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

#531

Post by verisimi » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:24 PM UTC

smolder wrote: post #517

verisimi wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your "crime" is just bringing up vaccines in a context where it's wholly irrelevant, presumably as a low effort way of stirring up more low quality argument about vaccines and related subjects. This follow-up post of yours is supporting evidence that you brought up vaccines for no good reason.

Is it inconceivable that vaccine could cause difficulties for people in conceiving? If so, how is it irrelevant?

Re evidence, I have posted articles about data analysis etc. These are also frequently flagged.

In general though, I have little faith in the scientific establishments. It seems clear that they are politicised, and are serving agendas. In what world can an 80 year old be in charge of medical policy for decades, with ethical oversight being provided by his wife! Or re-defining what vaccines and viruses are? Or re-defining what can be put on death certificates as cause of death (ie, with, not from, covid)? Or that we can invoke emergency legislation and expedite unacceptably tested treatments which are effectively mandated by corporations? Etc. That's not the scientific method - it's a political stitch up.

So I don't think sciencific studies or those reporting on them, merit our trust - we are not get the impartial information. And hacker news is a part of the control structure, only allowing corporate messaging to be shared.

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

#532

Post by verisimi » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

elteto wrote: post #514

verisimi wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The problem is that there is not much to “talk” about. Do you have scientific evidence in the form of published papers in scientific journals? That is the baseline here. If anything, the problem with vaccines and why it has become politicized is that there’s too many people “talking” about it. Talk. Talk. Talk. But zero scientific discourse.

See my comment above, but I don't have faith even in scientific journals. Science, academia, media, etc are beholden to corporate interests as is the governance structure. The world we live in is bent - legislation, funding, the 'reality' presentation is all bent to serve corporate-governmental control.

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

#533

Post by collegeburner » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #341

decafninja wrote: post #106

My wife and I are Korean-American, albeit with many ties to our country of origin. Something I've noticed is that many couples that do want a child have a very difficult time conceiving. People are having kids at a later age on average, but even younger couples seem to have a hard time. Various gynecological disorders seem to be very common too - fibroids, endometriosis, adenomyosis, amongst others, all of which affe…

Increasing age of women at attempted conception probably explains most of this I think. SK has the oldest first time mums in the world: https://photius.com/rankings/2020/population/mothers_mean_ag...

its going to keep getting worse everywhere when it takes this long to accumulate assets for a house, car and financial cusion.

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

#534

Post by ericmay » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #268

Thorrez wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean intentional? If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures?

> If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures? Those fertility procedures are not the desired way to go about having a baby. The vast majority of the time it's a procedure of last resort (i.e. can't get pregnant another way). These procedures are expensive and often don't work. It could be intentional that a government, organization or pharmaceutic…

> It could be intentional that a government, organization or pharmaceutical / chemical company is knowingly sterilizing / making it more difficult to conceive. This could either be through a willingness to look the other way (i.e. a side effect) or intentional (North Korea for instance may do some sabotage or government is intentionally pushing population reduction)

For others reading, remember that no evidence is being provided for this hypothesis.

> For instance, the US government gives funding to Planned Parenthood which provides birth control, abortions, and other drugs to support people looking to not have children. This organization advertises and gives a lot of birth control out for free or low fees. That's an overt intentional act of reducing population growth.

You've provided no basis for this claim that Planned Parenthood provides birth control, abortions, or other drugs as part of a US program to intentionally reduce population growth.

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

#535

Post by collegeburner » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

tcj_phx wrote: post #316

lettergram wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures? Those fertility procedures are not the desired way to go about having a baby. The vast majority of the time it's a procedure of last resort (i.e. can't get pregnant another way). These procedures are expensive and often don't work. It could be intentional that a government, organization or pharmaceutic…

> Similarly, a concern I have is purposefully downplaying the risks of long-term birth control via "the pill". Depo-provera - the monthly injection of medroxyprogesterone - was temporally associated with my friend's first psychotic break. Medroxyprogesterone causes cortisol deficiency; psychosis is associated with an inability to produce cortisol... "The pill" uses fake hormones to shut down ovulation. But the doctor…

a bunch of girls i know had their depression massively improve after getting off it as well and their sex drives really improved. women are really complicated hormonally and messing with their hormomes is dangerous. tbh i think a consequence of mostly men designing the pill is that people didn't really realize that.

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

#536

Post by ryanSrich » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #513

ryanSrich wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re lucky enough to afford childcare and healthcare, but I can’t imagine how anyone making significantly less can do it. Healthcare costs are ongoing, and obscene. Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that will force you to hit your deductible in the first two quarters of the year ($10k per child in our case). In most…

>Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Per ACA, all routine newborn care (including vaccines and routine blood draw) is 100% paid by insurance company. The specifics are all listed in the links below. https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-children/ https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits... >Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that…

Unfortunately that’s not exactly how it works. We don’t have a marketplace plan, so our insurance has no responsibility to pay for anything really.

The link you shared says this.

“All Marketplace health plans and many other plans must cover the following list of preventive services for children without charging you a copayment or coinsurance. This is true even if you haven’t met your yearly deductible.”

Maximum out of pocket only kicks in once you’ve hit the deductible on 2+ family members, at least for our plan. So for us, the max is $20k.

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

#537

Post by piaste » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

konart wrote: post #499

Sharlin wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those karate, piano, swimming and football are intense enough to be counted as "work" rather than leisure, then something is wrong. Are hobbies not a thing anymore?

Those are not hobbies in this case though. I've been attending music school (violin) for 7 years (7-14 y.o.) and only by the time I hit 30 I reasised the problem with the whole system. Teachers (and to some point parents) expect you to invest as much in this music school as you invest (at least expected to) in your regular school. And I never though about it this way. For me this was always a place to escape most of…

This is one of those problems that goes away when you're an adult.

I studied piano as a boy and there was always some friction with my Polish teacher for whom piano was her life's work, and try as she might she couldn't quite get her head around a student who didn't want much more than play Bohemian Rhapsody at parties. Tried to get me to love Chopin as much as she genuinely loved him, but it never caught up and I took university as an excuse to quit.

After Covid I picked up the violin, I made it clear to both the school and to my teacher that it's strictly a hobby for me, and we got along wonderfully. On our first meeting she remarked that I never asked the one question that new students always ask, i.e. "how long will it take me to be able to play " - I had had that thought, but intentionally withheld it because I didn't want anything like expectations or timetables in my brain-clearing hobby.

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

#538

Post by csomar » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

dron57 wrote: post #7

dougmwne wrote: post #5

It is always unclear to me if this is a bad thing. In a shrinking population, are individual people worse off, or does it just look like a decline when you look at the country in aggregate? There is no shortage of squandered talent in the world. So many people work below their capability because there are just more people than opportunities. It seems like it’s not a problem to keep running the modern world, even with…

Most of the past century's gains in quality of life were tightly correlated with rising labor. If the population crashes, then who will do all the specialized work? Another thing to think about is excess capital and investment. With a large population, excess savings become investments into new companies, technologies, etc. Without excess savings there will be no tech industry, improvements in science, infrastructure…

There is no advantage to excess savings with fractional-reserve banking; and there is even less need for any savings with MMT. We are in an MMT world now, your savings have no bearings on the economy.

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

#539

Post by searchableguy » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #522

Sharlin wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. That’s batshit crazy (the college application thing). Why should non-academic achievements make any difference whatsoever when applying to college? Is that a thing anywhere except the US? As for show and prestige, that’s usually what the parents want, so that’s squarely in the "something is wrong" category.

colleges have decided they want balanced students who have some of everything (except free time, because lmao they dont need that). so its karate or swimming oe soccer or football or baseball for athleticism, usually 2 during childhood. its piano or violin. its starting extra language study early. boy scouts or national honor society for leadership. speech and debate, model un or working for a campaign to show politi…

> it is also not mentioning that "academic excellence" in high school has moved from straight As to 6-8 AP exams in a single year, i shit you not.

Same in India.

There is 0.1 to 0.6% chance of getting into any prestigious university depending on the demographic factors of student. This is after extensive filtering in high school.

99% of students spend 6-8 hours in coaching daily for years to get rejected since we follow stack ranking with limited seats.

What's sobering is government tried to increase elite universities but people don't perceive them as such even if they have better infrastructure, faculty, and education without the same low acceptance rate.

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

#540

Post by yieldcrv » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #503

yieldcrv wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is nobody really doing anything irresponsible anymore, en masse? where is the party, hookup, pregnancy and carry-to-term scene? is that not happening, or is the party, hookup scene all just that risk-free right now - even when pregnancy occurs because the latter suggests that people really just don't want kids, and possibly never really did its hard for me to think that all of society uniformly is successfully planni…

This kind of planning implicitly happens when women are expected to have a career instead of finding their identity in successful motherhood. I don't know much anything at all about Korean women's professional labor, but I'd be very surprised if it did not play a role. Country fertility rates correlate extremely well with female full time non domestic labor participation.

Great, I’ll keep that in mind