Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#301

Post by Thorrez » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

agentwiggles wrote: post #204

fshr wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam's a smart guy. He gets a lot right. Sometimes he has blind spots that make him seem alarmist. > I think it's less about preserving sparkling blue eyes and more about the negative effects of a declining population on a country's economy. Good thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration is a thing > One of the key points he made that seemed fairly intuitive is that as your population declines you eventually win…

Minor nitpick - Sam is not the one making these points in the referenced episode - it's the guest who wrote a book on the topic. In fact Sam brought another guy onto this show to act as a backstop, admitting up front that he didn't feel he knew enough about the topic to have a deep conversation without some help. The other guy pushed back on various points that Zeihan made and it's a pretty interesting discussion. As…

>Presumably the same things that cause your "native" population to stop reproducing eventually affects your immigrants after a generation or so, so while it can definitely slow the population decline, it's not a full solution.

I think it could be a full solution. In theory there could be 2 populations, a slow population and a fast population, and the fast population continually donates people to the slow population via immigration to sustain it. The worry would be if some idea from the slow population infects the fast population and causes it to slow down.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by osigurdson » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #170

decafninja wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching her friends and my friends' wives go through it, we've been scared off. Add to that, the usual HN phenomenon that we're observing how the world and our countries (USA & Korea) seem be going down the toilet, and that makes us feel hesitant to bring a new human being into the world, especially when there are kids already here that could use a loving family.

The world has always been going down the toilet. The only difference now is that we have higher visibility of and lower tolerance for the bullshit. You shouldn’t be so pessimistic.

Great comment. Your absolutely right. I'm often personally far too pessimistic about the future (climate change, nuclear annihilation, etc). There is no real benefit to such pessimism.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by lettergram » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

jdkoeck wrote: post #279

lettergram wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, this sounds environmental in nature… I wouldn’t be surprised if this is intentional. That said, all I have is the constant drum of “the world is over populated” by leaders around the world to back up my reasoning for potentially being intentional. Plenty of non-intentional possibilities as well.

> That said, all I have is the constant drum of “the world is over populated” by leaders around the world to back up my reasoning for potentially being intentional. You might want to consult with a professional, that’s paranoid thinking.

You do know the US government and governments around the world have straight sterilized women before; without their knowledge?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Amer...

I’m not even saying that nefarious.

Have you heard of planned parenthood? The government gives them money to aid in reducing fertility. Particularly in populations that would find children “burdensome”.

It’s not a stretch to consider the idea the government, organization or company might knowingly hide side effects of something detrimental. Alternative the government could say, urge it’s medical staff to hand out “the pill”. Schools already urge students to use condoms and give them out in some cases.

Just as an example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oregon-school-district-oks-teac...

You’d have to be a different kind of crazy to think it’s not possible lol

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by girvo » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

nunb wrote: post #287

random314 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the opinion?

adoptee turned to hard drugs (opiods) in his teens. the opinion was: what do you expect, the father was an addict too. at the time I was shocked as I was so firmly in the nurture camp.

Addiction, and specifically OUD is complicated, but there is real evidence that genetics plays a sizeable role in the physiological dependence side of it.

However the main risk factor for trying and then abusing opioids, for example, is trauma, typically but not only in childhood. Basically, it’s both nature and nurture, as most things are. Where the percentages lie for both, I don’t think we know yet.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by rayiner » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

nunb wrote: post #263

nxm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much respect to those who adopt, but bloodlines matter

I heard the most bizarre & unexpected opinion first-hand from an obgyn. Prior to this I was firmly in the nurture camp of nature/nurture, but this obgyn's opinion on adoptions shocked me out of my complacency. I am hoping Sapolsky's latest book may shed some light on the subject without the Wade/Murray "bell curve" implications.

Do you really think genetics don't matter? Depending on the study, IQ heritability is between 60-80%.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by nomay » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #129

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #128

I have no evidence for this beyond my own anecdotal experience but my guess is the biggest factor is lack of affordable housing. The average price of an apartment in Soul is 1.18 billion won (883k usd). It’s very difficult to buy a home and live off a single income as a young Korean, this is forcing people to start families later or not at all. One compounding factor could be the extension of childhood, which has bee…

If "buying a home" just means buying a shoebox apartment, why is it important in the first place for starting a family? Doesn't that mean you're just as well off renting?

In China it's directly tied to you eligibility to nearly all local civil services, since something like 60% of the condo price goes to local government in the form of land sales (70 years rental actually) plus taxes, not to mention the mortgage rate from predominantly state-owned banks doubles that price again.

It's state-owned condo cartel, naturally, prices just keep skyrocketing, hence the "6 wallets for a down payment (the couple and their parents)" meme, but they'll just blame the greedy capitalist developers like Evergrande.

So combining the two factors, buying at least one condo is a prerequisite for marriage now.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by visarga » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:57 AM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #157

mensetmanusman wrote: post #107

My interest lies in how many zeros of population are required to support certain technology strata. E.g. about a million workers are required to build and maintain aircraft. How many for nuclear power (counting everyone from teachers to healthcare etc.)

My all time favorite combining the two - how many workers would USSR have needed to fully support Admiral Kuznetsov class ships?

I'm wondering if we can build an open source repository of "how to build anything" - schematics, materials, step by step instructions. Combined with generic tech like computers and 3D-printers it would make a universal factory.

A "self replicating factory" - capable of producing a copy of itself but also anything else - could be enough to bootstrap economy anywhere. Colonising Mars is probably going to contribute research in this direction.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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Post by carrolldunham » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

I suspect having children is similar to keeping slaves, in the sense that we realized that slavery is unethical even though it was "just what we do" since time immemorial, and was necessary for our lifestyle levels. People will realize that it's unethical to create beings, burdening them with the struggle to maintain the life they've been attached to, in order to (explicitly, in your case) 'benefit society'. Society is made up of people but those people, ever more, should each suffer for society's sake? come on

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#309

Post by CogitoCogito » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertility is a tragedy of the commons? If everyone chooses to act in their own interest, society is worse off than collectively pressuring to have more kids? Ideally, that would look like major subsidies and benefits to parents to account for the extra work they are doing for society.

Or maybe the tragedy of the commons was having 6 children per family within living memory? Maybe now by dropping our population we are doing much better for the world society as a whole. It all depends on your perspective I guess. I fail to see the problem with a drop in world population.

> At this rate, there will only be 3m South Koreans in 3 generations. I don't see how you expect a country to survive that decline. In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future.

Maybe South Korea won't survive in its current form. The world will keep revolving the sun nonetheless.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#310

Post by girvo » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:59 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #252

FBISurveillance wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies for ranting but this topic resonates too much. Housing prices are 9x salary vs 4.5x salary in the 70s and it takes a while to save up. Personal data point: it took me winning an IPO lottery to start thinking about having kids for real. Having kids while earning minimal wage? Terrifying, especially in the US where getting yourself or your kid sick could bankrupt you in the blink of an eye - and if you want m…

I agree with you on the latter point, but I want to also point something out on the former. Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. So the issue is not one of finances, but priorities. Winning an IPO lottery being the baseline where you feel comfortable for having children doesn't mean that such is the i…

We shouldn’t ignore the trauma that those children often experience, though. My parents had me at 17 and 19 years old, and I had a rough, complicated upbringing that caused me lasting damage. Because of that, I personally don’t see myself as having children ever, and I’m lucky enough to have a partner that feels the same.