Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 881 posts

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#681

Post by kitd »

mettamage wrote: post #450
watwut wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker news section however is not rational nor logical whenever topic of relationships comes out.

I've seen this weird thing with some people who state they are logical and then suddenly when it is about relationships they become illogical as hell. I'm not saying I'm logical in this regard, but I find it easy to notice in others. I simply look for a clearly wrong assumption they have (look up the 10 cognitive distortions [1]). See which one they have, propose a way to test the assumption and potential pitfalls (m…

Tbh, the topic of having kids is probably the least likely to involve reason anyway, other than for those who enjoy economic modelling.

Having kids is probably the most emotionally-directed impulse we have, given its DNA-rooted origin.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#682

Post by PeterisP »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #603
sweeneyrod wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people you know are almost certainly not representative of the world at large. Maybe 80% is a bit high, but the number is certainly over 50%. The median global person earns less than $3000/year.

It's not very usefull to make a point of: "unlike you, some people have to live under tyrany or war" My bet is that of people living in functioning democracies, the percentage will be in like 20-25%.

Perhaps, but that's not really relevant since the vast majority of people do not live in well functioning democracies.

Your post sounds like an assumption like "the people who live in war are a small minority so their position is an exception compared to humanity in general" when actually it's the opposite, the people who live in the well functioning first world democracies are a small minority so their position is an exception compared to humanity in general.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#683

Post by unishark »

skywal_l wrote: post #620
sweeneyrod wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you don't need VC funding.

Well, in most countries, you get external funding from childless people which are paying higher taxes... If people were to pay entirely for the education and health of their offsprings, they would be way less babies in the developed world. And I don't even mention externalities. A human being in a developed country has a big impact on the environment, if people had to pay for it, having a child would out of reach of…

> If people were to pay entirely for the education and health of their offsprings, they would be way less babies in the developed world.

On the contrary I'd bet that if both these services weren't subsidized so much, they'd be far cheaper. Nature will create the need either way.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#684

Post by durnygbur »

fastball wrote: post #451
durnygbur wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this a childless couple has to live together. Not separately in one person household, not with parents, not sharing the place with flatmates.

How does that change the point?

In Europe at least even until the age of 35 most people belong to one of the three latter groups.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#685

Post by jimktrains2 »

silveroriole wrote: post #511
freetanga wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the correlation between what you put in and what you get out is much higher. I had to give up a number of hobbies and intelectual pursuits in order to be there for my kids. Building a caring, trust-based long term relationship is hard work - sharing the same blood and providing a roof and a meal is not enough, which sadly is many people’s definition of parenting. I know I am giving up things. I know there is…

It sucks knowing that you’re the reason your parents gave up hobbies, dreams, money, travel etc that they could otherwise have had. I know, like you, parents usually think it’s worth it but it’s not nice to think that my mom would probably have been a more fun, interesting person if I didn’t exist. The admittance that your life has to change and you have to give things up so that another human can do maybe things ins…

I had a lot of text written, but it's unfair to yourself for blaming yourself for a decision you've had no part in.

My children (2 and 4) don't "prevent" me from hobbies any more than one hobby "prevents" me from pursuing other hobbies. I choose to spend time with them because it's rewarding to me to see them learn and grow. Don't get me wrong, they are excellent at making me feel like crap at times, but on the whole I enjoy and value my time with them, especially as they grow older.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#686

Post by kindly_fo »

Why scientists are wrong:

If you have fertality rate of 2.0 you will have children and grandchildren. For example having children in 25 and then grandchildren in 50 and then grandgrandchildren in 75.

So basically if fertality rate is 2.0 you will have 2^3 = 16 more ppl on same time on earth.

To make no more people on earth you would need to have childs and get out of earth.

So please make planet healthy, be child free. Enough is enough.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#687

Post by jkinudsjknds »

nikitaga wrote: post #319
tomerico wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are failing to account for the gender imbalance. Consider an extreme gender ratio where for the 2.1 born for an average woman, there are 2 males and 0.1 females. This means that every generation will have 10X less women.

As they said, "in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1 birthrate." Murder or not (I'm not sure what the illegal "sex-selective technologies" actually are), the gender imbalance is not a natural phenomenon thankfully.

I would presume just abortions once the gender is known. Is that unethical or murder? Gut instinct says it's bad but reconciling it with pro choice views is tricky. Regardless of the individual ethics, its likely terrible for society.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#688

Post by fullstop »

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 have two daughters, in their teens, and both have said that they are not interested in having children. I'm glad that they are giving both thought and pause here, but I'm also secretly hoping that they change their minds when the time is right for them.

I'd be happy with and without grandchildren, but it would be incredible to be able to give all of the love that I can when I am retired, when I have less going on in my life and the time to do so.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#689

Post by mjburgess »

tsimionescu wrote: post #566
mjburgess wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit is a measure of productivity, other things being equal. A director of marketing creates a campaign which affects millions of transactions... so it's a function which can dramatically increase economic production. It's pretty easy to compare productivity across industries. Leave what "should" be aside, when you're planning for the success of nations you cannot rely on Moral Bonuses. The rate of economic activit…

> To pay for things we need the ratio of workers:transactions to increase. Human health is also a component of that inequation. How are you factoring that in with profit? Also, all of that growth is meaningless unless it somehow makes people healthier and happier. So I would say that having a huge and successful healthcare industry is one of the goals of the rest of the economy (as are food production, entertainment,…

GDP growth is one of the most strongly correlated metrics with "health, happiness, mathematical research, etc."

Capitalism is the greatest force in history for increases in human wealth, happiness, abundance, etc., ie., for growth

Consider any metric of interest over the last century, and esp. the last 40 years: https://ourworldindata.org/

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#690

Post by bob33212 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #187
corysama wrote: post #90

This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere: We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forwa…

Here are two scary storylines that get discussed pretty regularly here on HN: a) AI and machine learning will raise productivity so much that they will steal millions of jobs from people. b) Global population will eventually go into decline, which will crash the economy by killing growth. But, these two stories look far less scary when considered together. In fact they seem directly complementary, although the timing…

AI is just one piece of increased productivity. Even without AGI there are paths that could lead to 3x productivity faster than the population would go down by 66%.

There are other issues with an older age distribution which cannot be fixed by productivity though. There could be an oversupply of 5 bedroom homes for example.

Post reply on HN