Lack of affordable housing, job insecurity and the looming threat of AI and automation, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable higher education, inflation, trade/culture/cold/proxy wars, societal unrest and thanks to social media the prospect of a global trend towards the collapse of democratic institutions and a march towards authoritarianism. Sure, let me just bring a couple of new humans into the world—people I’m legally responsible for and could go to jail over if I can’t afford to feed them. Sounds like a solid plan.
The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
21–30 of 226 posts
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#22This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
I don't know. Did people do this in the midst of world war 2, for example?
Covered in TFA.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#23This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
I don't know. Did people do this in the midst of world war 2, for example?
Tough to say. It was difficult to have children in the middle of WW2 when all the men of appropriate age were fighting on the frontlines.
The results would also likely be skewed by Germany quasi-forcing people to have children in support of the party.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#24This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
I don't know. Did people do this in the midst of world war 2, for example?
[deleted]
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#25He is right, if he also stops well short of saying what he might. But "the politicians", as always, are only doing what the people are telling them to. The human species has decided to shut down.
> But "the politicians", as always, are only doing what the people are telling them to.
Incorrect. The politicians are doing what a very small, almost numerically insignificant, portion of the people are telling them to do. Those being the ultra-wealthy. It may be that what we are seeing is that what is best for the ultra-wealthy is not what is best for society as whole.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#26Not having kids is too inexpensive.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#27I think we very rapidly went from a world with high child mortality rates, no access to birth control and children being at least moderately useful on the farm or doing some other work quite young to a world where having children is both a choice and very very expensive. This happened depending on where you live in the course of 1-3 generations. We are still grappling with how you incentivize and promote parenthood w…
Also from a world where the ability of women to access decently paying jobs outside the home was heavily restricted to one approaching equality. Motherhood is one choice of many, with negative pay.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#28This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
It's a way to frame the problem that will work well for some people, and I don't see any real downsides to it.
I might note the role of 24x7 News and the attention economy in temporal inflation - "We Are Doomed, Because _______" stories are great for audience- and profit-building, but they keep dialing up peoples' expectations of temporal inflation.
And "temporal inflation" is easily dumbed down to "their future looks sh*tty, to them" - which feels like it could get through, to at least a few of those who are skillfully and willfully oblivious to the causes of the problem. Hopefully. Maybe.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#29I think we very rapidly went from a world with high child mortality rates, no access to birth control and children being at least moderately useful on the farm or doing some other work quite young to a world where having children is both a choice and very very expensive. This happened depending on where you live in the course of 1-3 generations. We are still grappling with how you incentivize and promote parenthood w…
Worse: the costs are front-loaded and (all but) must come early-ish in your life.
The opportunity cost—the shadow, if you will, that the cost of children casts on your future retirement savings—is enormous. It’s way larger than the nominal cost. Big ouch.
Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
#30French Aristocrats had difficulty affording children as well. My theory is that as a society becomes wealthier, the acceptable minimum standard for child rearing grows at an even faster rate, until it becomes unattainable for a growing number of people. Raising kids is cheap. People who live in mud huts who have never heard of money can afford to raise kids. Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford…
> Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford. This is a very important factor. The West has successfully more or less eliminated teenage pregnancy thanks to very heavy stigma plus enabling choice and information. People are simply deferring having children until conditions are perfect - as they were told to do.
I would say they don’t need to be perfect, but mere stability seems to be a thing of the past.
The millennial generation has seen repeated waves of economic crises and layoffs and the invention of a gig economy.
Mere stability is lacking. At least the people in mud huts know they can afford their mud hut next year.
Maybe people don’t want to be economically corralled into a large city a thousand miles from home and then to have their children in that city where they moved for career advancement, particularly as the social contract between employees and employers grows increasingly vacuous.