901–910 of 927 posts
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People just figured out how to pull out?
Pulling out is not birth control. Good Lord.
This Planned Parenthood link says in theory 96% effective, in reality 78% effective. (Caveat: their definition of "effective" is not quite clear.)
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/withdr...
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> It's not really clear to me what the point of this question is. Are you advocating for infinite growth? For eventual extinction? Am I allowed to ask a question without having an agenda? What’s with the hostility?
No hostility intended. No human being is a completely blank slate. Asking such an open ended question on an internet forum strongly implies that you disagree with the premise of the person you're responding to. Explaining if/how/why you disagree can lead to a more productive conversation.
You are the one advocating for a stable population. The responsibility is on you to support that position.
No one wants babies (on average). If society wants them it must pay for them because women are no longer "sentenced" to having them by biology.
If you need an average woman to have 2.1 children you need to pay her half of the average salary for having each. No one wants babies (on average). If society wants them it must pay for them because women are no longer "sentenced" to having them by biology.
My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…
Oh, I’m sure some “anecdotal” stories will come up, painting a perfect picture of the “good old days” — without calling them that, of course. Here's one then: Take my great-grandfather, for example. 56, falls head over heels for a 14-year-old girl from church, and boom — 30 days later, they’re married. 8 months later, my grandfather’s born. They stayed married for 50 years. My grandmother was 16 when she married my 4…
In actual fact, I was merely offering a data point. I have no agenda, I am not in the slightest anti-abortion, I am not against 100% female bodily autonomy, I do not consider past generations to be "the good old days" - the events I described were traumatic for everybody involved - and I do not profess to be qualified to draw any conclusions, or to claim that what happened to me is why the world has changed.
I can only see certain cause and effect chains relating to my own generational situation, and suggested that such changing norms may be one factor in the mix. May.
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It was a fluke because the US was unscathed by a war that destroyed much of the industrial and productive capacity in the rest of the world, at the same time vast strides in technology were being made. The US worker had a worldwide monopoly on labor and innovation for 30 years.
This explanation seems lacking to me. The same time period had a single-earner home-owning, baby-boom-raising middle class in places like Germany and Japan where entire cities had been completely obliterated by war. They didn't have as many cars or televisions as the Americans but they could pay their mortgage. And blowing up a whole bunch of productive infrastructure and capital worldwide is not the kind of thing yo…
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Hard work had little to do with it. A unique set of factors generated a historic economic boom that was briefly able to sustain a uniquely prosperous lifestyle for some Westerners. It came unwound because it was never sustainable.
It came unwound when we allowed mass immigration to destroy the wages of the lower end and stopped building to respond to the housing demand. That can be easily undone, if the powers to be allowed it.
I find the repeated comments of how much parenting 'sucks' and how much childbearing 'sucks' to be distasteful. It has been the single most incredible experience I've had (5 times over). I feel like, primarily, the reason why our society isn't having children is because of a growing selfishness and entitlement; which happens to be the very thing that Rome was suffering from when their society was collapsing too. No,…
But my parents sucked. And they thought parenting sucks, but they had kids anyway. I don't want to continue the cycle. My wife feels the same way. We're pretty happy, healthy, married for 11 years; we just don't want kids.
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It’s symptoms all the way down. If the system decides it needs more births it will ban abortion, and that’s not a moral failure on the system’s part, it’s an indictment of the symptoms itself.
Hans Rowling found that one of the best way to increase numbers of births is to reduce education for women. Or at least there’s strong correlation between both.
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I don't agree with the premise (data point: I grew up poor, with siblings), but certainly the inverse isn't true.
Singular data point. Were talking macro level. Talking about the educated West where people have the information and tools to make the decision. Context inference is important