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Note that the Vatican's not the only one saying this. Others have pointed out that a larger proportion of elderly to young population results in smaller amounts

Note that the Vatican's not the only one saying this. Others have pointed out that a larger proportion of elderly to young population results in smaller amounts of wealth creation, larger amounts of wealth consumption (healthcare and the like); and that old managers who are slow to retire give their companies an unnecessarily hesitant, cautious character. In fact, doesn't Paul Graham have an essay about this?

old-gregg 17y ago
True. What upsets me is that publicly accepted solution to this seems to be "lets breed more babies" as opposed to "lets change our way of thinking as we get older". WTF? I refuse to accept the idea that I'm predestined to get slower, dumber and more conservative as I get older. I also believe that instead of overbreeding we should find ways to feed the existing 6 billion or/and shrink to a more sustainable number.
- pyre 17y ago
  I believe there is already a introductory video to this: Logan's Run.
- dkimball 17y ago
  Your medical expenses will grow as you get older, even if your thought processes don't ossify. Sidenote: I don't think "conservative" is an appropriate term here; in fact, I don't like the word in almost any context. Desiring to enrich oneself and/or being careful with one's money do not correlate usefully with, for example, opposing abortion; libertarians and the CDU-type ideology opposed to libertarianism (Roosevelt, Chesterton, Dorothy Day, etc.) are both refutations of that. As far as population goes, we are not close to the carrying capacity of the planet. The only starvation in the modern world is in extremely undeveloped countries governed by the likes of Robert Mugabe; I don't know what a fully-developed Earth's carrying capacity at American or at European levels of consumption would be, but I'm unwilling to guess, since I'd probably low-ball the number severely. Malthus was right in one sense, and there are real examples of Malthusian crises in the late 18th century (that's probably where the French Revolution came from, in particular); but these days, land in the Malthusian sense is expanding faster than population is -- _much_ faster. And remember, too, the (very Y-Combinator-y) point that each new person brings a new mouth to feed, but also a new pair of hands...
  - thenduks 17y ago
    As far as population goes, we are not close to the carrying capacity of the planet. There is space available!? Well what other option could there be other than to fill it with people? I mean, clearly, the human race can't shout 'we win!' until we are unable to physically fit another person on the streets, right?
    - dkimball 17y ago
      What I mean is not "physical room for people," it's "exploited versus un-exploited resources." It's not as if we're running out of room for farming -- and even if we were, it's not as if we're managing the oceans in anything that vaguely resembles a serious, competent fashion. Earth is much larger than we tend to think, and much more empty (remember how if the population of the Netherlands lived at New York density, everyone in the country would fit in the "dongle" of southern Limburg that borders on Belgium). In other words, we can afford to worry about more urgent things -- torture, for example. (Not just American; how about the Uzbek dictator who boils prisoners alive, or of course the Chinese?) Additionally, there may be a difference in my values relative to yours: I believe that people are intrinsically valuable, and that therefore it is better to have more people in the world than fewer people in the world, all other things being equal.
      - thenduks 17y ago
        But why should all the resources be exploited? Why not, you know, just use what we need? And why should the people in the Netherlands live at the same density that people in NYC do anymore than vice versa? I don't see what 'value' people have over anything else, say, fish, deer or even trees, mountains, etc -- I say we leave some room for the other things that occupy the earth and not just claim it all for ourselves because we can.
        dkimball 17y ago
        Then here we part company: as a Roman Catholic, I believe that human beings come first -- although we are to be stewards of the earth rather than masters of it.
- gwern 17y ago
  > I refuse to accept the idea that I'm predestined to get slower, dumber and more conservative as I get older. Do you also accept that magic fairies stop your brain from being physiologically affected at all by the process of aging?
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
This jumped out at me: > the cause is ordinary people who do not "believe in the future" and have few or no children The notion that the reason people are having fewer children because they don't believe in the future is pure ideology. They may have accidentally landed at the right conclusion (I'm not persuaded of this, particularly given the opportunities related to immigration), but their reasoning is highly suspect.
- blue1 17y ago
  Gotti Tedeschi is italian. While it's true that a low birth rate is typical of rich countries, it is also true that in Italy the hope for the future is currently at historical lows (sociologists are also writing profusely about this). Not that there is necessarily a causal link, of course.
  - iujhygfbh 17y ago
    Italy is in a typical 2-generation pattern. The first generation of women to get the chance at education, real careers etc = birth rate plummets. A generation (or two) later, there are women in politics and at the top of companies, introduce generous maternity leave, childcare etc. as in Scandinavia = birth rate rises again.
  - DeusExMachina 17y ago
    I am italian and actually living in Italy and I can tell you this: Italy is in a very bad historical period, with corruption and organized crime spread in the government. I am one of the italians thinking that this country has no future and this is why I'm leaving. Like me many italians (good and smart ones that are not part of the actual clientelistic system and are not able to get a good job) are leaving my country. I also have a lot of friends that are deluded and do not plan to have children, also because they can't get a decent salary to build a family. I cannot tell if there is a casual link, though. Actually Italy is engulfed in a media regime, where the prime minister own three major TV channels and controls the three public ones. 80% of the people only get news form TV, and TV is not telling the bad news. So there may be a link and I think that hope for the future plays a big part, but I also think it's more than that. I think that many things in the actual system contribute on the low birth rate. About vatican I can tell you that they primarily look at italian society and are very biased by their religion.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

old-gregg 17y ago

True. What upsets me is that publicly accepted solution to this seems to be "lets breed more babies" as opposed to "lets change our way of thinking as we get older". WTF? I refuse to accept the idea that I'm predestined to get slower, dumber and more conservative as I get older. I also believe that instead of overbreeding we should find ways to feed the existing 6 billion or/and shrink to a more sustainable number.

pyre 17y ago
I believe there is already a introductory video to this: Logan's Run.
dkimball 17y ago
Your medical expenses will grow as you get older, even if your thought processes don't ossify. Sidenote: I don't think "conservative" is an appropriate term here; in fact, I don't like the word in almost any context. Desiring to enrich oneself and/or being careful with one's money do not correlate usefully with, for example, opposing abortion; libertarians and the CDU-type ideology opposed to libertarianism (Roosevelt, Chesterton, Dorothy Day, etc.) are both refutations of that. As far as population goes, we are not close to the carrying capacity of the planet. The only starvation in the modern world is in extremely undeveloped countries governed by the likes of Robert Mugabe; I don't know what a fully-developed Earth's carrying capacity at American or at European levels of consumption would be, but I'm unwilling to guess, since I'd probably low-ball the number severely. Malthus was right in one sense, and there are real examples of Malthusian crises in the late 18th century (that's probably where the French Revolution came from, in particular); but these days, land in the Malthusian sense is expanding faster than population is -- _much_ faster. And remember, too, the (very Y-Combinator-y) point that each new person brings a new mouth to feed, but also a new pair of hands...
- thenduks 17y ago
  As far as population goes, we are not close to the carrying capacity of the planet. There is space available!? Well what other option could there be other than to fill it with people? I mean, clearly, the human race can't shout 'we win!' until we are unable to physically fit another person on the streets, right?
  - dkimball 17y ago
    What I mean is not "physical room for people," it's "exploited versus un-exploited resources." It's not as if we're running out of room for farming -- and even if we were, it's not as if we're managing the oceans in anything that vaguely resembles a serious, competent fashion. Earth is much larger than we tend to think, and much more empty (remember how if the population of the Netherlands lived at New York density, everyone in the country would fit in the "dongle" of southern Limburg that borders on Belgium). In other words, we can afford to worry about more urgent things -- torture, for example. (Not just American; how about the Uzbek dictator who boils prisoners alive, or of course the Chinese?) Additionally, there may be a difference in my values relative to yours: I believe that people are intrinsically valuable, and that therefore it is better to have more people in the world than fewer people in the world, all other things being equal.
    - thenduks 17y ago
      But why should all the resources be exploited? Why not, you know, just use what we need? And why should the people in the Netherlands live at the same density that people in NYC do anymore than vice versa? I don't see what 'value' people have over anything else, say, fish, deer or even trees, mountains, etc -- I say we leave some room for the other things that occupy the earth and not just claim it all for ourselves because we can.
      - dkimball 17y ago
        Then here we part company: as a Roman Catholic, I believe that human beings come first -- although we are to be stewards of the earth rather than masters of it.
gwern 17y ago
> I refuse to accept the idea that I'm predestined to get slower, dumber and more conservative as I get older. Do you also accept that magic fairies stop your brain from being physiologically affected at all by the process of aging?

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

This jumped out at me: > the cause is ordinary people who do not "believe in the future" and have few or no children The notion that the reason people are having fewer children because they don't believe in the future is pure ideology. They may have accidentally landed at the right conclusion (I'm not persuaded of this, particularly given the opportunities related to immigration), but their reasoning is highly suspect.

blue1 17y ago
Gotti Tedeschi is italian. While it's true that a low birth rate is typical of rich countries, it is also true that in Italy the hope for the future is currently at historical lows (sociologists are also writing profusely about this). Not that there is necessarily a causal link, of course.
- iujhygfbh 17y ago
  Italy is in a typical 2-generation pattern. The first generation of women to get the chance at education, real careers etc = birth rate plummets. A generation (or two) later, there are women in politics and at the top of companies, introduce generous maternity leave, childcare etc. as in Scandinavia = birth rate rises again.
- DeusExMachina 17y ago
  I am italian and actually living in Italy and I can tell you this: Italy is in a very bad historical period, with corruption and organized crime spread in the government. I am one of the italians thinking that this country has no future and this is why I'm leaving. Like me many italians (good and smart ones that are not part of the actual clientelistic system and are not able to get a good job) are leaving my country. I also have a lot of friends that are deluded and do not plan to have children, also because they can't get a decent salary to build a family. I cannot tell if there is a casual link, though. Actually Italy is engulfed in a media regime, where the prime minister own three major TV channels and controls the three public ones. 80% of the people only get news form TV, and TV is not telling the bad news. So there may be a link and I think that hope for the future plays a big part, but I also think it's more than that. I think that many things in the actual system contribute on the low birth rate. About vatican I can tell you that they primarily look at italian society and are very biased by their religion.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]