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What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

derekthompson.org

371–380 of 927 posts

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A generation looking for fulfillment in cubicles... let me show you how that works out: In early 2017, with her 45th birthday looming and no sign of Mr. Right, she decided to start a family on her own. She excitedly unfroze the 11 eggs she had stored and selected a sperm donor. Two eggs failed to survive the thawing process. Three more failed to fertilize. That left six embryos, of which five appeared to be abnormal.…

Cubicles? I would love one, today it's nearly always open offices.

You have an office? They closed mine and told me I’m remote now.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are married though. A bunch a guys stand no chance of being or staying married because they just don’t offer what it takes

[flagged]

Come on, you only ever stand to lose half your resources. Also you’re interacting with the wrong kinda lady my friend.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#373
post #360

Even a stable population can't mean it can never shrink. A long-term stable population means that sometimes it grows a bit over a period of decades, and sometimes it shrinks a bit over a period of decades. Overall long-term it roughly stays the same, but short-term it doesn't necessarily. The baby boom caused huge problems down the line: now we have an elderly population with proportionally a relatively small working…

I mean we know how to solve it. Increase/Apply taxation on wealth.

It's not just a money issue. You need medical and other care staff. You need appropriate places to house people. Things like that. None of this is really a "we can just pay for it" thing.

But yes, obviously something will have to be done about taxation on wealth. But simply "tax wealth" doesn't really solve anything here on its own.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stats are rigged and biased by not counting the types of work men do, and if they did count it they wouldn’t reach the “right” conclusions so wouldn’t be published. This is written about quite a bit.

> This is written about quite a bit. Go on.

It’s sometimes difficult to find the links through Google on short notice but I found one random site that discusses this. Of course the site is pro fathers but they do link to primary sources to verify the claims in the article.

There are plenty of other places this is discussed, and I’m not associated with and haven’t ever before read the following website.

It just happened to easily show up in my search.

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-th...

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#375

The tiny period of time that allowed some men in the wealthiest parts of the world to purchase property and support a family of 4+ on a single salary was an anomaly. It was a macroeconomic fluke, forever lost to the specific place and time that allowed it to briefly flourish. There's a chance a highly-automated future could reduce our neccesary working hours to those boomtime levels. But the one thing that will absol…

> There's a chance a highly-automated future could reduce our neccesary working hours to those boomtime levels.

This has been the dream since the dawn of time (agriculture is automating food production to some extent). The gains in increased productivity is rarely if ever distributed back to the workers though. We have concrete data on wage stagnation when productivity has been increasing in the past few decades. What makes you think it's different this time?

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#376

My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…

I thought your anecdote was interesting and thought provoking and I appreciate that you posted it. Thank you.

I am disappointed at the hostile reaction it provoked in some others ... as if you, or your anecdote, reminded them of something that angered them and they lost track of the difference.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#377
There's a lot of economic explanations that seem perfectly legitimate.

I'm wondering if a simple contributor is the fact that many people are moving away from their immediate family. Then you feel more on your own when considering having child, which is significantly more daunting. I think a network of friends helps, but is simply not the same as parents/siblings/cousins sharing the load and advice. Let alone the experiences.

Also, it seems there's a negative feedback loop, where each person that chooses to postpone or not have kids influences their network to do the same.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that old people need are going to get super expensive with a shrinking population because there are so few working age people providing those services compared to the number of retirees. So you're saying "don't have kids because things are getting so expensive", while the reason they're getting expensive is because people aren't having enough kids....

I’m absolutely telling people not to have kids into a macro that just wants economic slavery to pay back debt of all sorts incurred (sovereign, demographic). Labor was cheap because of a population boom with a root cause of women not empowered. Now empowered, they are having less children (family planning, not having unwanted or unaffordable children). Suboptimal economic systems can change, and they should. Can you…

Yeah, the people in the year 1000 really had it a lot better than us. You see when they had 10 kids and realized that they couldn’t split up their plot of land 10 times. They just went off to war and took some of their neighbour shit we should really just go back.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#379
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister is one of these cases. My take is the bar for marriage / life partner is really really high in modern relationships. Women aren't able to attract the mates they want, so they would rather try to do it on their own or wait, than "settle" for a guy that isn't meeting their standards. The female dating coach Logan Ury wrote a book called "How not to die alone" which discusses this issue.

> Women aren't able to attract the mates they want, so they would rather try to do it on their own or wait, than "settle" for a guy that isn't meeting their standards. This seems like a rational decision to me. Better go it alone than risk becoming the sole carer of both a baby and a man-baby.

This tracts, but I think women are evaluating men in “TikTok” metrics, instead of qualities that make a man a great partner.

For example, being over 6ft doesn’t make you a good dad. Or being physically attractive, doest’t make you a supportive partner.

If anything, these characteristics make a man worse, as men in these categories tend to have the pick of the litter, resulting in many women frustrating and disappointed in men if they weren’t selected.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#380

I find the repeated comments of how much parenting 'sucks' and how much childbearing 'sucks' to be distasteful. It has been the single most incredible experience I've had (5 times over). I feel like, primarily, the reason why our society isn't having children is because of a growing selfishness and entitlement; which happens to be the very thing that Rome was suffering from when their society was collapsing too. No,…

People are sharing their own views and outlooks. There is nothing "distasteful" about that, nor are these people selfish and entitled. Bizarre comment.
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