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

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

#591

Post by lettergram »

ericmay wrote: post #561
lettergram wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Any funding of birth control or abortions by definition will slow population growth. Further and specifically in regard to planned parenthood > Sanger was so intent on her mission to advocate for birth control that she chose to align her…

What you said was that this was a US program to intentionally reduce population growth. I see no basis for that claim. Feel free to retract that claim or provide actual evidence. You can certainly suggest that a result of family planning activities such as birth control, condoms, abortion, or abstinence result in slower or no population growth, but I do not see this as the primary purpose of these tools/activities, w…

> What you said was that this was a US program to intentionally reduce population growth. I see no basis for that claim. Feel free to retract that claim or provide actual evidence.

I think you have to not read what I’m writing to make that argument.

The US government is funding an organization which has the explicit goal of reducing the number of children women have. By definition that is reducing population growth.

I pointed out it was founded with that purpose. But even if you look at what it does today: provide birth control and abortions (among other services). Again, by definition that will reduce population growth.

Might be for a good reason or a reason you agree with. Might be admirable, I personally don’t have any moral position. I’m just stating as a fact by funding that organization the US is funding the reduction in population growth through birth control and abortion services

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

#592

Post by verisimi »

elteto wrote: post #550
verisimi wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Faith? That’s your problem right there.

I don't have faith or trust.. Are you saying I should? I don't even trust that the provided data is real.

However, everyone else seems to have faith in what they are told. No one checks anything, but they believe the studies they are provided, the articles, etc. And, frequently, they don't believe their own experience!

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

#593

Post by ars »

FLT8 wrote: post #586
ars wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't actually have to do that before having a child, you can do that while having a child. If you are not wasteful (constant new things, fancy vacations etc), young children are not expensive. It really only gets expensive when you have to pay tuition.

Anecdata point: my wife and I chose not to have kids for the reasons outlined in the GP post (and more). Mortgages are so large these days that for people lucky enough to even be able to own a home, becoming comfortable enough with ones financial position that you feel you could give a child the kind of upbringing that you'd want for them (equivalent to your own, for example), takes long enough that the window of fer…

Your list is basically "recentism" where current things seems much worse than old things. In modern history the world has never been cleaner, never been safer, never had less war than it does right now. The climate is not going to be a disaster, the worst that will happen is a ton of people will need to move - but the climate will change so slowly you'll barely notice. Inflation has been worse in the past, and while polarize politics makes me quite upset, I suspect it's been worse in the past.

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

#594

Post by verisimi »

UncleMeat wrote: post #571
verisimi wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dec…

Inconceivable? No. Dismissed via medical research? Yes. “I refuse to believe experts and instead substitute my own hunches based on zero data whatsoever” is not a good way of making medical decisions.

"I recognise that science, media, politics, education, etc have been perverted to serve corporate governance interests, and that the truth is secondary to those interests" would be a fairer quote.

"I recognise that science is imperfect, and that occasionally it can mislead, but that overall it is moving us forward" would perhaps surmise your position. Obviously this is to weak for me, I think the scale of corporate governance is far greater than this.

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

#595

Post by makeitdouble »

zamfi wrote: post #530
makeitdouble wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look for M. Bairoch's research for instance ("Révolution Industrielle et Sous-Développement") Some other put the "start" of industrialization way before, at the end of the Renaissance. As I understand it, there was a progressive flow of industrialization that was clearly visible in Belgium/Netherland, and also started brewing in the other surrounding countries, but the "Industrial Revolution" term was coined…

Wait, Bairoch's Belgian, though. By your earlier logic, he shouldn't be trusted with this claim any more than Wikipedia or Britannica should be trusted with the claim of British origins. Seems like we'd need a non-British, non-Belgian source to make any definitive claim, right? /s

You are totally right, why should we trust him more than any other single author ? There’s no reason to trust blindly and anyone who cares should totally get as many other sources and evidences that they can afford to.

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

#596

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #589
rayiner wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This isn't even wrong. Is the number of human toes genetic? How heritable is the number of toes on a human being? Is wearing a dress genetic? How heritable is whether or not you wear a dress?

I don’t really understand your argument. Wearing dresses isn’t heritable, we know that because most women’s grandmothers wore dresses and most women wear jeans or casual wear.

Heritability isn’t proof that a trait is genetic, but it’s strong evidence once you start addressing confounding factors. As I recall, the IQ heritability research was done with twin studies.

This is like shocking to me we’re even debating this. I would have assumed it’s conventional wisdom.

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

#597

Post by _carbyau_ »

ars wrote: post #593
FLT8 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata point: my wife and I chose not to have kids for the reasons outlined in the GP post (and more). Mortgages are so large these days that for people lucky enough to even be able to own a home, becoming comfortable enough with ones financial position that you feel you could give a child the kind of upbringing that you'd want for them (equivalent to your own, for example), takes long enough that the window of fer…

Your list is basically "recentism" where current things seems much worse than old things. In modern history the world has never been cleaner, never been safer, never had less war than it does right now. The climate is not going to be a disaster, the worst that will happen is a ton of people will need to move - but the climate will change so slowly you'll barely notice. Inflation has been worse in the past, and while…

This isn't about discrete reality. It is about perception and self-rationalisation. Unlike economics, I don't think people are "rational actors".

There are more factors nowadays that convince people (rationally or not) that bringing a child into this world would be to give someone the gift of a lifetime of misery.

My irrational argument for having a child? To combat the stupidity of the next generation. If the good people (And who doesn't think they themselves are the good guys?) don't procreate then the evil/stupid win by default.

"Default? The two sweetest words in the English language! De-FAULT! De-FAULT! De-FAULT!" - Homer

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

#598

Post by jxramos »

FBISurveillance wrote: post #206
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…

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…

Reminds me of that skit from Idiocracy.

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

#599

Post by jxramos »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #289
somenameforme wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. Unfortunately many people who are not properly equipped to raise children (financially, temperamentally or otherwise) have lots of children and don't make it work. The result is a permanent underclass and a serious crime problem in many of our major cities.

I think a lot of that underclass is artificially propped up too, sort of along the lines of thinking you hear with open immigration vs generous welfare state pick one.

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

#600

Post by confidantlake »

rr808 wrote: post #99
remarkEon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s OP’s point (plus I’m not convinced we really are more productive). OP’s point appears to me to be something like “a good measure of productivity is how many people a single working person can support”. Today, most families need to have two parents working. This makes a pretty good inference, I think, about how much things have changed.

Most families do not need to have two parents working if they live like people 60 years ago. Ie one car, a 1000 sq ft home, vacations in the local area, home made lunches, hand me down clothes, no AC, no electronics, no braces.

The 1000 square foot homes are no longer for sale.
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