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My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life. More specifically, there is something about the information environment that scrambles whatever

My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life. More specifically, there is something about the information environment that scrambles whatever mechanism we have for determining if we are doing well enough to bring more children into the world. I mean, it has to be that, since objectively speaking families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in the world, both past and present, yet we are having less children than we want.

jerf 8y ago
In generational terms, birth control and safe abortion are less than three generations old even in the first world and there are still places they have not penetrated. I expect that if the world as it is today in that sense froze, that eventually we'd evolve out "people who were willing to use birth control". But that would take several generations even so, and the world is not going to stay as it is for the requisite "several generations". In the meantime, we are certainly not adapted for those things, though I think many if not most people reading this would not particularly care for what "adapted for those things" actually looks like, since it pretty obviously amounts to "not using those things" over the long term.
Rinzler89 8y ago
> families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in the world, both past and present, yet we are having less children than we want. Answer in 3 words: Real estate prices. If you're a couple in the developed world you probably want to give your kids living standards to match. Fat chance doing that unless you and your partner aren't high earners
- ethbro 8y ago
  Among other things. Ability to "provide for children" seems highly subjective, according to our surrounding conditions. Having 2 goats in a town with no goats = able to provide. Having a McMansion in a town with bigger McMansions = worried about ability to provide.
  - zepto 8y ago
    Depends if you took out a mortgage for the goats.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  That's far from the only reason. Lives were very different 100 years ago, women stayed at home, kids were raised without any high expectation, just running around, doing errands and luckier going to school. How would modern urban family manage to raise 10 kids? Young people usually jump quickly into parenthood, then are overwhelmed by the continuous drain that you can't escape from. Women are exhausted long after giving birth. How do you want to drive around with >3 kids? Organize their activities? And actually have a full-time job that pays it all? Even if property/rental prices would be good for many-bedroom places (they usually aren't), the rest is quite an effective blocker for most.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  That ain’t it. Until you get to the 1%, families who make more money have less kids. This holds true even if you cut upper middle class incomes in half (to simulate stay at home mom) and compare to lower class.
- kazinator 8y ago
  It's not just real estate prices. It's also that grown-ups basically continue to be children; they want to just play with more expensive toys. Or chase after other things like careers. Some people still don't have children, though well past the point of being able to afford them.
21 8y ago
Conventional Explanations of Changes in Fertility: Mortality decline has meant that most children survive, so that families do not need to have large numbers of children to ensure one or two survivors. In addition, in modern, urban, industrial society, children have turned from being an asset to constituting a financial liability. Children cost more to raise and support in cities, child labour is not acceptable, and public education is common and required. As a result, the period that children need to be supported before becoming independent is long, resulting in high costs for families. As incomes improved, many families began to emphasize quality over quantity http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mar1298.htm http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mar1298.htm
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  IMO that's all bullshit. There are plenty of immigrants and highly religious people who have large families in the developed world.
Sharlin 8y ago
> yet we are having less children than we want. How so? Evolution has not programmed into us any sort of drive for careful family planning to optimized the number of offspring. We simply have a drive to have sex. For the vast majority of human (pre)history, optimization of offspring number occurred the same way as with all sexually reproducing species: natural miscarriage and child mortality. Now that we have control of our own fertility, there's still nothing that drives us to especially want to raise a somehow evolutionarily optimal number of offspring. As with almost any other human behavior it's up to societal values and norms and individual preferences.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Humans have been able to calculate the present value of children for a long time now. One could easily see the value of extra hands in a farming society, and even now if you can raise a few high earners then you have some backup if/when your retirement doesn't pan out or you need medical assistance and company when you're old. Personally, I would optimize at 3-5 kids (depending on age of mother), assuming 1 or 2 of them don't turn out to be economically productive for whatever reason. And they also have each other as a support network. I would go for at least 2 kids since economies of scale start working for you and you can reuse all the stuff for first for subsequent ones. One child seems suboptimal as it seems like putting all your eggs in one basket.
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    Sure. A big cause of the recent population explosion has been reduction of child mortality due to modern medicine, while the number of births lagged behind. In a traditional agrarian society it made some amount of sense to have eight live births, as maybe three or four of those would survive to adulthood. But due to lack of contraception there's not much planning involved in that. A woman would just be continuously either pregnant or nursing. And of course there was a 5% or so chance per birth for the mother to die, which adds up!
- thefz 8y ago
  > Evolution has not programmed into us any sort of drive for careful family planning to optimized the number of offspring. Except it has, and does on a number of other species too. It is well explained in Harari's Sapiens.
baud147258 8y ago
> My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life Or modern life is not adapted to humans
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  I am actually in full agreement with you. It is my personal opinion that any way of life and/or system of belief that wants to survive into the future needs to start thinking about partial technological renunciation. Key word being partial, since you can't run a modern nation state with the Amish way of life.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    From what I've read (mostly here), Amish still use some tech. But I agree with you on renouncing some tech might be necessary to survive.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cynicalkane 8y ago
I think it's the contrast between what people want for themselves and what brings status. Maintaining status while raising kids--and having status for the kid you're raising, like sports teams or good schools--is expensive. Status is how society signals you should do something, so it's a strong incentive. The situation, at least in NYC where I live, seems reversed for the very rich, where more kids is a clear signal that you have a lot of money and yet spare time for your kids.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Fertility by socio-economic status is a U shaped curve. The poor and very wealthy (top 1%, basically) have the same number of kids. Middle to upper-middle class people have significantly fewer.
pdimitar 8y ago
As a guy living in Eastern Europe: definitely not the case around here. It's just that life is way too uncertain and everybody is fighting for scraps. Many couples either decide they don't want to bring a child in such uncertain conditions -- like me and my wife -- or they risk it and end up providing very subpar support for their kids. You should see two parents crying and hugging each other and their kid in front of a store because they cannot afford to buy it a $50 LEGO set... It can break your heart and give you a new perspective on the perceived notion of "the world, globally speaking, gets better". We the people adapt quite well to basically everything, I'd say. But the developed world you speak of is basically the smaller part of the civilized territory on the planet. Go ask people in Nepal, my country Bulgaria, or Hungaria, or Serbia, or Brazil about the average living standard and what miracles many parents achieve just so their kids get decent education, are well-fed and have some small entertainment budget on top of that. I mean we are most certainly both correct for the respective filter bubbles we are living in. But I still wanted to offer you another perspective.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  > Many couples either decide they don't want to bring a child in such uncertain conditions -- like me and my wife -- or they risk it and end up providing very subpar support for their kids. What I'm saying is that "subpar" is not an absolute measure. Its meaning is constantly being revised according to what other people are doing. Is life in Eastern Europe today, in 2018, worse than it was 100 years ago (well, not exactly 100 years ago, since that was around WWI, but you get the idea)? And yet the birth rates are way lower. So clearly our conception about whether having children is viable is being scrambled by something in the modern environment. My hunch is that it's constant exposure to media and, with it, the constant sense that we are doing poorly (because the media primarily portrays fantasy lifestyles).
  - OctoberThoughts 8y ago
    Our concept of whether having children is viable also carries a lot more weight, since contraception is now available and effective. You can think it's a terrible idea, but when the only way to prevent it is abstinence...

jerf 8y ago

In generational terms, birth control and safe abortion are less than three generations old even in the first world and there are still places they have not penetrated. I expect that if the world as it is today in that sense froze, that eventually we'd evolve out "people who were willing to use birth control". But that would take several generations even so, and the world is not going to stay as it is for the requisite "several generations". In the meantime, we are certainly not adapted for those things, though I think many if not most people reading this would not particularly care for what "adapted for those things" actually looks like, since it pretty obviously amounts to "not using those things" over the long term.

Rinzler89 8y ago

> families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in the world, both past and present, yet we are having less children than we want. Answer in 3 words: Real estate prices. If you're a couple in the developed world you probably want to give your kids living standards to match. Fat chance doing that unless you and your partner aren't high earners

ethbro 8y ago
Among other things. Ability to "provide for children" seems highly subjective, according to our surrounding conditions. Having 2 goats in a town with no goats = able to provide. Having a McMansion in a town with bigger McMansions = worried about ability to provide.
- zepto 8y ago
  Depends if you took out a mortgage for the goats.
saiya-jin 8y ago
That's far from the only reason. Lives were very different 100 years ago, women stayed at home, kids were raised without any high expectation, just running around, doing errands and luckier going to school. How would modern urban family manage to raise 10 kids? Young people usually jump quickly into parenthood, then are overwhelmed by the continuous drain that you can't escape from. Women are exhausted long after giving birth. How do you want to drive around with >3 kids? Organize their activities? And actually have a full-time job that pays it all? Even if property/rental prices would be good for many-bedroom places (they usually aren't), the rest is quite an effective blocker for most.
toasterlovin 8y ago
That ain’t it. Until you get to the 1%, families who make more money have less kids. This holds true even if you cut upper middle class incomes in half (to simulate stay at home mom) and compare to lower class.
kazinator 8y ago
It's not just real estate prices. It's also that grown-ups basically continue to be children; they want to just play with more expensive toys. Or chase after other things like careers. Some people still don't have children, though well past the point of being able to afford them.

21 8y ago

Conventional Explanations of Changes in Fertility: Mortality decline has meant that most children survive, so that families do not need to have large numbers of children to ensure one or two survivors. In addition, in modern, urban, industrial society, children have turned from being an asset to constituting a financial liability. Children cost more to raise and support in cities, child labour is not acceptable, and public education is common and required. As a result, the period that children need to be supported before becoming independent is long, resulting in high costs for families. As incomes improved, many families began to emphasize quality over quantity http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mar1298.htm http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mar1298.htm

toasterlovin 8y ago
IMO that's all bullshit. There are plenty of immigrants and highly religious people who have large families in the developed world.

Sharlin 8y ago

> yet we are having less children than we want. How so? Evolution has not programmed into us any sort of drive for careful family planning to optimized the number of offspring. We simply have a drive to have sex. For the vast majority of human (pre)history, optimization of offspring number occurred the same way as with all sexually reproducing species: natural miscarriage and child mortality. Now that we have control of our own fertility, there's still nothing that drives us to especially want to raise a somehow evolutionarily optimal number of offspring. As with almost any other human behavior it's up to societal values and norms and individual preferences.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
Humans have been able to calculate the present value of children for a long time now. One could easily see the value of extra hands in a farming society, and even now if you can raise a few high earners then you have some backup if/when your retirement doesn't pan out or you need medical assistance and company when you're old. Personally, I would optimize at 3-5 kids (depending on age of mother), assuming 1 or 2 of them don't turn out to be economically productive for whatever reason. And they also have each other as a support network. I would go for at least 2 kids since economies of scale start working for you and you can reuse all the stuff for first for subsequent ones. One child seems suboptimal as it seems like putting all your eggs in one basket.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Sure. A big cause of the recent population explosion has been reduction of child mortality due to modern medicine, while the number of births lagged behind. In a traditional agrarian society it made some amount of sense to have eight live births, as maybe three or four of those would survive to adulthood. But due to lack of contraception there's not much planning involved in that. A woman would just be continuously either pregnant or nursing. And of course there was a 5% or so chance per birth for the mother to die, which adds up!
thefz 8y ago
> Evolution has not programmed into us any sort of drive for careful family planning to optimized the number of offspring. Except it has, and does on a number of other species too. It is well explained in Harari's Sapiens.

baud147258 8y ago

> My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life Or modern life is not adapted to humans

toasterlovin 8y ago
I am actually in full agreement with you. It is my personal opinion that any way of life and/or system of belief that wants to survive into the future needs to start thinking about partial technological renunciation. Key word being partial, since you can't run a modern nation state with the Amish way of life.
- baud147258 8y ago
  From what I've read (mostly here), Amish still use some tech. But I agree with you on renouncing some tech might be necessary to survive.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cynicalkane 8y ago

I think it's the contrast between what people want for themselves and what brings status. Maintaining status while raising kids--and having status for the kid you're raising, like sports teams or good schools--is expensive. Status is how society signals you should do something, so it's a strong incentive. The situation, at least in NYC where I live, seems reversed for the very rich, where more kids is a clear signal that you have a lot of money and yet spare time for your kids.

toasterlovin 8y ago
Fertility by socio-economic status is a U shaped curve. The poor and very wealthy (top 1%, basically) have the same number of kids. Middle to upper-middle class people have significantly fewer.

pdimitar 8y ago

As a guy living in Eastern Europe: definitely not the case around here. It's just that life is way too uncertain and everybody is fighting for scraps. Many couples either decide they don't want to bring a child in such uncertain conditions -- like me and my wife -- or they risk it and end up providing very subpar support for their kids. You should see two parents crying and hugging each other and their kid in front of a store because they cannot afford to buy it a $50 LEGO set... It can break your heart and give you a new perspective on the perceived notion of "the world, globally speaking, gets better". We the people adapt quite well to basically everything, I'd say. But the developed world you speak of is basically the smaller part of the civilized territory on the planet. Go ask people in Nepal, my country Bulgaria, or Hungaria, or Serbia, or Brazil about the average living standard and what miracles many parents achieve just so their kids get decent education, are well-fed and have some small entertainment budget on top of that. I mean we are most certainly both correct for the respective filter bubbles we are living in. But I still wanted to offer you another perspective.

toasterlovin 8y ago
> Many couples either decide they don't want to bring a child in such uncertain conditions -- like me and my wife -- or they risk it and end up providing very subpar support for their kids. What I'm saying is that "subpar" is not an absolute measure. Its meaning is constantly being revised according to what other people are doing. Is life in Eastern Europe today, in 2018, worse than it was 100 years ago (well, not exactly 100 years ago, since that was around WWI, but you get the idea)? And yet the birth rates are way lower. So clearly our conception about whether having children is viable is being scrambled by something in the modern environment. My hunch is that it's constant exposure to media and, with it, the constant sense that we are doing poorly (because the media primarily portrays fantasy lifestyles).
- OctoberThoughts 8y ago
  Our concept of whether having children is viable also carries a lot more weight, since contraception is now available and effective. You can think it's a terrible idea, but when the only way to prevent it is abstinence...