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

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

sas.upenn.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 409 posts

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

#301

Post by mensetmanusman »

stego-tech wrote: post #148
chrisco255 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fertility rate is falling everywhere, even countries that have extensive childcare and maternity/paternity leave. Sweden grants 68 weeks of shared parental leave and their TFR is at 1.45. There is nothing authentic about porn, what a strange comment. Sure, it hacks the reward system of the brain in the same way that a slot machine does, but this does absolutely nothing to promote families.

> There is nothing authentic about porn, what a strange comment. Sure, it hacks the reward system of the brain in the same way that a slot machine does, but this does absolutely nothing to promote families. Disagree on both. Pornography, like any media, has a multitude of styles and types that can evoke different sets of emotions from the viewer. It's an art form that speaks uniquely to each individual, and I've foun…

This is probably a common take by someone with survivor bias though.

Days show porn use and fertility rate negatively correlate. Makes sense from first order effects researchers see on ED rates, etc.

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

#302

Post by mensetmanusman »

arethuza wrote: post #278
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…

"it feels like Europe is post-religion" You say that likes it's a bad thing?

Surprisingly (for secularists), post religion means degrowth of the culture.

So it’s a good thing if you want Europe’s culture replaced by what the data show is happening, and it’s a bad thing if you think Europe’s traditional culture is worth saving.

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

#303

Post by mensetmanusman »

anonym29 wrote: post #231
bombcar wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it matters in how you define quality of life, for one. Take a family of five kids and give them a bedroom for each kid when young and they’ll end up clustering in one or two. I think space and other pressures may have their place as causes, but are mostly downstream from whatever the root issues are.

>Take a family of five kids and give them a bedroom for each kid when young and they’ll end up clustering in one or two. Do you have anecdata on this? I grew up with a single sibling, and we had to share a room as young children due to economic circumstances, but we were both very excited to get our own rooms when our parents bought a larger house. I have no kids of my own and don't plan on having any, but I'm fascin…

I have 8 kids, they cluster at night, sing to each other, recite poetry, and talk late into the night.

It’s more similar to how families slept for millennia.

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

#304

Post by arethuza »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #302
arethuza wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it feels like Europe is post-religion" You say that likes it's a bad thing?

Surprisingly (for secularists), post religion means degrowth of the culture. So it’s a good thing if you want Europe’s culture replaced by what the data show is happening, and it’s a bad thing if you think Europe’s traditional culture is worth saving.

Well where I am (Edinburgh) we have a superabundance of culture at this time of year - very little of which has anything to do with religion?

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

#305

Post by stego-tech »

agalunar wrote: post #168
stego-tech wrote: post #86

Funny, I just wrapped a blog post about this: https://green.spacedino.net/i-dont-worry-about-population-de... Good presentation by the author that reaffirms my own opinions about the topic, specifically that while it sucks and cripples the social welfare programs our (deceased) elders built on the theory of continued population and productivity growth, it's also an issue we can fix with coordination between powers an…

I’ve noticed that, besides the magnetism and drive for sex (which would be sufficient for a species to propagate), many people also experience the biological imperative (wanting their genes replicated) as its own separate feeling. This makes no sense to me – it’s not a feeling I can personally relate to. I’d like to raise kids because I’d enjoy getting to teach them and share things with them, but I don’t care whethe…

For whatever it’s worth, I also believe the two are separate feelings that aren’t always in alignment. I have no desire to procreate (gay man), but following the birth of my first nibling I felt this profound swell of emotion and drive commanding me to nurture and support its growth into an adult. It’s likely why, in my teens and 20s before I understood the full impact of the 2008 crisis, I wanted to eventually adopt children myself.

Biology is weird.

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

#306

Post by cosmic_cheese »

cyberax wrote: post #275
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying that Japan has it all figured out, just that cities can be built to allow many families to thrive without a car. Japan has their own set of issues w.r.t birthrate, but it’s partially a different set than those seen in the US.

OK. Can you get a double stroller into busy Tokyo subway during the rush hour?

Probably not, but I barely see strollers over there anyway, and it’s also rare to take kids on the train/subway during rush hour. Kids are usually carried or toted in one of those front-body-kid-carriers (sorry don’t know the name) until they can walk, after which they walk (or for longer rides, get taken on a bike). If I see little kids on the train it’s most often before or after rush hour during the slower times.

A lot of American norms don’t carry over.

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

#307

Post by churchill »

__Joker wrote: post #277
churchill wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this. Nigerian here, and I have to say that you hit the nail squarely on the head. Population counts in Nigeria are deeply political and essentially every region/state is motivated to fake/overestimate their headcount to get a bigger chunk of the oil revenue, which is pretty much the most significant slice of gov. revenue. But, once you dig into the figures, you realize it'd be a miracle if Nigeria has…

Are there any proxy for population count? Like may be mobile users, I understand people use more than one.

Yes, I included that in the brackets. There's roughly ~240M registered SIMs, but unlike American phone line where you sign a contract, Nigerian SIMs are bought OTC and are quite disposable. But, they're tied to the National Identity Number which is biometric and hard/impossible to circumvent.

It's quite common to have up to 2-3-4 SIMs also. When when you account for that, you have ~60M-80M-100M phone users.

Another proxy is the Bank verification Number, which like I said, is Nigeria's Social Security Number, but for banking. Can't have a bank account without it. Even in the super-rural parts of Northern Nigeria, they're still banked, which is impossible without a BVN.

Now, there's been ~66M BVNs issued so far, according to a recent update. If we assume that covers the bulk of the adult population (remember, you can do literally nothing without a BVN) and several million teenagers, and account for the median age being 19 (that is, half the entire population is beneath that age), we can infer that Nigeria's population is close to 2* the BVN count.

My best guess is 120M to 140M max given the measurable, unfalsifiable proxies.

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

#308

Post by lotsofpulp »

stego-tech wrote: post #86

Funny, I just wrapped a blog post about this: https://green.spacedino.net/i-dont-worry-about-population-de... Good presentation by the author that reaffirms my own opinions about the topic, specifically that while it sucks and cripples the social welfare programs our (deceased) elders built on the theory of continued population and productivity growth, it's also an issue we can fix with coordination between powers an…

> we as a species are wired to breed.

Wired to orgasm, maybe. Wired to breed, no. According to all the data.

Humans are very analytical and do tons of cost benefit analysis before breeding, and apparently, choose not to in many cases.

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

#309

Post by lotsofpulp »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #288
thrance wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference? People want what they want, it's always been this way. No one makes life choices in a cultural vacuum.

The difference is that in one case it could be recognised and avoided, if beneficial for both the individual & society.

Explain why total fertility rate goes down in direct correlation with women gaining freedom.

Seems clear that once “it” could be avoided, the individuals started making choices beneficial for themselves.

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

#310

Post by myrmidon »

WalterBright wrote: post #137
rayiner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"The government" is not actually accruing wealth in pretty much any western democracy-- in fact the exact opposite is happening everywhere.

To me it seems clear why government budgets have increase so much. Since the emergence of modern nation states, government responsibilities have grown tremendously, and mostly for good reason:

- Infrastructure basically went from dirt roads to highways/railways/airports

- Tremendously higher benchmarks for services/regulation (education, pensions, food safety, crime prevention, drinking/groundwater quality, lead pollution, mining/heavy industry regulation, healthcare/-regulation)

A lot of those things are new enough that I would argue we are still stabilizing on their total costs, and current government budgets (high AND red literally everywhere) are basically humanity finding out that all those things are not free.

But I would also argue that for a big majority of people, this is still a rather decent deal; I would rather pay current (or even higher) levels of taxes than to suffer from lead poisoning, have children crippled from quackery/insufficiently tested medication or needing to pay protection money to the mob.

But I'm quite curious: What do you think is the problematic part of government growth? Do you think that Doge, specifically, is successful in identifying and quelling it?

Post reply on HN