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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

#801

Post by drowsspa »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #407
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.

Who knows? Maybe they are. I’m not from Chad myself (and sounds like you aren’t either), so we’re really not in a position to speculate on that. I do know that it’s quite common for one culture to have values or think in ways that are unintuitive to another culture.

Yeah, I grew up poor in the 3rd world (not quite Chad level though) and even the upper class culture of my own country was almost alien for us and vice versa... Imagine the 1st world.

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

#802

Post by mothballed »

myko wrote: post #706
estearum wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not that being a parent is harder - it's actually easier (excluding the post-WWII American boom years which were a fluke). Why would it be easier today? You used to just open your door and go let your kids run around and hope they're back before dinner. Absolutely nothing like today's ultracompetitive, ultra-regimented world.

> You used to just open your door and go let your kids run around and hope they're back before dinner. Still works this way in my suburban Ohio world > today's ultracompetitive, ultra-regimented world. though yes I see this in the childhood sport arena, club teams, traveling teams, etc.

>Still works this way in my suburban Ohio world

I don't mean this in a derogatory fashion... but to be blunt I've only seen this in black and impoverished neighborhoods. There needs to be enough working single moms releasing their kid out of necessity that the Karens can't snitch on everyone and the police/CPS fatigue of fielding the calls after investigating and not finding anyone they can force into keeping the kids inside.

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

#803

Post by pixl97 »

supertrope wrote: post #111
jdlyga wrote: post #68

Once you have a kid, it's obvious why even besides the costs involved. There's not much sense of community, particularly in the white middle class. People are very individualistic and distrusting of others. There's a good reason for some of this, but to have a community you need to be a community member. And that means letting people in, trusting others and being trustworthy, and being out for the group instead of ju…

The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam is about the decline of civil society. Church membership is down. Labor union membership is down. Parents got crushed in the pandemic with school shutdowns, daycare shutdowns, and formula shortages. It takes two incomes to afford a family's lifestyle. Someone has to take care of the kid. Two people have to do the job of three people.

>Church membership is down.

I mean church people love to think of this as a decline of society but this is more about the destruction of the church itself as an out of date institution that was using itself as a control mechanism and that broke the moment we discovered the world wasn't made on hocus pocus.

The thing is the essence of the church could still maintain a huge amount of social control because people need to socialize.

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

#804

Post by mattmaroon »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #386
mattmaroon wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is almost certainly the reason why they are making such a spectacle of it. Self deportation is the goal.

> Self deportation is the goal. Perhaps. GP didn't say whether or not there were any legal clouds over the persons he's describing. The answer to that makes a big difference to his point.

It doesn’t even matter anymore, being anything less than a full citizen puts you at risk. In my community, we have a bunch of Nepalese people whose TPS is going to expire and they are going to be deported. Not far away is Springfield, where a community of Haitians, who are mostly liked by the people in their community, and who even the Republican governor is asking the administration not to deport, have seen their TPS expire.

There are a lot of non-criminals who are here legally, but still very concerned about their future. If I were one of the Haitians in Springfield, I would be looking for another country to take me in.

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

#805

Post by handedness »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #686
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to rile the base and distract from the fact that there is no improvement in cost of living, healthcare, education, etc... tourism is down, farmers are losing their farms en masse, etc... It was trans people yesterday, Somalians today, and it will be someone else tomorrow. If that wasn't bad enough, it's clear the president and other powerful men (of both parties) were engaged in an international child sex…

It's not "a distraction". It's serving their constituents. No good people support the Republicans, their primary voter base are just a bunch of hopped-up xenophobes who hate people who aren't like them because they've never met anybody who isn't from their inbred town. If anything, from a democracy angle it's almost admirable how committed to answering the demands of their base the Right is in America. Pedophile bill…

OkayPhysicist wrote:

> No good people support the Republicans, their primary voter base are just a bunch of hopped-up xenophobes who hate people who aren't like them because they've never met anybody who isn't from their inbred town. ... They are simply worse people...

You should apply to the DNC to help with their messaging efforts, clearly they're missing an important voice!

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

#806

Post by insane_dreamer »

nostrademons wrote: post #253
scottious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every morning I get to my son's school about 10 minutes before the doors open. We arrive by bike and we sit ALONE on the benches near the front door. Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars. The long line of SUVs extends all through the neighborhood. My son and I are alone because people just won't leave their cars until the doors open. A vast majority of the kids…

Anecdotally my experience is dramatically different. Last week I arrived by car right near the beginning of dropoff time. Pulling in right in front of me was the mom of one of my kid's classmates, carpooling with another kid who lives in the same apartment complex. The three of them met up as soon as they got out of the car, and then another one of their friends (who lives across the street from the school and usuall…

Have seen this in Portland (lots of e-bikes with child carriers as well, even in the cold and rain), but not in more spread out cities.

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

#808

Post by hackable_sand »

reducesuffering wrote: post #108
queuebert wrote: post #16

Why do we obsess over growing everything all the time?

I think people really fail to understand the gravity of an inverted demographic pyramid, going from 2 young people supporting 1 old, to 1 young person supporting 2 old. That's .5 -> 2x, a 4x increase in burden (taxes / extra work).

What were these old people doing that they couldn't set up a sustainable system?

Sounds lazy to me

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

#809

Post by xyzelement »

tayo42 wrote: post #797
xyzelement wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to my previous comment. There's nothing about "the US" that makes precludes any of this. Lots of people chose to remain (or move back to) close to their families especially when they have kids on their own. EG when we bought the house because it was closer to the in-laws, the previous owners were moving to SC to be closer to their family. It's just a decision you make or not bother to make. And then to make an…

>so the residents (and businesses) are super accommodating of families with kids. To the point where if I have to take a little one to the bathroom in a restaurant, people often invite my big one (5 year old) to hang out at their table so I don't have to worry about it. My experience so far with a kid is most people will just tolerate your child. I'm surprised your running into that attitude. Other new parents I know…

I mean I think it depends on the suburb. If you moved your family to a place where everyone is a shut-in boomer (vs the grandfatherly types that I somehow meet in my area) then... why would you move there to have kids?

To me that's like going to a badly reviewed restaurant and then complaining about the food. If you knew you were moving to a place hostile to kids, why move there?

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

#810

Post by [deleted] »

brynnbee wrote: post #543
exodys wrote: post #362

This may offend some, but I think the large amount of women joining the labor force may be a factor. American society, pre-WWII, usually had only one member of the household at work. More often than not it was the man who went to work, and the women stayed home to take care of the children. American society, pre-1930s (the Great Depression saw the rise of the female workers) was build on a one-income household. And y…

I would guess it's a lot more to do with globalism and the increasing ability for work to be done remotely (offshore). The US actively encourages American companies using foreign labor, which I have no moral qualms with, but it does make the value of American labor plummet when we're competing with groups of people that will do similar work for 1/10th the price or less.

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