181–190 of 461 posts
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Much more of the decrease in the past century is due to increased access to education and full time employment for women, increased availability of contraception, and decreasing child mortality.
I wonder when will the hostile immigration policies kick in and accentuate that.
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Actually how does one actually do that 'check your privilege'? Is it like a checklist for takeoff:'privilege on? check!'
You think about things from different socioeconomic perspectives. It should be pretty obvious that the pandemic is not a year long stay at home tea party for many people. If you only consider you experience as a wealthy tech worker you might not understand this.
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I’ve been thinking about this lately. Similar to you, the house I grew up in is much more less affordable now than it was when my parents bought it. However, in my case it’s not really the same house any more. At the time, the location was thought to be on the outskirts of town, away from the desirable areas. As the city grew, this location became the desirable area. If I look to what is now considered the outskirts,…
That's what I don't understand, if population growth is stagnant or declining, how is it these housing prices are reaching such heights?
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It is very hard to understand why your comment was downvoted this badly. I thought everyone understands that the planet is overpopulated as it is and that bringing as many children into the world as possible is not a net positive.
it's not overpopulated. this is a myth that has been going on since the 1970s: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/12/12/16766872/overpop...
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Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth. Many existing entitlements were created during periods of uncommon birth-rates with the expectation that the babies being born will grow and reproduce at the same rate as their parents. This growth hasn't materialized, and much of the existing growth can be attributed to immigrant inflows. Regardless of the environ…
"Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth." I came to this discussion ctrl-f'ing for "deflation" and while I got zero hits, your comment is close enough ... I will abstract one level deeper and rephrase what you said as: "Much of the financial system is highly dependent on economic growth." There continues to be fervent discussion of the results of QE over…
No one wants to live in an overpopulated hellhole (aka India).
This should be lauded!
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Housing and Education are probably the biggest costs. Maybe healthcare too.
Childcare can easily run over $1000/mo per child. More for infants. When my 2nd child was born, it cost us over $500/week.
Sorry for letting you down, everyone. Three is our limit!
This is probably mostly covid related. But I personally don’t even consider kids. Kids are a life long commitment. I’d only make that commitment if I felt long term stability or at least optimism. Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. It’s a recipe for strife, struggle, and things that rip families and countries apart. It doesn’t have to be this way in the US.
Pretty much every single generation other than your parents (assuming you’re 25-40) had a tougher time and lived in a world with a more uncertain future. Every generation, going back millions of years.
The vast majority of humans had very very stable futures. Like tens of thousands of years stable.
Civilization as we know it is very very recent and unstable.
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This mostly makes sense if real estate is already fully utilised, but it isn't. I can't speak to India, but there's a feeling broadly in North America of having "new development" and "expansion" over time. Cities are much, much larger now than they were 40 years ago, and people imagine that the new farm land subsumed and developed should be available for a similar price relative to income to what it was 'back then'.…
You're right of course, that it's more complex than just land scarcity. But I feel like people sometimes have this strange default sense that something is wrong if things don't stay the same. "My dad fixed diesel engines and provided for a family of 5, so I ought to be able to do the same thing". Well, your dad lived in a different time. You can't be a Holy Roman warrior anymore, and there's also a chance you might n…