To add another source, the Atlantic had a piece on birthrates in South Korea last March: https://archive.li/Fm93M Quoting from the article: > There are a lot of reasons people decide not to have a baby. Young Koreans cite as obstacles the high cost of housing in greater Seoul (home to roughly half the country’s 52 million citizens), the expense of raising a child in a hypercompetitive academic culture, and grueling w…
How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
391–400 of 439 posts
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
One issue is that there are many who are not willing to live normal lives and there's this constant battle of trying to outdo one another. People are trying to please even mere strangers standing next to them at the crosswalk. Living mediocre is bad and there's a negative stigma associated to being middle to lower class. If your apartment isn't a Prugio or Lotte Castle and live in Bangbae; If your car isn't a AMG, BM…
Interesting idea. You see this sort of thing throughout the westernized world, perhaps not as extreme as SK, but I've never been so I can't compare. This is a completely busted system of values though... Almost everything you mention is the luxury version of things that all have functionally very similar alternatives at a much lower cost. The main value is signaling and maybe satisfying some mimetic desire. As signal…
A lot of people have no purpose in their life beyond consumption. Truly, this is it.
If people put the tiniest fraction of work into their fitness, their personality, their intelligence or any other character-building activity or experience instead of working away to buy trinkets and tokens of vapid displays of wealth, we may actually get somewhere as a species.
Exercising is hard, as is resisting junk food, as is reading a book compared to watching TV, or throwing yourself into a new situation. It's so much easier to not do that stuff, sit in an office and collect a paycheck and redirect that money towards things we think make us better than each other.
Personally, I'm way more impressed with the people I know who run 100km+ a week, workout hard and study hard, than people who walk around wearing designer clothes or showing off the things they've bought. The latter sounds sort of pathetic.
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#393I think all these studies skirt very gingerly around a big problem. Stressful work culture, lack of support for families (includes high real-estate costs, long commute times, lack of sick leave, etc.) and most importantly a path for women (and men - but its mostly women) who drop out of the workforce and want to get back in once the children are older and more independent. Child rearing takes a group of people not ju…
How did we end up at a point where creating life (literally) is a „not good enough reason“?
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution is fewer people - which is the direction they are headed. S.Korea has twice the population density of Germany for instance. So cutting in to half the current number seems about right. Honest question: who benefits from population growth besides developers?
everyone. more humans = more geniuses = more technology = more everything. The modern world would not have existed with a global population capped at 100k humans or something
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
This really defines the problem. (1) we approach child rearing as an economic proposition, and (2) it doesn’t make sense to as an economic proposition. But the more we fight the second proposition, the more we reinforce the first. Trying to make kids less expensive still treats this as a financial calculation. When you ask “why have kids?” there needs to be a real answer, and I don’t think “the economic public good”…
That's why religions tend to assign child rearing a extentential "Go straight to hell" punishment if you don't do it. It turns out it's a great way to keep your religion around.
They don't want you to sleep around, and in some religions they don't want you to use birth control, but there's not a lot actively saying you need to have kids.
Sometimes having children is strongly implied for those who follow the path of marriage (and may officially even be the purpose of that), but there are typically also paths where people are expected to remain celibate.
Arguably, say in the Catholic church, there is too much emphasis on the latter, what with celibate clergy and everything. In LDS I would say family is more of an ideal. This extends even into the theology. Catholics say "'til death do us part", but LDS say husband and wife go to heaven together and stay married there forever. Hinduism overall seems less obsessed with correct behavior (it has dharma, of course, but no simple hell thing), but it also provides both householder and ascetic paths.
I think religions sort of take it for granted that enough people will want to get married, and that if you get married you'll have kids. Instead they're worried about self control.
Little did they anticipate that the superego would maintain its iron grip without help, that the rationally-planning ego would have the means and motive to skip kids entirely, and that the id would get so distracted with hatred of other people that it wouldn't even try to bring them together, even in unwise or destructive ways. But that's where we are.
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only in the short-term, which is exactly the problem. Squeeze more now and don't worry about the long-term consequences. "Après nous, le déluge"
Well more concretely, it's that the people paying the cost do not directly reap the benefits of the investment. A child has extremely high long-term ROI for the economy. But (for good reasons) you can't take out a loan in the name of a future child for a larger house now. Someone (aka) the government needs to be future-sighted enough to make the investment. Unfortunately, governments are run by people who will indivi…
Study proposal: Are there more family-friendly policies in hereditary monarchies (which have longer incentive horizon than democratically elected politicians do)? Are birthrates higher in kingdoms?
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's post facto logic. Obviously you and your ancestors have overcome those things, because the millions that didn't are dead. Statistically someone was going to survive, you're lucky it was your ancestors, but it doesn't mean you will be lucky again.
That’s the whole point that is being made… we’re talking about humanity - Yeah lots of individuals will die due to climate change, particularly in 3rd world countries but humanity will be just fine overall, just as it was with all those disasters.
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
> reexamine how the media/doomscrolling have affected your thought process. No need. Except for Hacker News and local news, I don't read the news. I don't use other social networks except for a few small non-news subreddits and Github. But my local environment is changing year over year, and it's concerning. > We get to live in air conditioned houses It's funny that you mention that. Air conditioners were almost unhe…
I work outside. I guarantee my 2 year old daughter will be just fine in regards to global warming. Some areas of the world might have issues, but if you're in a rich country like America you don't really need to worry about it on a personally-affecting-me-level.
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
One issue is that there are many who are not willing to live normal lives and there's this constant battle of trying to outdo one another. People are trying to please even mere strangers standing next to them at the crosswalk. Living mediocre is bad and there's a negative stigma associated to being middle to lower class. If your apartment isn't a Prugio or Lotte Castle and live in Bangbae; If your car isn't a AMG, BM…
Interesting idea. You see this sort of thing throughout the westernized world, perhaps not as extreme as SK, but I've never been so I can't compare. This is a completely busted system of values though... Almost everything you mention is the luxury version of things that all have functionally very similar alternatives at a much lower cost. The main value is signaling and maybe satisfying some mimetic desire. As signal…
Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's post facto logic. Obviously you and your ancestors have overcome those things, because the millions that didn't are dead. Statistically someone was going to survive, you're lucky it was your ancestors, but it doesn't mean you will be lucky again.
That’s the whole point that is being made… we’re talking about humanity - Yeah lots of individuals will die due to climate change, particularly in 3rd world countries but humanity will be just fine overall, just as it was with all those disasters.