Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 273 posts

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#261

Post by mlsu »

ramblenode wrote: post #188
mlsu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this take before, especially around climate and the environment. It's correct that having 20,000 humans on Earth would be more (actually indefinitely) sustainable. These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. Those who stick around have to suffer of curable medical complications. They have to live hard lives without the comforts of modern life. Why do…

The best "degrowth" argument I have seen is from a physicist [0]. His argument is based on hard limits to the amount of waste heat produced by energy consuming (i.e. all) activities of humanity. He shows that if the current rate of economic growth continued for the next 400 years then humanity would be consuming more energy than in all the sunlight reaching earth and would produce enough waste heat that the surface o…

The post you're referencing is great, undoubtedly true, and one that I have bookmarked and return to often.

However.

We are still very early in the curve. We are warming the planet, but not because of any energy we are producing, merely because of a chemical inbalance in the atmosphere. We are not close to any of the limits specified there.

When energy costs 0.0001 / kWh, we may re-evaluate. But we have a long way to go before we get there.

It's so early!

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#262

Post by mullingitover »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #260
mullingitover wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> building technology to serve this purpose explicitly is absolutely worse The end result of the current trends in population trees will be the collapse of many nations, and pretty much a four horsemen situation that'll follow. Supplementing the unhealthy fertility rates might help stave this off, if we're lucky, and there's no reason to believe it would create any worse of a wage slavery system than already exists.…

> there's no reason to believe it would create any worse of a wage slavery system than already exists. Yes there is. As terrible as the system is today, people willingly to choose (in most cases) to bring children into the world and (in most cases) accept the responsibility of raising them. Who raises the kids in a world where they're bred via technology? There's a long and ugly history involving church and state-run…

> As terrible as the system is today, people willingly to choose (in most cases) to bring children into the world and (in most cases) accept the responsibility of raising them

People are hard at work on removing the 'willingly' part of this right now. We have the wealthiest man on earth backing people who are headed down a road where contraception will be outlawed.

> Who raises the kids in a world where they're bred via technology?

People who voluntarily adopt them. You could have babies made to order for people with fertility problems, or merely for people who don't want to undertake the risk of carrying a pregnancy to term in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world[1].

[1] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#264

Post by NemoNobody »

throwapine wrote: post #117
mlsu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not a human standpoint! Billions of old people, dying alone. I do not want to live in that world. Let alone encourage it!

The alternative is continue killing trillions of animals a year and polluting the air, water and soil until our biosphere is no longer suitable for many species including humans. At that point we can forget about exploring the stars or whatever.

Degrowth is death. We must adapt or die - this rule of evolution still applies to all of us.

Less people is bad. All of us matter but only as long as humanity continues.

Degrowth is stagnation. We must survive tho - even at the expenses of the Earth if that is what it takes.

We are the highest evolutionary life this planet has produced - the only life able to exploit all other life. The entire purpose of evolution could be to create life as we are.

If it's all just random and we ended up as we are solely due to genetic mistakes over time - our existence is even more unfathomable, a seemingly infinite number of things had to occur exactly as they did so that we exist as we do now.

We are the most important thing on Earth - potentially far, far more so.

The Webb telescope has viewed into the past and didn't see so many things it would have if the universe was full of advanced intelligent life - with all the data we possess now, we cannot say that we are not the first to "wake up"and only "if" indeed the universe will ultimately create an infinite number of species with our capabilities.

That's a real big if.

We can't take that chance on something as stupid sounding as "degrowth"

Remember, adapt or die.

That's what we do

If Earth is going to heat up than it

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#265

Post by NemoNobody »

tsunagatta wrote: post #141
chii wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> populations are supposed to reach a maxima. This is an assumption. In nature, a population reaches a maxima but it's a survivorship bias metric. Populations that _didn't_ level off struggled to find the now scarce food, and died off too fast to re-populate, or some other reason died off. Humans are the only species so far to be able to exploit more resources as population grew, and have the technology to prevent su…

> No natural force should be able to kill off humans or their expansion. I will believe this once a way is found to reverse entropy.

I don't think we will get there while we are burdened en masse by the 9-5...

but, if entropy itself were ever to be the "last problem left" - I've no doubt that we would solve that problem also.

We are far closer to literally living Star Trek lives (without space travel) than we are away from it.

Before millennials die we will hear terms like "post scarcity" - assuming we live long enough and society doesn't fall apart.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#266

Post by NemoNobody »

mullingitover wrote: post #103

As much as Brave New World is discounted as being about a dystopian society, being able to automate fertility would be a game changer for humanity. We can’t depend on hoping people voluntarily make irresponsible financial decisions by having children in order to save the economy.

Worked well for Krypton.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#267

Post by NemoNobody »

jimbob45 wrote: post #45

Collapsed? We're 0.2 above replacement rate coming off of a major worldwide pandemic. I'm forecasting that number to remain stable or even rise and I don't see much disagreement from mainstream news. You wanna talk about collapse? Let's talk about South Korea.

Where have you been?

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#268

Post by NemoNobody »

geodel wrote: post #50
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> House prices, inflation, traffic…food scarcity NIMBYism, combination of bad monetary policy and a supply shock, and bad urban planning. Tokyo has cheaper homes and less traffic than cities with a fraction of the population in America.

And how is Japanese population growing considering they have none of American problem of "bad urban planning", "bad monetary policy" , "NIMBYism" and so on? Or -0.5% growth is impressive indeed?

No, this actually exemplifies the problem. Japan is arguably the most developed country in the world and despite their incredible wealth and societal prosperity - Japan doesn't have a very bright future.

The data appears to present progress itself as the enemy of population growth.

The more developed an economy, the higher the quality of life the fewer offspring people have. The higher the education level, the fewer kids - more money, less kids to spend it.

Part of it is a money issue - not as much as people make it out to be.

My best friend had a kid at 23 while working as a server in a restaurant - his college job (he dropped out) and he raised his son just fine, wasn't ideal but he's alive and here.

If your not having a kid bc of money and you really want to have one - there will never be enough money, there will always be another big project or promotion to work for, we all could use a bigger house.

The joy kids bring to life cannot be measured in financial terms - I wouldn't trade the memories of the moments I've spent with my nephews for all the money.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#269

Post by NemoNobody »

steve_taylor wrote: post #173
Clubber wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. We can sustain many more, probably 10B+. The problem is everyone wants to live in the same few places. This is mainly driven by economics (workplaces). The WFH revolution will solve a lot of this if it can be sustained. Imagine if you can dig a well, get solar or any type of non-grid energy, and internet. There are no limits to where you can live, and most of the acreage in the US is cheap . You don't need…

Everyone living in megacities is better than urban sprawl, which clears forests and woodlands. More agriculture is required for more people, which means more land clearing. Renewable energy infrastructure needs energy and resources to build and needs to be replaced at EOL. Whether acreage is cheap or not only refers to money, not the environmental cost. And I haven't even said anything about the environmental costs o…

It's bc we moved away from nature - to the cities, that we allowed the environmental destruction to occur.

Had we all been rural still - and as bored as you get out there, we would've noticed more of the incremental stuff first hand.

A sole conversation with your family "outdoorsman" - typically a boomer tho, if so you gotta be real careful they don't realize your asking about climate change or else all you will hear is the stories about that one time in 67 it got this cold before - totally normal.

If you can have a candid conversation with someone that has spent a life outside about how different things are today - you will hear lots and lots of things.

It's possible that someday all the animals alive left in the world will either be our livestock or as our pets/entertainment.

Already today to many people most animals exist only in zoos or on TV. The city removed us from nature physically and conceptually.

Plus it's convenient that all that "forest and woodland" you think is "safer" is owned by somebody that wants you to stay in the city.

Try to leave the city. Where I live all the same farm families buy every bit of land that is sold as even remotely agricultural - many have accumulated 10-20 "homesteads" - original farms with a house and garage etc...

They rip out all of the buildings and plow it down. They used to sell the house and buildings as its own thing - they don't do that anymore.

It's not about money. It's about keeping everyone else away - in the cities.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#270

Post by NemoNobody »

smitty1e wrote: post #189

Read no these sorts of headlines and despair. There is no literal "global fertility". There are no aggregate testicles/ovaries that produce people. There are only reproductive organs integrated with a body near you. Marry. Prioritize family. Enjoy the blessing of your offspring, if possible. Participate in a community of faith, a like-minded extended family, that can enjoy life with you and help you raise those bless…

Low motility is real and the data is seemingly showing a drastic increase very recently in make infertility - the harder of the two both to mess up and fix, hence the global concern.

Your advice is rather backhanded. Prioritizing family and going at it like rabbits won't do anything if your shooting blanks.

If this was a global problem one can only surmise there will also be fewer kids to adopt...

Post reply on HN