Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 881 posts

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#531

Post by greggman3 »

evgen wrote: post #517
bananaface wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think it's logically valid. I think if you raise your children well, the chance that they'll be there for you in old age is very high. If you don't have kids, the chance you will have friends that loyal is low. Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic. How do you measure that statistically? All you have are personal experiences. Saying, "not statistics, isn't valid" is obtuse, it leaves yo…

> Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic. Somewhat off-tangent here, but this is a frequent misunderstanding of this particular quote. The actual quote is: “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” and it means the exact opposite of what we now use it for. The intended meaning is that relationships entered into as adults are much stronger and deeper than those we are forced in…

This fits my family to some degree. My dad was a little upset that his mom left so much to some friends over him. But, he lived 2000 miles away and while he made a point of calling to talk to her every day she still probably had a stronger relationship with the people that she hung out with than him at the end of it.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#532

Post by sqrt17 »

mjburgess wrote: post #459
red_admiral wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the point I was about to make, but you've put it better than me. As the traditional factory job disappears more and more, the aging population will provide a huge source of new caring/support jobs. We'll have to find a way to pay them a living wage, but then we had that problem with factory jobs in the early industrial revolution too.

The problem is care-jobs are incredibly low productivity. The reason a worker today is paid more than 100 years ago is, essentially, just that they can produce/transact with more people at once. A nurse "should" be paid what they were 100 years ago, as the number of transactions hasn't changed. The only reason they aren't is due to competition from productive sectors. But those productive sectors need to exist! In a…

according to that logic, lawyers, CEOs, line managers and HR should be paid what they were 100 years ago, as they do not directly produce. They're not, it's effectively through competition with other jobs that their pay is determined.

Intuitively, "pay according to productivity" makes sense, but productivity gains have far outpaced the pay of workers while the money went elsewhere. Let's face the reality that productivity prescribes the total sum that goes around but not how each individual's contribution is credited in a society.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#533

Post by bananaface »

evgen wrote: post #517
bananaface wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think it's logically valid. I think if you raise your children well, the chance that they'll be there for you in old age is very high. If you don't have kids, the chance you will have friends that loyal is low. Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic. How do you measure that statistically? All you have are personal experiences. Saying, "not statistics, isn't valid" is obtuse, it leaves yo…

> Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic. Somewhat off-tangent here, but this is a frequent misunderstanding of this particular quote. The actual quote is: “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” and it means the exact opposite of what we now use it for. The intended meaning is that relationships entered into as adults are much stronger and deeper than those we are forced in…

I think the reason the meaning shifted is that the original meaning is not particularly accurate. Although that said, I'm looking into it and it doesn't seem settled that that is the etymylogical root. That root also specifically refers to blood shed in battle. My guess is it was war propaganda.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#534

Post by greggman3 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #488
ido wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is all you've taken from the above than we've read 2 very different comments. The point about lonely old people is only 1 (and i would say not the most significant) point in the argument. I have a wife and 2 (small) children. There is nobody in the world I love more than my family - it used to be only my wife previously and now grew from 1 person to 3. This has such a profound effect on my happiness now (in m…

I think you should definitely have friends, with or without kids. But from I see around me, I get the impression that having friends is difficult. Even more so when people have to juggle kids and a career. There's a certain isolation that seems to set in. I'm sure a lot of people don't have the kids with the purpose of not being alone in old age. But I also get that there's some kind of "soft expectation", for lack o…

In Japan (and probably several other cultures), it's common to list your birth order in your dating profile. This is because if you're the first born you're expected to take care of the parents and many people choose to explicitly NOT date such people, especially women, since they'll likely be tasked with taking care of the 1st born son's parents.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#535

Post by brazzy »

zeepzeep wrote: post #510
gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

> IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

You can paint pretty much any action as selfish by using this "just to make yourself feel good" angle. It's a meaningless non-argument.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#536

Post by amriksohata »

I find articles like this send a mass hysteria that its happening across the world, when in fact its actually dependent on the country. You can see middle east countries to africa are not falling, but yes the overall worldwide rate is falling.

https://external-preview.redd.it/_mQKfLNs2BdBrdF5eF0GNxqPMlB...

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#537

Post by brazzy »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #505
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure having children so you won't be lonely in old age is a good thing.

I’ve been thinking about this and I feel like society characterises some acts as selfless (I.e. having children, marrying your ‘soulmate’)....when really it’s all about people wanting something for themselves....

Characterizing something that involves massive sacrifices and giving up a lot of freedom as "people wanting something for themselves" is pretty ridiculous edgy-teenager thinking.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#538

Post by jasode »

Apocryphon wrote: post #445
drukenemo wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree and I think the comment is valid. I know many cases in which children and parents are not close emotionally or physically (live away). As they say, your mileage may vary.

It might be logically valid, but it's pretty emotionally tone-deaf to blithely dismiss a long heartfelt personal account by saying "Survivor bias. Caveat emptor." Read the room, as they say.

>It might be logically valid, but it's pretty emotionally tone-deaf to blithely dismiss a long heartfelt personal account by saying "Survivor bias. Caveat emptor." Read the room, as they say.

I think the (inadvertent) tone-deafness can work both ways. The gp (gregfjohnson) in telling his personal account was also inadvertently tone-deaf to some potential readers.

If I can compress his comment into 2 parts:

- part 1: "I would like to contribute a bit of information. [...heartfelt story of the joys children and grandchildren...]" - part 2: "I highly recommend it." Although some replies (from nostromo, drukenemo, etc) didn't agree with gregfjohnson, it was triggered by the "recommendation". A reader can dismiss part 2 (recommendation) without dismissing part 1 (personal joys) at all. There are 2 separate concepts there.

Likewise, someone else could write the opposite story, "I don't have the hassle of kids and can go vacations whenever I want. I highly recommend it." -- and a reader with happy children will dismiss the "recommendation" without invalidating the freedom of vacations.

tldr: just because you're relaying a wonderful personal story doesn't mean your "advice" will be accepted at face value because some readers don't see the positive personal anecdote as (logical) evidence for the advice.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#539

Post by aaron695 »

As life span increases, which it will in the next few decades, so will the length of fertility.

So any extrapolation out 80 years is nothing more than sensationalism.

I truly don't understand this nonsense.

We can clearly see in the past 80 years, the really slow moving pre internet past, the global fertility rate has changed how it works significantly, but suddenly in this hyper-society we are wasting time looking at 2100?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#540

Post by zeepzeep »

brazzy wrote: post #535
zeepzeep wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

> IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely. You can paint pretty much any action as selfish by using this "just to make yourself feel good" angle. It's a meaningless non-argument.

But usually it doesn't affect others. Maybe selfish is the wrong word. I mean you got positive feelings while some others might have negative feelings because of you.
Post reply on HN