Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 54 posts

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#41

Post by binary132 »

dijit wrote: post #7
cl0ckt0wer wrote: post #2

if you want a thing, pay for it. the economics of childrearing aren't workable for most people without a huge cut to standard of living.

What I find interesting is that, it really seems that the opposite is true. My great-grandparents (and their entire ancestry that I can trace, all the way back to 1807) were punishingly, desperately : poor. Yet, it seems they averaged a heck of a lot more children than me, or my contemporaries. And their children largely lived to be adults with only a few minor exceptions. The adults themselves didn't seem to live lo…

meth and automatic firearms didn’t exist back then, for starters.

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#42

Post by dijit »

binary132 wrote: post #41
dijit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find interesting is that, it really seems that the opposite is true. My great-grandparents (and their entire ancestry that I can trace, all the way back to 1807) were punishingly, desperately : poor. Yet, it seems they averaged a heck of a lot more children than me, or my contemporaries. And their children largely lived to be adults with only a few minor exceptions. The adults themselves didn't seem to live lo…

meth and automatic firearms didn’t exist back then, for starters.

knives and opiods did though.

My family were Scottish and Scotland does not have so much automatic firearms tbh.

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#43

Post by xnx »

Filligree wrote: post #13
refactor_master wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe humanity will have more babies when AI takes over, capitalism implodes and we’re all farming and crafting things from scratch, since we’re forced out of the “economy”. The house always… wins?

Sure, Darwin always has the last laugh.

"Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000"

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#45

Post by flowerthoughts »

delbronski wrote: post #24

I think the real issue is not fertility. It is humans refusing to share wealth fairly, which then leads to low fertility. A world with fewer humans, plus AI/robots doing the heavy work would be amazing, if we shared wealth fairly. Unless we humans figure out a way to build institutions that share wealth rather than hoard it, then we are toast either way. Headline should read “The global wealth hoarding crisis is wors…

Communism seems to fail every time it's attempted. Probably not because it's a bad ideology per se, but because it doesn't take greed as a human base trait into consideration.

So yes, but until a new Homo species evolves (time scale: millions of years,) we're going to have to adapt to the base traits of Homo sapiens.

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#46

Post by cheeseomlit »

delbronski wrote: post #24

I think the real issue is not fertility. It is humans refusing to share wealth fairly, which then leads to low fertility. A world with fewer humans, plus AI/robots doing the heavy work would be amazing, if we shared wealth fairly. Unless we humans figure out a way to build institutions that share wealth rather than hoard it, then we are toast either way. Headline should read “The global wealth hoarding crisis is wors…

That doesn't really make sense considering low-income demographics have the highest birth rates

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#47

Post by delbronski »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #46
delbronski wrote: post #24

I think the real issue is not fertility. It is humans refusing to share wealth fairly, which then leads to low fertility. A world with fewer humans, plus AI/robots doing the heavy work would be amazing, if we shared wealth fairly. Unless we humans figure out a way to build institutions that share wealth rather than hoard it, then we are toast either way. Headline should read “The global wealth hoarding crisis is wors…

That doesn't really make sense considering low-income demographics have the highest birth rates

That’s not true, specially in highly developed nations.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-...

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#48

Post by jemmyw »

flowerthoughts wrote: post #45
delbronski wrote: post #24

I think the real issue is not fertility. It is humans refusing to share wealth fairly, which then leads to low fertility. A world with fewer humans, plus AI/robots doing the heavy work would be amazing, if we shared wealth fairly. Unless we humans figure out a way to build institutions that share wealth rather than hoard it, then we are toast either way. Headline should read “The global wealth hoarding crisis is wors…

Communism seems to fail every time it's attempted. Probably not because it's a bad ideology per se, but because it doesn't take greed as a human base trait into consideration. So yes, but until a new Homo species evolves (time scale: millions of years,) we're going to have to adapt to the base traits of Homo sapiens.

All democratic capitalist societies have had wealth redistribution, including the USA. Sharing wealth doesn't necessarily mean communism. It can be larger share of profits to workers, or post profit via taxes. It seems like a lot of places did this better from the 50s to the 80s and then wealth disparity soared as the rich started to asset more control on the political system again.

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#49

Post by tsoukase »

Human progress is to blame for low fertility through a multitude of mechanisms but the most important is the status of the female: it seems her advanced role outside of the home depresses her maternal instinct. Instincts are vulnerable to environment and don't survive in certain occasions.

Re: The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think

#50

Post by johnea »

I'm sure there's a factual error in the title.

This should read: The Global Fertility Windfall Is Better Than You Probably Think

What you need to know™:

- What kind of fantasy thinking could possibly conclude that a reduction in global population is a bad thing?

- How much more of a poster child do we need, to demonstrate that modern capitalism is a ponzi scheme?

- Just another example that what trends in "journalism" is just the perspective of ownership.

- If this is a true theory, why isn't africa booming economically? (this dismissal and lack of concern for Africa should really be reason #1, but the truth is, most white people couldn't give a shit less what happens to Africans)

Post reply on HN