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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

#441

Post by tantalor »

andrewla wrote: post #301
epistasis wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are such deep contradictions in these thoughts. You think that the illegal immigrant is going to starve without the criminal employer? When just a second ago you were saying they should be deported, and that "most" people think that's OK? We all lose when these immigrants are deported, and every mass deportation means simultaneously a mass deprivation of rights and a mess of big mistakes that ruin people's fami…

What can I say, I contain multitudes. I think that yes, they should be deported. This is not a punishment. If your solution is that they should not be deported, but employers should be prosecuted, then you're saying that you want the immigrants to starve. If your solution is that they should not be deported, but we should extend labor protections to them and force employers to hire them legally, then I think there is…

> extend labor protections

This would also solve the "competition" problem, because it would tend to equalize wages.

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

#443

Post by WhompingWindows »

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]

If someone sees the world around them getting worse, I think it's pretty logical to not bring a child into that society.

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

#445

Post by assaddayinh »

bombcar wrote: post #13
jleyank wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More that young(er) folks could afford to live on a single income for the pre-school years. Or, I guess, that there's extensive parental leave and support for the parent doing primary caregiver.

There are many solutions to different aspects of the problem - if we define the problem something like "people get together older, and have kids older, and have fewer." But even if everything was "easy and perfect" (arguably some other countries have this) - you still have something that is generally discouraging people from having kids. The median Amish family income is about $65,000 and typically has six to eight c…

You need a positive life affirming story in your life to set up kids and the current core does not have that. "You will be either a concentration camp guard or a prisoner, in a apocalyptic war" is not a life narrative, its a contraceptive.

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

#446

Post by tshaddox »

pixl97 wrote: post #435
tshaddox wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some might say this is selfish, but on the other hand it’s kind of weird to expect anybody to commit to that for the sake of some other party, whether that be society, the government, peers, or parents, particularly when none of them are doing anything of substance to help mitigate those impacts in exchange. Nah, I think that it is just selfish, and that it’s the least weird thing in the world to expect people to c…

> Like all ideas, someone had to invent them Not at all. Behaviors can be emergent based on environmental conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink is one example.

I was referring to the parent commenter’s specific ideas and conclusions, not general behavior patterns.

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

#447

Post by notpachet »

tshaddox wrote: post #410
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an underrated aspect is how much a couple is expected to willingly sacrifice to have kids. Financial mobility, career prospects/growth, hobbies, leisure, and retirement preparation are just a few of the things that have to take a back seat for both the mother and the father on top of all the things that impact both individually (especially the mother). At minimum, kids are like a boat anchor on all of those t…

> Some might say this is selfish, but on the other hand it’s kind of weird to expect anybody to commit to that for the sake of some other party, whether that be society, the government, peers, or parents, particularly when none of them are doing anything of substance to help mitigate those impacts in exchange. Nah, I think that it is just selfish, and that it’s the least weird thing in the world to expect people to c…

You're saying it's de facto selfish to not have kids? What if someone can't have kids?

In reality everyone who's thinking about having kids exists on a spectrum of what's possible: either it's going to be really easy for you (because you're Elon Musk and you don't give a fuck) or it's going to be borderline impossible (because you're infertile, or you're broke, or whatever).

Just because someone looked at the odds and said "you know what, maybe this isn't a great idea" doesn't make them selfish. Meanwhile you're the one imposing your worldview on them...

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

#448

Post by dmm »

mmastrac wrote: post #37
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need young people to pay for old people retirement (economically speaking, someone has to be working when someone else is just eating).

I really hope that automation and robotics will _finally_ allow us to invert the pyramid.

Much more likely is that conditions for elder care will continuously degrade until MAID becomes most people's choice.

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

#449

Post by Windchaser »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #69
queuebert wrote: post #16

Why do we obsess over growing everything all the time?

The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al. At the limit, not growing the productive population puts younger generations in a position of existing solely for the purpose of serving the non…

> At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.

But productivity for productive people is increasing. Is there an assumption that retiree spending is also going to increase to match?

Realistic solutions look something like: - we increase productivity of the working population - we lock or decrease the per-year, per-person spending on retirees - we decrease the % of their lives that people spend retired

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

#450

Post by WhompingWindows »

rpnx wrote: post #442

Good. Reduce population growth until housing buildout can catch up with population. Trying to create more babies and allowing immigration when there aren't enough homes is dumb.

It's actually not a good trade at all, you need a balanced population pyramid if you want a functional economy in the future. The housing stock is behind due to financial crisis in 2007, as well as lots of other factors, and population decrease won't solve most of those.

In fact, declining population could make the housing problem worse, if there's far fewer workers to make the new housing.

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