Live data from Hacker News

India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

21–30 of 1001 posts

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#21

> One study showed how the arrival of cable television in Indian villages in the 2000s led to a moderate fall in fertility. Soap operas depicting urban, middle-class women with small families may have changed norms (though some wonder whether people were just watching TV rather than having sex). The latter part seems like the most meaningful cause world wide. Sex is a boredom activity and we just aren't bored in the…

when there is a power outage it is most likely that the cell towers are down, too

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#22
post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

[deleted]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#23

Unless they roll-back women's rights and improvements in child mortality, societies will need to radically overhaul their entire relationship to supporting parenthood in order to reverse this trend. The economic costs of having children at a replacement rate are simply too high. We need universal childcare services, provided by the state and available to all, and other childcare-enabling reforms like automatic right…

Yeah I am not sure I will call that plumber or electrician which only works from home... some folks really live in bubbles, big or small

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#25
post #5

What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too.

There's a significant risk it will lead to a large reduction in living standards. A lot of things like retirement funds are built with the assumption of infinite growth. This assumption will obviously break one day and when it does I don't see how it could go smoothly.

On the plus side, it will likely lead to lower emissions, assuming it doesn't lead to massive wars or other destructive behaviors due to the instability it will bring.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#26
post #5

What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too.

[flagged]

Ah yes let's "make progress" on a planet where people refuse to consume less and we have finite resources.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#28
post #5

What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too.

[flagged]

What indicators do we have that we care enough to solve the problem? It may be doomer to think we must slow down, but "the other side" just hand waves all the problems and says we'll magically fix them with future technology magic - its not reassuring.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#29
> But as India and others hurtle through their demographic transition, the consequences will not be pain-free.

Pain for whom? The people profiting from cheap labor probably.

Why is such a massive sin to scale down? To slow down a bit, I don't think the whole world is about to collapse, but even if it was, I rather that than turning it all into the hellscapes we see on some of the most overpopulated places in the world just so a mere 1% of the population can indulge.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#30

> But demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education. That makes sense. I know that having less people is not a good thing, but I was brought up with the "impending population crisis" thing drilled into my head, so it's difficult for me to be alarmed. I'm also all for getting women into parity with men. I know that there are a lot of men that will say that this is a bad thing, but I was rais…

[flagged]

Racist? I agree that it's not a particularly nice thing to say, and I'll change it, to avoid triggering people, but this is a new definition of the word "racist." Thanks for educating me.
Post reply on HN