still recommending the book.

Ok...the main point is that there is a shadow government that shapes our culture and people's perceptions through mass media and by corrupting influential people for the purpose of endorsing certain ideas/products. In that work, Bernays details these types of "shadow governments."

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#270

Post by tomerico »

ggggtez wrote: post #235
manquer wrote: post #197

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…

Miscarriages are not births. If the birth rate remains at 2.1 you can have as many miscarriages as you want, and the population will still increase. The same with Hikkikomori, and gay people. As long as there is 2.1 children born for every woman, then the population will increase. The only factor which you mention that is correct is that in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1…

You are failing to account for the gender imbalance. Consider an extreme gender ratio where for the 2.1 born for an average woman, there are 2 males and 0.1 females. This means that every generation will have 10X less women.
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