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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#671

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

sethammons wrote: post #640
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? Why would they be able to reinvent that, when none of their ancestors for how many generations did so? Is that something a person can do well, do you think, with no prior experience or expertise? What if they get it wrong, they'll starve? We could ask why they could reinvent all the technologies that people from prior eras of agriculture could manage? Will t…

People live in the alaskan bush. QED

Does a full, capable, lively civilization live in the Alaskan bush? Or is just a few grizzled assholes doing it to prove that they can?

And do those assholes have enough spare time and effort and interest to raise families? Any women of reproductive age out there with them?

If not, this probably isn't the model that proves that human extinction is an unreasonable worry.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#672

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

defrost wrote: post #644
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? Why would they be able to reinvent that, when none of their ancestors for how many generations did so? Is that something a person can do well, do you think, with no prior experience or expertise? What if they get it wrong, they'll starve? We could ask why they could reinvent all the technologies that people from prior eras of agriculture could manage? Will t…

You should realise (apparently not?) that many people alive today still farm with minimal technology .. moreover there are people alive still hunting and gathering. They've not lost their skill to survive sans tech - unlike, say, yourself. Still, if it helps you - take notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

>You should realise (apparently not?) that many people alive today still farm with minimal technology

Actually, I know alot more about this than you do. And what you call "minimal technology" is not the case at all. Do you think you could make a plow or use it, supposing you had a mule to go with it? Why do you think it's "minimal technology"? But if you insist it is, I take it to mean that you think just anyone could construct or procure a plow in the Mad Max wastelands, which is silly on its face. It's not just the bronze/iron/steel work. Now we're back to "can you make a rope?"... can you? I think with an hour or two you could make something. If I brought the tool for you to use. And if you had the fiber for it. But it takes quite alot of practice to get good at it, I'll never get there. And even if you had the tool (haha, sandcast one in iron for bonus points!), and had the practice, now you're a fucking hemp/jute/sissal/something farmer just to have enough fiber to make the ropes to plow, but you're no longer growing grain so you don't need the plow. Why is this minimal technology so uncooperative, do you think? Why do you need so many fucking specialties just to do subsistence farming? Maybe you should go out there like they did 12,000 years ago with a stone hoe and plant the seeds stooped over, one at a time. I'm sure the yields will be high enough with that that humanity's numbers can start growing again instead of shrinking.

>Still, if it helps you - take notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

Cute, someone who watches video instead of reads. That's... I dunno. Maybe if you read, you'd understand how centuries ago this continent was so full of game that those Europeans who saw it were astounded, but now there's practically nothing left. Not enough to feed a recovering civilization with anyway. Even if they used firearms instead of the spear in that video. I'll even forgiven that now you've stepped back even further from the subsistence agriculture thing to hunting-and-gathering. Maybe humanity should crawl back into the ocean and become fish too... that's how we'll beat extinction.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#673

Post by bombcar »

munificent wrote: post #567

I'm always surprised this topic comes up all the time and there's all sorts of navel gazing about economics and housing and other reasons people want to have fewer kids. It seems to me that the simplest and most likely explanation is: Having kids was never a primary motivation. Having sex was. Kids were just a hard-to-avoid downstream consequence of that. Once you have the pill, which makes it much easier to have sex…

It seems a natural consequence of the pill is going to be that in a few generations, most of the people will be of the kind for whom babies are a goal if not the main goal.

Thinking of the Amish, or Orthodox Jews, or Trad Caths, Quiverfulls, etc. If they're averaging 4+ and everyone else is down below 1, how quickly does the world turn over?

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#674

Post by onion2k »

echelon wrote: post #646
HaloZero wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of Singapore work culture though is it's intense and competitive. Yes the housing is cheaper and more accessible but it's the same age to get there (maybe a bit earlier). You aren't "economically secure" earlier in life than in Western countries. I don't know enough Vienna's system to speak for it.

This has nothing to do with economic security. Everyone is now dopamine maxxing on smartphones and internet. There's no desire to have kids because kids were a pre-internet and pre-modernity phenomena. Now that we're fully entertained, there's little need for having children. The FYP has enough entertainment to overcome the biological itch. Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms. We'…

Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms.

People have been having children later since about the 1930s. The change has been gradual, so it's only really hitting hard now because they've not had any children during the years when it's relatively easy, and now some can't. That could still be due to technology but not social media exclusively.

Coincidently though, this aligns pretty much perfectly to people's stability also shifting to happen later in life. Specifically the economic stability to raise a family on a single income. That's not really possible any more, so it shouldn't be a surprise that people don't do it.

Just to add a little factual data to this point, the fertility rate in England and Wales has been below two children per woman since the 1970s.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#675

Post by bombcar »

trumpdong wrote: post #499
btilly wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does almost everyone pay for food at the grocery store? If stores don't have a good way to get money from customers, how do they pay the next step up the line?

During COVID we all saw how the government can just override all this and ensure what needs to be done is done and what cannot be done is avoided - something we always thought was impossible. Yet we all quickly forgot this happened and now we're back to assuming it can't happen.

During COVID we saw all sorts of insanity (semi trucks dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk into the drains because they couldn't travel to the closed packaging plants).

Food distribution will still continue until the raw resources necessary crap out. Shelves won't go empty immediately, but once there's no gas for the trucks and tractors, then you'll be happy to be near the Amish.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#676

Post by willmarch »

Paradigm2020 wrote: post #600
stavros wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same question I have as well. We're a cancer that's spreading on the earth and we're worrying we aren't spreading fast enough. Yeah, I get that we want to support the aging population, but at this point we're doing it at the expense of humanity as a whole.

Instead of such generalizations which are meaningless anyway ( if you had cancer you'd get treatment to kill it, hence if you claim to be part of a cancer with the capability to kill yourself...) Choose to be the change you wanna see in the world and find other who want to do that and stop saying "woo be us" in public as it just doesn't help. The world is the way it is because we complain and consume too much and act…

Not having kids is choosing to be the change they want to see in the world, no?

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#677

Post by thelastgallon »

thelastgallon wrote: post #659

In a farming culture, children are a profit center: 1) Production of children costs nothing. People married young and children just happen, there are no expensive fertility treatments, etc. 2) children are free labor for decades, helping their dad (family?) expand the acreage. More land = high status for dad. Even today, children can work in the family business without any pay. A child can be free labor, but only for…

I forgot to add these two dimensions: technology and fictional growth.

Technology is hijacking biology. Biology uses sex as pleasure to make more. But FAANG companies have hijacked biology: https://cwcp.ca/blog/limbic-capitalism/

Entertainment technology, first as TV, now as mobile phone (the worst kind of technology) has provided continuous low grade drip dopamine. This with contraception is a killer combination.

Automobile is another technology that is anti kids. Kids used to roam freely. Now they need to watched at home all the time. This is super exhausting and consumes all available time of parents. Kids used to go out, play, socialize, get hungry and come back home to be fed and they sleep (because they are tired).

The economy is another 'technology' and the 'growth' idiocy is another dimension. All countries are using one neat trick to boost 'GDP' growth, make real estate super costly and create elaborate financial structures for a basic need: housing. Magically, you add some growth, while restricting supply and making things worse for everyone. Making housing an asset class is making everything worse. Similarly, financializing healthcare to boost GDP growth, which is now 20% of the economy and growing!

There is no consequence free growth or technology. There are always consequences and they will eventually show up.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#678

Post by bombcar »

m4rtink wrote: post #571
belval wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 42.7M tourists that went there in 2025 just enjoyed seeing the incredible decay of a dying country, a morbid fascination or sorts. /s (obviously)

You can actually see it if you know where to look - edges of big cities but it is most visible in the countryside and smaller towns. And if you want to see how real Armageddon looks like, go visit Yubari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%ABbari,_Hokkaido The collapse was due to local coal mining no longer being viable, but it still demonstrates how it looks like when a city goes from 107000 people in 1960 to 5600 i…

Seems somewhat better than Detroit.

The question really is - how does an abandoned town hurt us? Sure, there may be some sympathy and loss for "what once was" (same as the pictures of the abandoned classrooms in Prypiat).

The US has had similar things happen but the spread out population has given it some resiliency (many towns that "collapsed" when the mill/factory/whatever shut down continue in a strange afterlife as a suburb of a nearby city).

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#679

Post by defrost »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #672
defrost wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should realise (apparently not?) that many people alive today still farm with minimal technology .. moreover there are people alive still hunting and gathering. They've not lost their skill to survive sans tech - unlike, say, yourself. Still, if it helps you - take notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

>You should realise (apparently not?) that many people alive today still farm with minimal technology Actually, I know alot more about this than you do. And what you call "minimal technology" is not the case at all. Do you think you could make a plow or use it, supposing you had a mule to go with it? Why do you think it's "minimal technology"? But if you insist it is, I take it to mean that you think just anyone coul…

> Actually, I know alot more about this than you do.

So you say.

> Do you think you could make a plow or use it, supposing you had a mule to go with it?

What, another one? We used oxen and draught horses rather than mules.

> you think just anyone could construct or procure a plow in the Mad Max wastelands,

I live in Australia, I know where many working old ploughs are - most of the farms here still have them on display - there are several on this very property.

> Now we're back to "can you make a rope?

Sure - been there, down that, have you?

Look, this is getting dull - I'm 70, I grew up in a remote location, my father, still alive, born in 1935, fed his family as a child while his father was away at war - I've often spent months in remote areas.

In the event of the collapse of the modern US tech sphere some humans will get by, others will not.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#680

Post by BobbyTables2 »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #69

This has happened to every single society [*] as it industrializes [0], and offering extensive support and incentives to parents (e.g. as has been tried in Scandinavian countries) does very little to reverse this trend [1, 2]. My hypothesis is that as societies industrialize, they afford their population more and more activities that are simply more fun and rewarding than having children. So many people I know put of…

Unless one gets a large van, daily life becomes less convenient beyond 2 kids.

Midsize sedan/SUV aren’t great at more than 2 parents + 2 kids (especially with car seats!)

Vacations are also more expensive since a lot of hotel rooms don’t allow more than 2 adults + 2 kids.

More is also harder on the parents !

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