The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#521

Post by lqet » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:52 AM UTC

zeepzeep wrote: post #510

gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

> I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't.

I have posted the following a few years ago:

> My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear annihilation in the next 10 years. I am glad they did.

Today, as a father, I would add: as a potential parent, you are in no position to decide that your future children, grandchildren or great^x-grandchildren won't be glad to be alive. You don't know them, and most importantly you do not know and you cannot know about their world. In my opinion, this argument is nothing more but a convenient excuse to avoid the stress of bringing up kids. It is a valid reason to not want any kids because of the stress, but please don't rationalize yourself into peace of conscience by assuming that you can look into the future.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#522

Post by chosenbreed37 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:53 AM UTC

kasrkin623 wrote: post #364

echelon wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated. I don't know if you live in California, but I think that there's sort of a reality distortion field that comes with living in a big and expensive city. Here in Georgia the rents are cheap and peop…

Who wants to live in Georgia though? I mean this unironically, there's not much to do in terms of entertainment and opportunities for a young 20 yo vs LA or NY

I'd gladly live in Georgia. I'm no longer 20 but that's beside the point :-)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#523

Post by Arn_Thor » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:54 AM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #390

Arn_Thor wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about global birth rates falling, which is true. But your comment is about conditions specific to the US. Yet birth rates are falling in countries which don't have the warped incentives you point out in the states, and where having children is supported (see Europe, much of Asia, etc.). So although you accurately point out that there are downsides, if not disincentives, to having kids in the US, that…

> having children is supported (see Europe... I politely disagree, the childcare support and social services you have in Europe are not an incentive in anyway, for the large majority of countries here, they are a mitigation at best. The majority of young europeans in fertile age, continue to struggle with housing costs (high rents high down payments) and salaries not in line with COL until far too late in their caree…

"Europe" is a big and diverse place. But it's my fault for generalizing. Let me rather mention the Scandinavian countries, for example, where support is pretty ample. Certainly, having kids is still expensive and time consuming, but that's how it's been since the beginning of time. The difference is, now people can afford not to have them.

As for the rest of Europe, sure, housing is expensive and all that, but people have more discretionary income now than ever, after housing and daily necessities (at least as far as I can recall from economics classes). But I do think young people's expectations have shifted as well, which makes it feel like we've got less headroom for a bunch of kids. And we certainly don't have the safe, well-paying jobs our boomer parents often lucked into.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#524

Post by abjKT26nO8 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:54 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #427

jb775 wrote: post #411

Serious thought/question: I think everyone can agree that reproduction is how you advance your gene pool to the next stage of the human species. Does this mean people who don't want kids are effectively weeding themselves out? And is this somehow a function of survival of the fittest (or natural selection) in action?

Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce. Over the long term this problem will fix itself. However, I personally believe that the population will level out instead of keep shrinking forever until reproductive pressures fix the problem by force.

> Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce.

Those, who do want to reproduce, will also be replaced by the next generations. Natural selection doesn't select individuals, it selects genes. And your genes are well-represented in the rest of the population.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#525

Post by ACow_Adonis » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #484

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but it's also hacker news. If we just want positive anecdotes and feel-good inspirational stories that don't get debated, and which don't fully address the point or get to the heart of the matter, we could go to a Tony Robbins seminar, and I say this as a both a dad and as someone who doesn't want to go to a Tony Robbins seminar. Honestly, I appreciate the point counter point.

True, but as someone who has seen many a HN discussion that lacks any sort of empathy or comprehension of social norms or conventions, I cannot help but to advocate for emotional literacy and for the understanding of emotional appeal. Perhaps some of the tech companies and platforms we are seeing face so many problems right now could benefit from emotional literacy. Too much head and not enough heart, one could say.

Also agreed. I don't think anyone would argue that there aren't socially-challenged posters on the internet.

On the other hand, it's almost impossible to actually discuss certain socially-mandated topics objectively without someone playing the "emotionally stunted" card against anyone who takes the negative off the socially mandated position. And the poster in this case didn't call anyone names, and is also responding in a thread about worldwide birthrates. Far from being out of place and not reading the room, I think the second poster trying to effectively stigmatise his reply is the one in the wrong/ that can't read the room. If this is not the place for such a reply, it's hard to imagine where would be.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#526

Post by ddorian43 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

zeepzeep wrote: post #510

gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

So we should end civilization ?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#527

Post by watwut » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #488

ido wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is all you've taken from the above than we've read 2 very different comments. The point about lonely old people is only 1 (and i would say not the most significant) point in the argument. I have a wife and 2 (small) children. There is nobody in the world I love more than my family - it used to be only my wife previously and now grew from 1 person to 3. This has such a profound effect on my happiness now (in m…

I think you should definitely have friends, with or without kids. But from I see around me, I get the impression that having friends is difficult. Even more so when people have to juggle kids and a career. There's a certain isolation that seems to set in. I'm sure a lot of people don't have the kids with the purpose of not being alone in old age. But I also get that there's some kind of "soft expectation", for lack o…

> because raising said family more or less led to a falling out with old friends ... Where I live I don't see many "intergenerational friendships".

I think that both of these are massively consequence of our own culture, not something that must be.

It is combination of long hours at work, the super high expectations on child raising that for many people excludes socialization with kids present and animosity of childless toward kids present near "adult places". And vice versa.

It is also a result of socialization being seen as slacking and not doing useful things. It is also result of sort stigmatising the behavior that leads to keeping long term friendships (at least I had to figure out this is issue for me).

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#528

Post by digitalcraft » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

"What are waves?" pleasantly surreal

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#529

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 9:06 AM UTC

creato wrote: post #345

It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y. When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity…

I do believe it is an economic problem, in that people are not secure in their job, housing, and life enough to bring new people into it.

Think Maslow's wotsit of needs. And I think back on where I grew up, what my parents did; they got married early 20's, and were financially secure enough in blue-collar jobs to afford a house twice the size of the one I managed to finally buy at age 32. With that house and the luxury of being able to make ends meet on a single income, they were able to raise three kids.

Meanwhile nowadays a lot of people have to work their ass off just to keep afloat. You can't have a healthy relationship if you don't have the time or energy for it, you can't raise kids in a shitty shared apartment, you shouldn't have kids if you can't take care of them because you have to work.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#530

Post by greggman3 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 9:07 AM UTC

gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

I'm generally on your end of the spectrum with regards to children and I always hoped to have some.

But, I've met plenty of people who absolutely detests their parents and visa versa, their parents detest them and they are mean and rotten to each other. So YMMV as far as the entire topic goes.