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Basement Fertility

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Re: Basement Fertility

#121
post #98

It would have been good to see an x-y plot of living with parents vs. fertility. Eyeballing the maps he showed, I don't see a great correlation. Scandinavia has mediocre fertility compared to the rest of Europe, but the lowest percentage living with their parents. Other nations like Greece do satisfy his hypothesis, but a real test would be to plot those two percentages on an x-y plot and see how well they correlate…

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRhDMqe8boEY... I don't see any correlation at all.

The data don't lie on a line, but at least they lie on a plane.

Re: Basement Fertility

#122
post #98

It would have been good to see an x-y plot of living with parents vs. fertility. Eyeballing the maps he showed, I don't see a great correlation. Scandinavia has mediocre fertility compared to the rest of Europe, but the lowest percentage living with their parents. Other nations like Greece do satisfy his hypothesis, but a real test would be to plot those two percentages on an x-y plot and see how well they correlate…

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRhDMqe8boEY... I don't see any correlation at all.

Thanks! I agree. The R-squared of these numbers is 0.11, which is much closer to 0 (no relation) than to 1 (perfect correlation).

Re: Basement Fertility

#123
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I were a man, there's no way I would just let a house become marital property if I owned it outright before the marriage, especially considering how family courts screw men over. That's a surefire way to homelessness, unless you are very (SV engineer or doctor) rich.

The property acquired before marriage is yours after divorce. The split part are properties acquired during marriage, unless you have prenup that says otherwise for some reason. That has zero to do with whether it is safe to move into in-laws house when you are entering vulnerable period of pregnancy and being primary caregiver for small kids. Because both severely limit your economic options even in best conditions.

>The property acquired before marriage is yours after divorce

That is generally only true until kids are in the picture, then the famous "what is best for the child" over rules all

Re: Basement Fertility

#124
post #90

On Twitter, Elon Musk has been posting a lot about how people should have more children. I'm mentioning it not because of him, instead because it offers insight into a common misconception. Those threads show thousands and thousands of replies by young people about how they can barely take care of themselves. High cost of living, no access to housing, unaffordable healthcare, etc. What is not intuitive is that this r…

In my annectdotal experience the same people who tout wanting to support and hire from a diverse pool of applicants to not miss the next Einstein, don't extend that logic into the Unborn.

I think the way we are likely to solve our greatest issues like climate change through having more smart, well-educated, well-raised, and loved children. So if you're privileged enough to have the capacity to raise such children it's probably one of the greatest things you can do for the future health of this planet (and if you still feel torn about the overall population rate you can still apply this logic to adoption).

If all the altruistic people depopulate themselves, then only the least altruistic will remain.

Re: Basement Fertility

#125
post #58
post #3

A huge difference is even a few generations ago, the "growing family" would be the one owning the house, and grandparents (their parents) would move in with them - now it's inverted; only the grandparents have a house or can afford one, and so the "growing" or potentially growing family is living with them. It doesn't seem as much a difference but it is a really big one.

How did all those whole generations of parents and grandparents lost their houses and who took those houses?

few things impact this

1. Force to sell due to medicare or other end of life expenses (you can not have any assets if you need full time nursing care paid for by medicare)

2. the "Reverse mortgage" people fall for.

3. Baby Boomers, a Single Asset split 5-8 ways does not go far

4. the houses owned really were not that good. My Grandparents owned their home, bought it right after WWII, the house was a small 2 bed 1 bath they raised 4 kids in... It is still in the family but it is out-dated by modern standards.

that is 4, I am sure there are others

Re: Basement Fertility

#126

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

If you trace this thread backwards to its root (by essentially responding to every answer with "so what?"), you end up with the question "would it a 'bad thing' if humanity were to become extinct?" Anecdotally, the vast majority of people I've met - from all walks of life and religious/political leanings - will answer this question with an unthinking "yes, of course that's bad". I've been curious lately why this is.…

You are a monkey brain. It is not the case you should replace your monkey brain value system with some "better" value system.

Or rather, if you choose to replace your monkey brain value system with some better value system, such choice can be made only under your monkey brain value system. Value-system-yet-to-be-adopted is not your value system yet (entire question is about whether it should be your value system) and can't be the basis of your choice. (Yes, humans often make mistakes here, but that's because humans are vulnerable to circular reasoning, not because circular reasoning is valid.)

Re: Basement Fertility

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

If there were any place in the world where one would think that your supposed capability of creating ecosystems wholesale would manifest, it would be California with its nexus of engineers and venture capital. And yet, California is suffering from ever worsening drought conditions and forest fires, with no solutions in sight. Conversely, depopulation on an otherwise healthy planet is a trivially solvable problem. Our…

CA has a nexus of software engineers, and dot com capital

Not Civil, Mechanical, or other engineers.

Also venture capital has no interest in fighting 1000's environmental lawsuits and 10,000's of pointless regulations designed to stop any construction or development that would improve CA

Re: Basement Fertility

#129
post #98

It would have been good to see an x-y plot of living with parents vs. fertility. Eyeballing the maps he showed, I don't see a great correlation. Scandinavia has mediocre fertility compared to the rest of Europe, but the lowest percentage living with their parents. Other nations like Greece do satisfy his hypothesis, but a real test would be to plot those two percentages on an x-y plot and see how well they correlate…

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRhDMqe8boEY... I don't see any correlation at all.

Optical regression score: "All over the place worse than my darts game after a few pints of gin"

Though, often a rank vs. rank scatter plot is more enlightening than a scatter plot of the raw data.

Re: Basement Fertility

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

If there were any place in the world where one would think that your supposed capability of creating ecosystems wholesale would manifest, it would be California with its nexus of engineers and venture capital. And yet, California is suffering from ever worsening drought conditions and forest fires, with no solutions in sight. Conversely, depopulation on an otherwise healthy planet is a trivially solvable problem. Our…

If you turn labels off, and Google Earth the CA - MX - AZ border, you can spot the All-American canal diverting the Colorado river across actual Saharaesque fields of sand dunes long before you see the thin grey lines of Interstate 8 right next to it.

It feeds that large patch of green/farms/food entirely surrounded by sand, and drains north into the inland sea created by the first botched attempt at diverting in the 1900s.

That’s arguably the least important part of the state that isn’t desert (anymore), and a small scale version of what we’ve done to the Central Valley.

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