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The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

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Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#211

Post by BLenkomo »

Ekaros wrote: post #73
JKCalhoun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's how society will break down without a younger generation in quantity that is paying for social security, earning taxes for society, etc.

Oh well, just have to accept that there won't be retirement, only burning your savings and then euthanasia. Better have fun while you can afford it.

When i look at most people what they do when they retire, it doesn't feel like most people actually have a good strategy for it anyway.

Less work, longer work, using more and leaving without a dime in the pocket sounds a lot better.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#212

Post by AndrewDucker »

The modern mortgage market is largely based around multiple people with jobs.

Once you have a kid either one of those people is taking 5 years out of work or they're paying nursery fees for the next 5 years. Either of which is incredibly expensive (£15k per year in the UK for full-time childcare).

So a lot of people decide "Well, I didn't fancy children that much."

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#213

Post by viridian »

UncleMeat wrote: post #203
viridian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

birth rates are below replacement in the majority of countries now. Global birth rate is down to 2.24 this year, and 2.11 is the baseline for maintaining the population. I'd bet a tremendous amount of money that we cross the threshold by 2030.

Really is amazing to me how the second derivative of population can be used to argue in this way. Mass starvation. Doomed civilization. While the population continues to grow.

People are capable of looking past their nose, and I've never claimed the outcome will be mass starvation or a doomed civilization. Societies will just have to change, in a way that is without precedent.

And I think you are being playful, but it's worth remembering that the second derivative of position is what kills you in a car accident, and the third derivative gives you whiplash. We also just had an election where a top issue was both the derivative and second derivative of the value of a dollar.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#214

Post by kspacewalk2 »

louthy wrote: post #91
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your life, and the world around you, is objectively better than it would have been in the 1930s, when birth rates didn't fall. So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines.

When people are considering having children, of course the first thing they think is “our lives are objectively better than the 1930s, let’s go for it!” As the GP makes clear, most people think about the future, not the past. And many think the future is looking pretty bleak right now. I do think there’s a tendency to overstate the potential future problems (humans are resourceful and will find ways to solve them), b…

That's the precise argument I'm refuting with the 1930s analogy - not that people today look to the past, but that people in the past had a lot less reason to be optimistic about the future. Again, think 1930s in rural central Ukraine - you've had a relatively okay life, but now uncle Stalin has re-instituted serfdom, this time under the auspices of a totalitarian state (itself a terrifying bleeding-edge invention in the 1930s). Your friends, neighbours and relatives are dropping dead all around you, there's rampant cannibalism, for god's sake. What possible hope is there for the future? Birthrates didn't fall.

Just one example of many. This "vibes about future" argument ought to make no sense whatsoever to anyone who is a fan of history, particularly the daily-life-in-the-age-of kind, not the battles-and-dates kind.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#215

Post by kspacewalk2 »

kaibee wrote: post #101
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your life, and the world around you, is objectively better than it would have been in the 1930s, when birth rates didn't fall. So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines.

> So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines. C'mon you have the whole answer right here. Its a prisoners dilemma. People aren't stupid. For any one individual, it makes sense to wait and defer having kids until they're more economically secure. They know that. So what happens when _everyone_ is under that same incentive structure? W…

I really don't think incentives changed so much in Eritrea or North Korea or Iran lately. If this was a Western-only or rich-countries-only phenomenon, I would provisionally buy this (and a bunch of other Western-centric) explanations. But it's a global phenomenon.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#216

Post by kspacewalk2 »

aaomidi wrote: post #130
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your life, and the world around you, is objectively better than it would have been in the 1930s, when birth rates didn't fall. So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines.

Statements like this are mostly useless. People don’t measure happiness in aggregate. Just because I can fly anywhere in the world in a few hours, doesn’t make up for something like loneliness. There’s categories of “happiness with life”, and some of them are much, much worse than a century ago. It could very well be that those carry a lot more weight than tech.

When comparing the 1930s and today, I'm not talking about tech or flying, of course. I'm talking about health and longevity, economic opportunities for the bottom 80%, political and personal freedom, social progress on most fronts, that sort of thing.

Perhaps you're right in saying that the vibes are off, and in any individual country that could be a very valid point - pressures imposed on young people in South Korea, for example. Killer argument - except the same thing is happening in Sweden where these pressures are almost absent by comparison. And in North Korea, would you believe it? Birthrates falling. I somewhat doubt their "happiness with life" has dropped in concert with that in the West, on account of them having a life and a culture that's almost orthogonal to ours in every way.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#217

Post by wuschel »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #169
bradlys wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people aren’t aware - especially in educated UMC circles like this one - how much the birth rate relied on teenage moms. The birthrate for educated folks has been below replacement for a long time. Teenage moms probably aren’t in their mind cause they were raised among other UMC folks and it just doesn’t happen there. The US has been below replacement overall for even longer. We’ve relied on immigration for 50+…

~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and internationally are unintended (per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN, respectively). When women can prevent unintended pregnancy, of course total fertility rate will decline to a neutral rate below replacement rate. The population exploded because women were not empowered, and now they are. Economic systems built around this anomaly in human history are structurally flawed,…

> Kids (…) are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.

Unnecessary in a material existential sense, perhaps, when one exludes a systemic need to take care of the elderly. One could argue, however, that the responsibility when taking care of kids are one of the few means to live and grow as a human being.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#218

Post by UncleMeat »

viridian wrote: post #213
UncleMeat wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really is amazing to me how the second derivative of population can be used to argue in this way. Mass starvation. Doomed civilization. While the population continues to grow.

People are capable of looking past their nose, and I've never claimed the outcome will be mass starvation or a doomed civilization. Societies will just have to change, in a way that is without precedent. And I think you are being playful, but it's worth remembering that the second derivative of position is what kills you in a car accident, and the third derivative gives you whiplash. We also just had an election wher…

The comment I responded to said "displacements of whole populations, mass-starvation, and likely brutal war."

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#219

Post by wuschel »

ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #178

Genuine question: why do I care if birth rates are falling? There are plenty of people.

There are many problems that come with a population decline, two of the major are:

- Our economy (read: investment) is based on a constant growth, which is a function consumers

- the elderly have to be taken care of … this is us one day

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#220

Post by toomuchtodo »

wuschel wrote: post #217
toomuchtodo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and internationally are unintended (per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN, respectively). When women can prevent unintended pregnancy, of course total fertility rate will decline to a neutral rate below replacement rate. The population exploded because women were not empowered, and now they are. Economic systems built around this anomaly in human history are structurally flawed,…

> Kids (…) are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising. Unnecessary in a material existential sense, perhaps, when one exludes a systemic need to take care of the elderly. One could argue, however, that the responsibility when taking care of kids are one of the few means to live and grow as a human being.

Adopt. There are ~400k kids in foster care in the US alone, half of which are adoptable. There are plenty of humans already existing who need care.
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