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The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

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Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#291

Post by drowsspa »

cco wrote: post #251
Balgair wrote: post #207

I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…

That doesn't seem to be supported by the data, the "nicer" and richer a country becomes, birth rates drop. And basically the opposite is true for countries with a high birth rate. How do you square those facts with your view here?

People compare themselves to their perceived neighborhood in time and space, not to peasants from 5 thousand years ago.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#292

Post by [deleted] »

andrewla wrote: post #211
neogodless wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that I.C.E. has been allowed to stop people just for not looking white enough, and even white citizens have been shot for being "near" I.C.E. operations, I would suggest that it is not safe to assume someone is not a citizen, just because I.C.E. makes them feel unsafe in their neighborhood.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#293

Post by foobar_______ »

compounding_it wrote: post #215
yoyohello13 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Google, Meta, etc are not only siphoning money from peoples attention. They are siphoning human life force.

If you look at the top companies in America currently by market share, pretty much all are selling addictions while maybe a handful actually selling tangible products.

I dream of the day when people wake up to see TikTok and Instagram are as bad or worse than smoking.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#294

Post by bombcar »

czbond wrote: post #98

I believe the trend of population decline coupled with the wave of retirees when coupled with "AI" will produce a net benefit for everyone. I believe humans and jobs will be able to accomplish more, with less people and have better margins - and thus be able to be paid much more. I am an optimist that these trends together, when managed and harnessed well, can make us better paid, less stressed, and with more free ti…

Every single other previous advance that could have done that has NOT produced the less stressed part - imagine taking an 1800s subsistence farmer and arming him with modern equipment and tooling; he'd be ecstatic.

The key is always internal, personal, once you right yourself, the world starts feeling much better.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#295

Post by fragmede »

goodmythical wrote: post #181
compounding_it wrote: post #135

My darwinian theory: About 11 years ago I went on a bus in Rochester, NY. It was bizarre to me that every person in the bus (about 12-15 people aged between 18-25 maybe) were buried in their phones. No one was talking to each other, not looking outside, nothing. I had the latest iPhone but since America was new for me I mostly spent time looking at the world around me and talking to people. I felt sad that the social…

Captain’s Log, Stardate 48492.1 We have entered orbit around Sol III-bis. Long-range scans suggested a pre-warp civilization at the peak of the Information Age. However, upon arrival, Lieutenant Uhura reports total silence across all hailing frequencies. No radio, no subspace chatter, not even leaking analog television waves. Yet, life sign readings are off the charts. It is a ghost town inhabited by eight billion gh…

Was this written by a human? It's far to entertaining to have been written by an LLM.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#296

Post by eptcyka »

tahoeskibum wrote: post #252
eptcyka wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free childcare makes it so much easier. Can’t imagine leaving 80% of my salary at the daycare, but some in the UK do that.

Tax payer paid childcare is known for its low quality. There was an article in The Economist about it.

This hasn’t been my personal and 2nd hand experience.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#297

Post by phil21 »

cco wrote: post #251
Balgair wrote: post #207

I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…

That doesn't seem to be supported by the data, the "nicer" and richer a country becomes, birth rates drop. And basically the opposite is true for countries with a high birth rate. How do you square those facts with your view here?

The richer a country gets the more individualist you can become, is my basic theory.

Raising a kid as an atomic couple apart from extended family and community is a horrible experience for the parents. It takes a village and all that. Parenting is utterly exhausting if you are doing it alone with a partner and responsible for every waking moment of childcare.

You see this in immigrant communities in the US. The demographics with the most children universally are those with "old world" style family and community situations. More or less communal child care without the weirdo expectations that the "richer" parts of society has on parents. Parents are allowed to actually be adult human beings with real lives that are not hyper-scheduled to death. Kids tend to be more independent and "roam" between family and friends without official activities being scheduled every day for them. Ironically this typically results in more engaged parenting overall.

That's my theory at least - it's not much better than anyone else's though.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#298

Post by anthonypasq »

drowsspa wrote: post #291
cco wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to be supported by the data, the "nicer" and richer a country becomes, birth rates drop. And basically the opposite is true for countries with a high birth rate. How do you square those facts with your view here?

People compare themselves to their perceived neighborhood in time and space, not to peasants from 5 thousand years ago.

you think people in Chad are optimistic about the future of their village and are therefore having lots of kids? Give me a break dude.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#299

Post by maxfurman »

goodmythical wrote: post #181
compounding_it wrote: post #135

My darwinian theory: About 11 years ago I went on a bus in Rochester, NY. It was bizarre to me that every person in the bus (about 12-15 people aged between 18-25 maybe) were buried in their phones. No one was talking to each other, not looking outside, nothing. I had the latest iPhone but since America was new for me I mostly spent time looking at the world around me and talking to people. I felt sad that the social…

Captain’s Log, Stardate 48492.1 We have entered orbit around Sol III-bis. Long-range scans suggested a pre-warp civilization at the peak of the Information Age. However, upon arrival, Lieutenant Uhura reports total silence across all hailing frequencies. No radio, no subspace chatter, not even leaking analog television waves. Yet, life sign readings are off the charts. It is a ghost town inhabited by eight billion gh…

As much as I love this post, I have to be the one to point out that Uhura and Spock are from a different Enterprise than Picard, Riker, and Troi. Great work, though, I can practically hear Leonard Nimoy reading this dialogue.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#300

Post by qweiopqweiop »

csallen wrote: post #279
JPKab wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Only if the mothers in aggregate truly believe that their children will have good lives, then will they have them." Then please explain why birth rates throughout human history, when life was vastly more difficult and dangerous than it is now, were so much higher? Nobody had to meet this bar you set before. Let's just be honest here. There were three recent developments, all of which were, by themselves, good things…

> Modern humans live in what would have been historically viewed as a Utopia. I think about this all the time, and how tragic (comedic?) it is that humanity finally created a Utopian age but most of its inhabitants are ignorant of that fact, and thus don't appreciate it, and instead genuinely believe they live in one of the worst times ever.

Great point. I'd argue though, is it a utopia if we're not as happy?
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