The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#701

Post by mattgreenrocks » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #569

nostromo wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys of success. It’s absolutely correct, but it’s also just one data point. Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I’m not sure it’s a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be lonely in old age, because it need not be true.

Luckily, the success rate with children is much higher than startups. (I think? and hope? Don't actually have data on this.)

Fun thing I realized: with startups, you have a _maybe_ 1% chance you'll "change the future."

With children: ~100% chance because you'll be in your child's life.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#702

Post by sdwa » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

depr wrote: post #651

brazzy wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The children who exist after you made them.

But they don't exist at the moment you make them, so before they exist you have no reason to sacrifice anything for _them_ because there is no _them_. If you give up a job to move somewhere to move to a city to meet your future partner, you didn't sacrifice your job for them, at least not in the sense that any nobility can be derived from that act. You gave something up, yes, but not for _a person_ because you don't…

> So deciding to have kids, even if you have to give something up, is not some selfless or noble act, as parent said

Is anyone actually seriously suggesting that the decision itself is an act of sacrifice? Surely it's kind of super obvious that the sacrifices are in raising the children, not in deciding to have them?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#703

Post by sdwa » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

zeepzeep wrote: post #545

ddorian43 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should end civilization ?

Yes

Then most would agree that misanthropes such as yourself should absolutely not have children and we all support your decision.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#704

Post by regularfry » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

throwaway936482 wrote: post #404

creato wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking very short term and in a very narrow range of conditions around our current economic situation. We have never seen economic conditions remotely close to what we would see if the population were actually shrinking.

It's not actually that unusual for a country to have a shrinking population. Italy, Croatia, Lithuania, and a few other central and Eastern European countries currently have declining populations, as does Japan, some due to ageing and a drop in fertility and some due to that plus emigration. Economically and socially they've not entered into the death spiral some people seem to think will happen and are actually doin…

It's a question of degree. I think the article is kinda hand-wringy, but not incorrect in the attention they're giving to orders of magnitude. You've got to remember that if a country like Spain halves in population, that's a colossal shift from A to B, to the extent that each decade will feel like a fairly major leap on its own. I don't think it'll be a death spiral, but it'll definitely absorb resources that otherwise could be directed to advancements, rather than preventing retrenchments. And that's assuming the rate of change doesn't cause nonlinear effects of its own.

Also, if Spain halves, it may well be that other countries shrink even further. You've also got to wonder about the distribution of old folk: some countries will end up with far more extreme distributions than others, but what I suspect we'll find is that, just as there's a quality of life level above which the reproduction rate decreases, there'll be a population level below which the quality of life decreases, so it'll self-correct.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#705

Post by swsieber » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

silveroriole wrote: post #511

freetanga wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the correlation between what you put in and what you get out is much higher. I had to give up a number of hobbies and intelectual pursuits in order to be there for my kids. Building a caring, trust-based long term relationship is hard work - sharing the same blood and providing a roof and a meal is not enough, which sadly is many people’s definition of parenting. I know I am giving up things. I know there is…

It sucks knowing that you’re the reason your parents gave up hobbies, dreams, money, travel etc that they could otherwise have had. I know, like you, parents usually think it’s worth it but it’s not nice to think that my mom would probably have been a more fun, interesting person if I didn’t exist. The admittance that your life has to change and you have to give things up so that another human can do maybe things ins…

Am I a less interesting person for having children? Maybe?

Please note that effort that goes into raising children isn't just dumped somewhere that may return dividends someday. You develop a lot of skills and improve others a ton by being a parent.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#706

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #689

tsimionescu wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To pay for things we need the ratio of workers:transactions to increase. Human health is also a component of that inequation. How are you factoring that in with profit? Also, all of that growth is meaningless unless it somehow makes people healthier and happier. So I would say that having a huge and successful healthcare industry is one of the goals of the rest of the economy (as are food production, entertainment,…

GDP growth is one of the most strongly correlated metrics with "health, happiness, mathematical research, etc." Capitalism is the greatest force in history for increases in human wealth, happiness, abundance, etc., ie., for growth Consider any metric of interest over the last century, and esp. the last 40 years: https://ourworldindata.org/

That only works because the data doesn't take into account any kind of shared wealth. Large swathes of people lived in tribal communities which had different concepts of ownership and property, but were not 'poor' by any common definition from their times. GDP data completely ignored these types of societies, which formed the majority in some areas of the world before colonization. Even then, most of the escapes from poverty have happened in state-run, dictatorial China and in the newly de-colonized India, so it is very hard to imagine how some can claim Capitalism is the important factor here.

Also, capitalism without explicit social goals imposed by a state is disastrous. Just look at the USA, with one of the worse and most expensive Healthcare systems out of the developed world, despite having by far the largest GDP (the only fully capitalist-run Healthcare system in the world!).

All of this is not to mention that capitalism is rapidly destroying our planet, with global warming, deforestation,river polution, oil spills, air pollution and other woes being fought for tooth-and-nail by most large companies.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#707

Post by scottLobster » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

twelve40 wrote: post #618

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…

> if you raise your children well straight up no true Scotsman. Literally, no true Scotsman.

Not really, it's a valid correlation that children raised well generally have better relationships with their parents.

Sometimes children are raised well and turn out to be little shits, but given that we're not drafting a scientific study in the comment section conversational generalities should be forgiven, unless you want every conversation to be so paralyzed by pedantry that no real content is discussed.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#708

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #699

ido wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mum made that choice of her own free will & to this day often repeats how having 4 kids was the best decision she ever made & if she could go back she would have had even more. My conscience is clear. Also I don't think I have become a less fun, interesting person since having kids. I may have become wiser (and more tired).

Free will is an illusion. She had a set of evolutionary drives paired with societal pressures that made the choice inevitable.

So given that birthrate is falling, society must be changing to prevent evolution drives? If we have no will I wonder what determines society - it can't be evolution, we're acting contrary to our base nature.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#709

Post by regularfry » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #621

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…

> A shrinking, aging population would fix this problem. 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. Except in terms of pure economics, labor won’t necessarily become more valuable, because with less population there will be less consumption and less demand for goods. So…

The point about it being an aging population is that the proportion of consumers to producers will change. The demand for goods might shrink as an absolute value, but the demand for labour should increase more, as a higher proportion of the population just can't work. In addition, part of the demand which increases will be for forms of labour that we currently don't have an automation plan for.

To balance out the automation question, it's just as likely that technical advances will improve the ability of older people to do economically useful work that they want to do. There's a lot of mental horsepower, life experience, and will there, if you can work around physical and metabolic limitations.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#710

Post by iJohnDoe » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

Thanks for your great comment. Not sure why people are only focusing on the final years of loneliness part. It was only one part and to me it was clear that you love spending time with all of your family and look forward to every second you have with them.