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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

#691

Post by sizzle »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #638
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…

I was young and cool once. I traveled, I did wild things that make good stories, and I did wild things that I will never tell a soul. I think that I had all the adventures that I could handle without having a criminal record. But once I had my first child, all of those things seemed so petty and inconsequential. I don’t miss the night life, the hobbies, or the drinking buddies. My life revolves around the little peop…

It’s literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

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

#692

Post by bpt3 »

tehjoker wrote: post #587
bpt3 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you or anyone you care about is or will be elderly and is not financially independent, you should care. This has nothing to do with capitalism; it's a resource allocation problem. We spend inordinate amounts of money on end of life care, and any changes are currently unacceptable to voters.

You're talking about age structure, but overall population age-structure can be adjusted by immigration flows, births, deaths, etc. My point was about the total population number. You can imagine a steady-state population where the age structure is stable and productivity is high enough to sustain the retirees, trainees, and disabled.

I can imagine one in theory, but not in practice without, at a minimum, a very painful transition that would need to occur in the near future.

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

#693

Post by sizzle »

socalgal2 wrote: post #672
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…

I have plenty of friends with young kids that are super social. They invite people over, take their kids to restaurants and invite people to come, go to picniqs, festivals, and other things. We love their kids (or at least all the people that show up do). You have the agency to make it happen.

Lack of sleep when they are young makes you into a zombie

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

#694

Post by mghackerlady »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #161
mikert89 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i know almost zero men that dont want a girlfriend, many are trying

My only advice to you is: clean up your grooming, spend some time getting in shape, treat women as equals, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. It also doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor. Guys who are funny will always have girlfriends. Even when I was poor as dirt I always had girlfriends.

Fucking this! Jesus I want to love men but the vast majority of them aren't doing themselves any favors

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

#695

Post by Johanx64 »

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…

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

Parents have never truly cared whether or not their children will have "good lives", certainly not in any - "i'll sit down and analyze carefully if my offspring will have a good time" type of way.

Child mortality rate used to be something like 50% in past.

People still have insane fertility rates in complete - objectively shitholes - like Bangladesh, etc.

That's simply not how the world works, that's not how natural selection works.

The problem is that you (and most people frankly) look at the "fertility problem" within their very limited 1-human lifespan. However, if you zoom out a bit, the fertility problem disappears, not only does it disappear completely - the problem will disappear regardless if circumstances get better or if they get way worse.

The mothers (and fathers) that don't have children because they think the "world as it is right now is a bad place", will simply get selected out.

Caring about whether your children will have "a good life" to a point of not having any is simply maladaptive from natural selection POV and it will sort it out very quickly. It's just a 1-gen outlier.

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

#696

Post by lostphilosopher »

somenameforme wrote: post #476
dh2022 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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?

One challenge with hiring a nanny is if they need to take a sick day (or if they quit!) you can end up in a tough spot. In contrast a day care center usually has backups built in so you don’t end up scrambling.

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

#697

Post by dh2022 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #671
pertymcpert wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private nanny isn't realistic for 4 kids. You need 2.

The few people that I've known with private nannies (usually au pairs) have had only one and also each had 3 or more (up to 6) kids.

$30 / hr + federal payroll taxes is 5,700 / month ($30 / hr x 40 hrs/week x 4.33 weeks in month x 1.1 for federal payroll taxes). Who has this kind of money on top of mortgage, car payments, food, utilities, etc...? In my circle of friends only one family affords this (the dad is a Director at Meta)

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

#698

Post by sizzle »

nineplay wrote: post #640
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…

I agree, it's the public attitudes that are most disheartening and probably some of the reason young people are less inclined to have children. All over society people are seeing kids as a kind of personal indulgence that shouldn't be allowed to impact other people - whether its a lack of sympathy that parents have higher priorities at work, or looking down on kids who act like kids in public. At the same time parent…

It’s literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

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

#699

Post by snikeris »

mullingitover wrote: post #236
brightball wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched most of my life as narratives have been pushed in popular culture, TV, music, magazines, online articles, etc that go out of their way to convince people not to have children. Just some examples of trends I've observed personally. - Scare media about the cost of having children - Scare media about the environmental impact of having children, even calling it irresponsible for the planet - Scare media abou…

> there is nothing in this world that brings people more joy than their families and their children. Nothing. Counterpoint: Yes, you're giving the standard apologetic we all hear from parents. However, plain and simple, objectively it's typically the most stressful thing you will do in your entire life. It's so bad the US Surgeon General had to put out an entire advisory paper about it[1]: > 41% of parents say that m…

It's a tale as old as life itself. Some organisms succeed in coping with the environment they find themselves in. The genes and culture of these organisms gets passed on to the next generation.

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

#700

Post by waynesonfire »

somenameforme wrote: post #476
dh2022 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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?

Also, a nanny is not the same ecosystem as child-care. It's not nescessarily a substitute. If what's desired is a private-private child-care, I suspect you'll be paying a lot more than the price of a nanny.
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