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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]

#321

Post by tartoran »

WalterBright wrote: post #145
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.

Baby booms normally happen after a big war. After all the death, people have a primal urge to procreate. I read that people were copulating in the streets of London the day of the Armistice.

Im not sure it's got to do with death. Maybe all the would be parents were holding off having kids during war for obvious reasons. Once the war stops they can just continue with their prior plans. It's also the return of the men from war seeing their girlfriends/wives after a long while.

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

#322

Post by Balgair »

churchill wrote: post #307
__Joker wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Hey, thanks for the inspiration de look here.

I'm strangely bullish on Nigeria. The population stats and the work y'all are doing is just amazing to me. The EkoAltantic project is so big but under the radar that I love it. I keep trying to tell my management that we need to invest in West Africa today to build up brand loyalty now.

What are you thoughts on Nigeria's future in the next 50 years or so?

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

#323

Post by xp84 »

renox wrote: post #280
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…

FWIW I'm French. > 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, Yes, to all this. > plus there's a widely-held belief that Europe…

Maybe that claim is off base, although I wouldn’t expect that to be the overt media story anyway. More of what a typical 35-year-old upper-middle-class liberal “childfree” couple would ramble about to their friends when they’re justifying why “actually, not having kids is the green thing to do.”

Now that I think about it more, I shouldn’t have included that in my Europe hypothesis, as I’ve heard that kind of thinking in general but not more from Europeans.

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

#324

Post by xp84 »

lucketone wrote: post #227
xp84 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You make lot of claims, I will address only one of them. > Europe is post-religion Some anecdata for illustration: - Pope is based in Italy. - my nice went to the first grade in Germany last year, that is a big deal there. Part of celebration was going to local church. - it feels that US population is a lot more zealous with religion - I’m not religious, but on average I do go inside of some church several times a ye…

The Pope is based in Italy, but it’s probably the most inconvenient papacy in history for one to point that out, since the Pope is from Chicago.

Personally, I’m not trying to pretend that Europe is substantially more opposed to the institution of organized religion, I just think it’s a touch more nihilist than the US at present, and more atheistic, and specifically that Europeans are a little more likely to agree with the following: “There is no objective measure of good and evil; everyone should do whatever they want to do as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Life has no particular purpose or meaning, though individuals are free to make up whatever personal goals they want.”

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

#325

Post by xp84 »

stego-tech wrote: post #150
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…

Your argument paints with a very wide brush, which is likely the source of the downvotes. That said, I do think you're touching upon a decent theory whether you realize it or not: What if the real issue isn't merely environmental or economic in nature, but simply the species itself pulling back on births because we feel we have too many people already ? Maybe there's enough ongoing crises throughout the world (that w…

I don’t think I would anthropomorphize the whole species like that, but I actually think some people are consciously pulling back for that exact “we have too many people already” reason. I believe it to be wildly misguided though. I think it’s a sick mind that perceives their own species as an invasive pest to be exterminated. Humans can be bad and they can be good. If you are dismayed, as I am, at how bad the bad people can be, I would argue that all the good people laying down and dying (either immediately or through voluntary infertility) does not solve that problem. If anything, that might increase the bad-to-good ratio. The actual fixes for that are MUCH harder: 1. Have more kids and raise them to know right from wrong. 2. Have a positive impact on the world to promote doing what’s right.

For instance, Fred Rogers did more for improving the world than 10,000,000 people guiltily refusing to have kids would have.

So did Mother Teresa, who, through her work, both increased the population and inspired others to do good.

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

#326

Post by jhp123 »

rayiner wrote: post #182
jhp123 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressive taxation will generally mean that anyone under the median income has a negative net impact on the government's finances. All this study is doing is reflecting the obvious fact that immigrants are by and large working class.

Yes, but the economic rationale of immigration is to have younger workers who can pay into the system to buffer the growing older population. That can’t happen if the immigrants never pay in more than they take out at any point in their life.

there are many indirect effects. Imagine a factory employing 80 low-wage "takers" (line workers etc) and 20 high-wage "makers" (managers etc). The owners of the factory make $1 million in profit every month as a taxable dividend. Well if you get rid of the line workers: no more factory, no more managers, no more dividend. This is why honest analyses go beyond simple tax balance accounting.

The other big impact is on price level. When you have an inverted population pyramid, fewer workers need to support more retirees and this shows up as inflation concentrated in labor-intensive industries like healthcare. So even if a program like Medicare really had more tax receipts per beneficiary after reducing immigration, it would also be spending much more per beneficiary under a labor shortage.

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

#327

Post by cyberax »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #306
cyberax wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Thank you for illustrating exactly why dense cities are inimical to having more than one child.

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

#328

Post by xp84 »

swat535 wrote: post #159
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…

Here is an uncomfortable truth: religious people produce more children, regardless of their income, social welfare status and living conditions. They are thought from birth that marriage, family and children are gifts from "God". In fact, Christians make it a _requirement_ to be "open to life" (i.e have children) before they agree to marry you in Church (in addition to banning contraceptives, abortions and porn). The…

100%. The mindset is everything. 100 years ago, if you picked the happiest 18-year-old woman in town, someone from a great family who was cared for, and never victimized by anyone, and asked her “are you sure you would like to sacrifice your opportunity to spend 4 years in a very expensive school and go get a job and work 5 days a week for the next 40 years, in order to bear a few children?” She would look at you like you were from Mars.

Today, both sexes are, for good reason, afraid of sacrificing any “work years” just to have kids, largely since costs have now become so high that doing so on one income is punishing. Even if you make $250k, which would be enough to live a great lifestyle as a single person, if you have a family and only one parent working, you have to live a lifestyle that much more resembles someone who makes $90k. (Divide those numbers in half for non-high-cost areas, result is the same) It’s probably worse if you are truly saving up the absurd amount of money that college is going to cost in the future (I’m not).

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

#329

Post by AndrewKemendo »

api wrote: post #2

Paul Ehrlich was almost exactly wrong about everything, but he continues to frame the discourse to a ridiculous degree. I'm not sure what the magic pixie dust is that allows people to be this wrong and still have credibility.

He came to the US Air Force Academy every year to give the incoming freshman class his lecture.

This was mandatory and went on for years.

I distinctly remember he sat in a folding chair next to an overhead projector and used what looked like 20 year old laminate slides (this was in the early 2000s) to go through his pitch.

Is he still doing that at other schools? He must be too old at this point.

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

#330

Post by xp84 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #309
4gotunameagain wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would argue that this is a pretty destructive choice though. Like kids/parenting or not (and even for blessed families without problems it’s always hard work), they’re inherently part of being a biological creature. Of course, individuals can opt out, but if everyone opts out, we are all dead.

It’s sad that some people think that’s a good outcome, just because they’re squeamish about diaper changing or dealing with snotty nosed, annoying children. Those people tend to forget that they were once diaper-wearing, snotty nosed, annoying children.

Clearly, the ability to have all the pleasure and none of the responsibility is a very powerful thing. It seems kind of cruel that we have given that to ourselves as a species, if in fact it hacks our brain so much that we decide to kill off our species because Netflix or TikTok is so much more satisfying and easy than having to actually raise a child.

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