Do we need more people?
The global fertility rate is falling
291–300 of 881 posts
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#292Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…
What would natural even look like in this context?
It was only in the recent history that it was the expectation that your child would live and go on to have greater than replacement number of children. That is evident by the fact that for most of our species history the total population was fairly static.
Pulling nitrogen out of the air and sprinkling it on domestic crops was real "unnatural" but it got us past ~3B
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#293This trend among other things is one of the inspirations for writing this essay that was well received on here a few weeks ago. https://moultano.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/the-defaults-dont-...
I really feel like we don't have any effective model for how to integrate parenthood in our lives anymore, and so having kids has become almost an affectation or a hobby, rather than something that everyone bases their life around as a matter of course.
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#294I 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_QqIVn…
You could probably fit even more in virtual reality.
We can all fit in San Junipero.
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#295Anybody look at that graph and say... WTF?! The data says nothing like what the headline says! Yes, the projection goes down sharply... but the best estimator of tomorrow is yesterday, and the last few years of data are saying nothing like what the projection is showing!
It took me a minute to get what you’re saying but indeed the graph is quite deceptive. The time scale isn’t consistent.
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absolutely pushed from the top. Nobody outside of extreme religious communities sees increasing the population as a noble goal. At least in the US, children are effectively a tax on the working class. How many people do you know that had to keep working to put their kids through college? Why do workplaces have tax-incentivized college savings accounts? Why does it cost employees to add children to employer-spons…
This article is about global birth rates falling, which is true. But your comment is about conditions specific to the US. Yet birth rates are falling in countries which don't have the warped incentives you point out in the states, and where having children is supported (see Europe, much of Asia, etc.). So although you accurately point out that there are downsides, if not disincentives, to having kids in the US, that…
Here's a top down global conspiracy theory: micro plastics carried by the air and water are ingested and cause hormone disruption leading to less sex and therefore less children.
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started to read this waiting for the punchline to a Dad joke. Kids can still mow lawns for sure. >This stuff is being pushed from the top. Is this some kind of Sparta thing? Like you all go up to the top of the mountain and someone pushes Dad off? Because 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. >It…
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…
> Old calculus: "I need to have lots of children so they support me in my old age. No matter the cost."
You forget that old calculus also included "Eh it's barely worth learning their names until they're 5 years old".
In 1900 child mortality under 5 was 35%! In 1800 it was almost 40%. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_mortality#/media/File:Gl...
You needed 3 babies just to make 2 toddlers. Let alone adults.
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This also causes people to move farther away from their families for both school and then work, often meaning that the grandparent support system is not available when you want to have kids. That, in my opinion, is taken for granted more than anything else.
It also causes people to wait longer and longer to have children. My twins, my first children, came when I was 38 years old. My wife was 35. Most of our friends and family were also well into their 30s before having their first kid. This is not a winning strategy...
Re: The global fertility rate is falling
#300Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…
It isn't just the choices. Young people are having less sex. Japan has noticed this. Declining sales of contraceptives but declines in both STDs and pregnancies, especially amongst the young. Incidents of the "oops we are pregnant" scenario have declined all over the western world. Western culture has for decades complained that young people have too liberal a view of sex. Remember those abstinence pushes in the 80s…
> Remember purity rings? They worked.
Yeah... I'm not so sure about that. My bet would be on easy access to porn, entertainment, and social media resulting in less in person social interaction.