6 ms·

I do not at all like the early established conceit of this article: that a country with a currently low birth rate is 'committing suicide'. Yes, social conditi

by oska 7y ago

I do not at all like the early established conceit of this article: that a country with a currently low birth rate is 'committing suicide'. Yes, social conditions in South Korea are dreadful in many ways and yes, these conditions are definitely influencing South Koreans' decisions on whether to have children, or marry. But not marrying and not having children is not suicide, neither for the individual nor the society. The Black Death is estimated to have reduced the size of Europe's population by 30% to 60% in the 14th century. After that extreme population shrinkage life improved dramatically for the ordinary people. People were more valued than they had been before. Shrinkage of a population can be healthy and, as it improves conditions for those who come after, will go into reverse at a certain point.

sturgill 7y ago
Sounds like the plot line for Avengers vs Thanos... Life would just be so much better if there was less of it.
- devoply 7y ago
  There is never less of life, just fewer humans. When humans disappear other life takes their place. Also the economics of Black Death shows that if you live in a country with a declining population the rich are forced to pay the middle class more, unlike a country with an increasing population whether through birth or through immigration. The Economic Impact of the Black Death of 1347–1352 http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-activity-lesson-15.pdf http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-...
  - inawarminister 7y ago
    The problem, of course, is that modern technological base NEEDS a certain amount of consumers for mass production to makes sense. We aren't living in an agricultural-trade system anymore. Besides, we need fresh bodies to populate heavenly colonies.
    - devoply 7y ago
      1/2 the world lives in extreme poverty, we have no shortage of consumers. despite not living in an agricultural-trade system nothing has changed. if the economy is growing but the population is shrinking than either the working class should have more money or the rich and their corporations should. you should be able to get the same amount of tax out of either than you lost through the shrinking population. the rich and the corporations have shifted the tax burden to the growing population which helps them make more money in multiple ways... by paying less to workers because of more competition and then passing on the entire tax burden to the wage earners. we have no heavenly colonies and when we do they will support very very small populations, say at most a million people probably 10,000 years in the future... in the meantime we'd be lucky to get 100 people to create a self-sustaining colony.
      - needle0 7y ago
        >>1/2 the world lives in extreme poverty, we have no shortage of consumers. More like 10%: https://howmuch.net/articles/people-living-in-extreme-poverty-2018 https://howmuch.net/articles/people-living-in-extreme-povert...
- coliveira 7y ago
  That's exactly what I thought! Call Thanos and he will solve it... More to the point, this is typical elitist nonsense: saying that the back death was good for future generations is just psychopathy in disguise. There is nothing preventing our society to improve life conditions for everyone, except that some elitist groups don't want to lose the privilege of having more than others.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "saying that the back death was good for future generations is just psychopathy in disguise" I seem to recall reading somewhere that genes selected for among European survivors of the Black Death improved resistance to HIV.
    - incognition 7y ago
      I’ll do you one better. With 23andMe pull the raw data and look for the CCR7 gene. You can see if you have enhanced viral resistance! The future is now
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  Thanos’ problem was that he never read a book on urban planning. Maybe he would have gotten around to it in his garden time had he not been interrupted. But I would be totally down to watch a series about economic development during the blip (and after the blip!). If half of all people disappeared, you would probably see a massive surge in wages. But it might not be enough to keep society alive. Assuming they did solve for it, the post blip period would almost certainly result in massive global crises as countries which experienced heavy immigration are now overpopulated and countries which experienced mass emigration now have a lot of people with basically no societal infrastructure anymore. God save disputes over property rights
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  Spoiler alert, perhaps too late. The critical difference is that we're talking about the societal choice between allowing people to choose not to have children versus nudging them to various degrees to do have children. Compare to the movie's choice between letting people live versus killing them.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
friendlybus 7y ago
The Black Death effected nearly all border countries. If South Korea was 'suiciding' via the same phenomena every country around it was experiencing, the difference between itself and external threats would not be so significant.
- oska 7y ago
  South Korea's near neighbours (China, Japan, Eastern Russia) have below replacement total fertility rates. I just looked up North Korea's - apparently it was 2.05 in 2005-2010 which is also (just) below replacement level. [1] Not sure how trustworthy NK's statistics are but anyway, with it having had famines in recent living memory (the 90s) I doubt it's about to overwhelm South Korea by population growth. The statistics I looked at had the crude death rate almost doubling since 1980 while the crude birth rate declined. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_North_Korea#Vital_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_North_Korea#Vi...
dba7dba 7y ago
Having grown up in South Korea in the 70s and 80s, I would not describe the social conditions of modern South Korea dreadful. Yes there are issues, but it is heaven compared to the times of 70s and 80s. And let's not forget that S Korea is one of the most densely populated country.
- oska 7y ago
  Thanks for your comment. Yes, I should have used some word other than 'dreadful'. How would you contrast your experience as a young adult to that of young adults in South Korea today?
dropit_sphere 7y ago
>But not marrying and not having children is not suicide, neither for the individual nor the society. Isn't it? Take away the moral connotations for a second. If a country's population does not reproduce, tautologically, it will die off. Sure, not reproducing is not suicide in the same way that a shotgun in the mouth is. But isn't it, in the same way that refusing food is? After WWII, the UN adopted a definition of genocide that included "(d)imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." If China were doing it to SK, we'd call it genocide. If SK is doing it to SK...? I'm not trying to assign blame here. But that's the point: whether you die in your bed surrounded by family, in your garage with the car exhaust on, or in a totalitarian purge---you are still dead. So, I don't know---neglect? decline? twilight? Sustainable (non-) growth? Call it whatever you want, <2.0 TFR reduces the population however anyone feels about it.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Take away the moral connotations for a second. If a country's population does not reproduce, tautologically, it will die off. Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent, so this is not tautologically true, nor is it even practically true, since negative natural growth with positive population growth had been observed in countries.
  - dropit_sphere 7y ago
    >Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent, Perhaps not exclusively, but in the main? If you are in the U.S., do you count yourself as a member of whichever indigenous people lived where you are before you? Would they? Would this change if you adopted their customs?
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    >Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent This has become "true" in just the last ~50 years, and only marginally so. >...nor is it even practically true, since negative natural growth with positive population growth had been observed in countries. Only with substantial immigration is this the case, which brings with it a whole host of other potential problems.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mc32 7y ago
Modern life puts a strain on people, mentally, responsibility-wise as well. There are a number of places on earth with much greater problems and yet have high birth rates. It’s clear “dreadful” isn’t what slows pop growth. It’s rather the converse. When a society achieves a certain comfort level (material, economic, political, social, etc.) people typically have fewer children.
joe_the_user 7y ago
Also, scanning Wikipedia, North Korea's suicide rate in the top ten of nations but only about 1.5 times that of the US (where despair is also reputed to reside). Greece and Venezuela, countries mostly in the news for misery and starvation, rank quite low on the suicide list. I'm not sure how one can parse the situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  This isn't very scientific, and people living in those countries might disagree, but my sense of the messes in Greece and Venezuela is that they are acute crises, which have to come to and end sooner or later. It might not be a good ending, but one way or the other the situation will have to be resolved. People aren't as likely to kill themselves over a temporary emergency, without aggravating factors like pre-existing mental illness. In addition, Venezuelans can still find a sense of community and purpose (even if that's just "opposition to Maduro" or "opposition to opposition to Maduro"), and community belonging and purpose are strong deterrents to suicide. By contrast, the "suicides of despair" reported in the US and elsewhere seem to be a response to chronic, secular (as in long-term trends, not irreligious) hopelessness of their situation ever improving, aggravated by loneliness and isolation. It doesn't surprise me, then, that suicides can be more common even in a region where conditions are strictly better.
fromMars 7y ago
Well said. I always bristle when I read an articles drawing such conclusions.

by oska 7y ago

sturgill 7y ago

Sounds like the plot line for Avengers vs Thanos... Life would just be so much better if there was less of it.

devoply 7y ago
There is never less of life, just fewer humans. When humans disappear other life takes their place. Also the economics of Black Death shows that if you live in a country with a declining population the rich are forced to pay the middle class more, unlike a country with an increasing population whether through birth or through immigration. The Economic Impact of the Black Death of 1347–1352 http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-activity-lesson-15.pdf http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-...
- inawarminister 7y ago
  The problem, of course, is that modern technological base NEEDS a certain amount of consumers for mass production to makes sense. We aren't living in an agricultural-trade system anymore. Besides, we need fresh bodies to populate heavenly colonies.
  - devoply 7y ago
    1/2 the world lives in extreme poverty, we have no shortage of consumers. despite not living in an agricultural-trade system nothing has changed. if the economy is growing but the population is shrinking than either the working class should have more money or the rich and their corporations should. you should be able to get the same amount of tax out of either than you lost through the shrinking population. the rich and the corporations have shifted the tax burden to the growing population which helps them make more money in multiple ways... by paying less to workers because of more competition and then passing on the entire tax burden to the wage earners. we have no heavenly colonies and when we do they will support very very small populations, say at most a million people probably 10,000 years in the future... in the meantime we'd be lucky to get 100 people to create a self-sustaining colony.
    - needle0 7y ago
      >>1/2 the world lives in extreme poverty, we have no shortage of consumers. More like 10%: https://howmuch.net/articles/people-living-in-extreme-poverty-2018 https://howmuch.net/articles/people-living-in-extreme-povert...
coliveira 7y ago
That's exactly what I thought! Call Thanos and he will solve it... More to the point, this is typical elitist nonsense: saying that the back death was good for future generations is just psychopathy in disguise. There is nothing preventing our society to improve life conditions for everyone, except that some elitist groups don't want to lose the privilege of having more than others.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "saying that the back death was good for future generations is just psychopathy in disguise" I seem to recall reading somewhere that genes selected for among European survivors of the Black Death improved resistance to HIV.
  - incognition 7y ago
    I’ll do you one better. With 23andMe pull the raw data and look for the CCR7 gene. You can see if you have enhanced viral resistance! The future is now
b_tterc_p 7y ago
Thanos’ problem was that he never read a book on urban planning. Maybe he would have gotten around to it in his garden time had he not been interrupted. But I would be totally down to watch a series about economic development during the blip (and after the blip!). If half of all people disappeared, you would probably see a massive surge in wages. But it might not be enough to keep society alive. Assuming they did solve for it, the post blip period would almost certainly result in massive global crises as countries which experienced heavy immigration are now overpopulated and countries which experienced mass emigration now have a lot of people with basically no societal infrastructure anymore. God save disputes over property rights
emiliobumachar 7y ago
Spoiler alert, perhaps too late. The critical difference is that we're talking about the societal choice between allowing people to choose not to have children versus nudging them to various degrees to do have children. Compare to the movie's choice between letting people live versus killing them.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

friendlybus 7y ago

The Black Death effected nearly all border countries. If South Korea was 'suiciding' via the same phenomena every country around it was experiencing, the difference between itself and external threats would not be so significant.

oska 7y ago
South Korea's near neighbours (China, Japan, Eastern Russia) have below replacement total fertility rates. I just looked up North Korea's - apparently it was 2.05 in 2005-2010 which is also (just) below replacement level. [1] Not sure how trustworthy NK's statistics are but anyway, with it having had famines in recent living memory (the 90s) I doubt it's about to overwhelm South Korea by population growth. The statistics I looked at had the crude death rate almost doubling since 1980 while the crude birth rate declined. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_North_Korea#Vital_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_North_Korea#Vi...

dba7dba 7y ago

Having grown up in South Korea in the 70s and 80s, I would not describe the social conditions of modern South Korea dreadful. Yes there are issues, but it is heaven compared to the times of 70s and 80s. And let's not forget that S Korea is one of the most densely populated country.

oska 7y ago
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I should have used some word other than 'dreadful'. How would you contrast your experience as a young adult to that of young adults in South Korea today?

dropit_sphere 7y ago

>But not marrying and not having children is not suicide, neither for the individual nor the society. Isn't it? Take away the moral connotations for a second. If a country's population does not reproduce, tautologically, it will die off. Sure, not reproducing is not suicide in the same way that a shotgun in the mouth is. But isn't it, in the same way that refusing food is? After WWII, the UN adopted a definition of genocide that included "(d)imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." If China were doing it to SK, we'd call it genocide. If SK is doing it to SK...? I'm not trying to assign blame here. But that's the point: whether you die in your bed surrounded by family, in your garage with the car exhaust on, or in a totalitarian purge---you are still dead. So, I don't know---neglect? decline? twilight? Sustainable (non-) growth? Call it whatever you want, <2.0 TFR reduces the population however anyone feels about it.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Take away the moral connotations for a second. If a country's population does not reproduce, tautologically, it will die off. Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent, so this is not tautologically true, nor is it even practically true, since negative natural growth with positive population growth had been observed in countries.
- dropit_sphere 7y ago
  >Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent, Perhaps not exclusively, but in the main? If you are in the U.S., do you count yourself as a member of whichever indigenous people lived where you are before you? Would they? Would this change if you adopted their customs?
- remarkEon 7y ago
  >Countries are not defined exclusively by biological descent This has become "true" in just the last ~50 years, and only marginally so. >...nor is it even practically true, since negative natural growth with positive population growth had been observed in countries. Only with substantial immigration is this the case, which brings with it a whole host of other potential problems.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mc32 7y ago

Modern life puts a strain on people, mentally, responsibility-wise as well. There are a number of places on earth with much greater problems and yet have high birth rates. It’s clear “dreadful” isn’t what slows pop growth. It’s rather the converse. When a society achieves a certain comfort level (material, economic, political, social, etc.) people typically have fewer children.

joe_the_user 7y ago

Also, scanning Wikipedia, North Korea's suicide rate in the top ten of nations but only about 1.5 times that of the US (where despair is also reputed to reside). Greece and Venezuela, countries mostly in the news for misery and starvation, rank quite low on the suicide list. I'm not sure how one can parse the situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

Analemma_ 7y ago
This isn't very scientific, and people living in those countries might disagree, but my sense of the messes in Greece and Venezuela is that they are acute crises, which have to come to and end sooner or later. It might not be a good ending, but one way or the other the situation will have to be resolved. People aren't as likely to kill themselves over a temporary emergency, without aggravating factors like pre-existing mental illness. In addition, Venezuelans can still find a sense of community and purpose (even if that's just "opposition to Maduro" or "opposition to opposition to Maduro"), and community belonging and purpose are strong deterrents to suicide. By contrast, the "suicides of despair" reported in the US and elsewhere seem to be a response to chronic, secular (as in long-term trends, not irreligious) hopelessness of their situation ever improving, aggravated by loneliness and isolation. It doesn't surprise me, then, that suicides can be more common even in a region where conditions are strictly better.

fromMars 7y ago

Well said. I always bristle when I read an articles drawing such conclusions.