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Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#101

Post by salmonfamine »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #94
rich_sasha wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and fair enough. It is also true that societies are brutally darwinian. The ones that prevail are the ones that can produce the most offspring, and bring it to economic maturity. This is the story behind the enormous success of China and India, per capita they are relatively poor but punch well above that weight since they have enormous populations. If they can sustain that population dynamic (which seems…

You realize China is having its own demographic crash, yeah? And India's birth rate is at or below replacement? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India Bluntly, whether you meant to or not, this comment is full of coded bigotry. It invokes images of a foreign hoard, bang at the walls of the west, threatening to dilute or destroy "our" way of life.

1. The comment you're replying to explicitly acknowledges this fact in an aside.

2. It is not full of "coded bigotry." These are simple fact that almost everyone agrees on. India has explicitly made it a goal to reduce their fertility rate over the past few decades because of the problems of overpopulation. China's economy absolutely benefits from a high population. And yet I doubt you would characterize their humans rights record as stellar. It does not mean that Indians or Chinese people are in any way inferior to Westerners. And I highly doubt that the OP would agree with that either.

3. Even if it was, that isn't a critique of the comment's argument. It just means you find it distasteful. So what?

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#102

Post by stephc_int13 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #81
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

I'd also note that plummeting birthrates are also happening in countries that are known for great social welfare, lots of government support for new mothers, and a more egalitarian society overall, like Finland. A lot of people simply don't want kids. Kids take a huge amount of time and investment for about 2 decades of one's life, and that can have a large, significant negative impact on quality of life, especially…

It's true, and fair enough. It is also true that societies are brutally darwinian. The ones that prevail are the ones that can produce the most offspring, and bring it to economic maturity. This is the story behind the enormous success of China and India, per capita they are relatively poor but punch well above that weight since they have enormous populations. If they can sustain that population dynamic (which seems…

Having a huge population is extremely beneficial for leaders and for the so-called elite that profit from the pyramidal effect.

But at the average individual level, I am not so sure.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#103

Post by taylodl »

coldtea wrote: post #57
taylodl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever happened to Toyota's palliative care robots? Remember about 15 years ago when they were doing all those demos and said they'd have them out within 10 years and would be $15,000?? Honestly, even if they were $50,000 it'd still be a lot cheaper than a nursing home and would allow people to live at home.

Why not just killbots? Much less dystopian than a future of elders left alone to be tended by palliative care robots.

These things need to be handled delicately. There's no reason a palliative care robot can't become a "killer" robot when the time is ready. It can be very friendly about it, too. Of course we'll leave it to rumors whether this ever actually happens, as nobody should ever really know that soylent green is people.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#104

Post by Blikkentrekker »

bzzzt wrote: post #30
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people make up excuses? They simply don't want them. My “excuse” for not having children is the same “excuse” I have for that I'm not a firefighter: I have no interest in it.

Even when it's your own house that is on fire?

I would absolutely not as an untrained person try to firefight my own house rather than rely on trained professionals for that, no.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#105

Post by taylodl »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #96
taylodl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having kids was much less of a "decision" for couples not that many decades ago and was much more just an assumed fact To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? In fact, that we used to talk about a marriage being "consummated" shows how our views on marriage and family have changed in a very b…

> To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? No, I don't know what culture or religion you're referring to, but this is absolutely backwards to what the Catholic Churches (and, by extension, other Christians) believe and teach. First of all, every marriage that is going to be valid, is valid witho…

I was painting with a broad brush

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#106

Post by BaseballPhysics »

salmonfamine wrote: post #101
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize China is having its own demographic crash, yeah? And India's birth rate is at or below replacement? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India Bluntly, whether you meant to or not, this comment is full of coded bigotry. It invokes images of a foreign hoard, bang at the walls of the west, threatening to dilute or destroy "our" way of life.

1. The comment you're replying to explicitly acknowledges this fact in an aside. 2. It is not full of "coded bigotry." These are simple fact that almost everyone agrees on. India has explicitly made it a goal to reduce their fertility rate over the past few decades because of the problems of overpopulation. China's economy absolutely benefits from a high population. And yet I doubt you would characterize their humans…

> Even if it was, that isn't a critique of the comment's argument.

Yes, it is.

The core of their comment is "oh noes western values will be lost!" (Or as they put it: "the global West has values worth preserving for the future").

My point is, no, they won't, because fertility is dropping everywhere. We're not that special. And that this purported fear is simply rooted in age-old racist tropes of a loss of cultural identity to scary foreigners, nothing more.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#107

Post by prewett »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

I'd also note that plummeting birthrates are also happening in countries that are known for great social welfare, lots of government support for new mothers, and a more egalitarian society overall, like Finland. A lot of people simply don't want kids. Kids take a huge amount of time and investment for about 2 decades of one's life, and that can have a large, significant negative impact on quality of life, especially…

Wanting to raise children requires a giving mindset. In US, at least, we have a very self-focused culture. From a perspective of self-actualization, children don't make sense. Unless it turns out that nurturing and developing others is part of what it means to be human...

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#108

Post by Blikkentrekker »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #32
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people make up excuses? They simply don't want them. My “excuse” for not having children is the same “excuse” I have for that I'm not a firefighter: I have no interest in it.

Curious: have you ever considered going to a therapist about this? It's not psychologically normal to never want children. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.

https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed...

Apparently it's very normal. On top of that “abnormal” does not mean “unhealthy”, but then again, that's something psychologists very often don't understand either.

Having an I.Q. above 145 is certainly not “normal”, but not a cause for concern either.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#109

Post by xyzzy4747 »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #102
rich_sasha wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and fair enough. It is also true that societies are brutally darwinian. The ones that prevail are the ones that can produce the most offspring, and bring it to economic maturity. This is the story behind the enormous success of China and India, per capita they are relatively poor but punch well above that weight since they have enormous populations. If they can sustain that population dynamic (which seems…

Having a huge population is extremely beneficial for leaders and for the so-called elite that profit from the pyramidal effect. But at the average individual level, I am not so sure.

You need a large population to support big industries and it helps tech innovation as well.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#110

Post by salmonfamine »

schmookeeg wrote: post #95
salmonfamine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of liberal (in the classical, broad sense) young folks simply shrug their shoulders at this fact -- not everyone wants kids, so what? I think it's worth considering, if you're one of these people, that without children being born to liberal parents, the "extremists" of the world -- fundamentalist muslims, christians, and so on -- will inherit the earth. Of course some of their children will grow up to be libera…

...so then they inherit the earth? I wonder if this sort of thing is cyclical. The next dark age, caused by the earth being overrun by the fecund and illiberal peoples of the world until they can only eat themselves. Maybe a plague wipes them all out and they are too poor/illiterate/unlucky to survive it. 600 years later, someone re-invents the internet, for people to use to post that they don't want kids. I don't th…

Haha, yeah it does fall apart on the individual level. I don't think I would convince my girlfriend to have kids by talking dirty with population statistics ;)

And for the record I'm just another childless, un-married late-twenties tech guy that wants to travel and hang out with my friends on the weekend. So I'm definitely part of the "problem" not the solution.

I just mean to say -- we've inherited a really rich intellectual tradition that has borrowed from thinkers around the world, and really we are torchbearers for that way of life. It's not a guarantee that progress will march forever onward. So we need to think about how to keep our societies going in a way that still produces families.

Maybe that means the government steps in and says that every workplace has to have a day care center. It seemed to work for Patagonia. Maybe it means we start some crazy scheme where companies hire married couples as a package deal. Maybe it means we have to rebuild our cities to have denser neighborhoods with lots of families clustered together. Maybe we all have to start living in hippie communes. I have no idea.

I don't want society to go backwards, but I don't want our values to die out either. So it's clear that we need radical change.

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