US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

I'm no economist, but I've been mulling over some of the common problems the majority of citizens of modern countries are all facing.

I think that most of them (low purchasing power, high cost of living, high house prices) seem to stem from the effects of our collective activity and lack of large-scale and long-term organization and planning; it doesn't help that we've been lately -- as a society -- focused on optimizing for GDP, which is as an indicator of how well a country's economy is faring.

I'd like to say my opinion, and would welcome any educated response, but I fear a backlash or repercussion. This is something I've been thinking about in terms of game theory, and though they may seem a bit crazy, I would invite everyone to consider them before disregarding them as conspiracy theories.

I believe there is an interest in keeping the majority of people uneducated, busy and plentiful: in essence almost everyone is easily replaceable, and the majority of the population have to settle for meager wages.

However, in a scenario where people were to be educated and scarce, I posit that inequality would tend to disappear as people would have a higher bargaining power, a likelier scenario to organize or respond, and a higher quality of life.

So, even if this hurts housing, healthcare and industries indirectly (less infrastructure to be built, babies to be delivered and products to be sold), I'm glad that fertility rates are below replacement level because this indicates -- in my opinion -- that average quality of life will increase.

> So, from the viewpoint of traditional Catholic theology, Protestants are heretics, but their beliefs about baptism are close enough to the Catholic belief that their heresy doesn't invalidate their baptisms. (Different story for ordination and the eucharist, since Protestant theology on those topics is further away from Catholic theology.)

This is largely an issue of apostolic succession; regardless of the theology of the communities about ordination and the eucharist (which do differ critically), the sacraments cannot be valid because they are valid, in Catholic doctrine, only when performed by a validly ordained bishop (ordination) or consecrated by a validly ordained priest (Eucharist); the absence of episcopal apostolic succession (or, in much of protestantism, even the episcopal office) means that there are no validly ordained bishops and priests around. Now that is intimately tied to the doctrine around ordination, but even if the doctrine around the substance of the sacrament of the eucharist were identical, the absence of a valid minister of the sacrament would be critical.

> Whereas, non-Trinitarian Christians, the Catholic Church views their beliefs to directly touch on what the sacrament of baptism is about, so their non-Trinitarianism invalidates their baptisms from the Catholic viewpoint.

Well, there's two issues there. Sure, it's debatable whether a non-Trinitarian would have the requisite intent to validly (if, necessarily, illicitly) perform a baptism in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but what is more certainly fatal of most baptism by non-Trinitarians would be the failure to baptise using a Trinitarian formula, which is required for the sacrament to be valid, whether or not it is licit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valid_but_illicit

Well, try talking to your grandparents or beyond. It was a different time.

Try to imagine. There is no google search to find out how to make children. The closest library is far away and it's not that common to go to school and learn to read. That leaves you with the opinions of the family, the neighbors and the priest, who don't know much either and offer contradictory explanations.

I see, but in addition to a valid baptism aren't there required beliefs as well? Such as the immaculate conception and Papal infallibility, which Protestants would deny?

Look, yes, obviously there are more jobs in the biggest cities. Why people insist on translating this into “there are no jobs anywhere else” is anybody’s guess. But it extends beyond preference or opinion and into objectively, verifiably, factually wrong territory with remarkable consistency.

It makes the people who claim it look ridiculous, but they seem to think it makes them look — I don’t know what — something not ridiculous. They don’t merely say it; they say it with aplomb and even contempt. (Maybe because they get universal agreement every time they bring this up with people in their real life?)

The person we’re responding to in this thread is an almost archetypical example. Is this some sort of “winner take all” bias? It’s very weird.

Programmers in the most expensive cities are doing fine. But this cultural wisdom is doing very real harm to people who would be much better off in cheaper cities. They think, “well, sheesh, it’s hard here, but I probably couldn’t even find a job in Pittsburgh.”

And that’s factually, dangerously wrong.