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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

#571

Post by lotsofpulp »

knuckleheads wrote: post #350
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…

Every since the start of the industrial revolution, children became an economic burden instead of a benefit. Once man power was replaced by machines, it stopped making sense to have so many kids and the total fertility rate started to decline. The data is sparse prior to 1950, which is coincidentally when there was a huge global post war baby boom, but visit https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate and scroll down t…

> TFR was higher when people felt like they had to have kids to survive a harsh world.

Coincidentally, TFR was higher when women had to be paired up with a man and have sex without the use of birth control.

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

#572

Post by projektfu »

jpadkins wrote: post #539
izzydata wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually. Maybe we overshot the maximum comfortable population by a bit and we are going to rebound for awhile. Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.

> But infinite population growth is unsustainable Only if we don't explore and colonize the stars. From what we know, the universe is infinite.

How many years/generations are you willing to spend on a ship in the middle of space? Remember, Biodome didn't work. Are you going to join that prison for the off chance of your progeny occupying a land that we haven't even discovered yet?

And, before you suggest it, no, there will never be faster-than-light travel, and even relativistic travel is super unlikely.

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

#573

Post by jpadkins »

myth_drannon wrote: post #232
bradlys wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think capitalists just want cheap labor. The US itself doesn’t have a unified position on population. Plenty of people want a population decrease because they feel everything is overcrowded.

It's interesting how the sides flipped. Left was strongly anti-immigration because it saw it as a tool of capitalism to drive down wages and just general abuse of working-class rights. Now Left is pro-immigration, and the right is against for the same reason the Left was. When did this change happen?

Globalists have been taking over liberal institutions since the 90s (they have control of the DNC for longer). Media, academia, education are aligned with the globalist agenda. And the left dare not speak out against it, or they get mobbed.

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

#574

Post by lostlogin »

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…

Great comment.

> Only if the mothers in aggregate truly believe that their children will have good lives, then will they have them.

I’m not sure I agree with this. Families were huge at times when child mortality was high and the death rate to mothers from giving birth was shocking. Sub-Saharan Africa has a high birth rate, and I don’t think that quality of life is what’s driving that.

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

#575

Post by HelloMcFly »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #421
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…

You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends…

> My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way

I completely believe that’s been your experience, but want to highlight that his is a difficult asymmetry in these friendships. I in no way mean to imply that the below is the experience your friends had with you, just that the challenges are not one-way.

In my own circle, my wife and I have often felt like it was our friends with kids who vanished. We knew they were busy, we kept extending invites or asking for time. Things often didn't work especially as new parents are figuring their lives out, things are changing all the time, etc. We'd meet up here and there, but it was - necessarily - always on their terms. And so of course, our outreach tapered down incrementally but consistently.

But I do wonder: do they feel we detached from them, or do they have any inkling that we feel they detached from us? We've discussed it with one couple who we were always closer to, but it doesn't feel an appropriate topic to resurface uninvited at any given moment.

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

#576

Post by Night_Thastus »

anal_reactor wrote: post #563
mjburgess wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are pensions, that's why poorer nations have lots of children because lots are needed to look after people in their old age. Thus, many of these comments on HN and elsewhere, "make the nation better", only have led -- and will lead -- to fewer children. When the old don't need households of the young to provide for them, there won't be any. But this, and the education of women, and increasing productivity et…

You're implying that people incapable of planning next Thursday are thinking about their pensions. Poor countries reproduce a lot because they still have a lot of people functioning on the level of biological impulses rather than rational thought.

That...may be pushing it a lot. People in poorer countries are just as capable of rational thought as anyone else. The difference is in the education they've received, the resources they have access to, and the rights individuals have. Mentally, there's little difference - minus effects of things like malnutrition in severe cases.

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

#577

Post by LinXitoW »

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…

I think there's a very important distinction to be made here. Having kids and taking care of kids you already have are too very different things.

If you're calling not having kids selfish, that's just completely weird. You are going to have to prove first that your opinion isn't also one of these invented ideas.

If we're talking about taking care of them, I kind of agree. Excluding extreme circumstances like rape in a country without abortion, you kind of know what you're willingly signing up for when you have kids. You forced them into the world, they are your responsibility.

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

#578

Post by lostlogin »

fusslo wrote: post #487
crystal_revenge wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old I've seen this "kids are insurance against loneliness" logic repeated often, but I don't believe this bares out in reality. I personally know plenty of child-free older couples who remain quite happy and social. I also know plenty of parents whose kids don't speak to them anymore or whose children have lives on the other sid…

My mothers' friends have to fund vacations for their adult children and grand children in order to spend time with them. They wont let her stay at their home. My mother was giddy when my father died; so I have strong boundaries in our relationship. My brother moved to colorado after the service and never returned. I'm not convinced having children is the answer alone. (I say as a childless 35yo)

> They wont let her stay at their home.

There are many reasons this could be the case. The internet (and Reddit in particular) is abound with AITA type discussions around boundaries within families.

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

#579

Post by cosmic_cheese »

anthonypasq wrote: post #298
drowsspa wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People compare themselves to their perceived neighborhood in time and space, not to peasants from 5 thousand years ago.

you think people in Chad are optimistic about the future of their village and are therefore having lots of kids? Give me a break dude.

Those who have little also have little to lose, which reshapes dynamics.

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

#580

Post by lostlogin »

kraig911 wrote: post #395
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…

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…

> Don't get me start on dog/cat people who equate their struggles to mine... or people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled.

I’d never have believed this until it happened to me.

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