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The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

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Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#141

Post by ChatGTP »

withinboredom wrote: post #74
hardware2win wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way And dont get me wrong - we arent climate change deniers, just... pick your battles Why waste your life worrying about something you have tiny impact on?

Before having a child, it was something I thought about and my wife and I would occasionally discuss. Now my son asks, "How can you do this to me? You've screwed up our planet and there is nothing I can do for at least ten years," (direct quote after coming home from school yesterday -- he's 9). Our kids are worried about it, more so than our generation, that's for sure.

Man this must be hard on everyone. You and your son included.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#142

Post by atemerev »

sushibowl wrote: post #21
atemerev wrote: post #5

I don't understand why this is a problem. We are moving through demographic transition, as the world reaches its carrying capacity for human populations. So, we are safe from overpopulation crisis, from future unemployment crises, etc.

The problem is that a significant part of the current world economic system is dependent on adequate supply of human labor. The declining population phase is especially painful as this will lead to a larger proportion of older people, which cannot supply the same amount of labor yet do consume the same amount of resources. I don't think the solution should be to prop birth rates back up, necessarily, but we do need t…

Well, incidentally, right now the AI revolution is happening, the problem will be unemployment, not a deficit of human labor

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#143

Post by lapcat »

mihaic wrote: post #130
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment. That argument seems rather doubtful to me.

It's not a perfect correlation, but I'd find it hard to believe that children don't share on average more of their outlook on life with their parents than with a random member of society.

It's a pretty bad, very risky "investment" in the environmental cause, though, because by the time your kids are old enough to vote, it'll be almost 20 years later already, the kids will be using up resources while they're growing up regardless of the ultimate outcome, and you can only pray in the end that they'll agree with you on values when they're adults. You can't just pump a new environmentalist out of the womb.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#144

Post by hanselot »

consp wrote: post #135
hanselot wrote: post #60

[flagged]

Birth rates in 2018-2020 were about equal here, NW Europe (per capita, within the margin of error) and went up afterwards. But that was not what you wanted to hear.

Why would the birth rates from 2018-2020 be relevant other than for comparative purposes?

The question I posed was specific to birth rates after people volunteered for gene therapy.

The funniest part is that it would be incredibly easy to prove whether I am right using data, so it should be equally easy to prove me wrong.

Off the top of my head, I imagine if we take places with the highest rate of coerced compliance, we should see a noticeable drop in birth rates overall as well as premature or still births as well as overall fertility rate.

So proving me wrong should be very easy to do.

You can all thank me later for volunteering to be in the placebo group.

Still running the comparison for European countries. Will come back with the data once I finish.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#145

Post by lynx23 »

tombert wrote: post #106
lynx23 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear "wedding" I wonder why the male is going for that risk. The obvious unfairness and non-equality during a divorce is the main reason why I never would get married. Its just illogical to put yourself that much at risk.

I mean, disregarding "love" and whatnot, at least in the US, there are lots of bureaucratic benefits to it. I'm not religious or anything, so a wedding in itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but my wife and I got married in no small part so we could share health insurance, help with her immigration, and lower our tax burden. I don't regret the marriage, I trust my wife, and we've been pretty happy for the last eight yea…

Where I come from, public health insurance is a given, so no need to marry to obtain that basic "right". Marrying to fascilitate immigration is not unheard of, however, most cases I know are more about economic incentives then actual love. I can not speak about lowering tax burden, the system I am living in is apparently too different from yours.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#146

Post by berberous »

X0Refraction wrote: post #125
red_admiral wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* (sociologic) fear of climate change (will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time) or commitment to make a small positive impact on climate change by not having kids I'm not saying this is true or rational (there are actually blog posts in the rationalist community along the lines of "no, having kids does not cause climate change") but it's definitely a sentiment I've encountered.

This is one the factors as to why my partner and I have decided against having children. Not because we think it'll make the situation worse, but because we believe they shouldn't have to deal with the significant fallout from resource contention, climate migration etc. that is more than likely on the horizon when they had no hand in creating the problem

This is a weird take to me. Even if climate change turns out to be significantly bad, I have a hard time imagining it would be worse than most times in human history. Only a few generations ago people lived through two world wars. We could have a third world war at some point, or the AI doomers could be right, but would that stop you from having children? This feels to me like someone who doesn’t leave their house because they are worried a car might hit them…it’s an unhealthy anxiety about one of many potential risks, that shouldn’t prevent you from living life.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#147

Post by balfirevic »

Aeolos wrote: post #81
t0mislav wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>12 hours/day I can't even imagine working a minute longer than 8 hours per day, and 12+ hours is woow. Is this common in US? I work 8 hours my whole career (IT). My wife works 6 hours per day. (central Europe)

I have worked 10-12 hours a day throughout all of my working career (from 19yo onwards). This is in central Europe, and I'm not even the hardest worker around.

Do you just sleep, work, commute and do chores? That sounds dreadful to me.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#148

Post by generic92034 »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #37
pjc50 wrote: post #12

The other day someone was complaining about too many people in the housing thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35962521 The two are linked. Having children is at least partly an economic choice. People have spent decades working against "teen moms" and "single parents" and "welfare queens". Everyone is very clear that you must not have children unless you can comfortably afford to do so. And not just now, th…

> Are the people who want others to have more children prepared to pay for it? This implies that more people make society poorer. Which is false. People don’t consume a finite set of resources, they create more. As populations rise the net general standard of living goes up, not down. For source, check out all developed nations over the last 200 years, and human history to date. USA actually has an advantage here as…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#149

Post by lynx23 »

pjc50 wrote: post #112
tombert wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, disregarding "love" and whatnot, at least in the US, there are lots of bureaucratic benefits to it. I'm not religious or anything, so a wedding in itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but my wife and I got married in no small part so we could share health insurance, help with her immigration, and lower our tax burden. I don't regret the marriage, I trust my wife, and we've been pretty happy for the last eight yea…

People forget all the reasons gay marriage had to be fought for; no matter how solid a relationship is, the external privileges of having that status recognized matter. (Also, few of the posters in this subthread are looking at the woman's side of the game theory)

I believe that seeking external recognition is only necessary when one is unsure and requires external validation to feel confident.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#150

Post by lynx23 »

loxs wrote: post #99
lynx23 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear "wedding" I wonder why the male is going for that risk. The obvious unfairness and non-equality during a divorce is the main reason why I never would get married. Its just illogical to put yourself that much at risk.

Marriage is only worse, but having kids without marriage comes with most of the same risks and inequalities. Like what are the chances that the father gets custody?

The father only gets custody if the mother is proovably insane or basically unable to provide for herself. In all other cases, she is treated with extra priviledge.
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