Personally, I see no reason to be alarmed. Humanity has been growing at an absolutely batshit crazy rate for the past hundred years, even the doomsday Thanos-level event that halves the population of the planet overnight would just bring us to the level of mere 50 years ago (the main reason I never understood the logic behind the whole Thanos idea). This growth must stop at some point and maybe even correct itself, it's perfectly ok. Our current economic system along with some countries may not survive it in their current form, but it's definitely not a humanity-level crisis.
The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
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Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#12I think this guy is on to something. It's also interesting that India, which has arranged marriages, has such a high population and much better demographic situation than most of the West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4apGtiz42Qk
All the Indian people I know in the US have one anchor baby and no more. This is my experience with a significant number of H1-B visa workers in tech.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#13> “Only two things are important right now in life: fertility and deep learning,” the University of Pennsylvania economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde said at the conclusion of a recent lecture. “Everything else is noise. Once you start thinking about these, it’s hard to start thinking about anything else.” Not sure if I agree but that's quite a memorable quote
Maybe humanity will have more babies when AI takes over, capitalism implodes and we’re all farming and crafting things from scratch, since we’re forced out of the “economy”. The house always… wins?
Sure, Darwin always has the last laugh.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#14if you want a thing, pay for it. the economics of childrearing aren't workable for most people without a huge cut to standard of living.
This has always been true. We have talked about the costs of raising children forever.
What is different now, is twofold: 1. Bigger financial impact of having a child, both through less government support, and because more women are working. This combined means that to have a child, often, one of the parents needs to stop working, which severely impacts SoL. 2. Less social impact of not having a child. It is far more common to not have children than it used to be, and so it becomes much more of a choice as to whether to make that SoL sacrifice or not.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#15This is "only" a crisis in the sense that our current economies break down if the influx of new consumers slows down. We'll adapt. Won't be painless, but it is not catastrophic, at least not in the same sense that climate change is catastrophic
> “Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?” If you asked Leahy what the explanation was, “my answer is technology,” he said. “My answer is social media. My answer is AI.”
My answer may include that, especially for richer countries, but also includes, and at a mucher higher placing for all countries:
* reduced child mortality risk, family planning
* urbanization; reduction of child-as-farmhand-labor incentives
* increasing distance to parent support networks, the disaggregation of clan/extended family households
* economic uncertaintyRe: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#16Personally, I see no reason to be alarmed. Humanity has been growing at an absolutely batshit crazy rate for the past hundred years, even the doomsday Thanos-level event that halves the population of the planet overnight would just bring us to the level of mere 50 years ago (the main reason I never understood the logic behind the whole Thanos idea). This growth must stop at some point and maybe even correct itself, i…
The crisis isn’t one of total population, but one of having too many unproductive old people.
There are solutions to that. One or more of them will eventually manifest, assuming we don’t outrun it by way of AI. Personally I’m betting on the AI, so I’m not too worried right now.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#17What if - evolutionarily we just haven't evolved for birth control?
What if - given a choice, women just don't want to have 2.1 children on average?
No one wants to touch this topic, because it's super offensive and probably political, but it seems like the most plausible to me.
And clearly we're not going back. No one is going to ban birth control, and they probably shouldn't. But then where do we go from here? Basically all genes of non enthusiastic parents will die out over the next 100-200 years, and we will get more enthusiastic parent genes succeeding, and population grows again? Or we literally just die out...
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#18if you want a thing, pay for it. the economics of childrearing aren't workable for most people without a huge cut to standard of living.
Yes. Societies have been using their women's children as a positive externality for generations, but now the logic of capitalism and societal freedom has caught up, and now societies would rather collapse than support women and families economically for the work of childrearing.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#19if you want a thing, pay for it. the economics of childrearing aren't workable for most people without a huge cut to standard of living.
The countries that do pay for it don’t have significantly higher fertility rates. I’d say there’s an elephant in the room: Childbirth sucks. If you want women to willingly subject themselves to that, you need either a culture that virtually requires it- And I want to take a moment to emphasise that I don’t like nor want this solution, and would fight anyone who tries for it. -or you need to pay them well above the ac…
There are no countries that come close to actually paying for it. There are countries that pay for 5% of it, and in those, indeed they don't have significantly higher fertility rates.
Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
#20What if - evolutionarily we just haven't evolved for birth control? What if - given a choice, women just don't want to have 2.1 children on average? No one wants to touch this topic, because it's super offensive and probably political, but it seems like the most plausible to me. And clearly we're not going back. No one is going to ban birth control, and they probably shouldn't. But then where do we go from here? Basi…
We’re certainly not dying out. At minimum, eventually civilisation would crack badly enough that we can no longer make contraceptives, nor other entertainment to distract from sex.
Which I’m fairly sure is part of the picture. Evolution didn’t build us to want sex; it built us to crave stimulation, which is more generally useful, then made reproduction into fallback entertainment.