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

How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

nippon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 439 posts

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#331

Post by skulk »

mrangle wrote: post #309

Expensive societies with the always concomitant class stratification will always run into reproduction issues. In short, unsubsidized poor and even middle class people begin to rationalize that, even if they could somehow manage the financial stress of reproduction, their lives are too miserable to justify damning their kids to the same fate. That said: climate doomerism, as an excuse for not having kids, is for inte…

Your last paragraph tries to use population arguments to prove that individual decisions are illogical. That doesn't look great after calling people who hold a certain position "intellectual children".

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#332

Post by cameldrv »

1-6 wrote: post #211
1-6 wrote: post #199

South Korea is hostile for new families. Unless you were born to rich parents, have a decent education with a good job (that's with a Multi-national or a Chaebol), own property in Seoul, find a partner, and survive the probability of divorce, having a child is impossible--let alone having two to meet the population replacement rate. What's the solution?

One issue is that there are many who are not willing to live normal lives and there's this constant battle of trying to outdo one another. People are trying to please even mere strangers standing next to them at the crosswalk. Living mediocre is bad and there's a negative stigma associated to being middle to lower class. If your apartment isn't a Prugio or Lotte Castle and live in Bangbae; If your car isn't a AMG, BM…

Interesting idea. You see this sort of thing throughout the westernized world, perhaps not as extreme as SK, but I've never been so I can't compare.

This is a completely busted system of values though... Almost everything you mention is the luxury version of things that all have functionally very similar alternatives at a much lower cost. The main value is signaling and maybe satisfying some mimetic desire. As signaling, it's a zero sum game, and is mostly just consuming all excess resources.

The question is why do people feel that this is the best use of their resources? Do they not have any purpose for their lives beyond consumption? Why are people being judged largely based on the consumer products they can afford instead of whether they're a kind person or whether they have a a lot of friends or whether they're proud of their children or any number of other positive things they could be doing?

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#333

Post by amrocha »

willcipriano wrote: post #244
amrocha wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just tax the shit out of the rich until they can't afford to flaunt their wealth as status

The trick they pull on you guys is having you think someone with a pair of mass produced Nike sneakers is rich. Crabs in a bucket.

Not really, the degree of flaunting just changes. People with a little bit of money have Nikes, people with a bit more have designer clothing, people with a lot more have lavish houses and yachts, and the people with the most have "foundations".

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#334

Post by I_Am_Nous »

pacifika wrote: post #272
kypro wrote: post #267

I think in the West we would benefit if the default position was that it's shameful and selfish to not have kids. The way our welfare state is set up currently is such that we don't pay for our own retirement, but need the generations below us (hopefully a larger generation) to fund our retirement as we did for the generations before us. When we don't have kids the welfare system which we seem to value simply doesn't…

Or we could opt to care for our elderly and encourage compassion and empathy instead of shaming and stigma.

Gotta have kids in the first place to raise kids that know to respect and care for the elderly. Otherwise this sentiment sounds like "I hope other people raise kids that know to respect and care for elders" because it's not like people are financially rewarded for most kinds of elder care, at least in the US, and that labor has to come from somewhere.

The nuclear family has the side effect of needing to put elders in a care facility rather than them living at home with the rest of the family. It's also compounded by the amount of medical care people receive in old age and many families aren't capable of safely caring for certain levels of dementia, for example.

It's kind of an application of Ghandi's "be the change you want to see in the world" - knowing that at the very least YOUR kids have been taught to respect and care for elders.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#335

Post by amrocha »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #248
amrocha wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just tax the shit out of the rich until they can't afford to flaunt their wealth as status

The real rich, the capital owners, are not the ones flaunting wealth for status...that's the upper class people with high-paying jobs; rich but not wealthy.

Absolutely not true, the way they flaunt it is just different. Instead of clothes it's donations and foundations.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#336

Post by Daishiman »

johngladtj wrote: post #224
Daishiman wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are seriously underestimating the impacts that worldwide crop failures in the next 20 years are going to have as far as global human catastrophes go.

Are you serious about this? This climate doomerism is frankly ridiculous. Do you have any genuine studies that show such impactful effects?

I work with climatologists in the development of AI models that improve over the climatology.

The amount of arable land that will be lost in the tropics is going to dramatically impact all countries around the Equator. Some areas simply will not support human life without air conditioning with a 2 degree increase in wet bulb temperature and +3C increase in extreme weather events.

Crop failures are linked to many historically extreme events. A 15%-30% in staple foods has _massive_ impacts in the poorest 20% of the population. In poor democracies it leads to people voting for demagogues and autocrats; in other places it's much worse.

The cascade of these events with ever increasing temperature is exponential.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#337

Post by Daishiman »

rendang wrote: post #251
Daishiman wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are seriously underestimating the impacts that worldwide crop failures in the next 20 years are going to have as far as global human catastrophes go.

There's a great deal of land in the very cold part of the N hemisphere that may become more agriculturally productive with warming.

Those area are limited by the number of hours of sunlight and the number of growing seasons. Reductions in 20-30% are expected, but this doesn't really capture the increase in extreme weather events that can lead to total crop loss.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#338

Post by Daishiman »

wholien wrote: post #233
Daishiman wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are seriously underestimating the impacts that worldwide crop failures in the next 20 years are going to have as far as global human catastrophes go.

What percentage of crops will fail in 20 years?

See https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-imp...

Some crops like coffee, chocolate and grapes are going to see an extremely dramatic reduction in arable surface

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#339

Post by Daishiman »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #243
johngladtj wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious about this? This climate doomerism is frankly ridiculous. Do you have any genuine studies that show such impactful effects?

There's a certain group of people that take the absolute worst predictions of climate science and just runs with it. Granted, there's a far larger group of people that think we'll be ok with business as usual. Neither is true.

I'm not sure if you're aware that 3-5C is perfectly within the business-as-usual scenarios and 5C is easily a civilization-ending trend.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#340

Post by shrimp_emoji »

neom wrote: post #202

My wife and I have opted not to have children for reasons* and it's really sad how the conversation with the in-laws has moved from "you should have children because children" to "you need to have children because korea needs you to have children", and it's not just a passing comment here and there, the campaign to get us to single handedly re-populate SK is intense and sustained. I wonder if other couples are experi…

There's only one reason, and it's that you don't really want children.
Post reply on HN