India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman • Hacker News Board

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#151

Post by tediousdemise » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

All of these issues are functions of a growing population.

You know that our species has a problem when the solution to issues becomes "we need to shit out more babies." This modus operandi is no different than that of a replicating virus or locust swarm. When you are part of the swarm, it's easy to justify your actions as a means for survival, but from an outside perspective, one sees nothing but chaos, environmental devastation, and widespread suffering.

We need to stop the rampant breeding and plug the hole in this sinking ship known as planet Earth.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#152

Post by rayiner » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

gizmo686 wrote: post #60

bhouston wrote: post #47

This is good to a degree. But it does mean India joins much of the rest of the world with sub-replacement fertility with just a few outliers. The challenge now switches to how to move from sub-replacement to sustainable fertility. Japan and South Korea are leaders in sub-replacement fertility with not that much success in finding a path towards sustainable population. Both I believe are still dropping. This is the gr…

Is there a need to a sustainable population rate? There are about 8 billion humans on the planet. We can sustain a sub replacement birthrate for generations. There is a good chance we can sustain it for long enough to solve aging; or at least significantly push back the ~100 year limit to human life. Once we do that, we will need generations of sub replacement fertility just to compensate for having more generations…

Only if humans in different places are fungible, which they are not, and only if young people are willing to shoulder increasingly high burdens to take care of old people, which is debatable.

And the “solution to aging” stuff is pretty optimistic. Modern medical technology has barely pushed the boundaries of healthy life at the top end. The first five American presidents died at 67, 83, 90, 85, and 73. The two that didn’t make it to their 80s died of a viral disease that still affects us today (influenza) and a bacterial disease that we do have a treatment for today (TB).

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#153

Post by odiroot » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

> Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn.

> I look forward to the problems we will face then [..]

Hey, that's a great untapped market for ad targetting. Facebook and Google must be ecstatic.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#154

Post by ElectronShak » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

nynx wrote: post #138

ElectronShak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever." -Isaac Newton "Almighty God, Who hast created man in Thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee, and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to study the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengt…

This isn’t really convincing. Newton and Maxwell were incredibly important, but they also lived quite a while ago. Religion has a different role in society these days.

I agree, although I don't look at Christianity as religion, from my understanding of the new testament..Christ was crucified basically because he didn't follow "the law of their fathers"..religion essentially.

The aim is not to convince though, but to raise the question, why does our generation think that anything scriptural cannot be treated as fact. Why are newtons laws fact, but not his convictions? Are we so taken up by being "scientific" in our own eyes, that we forget the very premise on which science is based, God?

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#155

Post by bo1024 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

arkj wrote: post #104

> But religion is a small factor in fertility today, Muttreja says. “Hindus in Uttar Pradesh, for example, have a much higher fertility than Muslims in Kerala. There is no Hindu fertility or Muslim fertility.” This is really strange he could have compared fertility rate of Muslims vs Hindus in Utter Pradeep and the same in Kerala. Instead he compares Muslims in Kerala vs Hindus in Utter Pranesh. Kerala is the least p…

If you reread the previous paragraph, the background is that some people focus on the difference in fertility across religions. The point being made is that socioeconomic conditions are more important.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#156

Post by z3t4 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

When the cost of human labor goes up, the inequality will go down. One question is if cities will keep growing, or if we will see decentralization. The corona pandemic has proved that many jobs can be decentralized using modern communication technology. While the average population gets older, we are also more healthy at higher ages, so we might not need as much care.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#157

Post by distances » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

ako wrote: post #116

mastax wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many European countries have extremely generous benefits for raising children, but it has been broadly ineffective at raising birth rates - with the possible exception of the Czech Republic. I agree though that governments are going to try, and they may find a way to do it. There was a good episode of The Weeds podcast, "Baby making vibes," which talked about this. Some of it is focused on the American political lens…

European countries may have generous benefits for raising children, but they’re not even close to covering the costs of children. I doubt there are many people who will decide to have children based on these benefits.

I agree, I wouldn't talk of extremely generous before the benefits cover a larger apartment to house the kids, and other indirect expenses. Unlikely to happen!

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#158

Post by reducesuffering » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #95

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

Agreed. Think about the fact that the result of a low birth-rate with better medical tech keeping older people from dying when they otherwise would have. The result will be a far higher percentage of voters in democracies will be beneficiaries of the work of people younger than them. They will increasingly vote to expand the benefits they receive, at the expense of the younger folks who have to pay higher taxes to fu…

That won't end until young people actually show up to polls just as significantly. Politicians cater to their voting constituents and the elderly show up to vote stronger. Some of this is due to our suspect "you have this 1 Tuesday to do it" voting day. But what young people can do is make it socially unacceptable to not vote like the elderly do to each other.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#159

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #117

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

> I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than population expansion ever did. You need to factor in the problems that population expansion would cause in the future.

The ones predicted by Malthus, that never happened and never will?

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#160

Post by soperj » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #53

zpeti wrote: post #48

Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn. I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new problem. Here's my shot at a few: - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make people who are over 70 work productively. But without children less and less people will need to take care of this large old age group. And they will ne…

> I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than population expansion ever did. I think that unfettered population growth would have caused massive issues -- you could say that global warming is one of its legacies. But there will be a whole host of new issues as we face this new challenge of moving towards sustainable fertility. I suspect we will see a lot of government intervention with incentives towards l…

>you could say that global warming is one of its legacies

Considering that the majority of emissions came from a select few countries(over half from the EU & USA) that don't make up the majority of the population, and they majority of those emissions have happened while there's been smaller population growth, I don't think it's unfettered population growth that's the problem.