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The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

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Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#131

Post by pfdietz »

baron816 wrote: post #22

The mid-century Baby Boom occurred after a surge in affordable home keeping technologies (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, etc). I think a rebound in fertility will have to come from technology. Specifically, robots to help with child care and new fertility treatments to allow women to have children later in their lives.

For a technological solution, I've previously suggested changing the male/female ratio of new births. Filter out most of the Y bearing sperm cells.

In this new imbalanced society, a TFR well below 2 will still allow a stable, or even growing, population.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#132

Post by pfdietz »

adriand wrote: post #108
baron816 wrote: post #22

The mid-century Baby Boom occurred after a surge in affordable home keeping technologies (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, etc). I think a rebound in fertility will have to come from technology. Specifically, robots to help with child care and new fertility treatments to allow women to have children later in their lives.

My concern is the intersection of rightwing natalism with Silicon Valley ideology leading to technological “solutions” involving, essentially, test tube babies. Take women out of the picture entirely. I can especially see a dystopian dynamic involving the “we have to compete with China” or “they’re doing it / about to do it in China” narratives.

Nah, the right wing solution would be replacing prison with compulsory pregnancy. Sufficient numbers of convicts can be created by appropriate laws.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#133

Post by xp84 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #127
xp84 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden grants 68 weeks of shared parental leave and their TFR is at 1.45. I speculate that a different thing is happening in Europe. Every time I hear European takes on issues, it feels like Europe is post-religion, post-values, post-meaning. Everything is relative; pleasure is the only personal goal, and not harming others is the only external goal. Why even have kids? Why get married? It's a lot of work, plus the…

I mean, this is a quaint narrative, but it doesn't explain the fact that fertility is falling everywhere on earth, regardless of current economy, colonial past, continent, race, or religion.

Put another way:

It's falling in Western countries because we're commiting cultural suicide for the reasons I cited for Europe (the US is behind Europe, but seems to be on the same road). It's falling in countries like China because they moved like 70% of their population from farms to huge cities in the last 40 years, which causes their society to work much more like... the West. Places like Africa, etc. are falling as they get more access to birth control, work for women, etc.

I guess I should have said this: I theorize that the whole world is following a similar path, but different areas started sooner and are thus much farther along in their decadence. Africa is now where the US was in 1965. Europe today may be what the US looks like in 20 years.

Obviously though Western cultural beliefs are much easier to spread now than they were decades ago, so it could be that the developing world "catches up" much faster now. Maybe in 10 years, Africa will be more like US 2010 than US 1975.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#134

Post by oh_my_goodness »

WalterBright wrote: post #129
Arainach wrote: post #7

The complaining about fertility rates, mostly done by the chunk of the population hoarding more and more of the wealth, will continue until people's ability to afford rent and children improves.

> will continue until people's ability to afford rent and children improves. Historically that's never been a requirement for people to make children. Poor people have tended to be pretty prolific. > hoarding more and more of the wealth In a free market society, wealth is created, it is not "concentrated".

'In a free market society, wealth is created, it is not "concentrated".'

That's a theory from economists. Economists have a lot of theories.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#135

Post by xp84 »

oh_my_goodness wrote: post #130
xp84 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden grants 68 weeks of shared parental leave and their TFR is at 1.45. I speculate that a different thing is happening in Europe. Every time I hear European takes on issues, it feels like Europe is post-religion, post-values, post-meaning. Everything is relative; pleasure is the only personal goal, and not harming others is the only external goal. Why even have kids? Why get married? It's a lot of work, plus the…

I'm guessing you literally don't know anyone in Europe.

shrug I don't have personal friends on a different continent, but I read what they write all the time on HN and say on YouTube. Feel free to illuminate us with your first-hand counterpoints instead of a contentless ad-hominem attack.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#136

Post by thewanderer1983 »

The last line of the slide reads "Once you start thinking about these issues, it is hard to think about anything else: demography is destiny."

Raoul Pal primary thesis about macroeconomics is that Demographics is everything. Here is a 54 second video of him highlighting that issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJm_zFbIqPE

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#137

Post by WalterBright »

rayiner wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social security is solvent for at least the next 75 years if the US removes the payroll cap on contributions from wage income. We choose not to. The economic resources exist for these social programs, it will just diminish profits (the horror /s). It's a policy choice. Every year total fertility rate remains lower than replacement rate further locks in the fertility curve, but there is no political will or desire to…

By 2075, Medicare and Social Security will reach a over 14% of GDP combined, up from around 8% today. To pay that, we'll have to raise taxes by $1.75 trillion using today's GDP figures. That will require just about doubling payroll taxes from the present level. That's probably an underestimate. As population shrinks, GDP will shrink as well, unless we have large gains in productivity, which have stalled. It's not cle…

Why does nobody ever factor in the gigantic growth in government?

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#139

Post by marssaxman »

angmarsbane wrote: post #91
rayiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent is the bigger issue than affordability per se. My wife pointed out the other day that we had our second and third kids shortly after we stopped living in apartments and bought a house. We didn't plan to have a significant age gap between our first (who we had in law school) and our other kids, and we earned a lot of money the whole time, it just happened that way. She's convinced that having the extra space subc…

I've been encouraging my cousin who desperately wants children to have them in her two bedroom apartment but she feels that she needs to have a house first and she and her husband can't afford one. They're in their late 30s. My partner and I are mid-30s planning to have young children in our 2 bedroom apartment, we'd prefer a 3 bedroom but they DO NOT EXIST in our Los Angeles neighborhood. More space means untenable…

This did not stop people in the past. You read of three-room New York tenements holding families of ten, or families with half a dozen children living in a single-room frontier cabin, and this was considered commonplace.

My parents raised eleven children in a typical four-bedroom suburban tract house.

I wonder why modern people would be different?

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#140

Post by ok_dad »

WalterBright wrote: post #129
Arainach wrote: post #7

The complaining about fertility rates, mostly done by the chunk of the population hoarding more and more of the wealth, will continue until people's ability to afford rent and children improves.

> will continue until people's ability to afford rent and children improves. Historically that's never been a requirement for people to make children. Poor people have tended to be pretty prolific. > hoarding more and more of the wealth In a free market society, wealth is created, it is not "concentrated".

Nice assertions, but where’s the content of your post? What’s your opinion here based on those two things? Those are just two statements, but do you believe things are different now than historically or are you arguing it’s the same as it ever was, or something else?

I’m probably not old enough yet to share my opinion on societal change across generations, I was a kid until recently.

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