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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

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Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#361

Post by inopinatus »

JackFr wrote: post #321
inopinatus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're trying to very generously interpret a conspiracy theory that doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny. Access to contraception, and a rise in women's education and employment, are not a message imposed on society by the wealthy, inadvertently or otherwise, nor have they occurred on the timeline of concerns such as climate change and resource exhaustion. They are social consequences of the Enlightenment.

Consider how attitudes towards contraception have changed over time. There was a time, not that long ago, where the separation of procreation from the procreative act was considered harmful to both society and the individual. There is a cultural elite, who’s effect has been so profound, they have led you to believe that such a cultural norm as we enjoy today was inevitable and have convinced the world that taking a p…

Contraception is not dysfunction.

There is no cultural elite brainwashing me into believe otherwise. I can arrive at this position all on my lonesome, simply by rejecting the appalling prejudices of the Catholic church (and many other religions), misogynists in general, and bigoted authoritarians (but I repeat myself); both on the basis of the crushing harm they have inflicted over the centuries, and the colossal waste of talent due to the systematic oppression of women.

As for this:

> the separation of procreation from the procreative act was considered harmful to both society and the individual

That depends who you read. If your selectively chosen history of the last 6,000 years consists entirely of texts written by and/or documenting the fun police, I can see how you might arrive at this conclusion. On the other hand, there have always been voices otherwise. Until the Enlightenment they tended to be pilloried and/or executed, but that doesn't exactly highlight the hypocrisy in charge as something to be desired, rather something to be abandoned.

Again, unless you are amongst them.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#363

Post by fiblye »

creato wrote: post #345

It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y. When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity…

> The demand for labor will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the investor class looking for profits, good for reducing economic inequality. People will be able to profit from labor again.

I'm not so sure about that.

Loads of wealth is consolidated at the top, both in terms of economic class and age. People who got their jobs and attained management positions after barely graduating high school are demanding bachelor's or master's degrees for jobs that will barely pay rent. Landowners bought up when it was cheap and refuse to lower prices or sell for below what they think it's worth, even going as far as evicting people during a pandemic, knowing full well those units might not be filled in months or years, if ever. Some young people will get to a point where they can buy stuff up and work their way up the ladder, but there will be plenty more people who have it all given to them by those who established themselves when it was easier. I don't expect the next generation to be any more compassionate.

There are already endless reports of there being insufficient workers for agricultural jobs, nursing, teachers, etc. Wages haven't risen to meet the demand. They've remained stagnant or dropped in the long term. Meanwhile, those at the top are richer than ever.

Wealth at the top is often created by rent seeking. Just extracting money without actually making anything. I'm pretty confident that if the number of workers dropped and demand for labor increased, they'd just squeeze harder. Shut out the ones who didn't make it and terrify the ones who've managed to hold a job about the possibilities of what'll happen should they quit.

People are already getting paid more being unemployed. Employers are trying to get people to work for them again while offering them less than unemployment pays. They're not even trying to compete because they know people are going to come desperately crawling back.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#364

Post by kasrkin623 »

echelon wrote: post #349
creato wrote: post #345

It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y. When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity…

> The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated. I don't know if you live in California, but I think that there's sort of a reality distortion field that comes with living in a big and expensive city. Here in Georgia the rents are cheap and peop…

Who wants to live in Georgia though? I mean this unironically, there's not much to do in terms of entertainment and opportunities for a young 20 yo vs LA or NY

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#365

Post by kmonsen »

pythux wrote: post #336
bemmu wrote: post #223

Kind of a silly thought experiment, but ever wondered why you were born at this point in history, and not some other point? If population is now nearing its peak, you're more likely to be among the people alive now.

I think you might be referring to the « doomsday argument »? - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument

I read a science fiction book based around this once. It makes a lot of sense at first, the issue is that we are not a random sample. People could have used this argument at any time in human history.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#366

Post by rmykhajliw »

I've read plenty researches: main factor is healthcare. It's a natural a better healthcare - leads to lower child and women death rate. That's why people are having less child and they become more valuable.

100 years ago there's NO statistic for child under 13yo death rate. Mostly because it was TOO high around 50-60% children are dying before they get ready for marriage.

My grand-grand-ma told me she had 8 brothers and sisters and only 2 survive: she and her brother. In that time it was reasonable to bake kids in enormous numbers in hope some of them are won't die. Then healthcare changed everything.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#367

Post by kmonsen »

snowwrestler wrote: post #329
logicchains wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pres…

In a society that wishes to support people who are not producing value, the people who are producing value will need to overproduce. Whether you measure the overage in units of lifetime granaries, or running annual surpluses, is primarily an accounting choice. As a practical matter, it's impossible for one farmer to save up enough food to span their entire retirement. Storage is an expense, and food goes bad eventual…

Yeah but we have money that can be stored and anyone that is old and have reserves of money will be treated and get food etc.

Society doesn’t reward you based on the value you produce but based on how much fictional currency you have. This could be entirely granted to you for example in a a lottery and you never produced anything of value.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#368

Post by mac01021 »

tuatoru wrote: post #317
mdorazio wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: major world problems like climate change are a direct result of having too many people, and more specifically having too many people living unsustainable lifestyles. Worse, a large percentage of the world's population is now moving out of sustainable living into unsustainable living as a result of globalization (as people gain more wealth, they tend to want things like more meat and driving a car). The…

> Counterpoint: major world problems like climate change are a direct result of having too many people Not exactly. The bottom 85% (in income terms) of the global population contribute very little to unsustainability. There are too many people in OECD countries, perhaps.

> The bottom 85% (in income terms) of the global population contribute very little to unsustainability.

Is that true? What percent do they contribute?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#369

Post by kmonsen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #37
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.

Saving and investing is ineffective if everyone’s investment returns (assuming there’s any returns to be had with productivity slowing and economies stagflating, note the monetary policy in Japan and Europe) are chasing the same limited pool of healthcare and caregiver labor. The only solutions are technology or rationing care.

The key is who saves/invests the most and they will have access. This is how it works with everything in capitalism and this is the only efficient way we know of distributing resources.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#370

Post by jojobas »

kasrkin623 wrote: post #364
echelon wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated. I don't know if you live in California, but I think that there's sort of a reality distortion field that comes with living in a big and expensive city. Here in Georgia the rents are cheap and peop…

Who wants to live in Georgia though? I mean this unironically, there's not much to do in terms of entertainment and opportunities for a young 20 yo vs LA or NY

Perhaps some 80% of global population would be very grateful to relocate to Georgia.
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