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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

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Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#831

Post by arrosenberg »

greggman3 wrote: post #360
arrosenberg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's too easy for everyone to blame "the man" or "society" for a mindset that is entirely self-inflicted - with the exception of the US system tying healthcare to employment. That is definitely a top-down influence. The truth is that most "toxic culture" issues are systemic, so dumping blame on individuals for following systemic incentives doesn't make any sense. Nobody is forced to prioritize their career, but a l…

systemic != top down for me. top down to me equal some secret cabal of people that push an agenda systemic to me means the way the system is but how the system got that way would be the random inputs of thousands or even millions of individual and uncoordinated actions. People living paycheck to paycheck seems like it's always been a thing even when they had larger families. In fact the largest families in the modern…

I would agree that not all systemic problems are top down, but many are, and there are "secret cabals" dedicated to creating and propagating such systems. It doesn't make sense to me to define systemic problems as strictly random, since humans attempt to create top-down, complex systems constantly (especially post-WW2 in more modern society).

> People living paycheck to paycheck seems like it's always been a thing even when they had larger families.

Different eras, different issues. In agrarian times a large family was an investment in future labor, and as a retirement/continuity strategy. In modern society, adding children is a significant expense, and with the easy availability of birth control, it's far more of a choice. In both cases, people were following the rational incentives that society has created for them.

We can argue about whether the current economic circumstances are random or top-down, but in either case, if you change the incentives for having kids (universal healthcare, affordable childcare, food/housing security, etc.) then you will get more kids.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#832

Post by cphuntington97 »

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…

[‘Ghost Houses’ Haunt a Rapidly Aging Japan](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-ghost-houses)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#833

Post by carapace »

mchusma wrote: post #205

I 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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project

> "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in space colonization.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#834

Post by concordDance »

bananaface wrote: post #644
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assuming you knew that your comparison of a builder in Arkansas or a programmer in SF was intended to be a comparison of two people not at the top of the income ladder but reasonably financially secure. Poor people everywhere have more kids than richer people in the same places because various welfare programs make the net cost of each kid less. There's also a massive cost cliff once you get below the threshold…

I posted anecdotes to contextualise the trend. I don't really think there's much point in getting hung up on them because my point is: poor people have more kids, on average, and this trend holds pretty much everywhere. The real question is: what is it about being rich that causes you to have less kids?

Rich people tend to think they're going to have high quality kids and K select as opposed to the R selection the poor use? /not entirely serious

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#835

Post by carapace »

So the Amish win?

It seems everything has already been said: Most of our problems are driven by population pressure. Leveling off is a good thing, despite potential expense of reconfiguring society and economies (but we have to do that anyway to address climate change!)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#836

Post by libraryatnight »

"Prof Ibrahim Abubakar, University College London (UCL), said: "If these predictions are even half accurate, migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option."

So if the US current attitude towards immigrants persists, this is a future in which it does not compete well?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#837

Post by wellpast »

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…

I didn’t want children but my now-wife was persistent. We even separated for a year because I didn’t want children. The only way I was able to have my so far two children was by pretending it wasn’t a choice of mine — and now of course I have zero regrets. The idea that we can “choose” to have kids is somewhat ridiculous I think. (I realize this is counterintuitive.) But there is no calculus at all that can incorporate any meaningful “data” into that decision. If you don’t believe me consider that I didn’t want kids but just went through having them and my joy at this happening to me could not have been understood by any upfront rational thinking. There is no free will in this domain.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#838

Post by 0xffff2 »

Tepix wrote: post #650
mchusma wrote: post #205

I 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…

I hope that humanity doesn't grow until we actually have that room beyond Earth available to us. Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people. We're already using resources in an unsustainable manner. Human greed will keep it that way. Now, once we have those O'Neill cylinders out there, sign me up! Just building a single one in space is…

> Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people.

Is this being proposed as something to aspire to? Much better to sustain a much smaller population that can enjoy a varied diet and see the world IMO.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#839

Post by sweeneyrod »

capableweb wrote: post #713
sweeneyrod wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people you know are almost certainly not representative of the world at large. Maybe 80% is a bit high, but the number is certainly over 50%. The median global person earns less than $3000/year.

> The people you know are almost certainly not representative of the world at large Yeah, most certainly. > The median global person earns less than $3000/year What does that have to do with anything? In plenty of places you can easily survive and have a good time with $3000/year, so not sure where or how this is relevant. And how you get the "certainly over 50%" number from? You happen to be American too?

That figure is adjusted for cost of living.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#840

Post by ryandrake »

fiblye wrote: post #363
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 ba…

> 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.

Insufficient/shrinking supply of a good, but prices going down instead of up? What economics are in play here?

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