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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

#771

Post by tasuki »

program_whiz wrote: post #703
miroljub wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue is that you don't need children anymore. Previously, your children were: - your workforce - your retirement plan - your elderly care plan - your security - your private army Now, when all these things don't apply anymore, or you have better replacements, you simply don't need children. They are just an unnecessary cost. You can live a happier and better life without that with children. Maybe when child…

Just want to chime in, for anyone else reading this: I can say I used to think this way. Having kids is 100% the best thing, would never trade them for anything, including all of the above and a 5x raise and early retirement. Absolutely nothing about single life is even close to the value you feel having a child. Of course this is "anecdata" but so is "the single life is so awesome" given most of the stats about ment…

> Absolutely nothing about single life is even close to the value you feel having a child.

Funny how people always mention "value" or "meaning" rather than happiness. As a single parent (my kid's mom died when the kid was 1.5) my life is overflowing with meaning. But if anything, I'm (slightly) less happy than I used to be when I was single.

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

#772

Post by lotsofpulp »

munificent wrote: post #756
dan_mctree wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this absolutely appears to be the main reason. Both in practical terms through birth control, but also through cultural terms in that it's now seen as a choice rather than as an obvious thing you do. To change this course, we probably need to change the culture first so that a birth control ban will be supported. That's currently not looking likely, so population collapse it is

> To change this course, we probably need to change the culture first so that a birth control ban will be supported. This is the most casually psychotic thing I've read on HN. You're advocating forcing women to bear children they don't want and taking away control over their own body.

US voters chose to put people with that view in charge of the federal US government. 1990s and 2000s me would have never believed it.

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

#773

Post by lotsofpulp »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #579
anthonypasq wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pretty sure the poor women in Chad with no access to healthcare and quality nutrition have quite a bit to lose, and they don't have a choice not to risk it.

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

#774

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

antisthenes wrote: post #747
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones. Anecdata of one - but I think one non-trivial contributor that I haven't seen people talking about is... From my experience and the experience of most of my friends and family... people actively DON'T want kids until about 30 - and often times that's to…

> It seems like all my single friends around 30 talk about how the dating pool is terrible Let's call it out specifically - few women want to have kids. I'm using an app right now and for every 1 woman who has "wants kids" in their profile, there's probably 2-3 women who say they don't want kids or "aren't sure". And these aren't young women either, the age range is roughly 29-35, so even on the older side of optimal…

Well, that's self-selective?

At 29-35, aren't >70% of women already in relationships?

Presumably, the majority of ones that want kids, already have them or are in the process.

Additionally, the apps tend to attract more people in hookup culture. So even from the remaining pool, 33% could be misleading.

Also, whether or not you're in a city / high-cost-of-living area makes a difference. That's less than 50% of the total population (in the US at least).

33% for that age group honestly seems high to me. I'd assume it would be lower.

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

#775

Post by dv_dt »

mamonster wrote: post #689
dv_dt wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter half of careers, and certainly 30-55 is generally the period of highest productivity of working careers. Its even higher value for the economy when wages do a catch up slowly over their time. I think it is politiczed fear mongering to suggest that the economic balance is negative in that kind of exchange.

>The latter half of careers, and certainly 30-55 is generally the period of highest productivity of working careers. For illegal immigrants though? They are not regularized to the C-suite but to Uber Eats and construction work.

Legal immigrants if this change goes through - and if the minimum wage of these nations doesn't support any citizen living through their life perhaps the minimum wage should be increased and non performant businesses that can't support it will be shed

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

#776

Post by lotsofpulp »

bpt3 wrote: post #428
mountainb wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the medium is the message, the SUV communicates that there is only space for the nuclear family members, speed and comfort is of the essence, and the road is the only acceptable avenue for transportation. The sidewalks are for homeless people, jogging athletes, and eccentrics.

Oh good grief, parents with SUVs aren't that complex, and they are often purchased to carry around their kids' friends as well (negating your first point). People do what works for them within their budget, which often is a larger vehicle when you have kids. If you want to translate that as "speed and comfort is of the essence", then fine. I could say the same about someone with no kids who prefers living in a highly…

>Oh good grief, parents with SUVs aren't that complex, and they are often purchased to carry around their kids' friends as well (negating your first point).

If the goal was to carry more people, a minivan would have been bought, as they are more spacious and comfortable.

An SUV's goal is to use up more space and have the passengers sit higher up, to project more "power" or "status".

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

#777

Post by lotsofpulp »

jfengel wrote: post #768
Animats wrote: post #704

Robots may fill the gap. Really. It seems silly now, but give it twenty years. The developed world may end up with a modest human population and a large robotic population. Asimov explored that idea in SF decades ago. The humans may still think they're in charge. They won't be.

I don't see why there has to be a "gap" at all. The country had half as many people in 1950, and it got along fine. The world is different now, but I don't see why it takes 300 million people to run the country today. If the US gets back to 150 million people, it will look different, but I don't see why it has to be any worse than it is now. And I can think of a lot of reasons why it might be better.

Get rid of Medicare and Social Security, and the transition would be fine. The problem will be in transferring more and more wealth from the working and giving it to the non working, resulting in an everlasting loss of quality of life for the working (absent sufficient advances in automation).

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

#778

Post by izzydata »

projektfu wrote: post #572
jpadkins wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The generation ship genre of science fiction is very interesting to me, but I've never read one that didn't seem absolutely horrifying. I don't think it is a realistic option. Especially if we aren't even capable of stabilizing our "closed system" known as Earth. A generation ship would be the same problem but 100 times more difficult.

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

#779

Post by acdha »

shipman05 wrote: post #555
mwillis wrote: post #503

I truly believe psychology is at the root of this. People start families when the optimism they feel about the future outweighs the pessimism. Even if this evaluation is done subconsciously. At some point, in first-world society - averaging across different societies and social support systems, and considering the numbers in aggregate - we flipped. Pessimism about the future outweighs optimism. Downstream of that fli…

Hard to believe that people who suffered the atrocities of the first half of the 20th Century were tremendously optimistic about the future, yet birthrates were MUCH higher across the world.

The birth control pill wasn’t on the market in the first half of the 20th century (1960) and there was more religious pressure not to use contraception (e.g. how many women faced significant external pressure to be married housewives and mothers and weren’t even allowed to pursue careers?). Lack of choice masked true preferences – but as we could see from things like the big spike in divorces when it was legalized, there were costs to that.

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

#780

Post by tuesdaynight »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #463
WhompingWindows wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

About your first point, I understand why it happens, but I get frustrated at these debates nowadays. Both sides cannot talk about their experiences without having to add something that invalidates the other side choice. They cannot fathom that the other side may prefer the disadvantages of their choice instead of the disadvantages of yours. Maybe it's the human condition to try to point out how the other side will regret their choices to validate our life decisions
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