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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

#471

Post by SoftTalker »

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…

> My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones.

This sounds sensible but the opposite is actually the case. Highest fertility tends to be in impoverished countries where there is little hope for anyone to have a good life.

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

#472

Post by daymanstep »

alephnerd wrote: post #425
Bratmon wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones. It's funny to me that of all the crazy crackpot theories on fertility Twitter, you picked the craziest and crackpotiest. I'm actually really eager to hear why you think Chad, Somalia, and DR Congo are the countries where people feel the most optimistic…

> I'm actually really eager to hear why you think Chad, Somalia, and DR Congo are the countries where people feel the most optimistic about the future, and what you think rich countries should be learning from them! Why not ask Israelis? Even ignoring Haredim and Arab Israelis (both whose fertility rate has fallen dramatically), secular Israelis tend to have 2 kids on average [0]. Israelis also work much longer hours…

Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids?

You seem to be supposing a model where most people naturally want kids, but are just discouraged from having kids because...other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall.

In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision is not very much affected by whether other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall.

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

#473

Post by torlok »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23
queuebert wrote: post #16

Why do we obsess over growing everything all the time?

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

If the benefits of increased productivity went to the people instead of the 1%, you wouldn't need a growing population.

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

#474

Post by dh2022 »

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…

Keep living in your bubble my friend. It is not selfish to see the sacrifices required to raise children (and I will not enumerate them here, this thread is full of them if you want to educate yourself), see that all you get from society is "thoughts and prayers" (at least in WA state where I live) and take a hard pass on having children.

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

#475

Post by scottious »

Aurornis wrote: post #208
scottious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every morning I get to my son's school about 10 minutes before the doors open. We arrive by bike and we sit ALONE on the benches near the front door. Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars. The long line of SUVs extends all through the neighborhood. My son and I are alone because people just won't leave their cars until the doors open. A vast majority of the kids…

> Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars Anecdotally, when my work schedule was wonky for a while I would do the same with my kids. Those few extra minutes hanging out with them in the morning were something I valued a lot. We got to talk and relax a little bit after the rush of getting ready in the morning. They had all day to spend with their classmates so a fe…

I am friends with a lot of other parents already. I do go out of my way to make friends. I already organize bike trips to the museum and stuff like that. I'm a very social person.

What I'm saying is that there are a lot of forces keeping people solitary and anti-social. This is just one of them. I know for a fact that some of these families waiting in their SUVs live a short walk from the school. Yet still they choose to isolate themselves. Sometimes the kids in these cars are literally yelling out the window to my son because they're friends. I don't want him going close to the cars because they've LITERALLY been pumping out pollution for 10-15 minutes (those early spots are very coveted). I have to tell my son to hold his breath when we bike on the empty sidewalk past these idling cars. It all just feels very anti-social and dystopian.

Sure, school drop off is just one small aspect of life. But because of drop-off culture, there are certain people who I may NEVER have a chance to interact with. Imagine if those parents instead walked with their kid. Maybe I would make a new friend. Maybe we'd have a nice conversation.

Last year there was another woman and her son waiting with me. They walked to school every day. We became friends just through school drop off in the morning. It brought some happiness into my life and made me feel a sense of community. She could have chosen to get in her car and wait in the long line of SUVs like everyone else, but luckily she didn't.

By essentially saying "stop caring about school drop off and look for other opportunities" it feels like you're missing my point: building community means showing up in lots of different ways, and consistently. The school drop-off example is just one example of many. A woman who lived on my street since the 80s said that back then nearly everybody walked to school. By switching to a car-based morning drop-off feels to me like we've lost something, even if it's just a small thing

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

#476

Post by somenameforme »

dh2022 wrote: post #455
kraig911 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just hard now. Before I had kids I had a network of friends and had a great social life. Now it's just me and my wife. If I want more friends I'll have to have more kids I guess? I have 4 now. One (my first) is severely autistic. Financially the cost? I pay about 6,000 a month in daycare. 2k a month in healthcare expenses. Then community wise. Every time I've gone to take them to the movies, or to a restaurant o…

$6,000 / month in daycare for 4 kids? You have a sweet deal my friend. At the daycare in my neighborhood this does not cover even 2 kids : https://www.kidspaceseattle.org/enrollment - click on Tuition link at the bottom and weep.

Those prices are weird. Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

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

#477

Post by overfeed »

foobarian wrote: post #380
gambutin wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be honest: children are usually forced on people. It was simply an expectation of your family and society in general for you to have children. This pressure is gone in western societies. "How dare you asking me when I will have children?" It’s also not necessary to have kids for retirement anymore. Look at the top 3 countries with the highest fertility rates over the last 10 years: - Chad - Somalia - DR Congo O…

I think if artificial wombs ever succeed it will turn the world upside down

Thanks to inequality, the rich[1] can already afford surrogacy, aka other people's natural wombs.

Only for those who can easily afford daycare and other child-related costs would benefit from artificial wombs, the biological aspect and maternity leave are a small aspect.

1. i.e. FAANG employees

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

#478

Post by thinkingtoilet »

mattmaroon wrote: post #270
ryandrake wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of our family's friends have already left back to their home countries (bringing their own families with them). Risk/reward calculation has abruptly changed. The risk to your life and livelihood is not worth it, and the reward of living in the US has been steadily declining.

That is almost certainly the reason why they are making such a spectacle of it. Self deportation is the goal.

The goal is to rile the base and distract from the fact that there is no improvement in cost of living, healthcare, education, etc... tourism is down, farmers are losing their farms en masse, etc... It was trans people yesterday, Somalians today, and it will be someone else tomorrow. If that wasn't bad enough, it's clear the president and other powerful men (of both parties) were engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring. It's all a distraction and there are enough hateful Americans for it to work for now.

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

#479

Post by alephnerd »

daymanstep wrote: post #472
alephnerd wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm actually really eager to hear why you think Chad, Somalia, and DR Congo are the countries where people feel the most optimistic about the future, and what you think rich countries should be learning from them! Why not ask Israelis? Even ignoring Haredim and Arab Israelis (both whose fertility rate has fallen dramatically), secular Israelis tend to have 2 kids on average [0]. Israelis also work much longer hours…

Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids? You seem to be supposing a model where most people naturally want kids, but are just discouraged from having kids because...other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall. In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision…

> Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids

Yes.

They are much more tolerant about having kids and making sure to give space to people planning to have kids.

> In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision is not very much affected by whether other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall.

The more likely you and your peers are to have kids, the more likely you are to live in a society which will accommodate you.

---

Heck, Germany gives significantly more monetary and subsidized childcare benefits than Israel (which gives almost nothing), and Israel remains significantly more expensive than much of Germany, yet secular Israelis continues to sustain a much higher fertility rate than similar Germans.

It is hard to describe how kid unfriendly Western society has become.

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

#480

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #257
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…

There is another way to go about this. Statistically immigrants from Latin America have lower crime rates than the average American. It is possible to increase population AND decrease the crime rate by allowing immigrants into the country. Personally, as someone with capital, having people who also work hard for less salary is beneficial. Most native born Americans are much poorer than I am so I understand their fear…

> Statistically immigrants from Latin America have lower crime rates than the average American. It is possible to increase population AND decrease the crime rate by allowing immigrants into the country.

Except that Latin America also has a fertility rate below population replacement and taking working-aged people from countries that are already in that position is likely to be extremely destabilizing, not to mention unsustainable because it implies those countries would be undergoing long-term depopulation.

We need to figure out why people aren't having more kids everywhere and there's not really anything else for it.

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