5 ms·

This doesn't seem sustainable, to me. Just basic evolution. As long as some subpopulation has a birth rate above replacement rate, that subpopulation will grow,

by lacker 7y ago

This doesn't seem sustainable, to me. Just basic evolution. As long as some subpopulation has a birth rate above replacement rate, that subpopulation will grow, until the total birth rate at least returns to replacement. I feel like human culture has still not reached a steady state after the invention of birth control. I don't know what will happen per se, but it seems like the world of the future will have to be more encouraging of parenthood, in some way, than the world of the present. I hope it is a way that is consistent with the model of a modern free Western democracy.

polski-g 7y ago
You are correct. The country is currently projected to be majority Amish by 2200.
xamuel 7y ago
Relevant article [1] and corresponding HN discussion thread [2] Daily reminder that in an evolutionary context, the last 200 years are the blink of an eye. I'll paste a comment I made there: "If an antibiotic doesn't wipe out its target, then its target's numbers will be devastated in the short-term, but in the long-term, its target will evolve immunity to the antibiotic and ultimately recover. If you think about it, contraceptives are extremely similar to an antibiotic whose target is human beings. We're still living in the short-term when the antibiotic seems to be effective." [1] "The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely in the foreseeable future" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513817302799#bb0180 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051381... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360626
- namirez 7y ago
  > If you think about it, contraceptives are extremely similar to an antibiotic whose target is human beings. We don't really know that. There are environmental stressors that lead a species to adapt; there are also stressors that cause a species to go extinct. I think time scales are really important here. Bacteria evolve much more rapidly than humans. But the rate of creating new antibiotics and contraceptives are probably in the same ballpark.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    The newness of the contraceptives doesn't matter as long as they're still opt-in. No-one's suggesting humans will evolve condom-melting sperm. There's no need: a much easier trait to evolve is the desire to have kids.
    - raducu 7y ago
      But the "desire to have kids" is such and abstract and complex issue; nature already has it figured for us, we have the desire to have sex, to nurture and to like kids is secondary. It would be impossible for nature to evolve such a complex, conscious yet instinct-like feature as "I want to have kids for the sake of kids... right, where do I start... I need a fit SEXUAL partner(so that I have healthy kids)... but just to have kids... totaly not for the pleasure of sex ... economy be damned, I want kids... kids are extremly hard to raise by modern standards... scratch that... I need to have kids no matter what".
      - quotemstr 7y ago
        > It would be impossible for nature to evolve such a complex, conscious yet instinct-like feature as "I want to have kids for the sake of kids.. We have such an instinct now. Women (some men too, I guess) in their 30s frequently attest to a feeling that their "biological clock" is ticking and that they feel a yearning to have kids for the sake of having kids. This desire is probably still secondary to the raw sex drive in humanity, but evolution is great at taking secondary drives and turning them up to 11. Keep in mind also that evolution isn't necessarily genetic. Humanity's unique advantage is culture. We can change our "software" much faster than we can change our genetic "hardware". Some culture groups, e.g., the Mormons and the Amish, already have fertility rates very much above average. As long as fertility is heritable, it doesn't really matter whether the mechanism is genetics or culture: the future belongs to the people who reproduce.
        raducu 7y ago
        Women have started having children throughout the aeons at a very early age. It is onĺy in the last 80.000 years that humans have made the conscious connection between sex and having children. Womens fertilty declines sharply in their 30' and it is through conscious understanding of that fact and imitation that they think "their biological clock is ticking"; they consciously understand that it is now or never, that all their friends have children and that their looks and chances of attracting mates are fading. Also, I'm willing to bet that people in the "my biological clock was ticking" camp have much, much lower birth rates than average(probably close to 1), which is an indicator rhat they actually felt pressured not to be childless rather than a genuine desire to have childreN. I absolutely agree with your culture argument, I am just claiming that modern culture will go extinct unless we incorporate higher birthrates into it, not that the human species will go extinct.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  Except that humans are using it on themselves voluntarily. Instead of 'evolve immunity', we could just stop using it.
  - raducu 7y ago
    You mean volutarily stop doing it or banning contraceptives? If it's the first, there's absolutely no way that would happen, if it's the latter, what's next, we ban abortions, women working, force people to marry, we ban the pull out method, the calendar(I'm not trying to build a straw man here). A balanced and fair solution to the declining birth rates would be so complex that I'm convinced no human designed system would work; perhaps we could turn ourselves into a AI run perfect human zoo in the future, but as long as humans are in the decision loop I think it is impossible.
- raducu 7y ago
  But it's not the human species that's at risk(except for some world-ending catastrophe that we cause), it is the modern world ending that is at risk.
achillesheels 7y ago
I think you address a very salient point vis-a-vis birth control. There are many women who otherwise would be bounded to natural reproductive cycles that have created a never before seen phenomenon in society, and that is the childless self-sufficient woman. This leads to lower future-time orientation in the population since consumption is not compounding as fast as if it were directed towards progeny. Society becomes more self-serving as a necessary effect, with accompanying lower moral standards to boot, eg The Kardashian Effect.
Thorrez 7y ago
The US isn't the only place with decreasing fertility rate, the worldwide fertility rate is also decreasing. Look at the table on the right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate
swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
You blame it in birth control, but I see it as a totally rational and emotional response to an unbelievably high cost of living. People can't afford kids. Not enough time, not enough income, even hiring help is out of most people's budget. People are being squeezed and the middle class is shrinking. No wonder they don't want kids whose lives will be worse than their own.
- theworld572 7y ago
  Sorry I'm going to be contrarian here but if "people can't afford kids", then why is it well established that poorer people have more kids while richer have fewer? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility). Answering my own question.. I think the reason people are having fewer kids is more to do with urbanisation and all the social and cultural changes that come with that.
  - thewizardofaus 7y ago
    I surmise the following reasons: Poorer populations have less access to sex education. The government pays $850 a fortnight to a single mother, on top of a $5000 baby bonus and various other incentive schemes. Poor social classes see this as an easy means of money compared to working a "dead-end" job. Maybe they have kids to escape their reality. People cope in different ways; drugs, drinking etc. Maybe they desperately want to live through their kids.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > Poorer populations have less access to sex education. This is likely an accurate thesis based on macro and micro studies. TLDR Education, empowerment (contraceptives), labor force participation = decline in fertility rate. Provide access to all of the above, fertility rate drops off. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... (Fertility Rate: What explains the change in the number of children women have?) Outside of Africa, there are only a handful of countries where the fertility rate is > replacement rate. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?time=1950..2015&country=OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tim...
raducu 7y ago
There's always the option that we will die off, that we are experiencing a great filter. Perhaps we have changed our environment in such a great way that it is impossible to avoid it? We have the(correct) climate change narrative that makes people think declining population is a good thing, instant communication and very rapid dissemination of information and tools which enable a "winner takes all" situation(which means 1% of the population has the means to comfortably raise 100 children, which they won't, while 99% can only raise 1.X children, which they are doing), birth control, anonymous and tolerant societies where it is ok to be childless(and it really is ok), pursuit of happiness(which was never a thing in human history), non-religiousness(all major religions value having children), long working hours, "good parenting"- which is a good thing for the children, but it makes raising children incredibly expensive in money and time, both of which most people don't have, the fall of monogamy, the ridiculous real estate prices, the rise of mental dissorders -- all of which lead to below replacement birth rates. Don't count on subgroups to save the day, their higher birth rates will plummet as soon as we hook them up to our values and we free them of their oppressive values.

by lacker 7y ago

polski-g 7y ago

You are correct. The country is currently projected to be majority Amish by 2200.

xamuel 7y ago

Relevant article [1] and corresponding HN discussion thread [2] Daily reminder that in an evolutionary context, the last 200 years are the blink of an eye. I'll paste a comment I made there: "If an antibiotic doesn't wipe out its target, then its target's numbers will be devastated in the short-term, but in the long-term, its target will evolve immunity to the antibiotic and ultimately recover. If you think about it, contraceptives are extremely similar to an antibiotic whose target is human beings. We're still living in the short-term when the antibiotic seems to be effective." [1] "The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely in the foreseeable future" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513817302799#bb0180 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051381... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360626

namirez 7y ago
> If you think about it, contraceptives are extremely similar to an antibiotic whose target is human beings. We don't really know that. There are environmental stressors that lead a species to adapt; there are also stressors that cause a species to go extinct. I think time scales are really important here. Bacteria evolve much more rapidly than humans. But the rate of creating new antibiotics and contraceptives are probably in the same ballpark.
- xamuel 7y ago
  The newness of the contraceptives doesn't matter as long as they're still opt-in. No-one's suggesting humans will evolve condom-melting sperm. There's no need: a much easier trait to evolve is the desire to have kids.
  - raducu 7y ago
    But the "desire to have kids" is such and abstract and complex issue; nature already has it figured for us, we have the desire to have sex, to nurture and to like kids is secondary. It would be impossible for nature to evolve such a complex, conscious yet instinct-like feature as "I want to have kids for the sake of kids... right, where do I start... I need a fit SEXUAL partner(so that I have healthy kids)... but just to have kids... totaly not for the pleasure of sex ... economy be damned, I want kids... kids are extremly hard to raise by modern standards... scratch that... I need to have kids no matter what".
    - quotemstr 7y ago
      > It would be impossible for nature to evolve such a complex, conscious yet instinct-like feature as "I want to have kids for the sake of kids.. We have such an instinct now. Women (some men too, I guess) in their 30s frequently attest to a feeling that their "biological clock" is ticking and that they feel a yearning to have kids for the sake of having kids. This desire is probably still secondary to the raw sex drive in humanity, but evolution is great at taking secondary drives and turning them up to 11. Keep in mind also that evolution isn't necessarily genetic. Humanity's unique advantage is culture. We can change our "software" much faster than we can change our genetic "hardware". Some culture groups, e.g., the Mormons and the Amish, already have fertility rates very much above average. As long as fertility is heritable, it doesn't really matter whether the mechanism is genetics or culture: the future belongs to the people who reproduce.
      - raducu 7y ago
        Women have started having children throughout the aeons at a very early age. It is onĺy in the last 80.000 years that humans have made the conscious connection between sex and having children. Womens fertilty declines sharply in their 30' and it is through conscious understanding of that fact and imitation that they think "their biological clock is ticking"; they consciously understand that it is now or never, that all their friends have children and that their looks and chances of attracting mates are fading. Also, I'm willing to bet that people in the "my biological clock was ticking" camp have much, much lower birth rates than average(probably close to 1), which is an indicator rhat they actually felt pressured not to be childless rather than a genuine desire to have childreN. I absolutely agree with your culture argument, I am just claiming that modern culture will go extinct unless we incorporate higher birthrates into it, not that the human species will go extinct.
lallysingh 7y ago
Except that humans are using it on themselves voluntarily. Instead of 'evolve immunity', we could just stop using it.
- raducu 7y ago
  You mean volutarily stop doing it or banning contraceptives? If it's the first, there's absolutely no way that would happen, if it's the latter, what's next, we ban abortions, women working, force people to marry, we ban the pull out method, the calendar(I'm not trying to build a straw man here). A balanced and fair solution to the declining birth rates would be so complex that I'm convinced no human designed system would work; perhaps we could turn ourselves into a AI run perfect human zoo in the future, but as long as humans are in the decision loop I think it is impossible.
raducu 7y ago
But it's not the human species that's at risk(except for some world-ending catastrophe that we cause), it is the modern world ending that is at risk.

achillesheels 7y ago

I think you address a very salient point vis-a-vis birth control. There are many women who otherwise would be bounded to natural reproductive cycles that have created a never before seen phenomenon in society, and that is the childless self-sufficient woman. This leads to lower future-time orientation in the population since consumption is not compounding as fast as if it were directed towards progeny. Society becomes more self-serving as a necessary effect, with accompanying lower moral standards to boot, eg The Kardashian Effect.

Thorrez 7y ago

The US isn't the only place with decreasing fertility rate, the worldwide fertility rate is also decreasing. Look at the table on the right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

swagasaurus-rex 7y ago

You blame it in birth control, but I see it as a totally rational and emotional response to an unbelievably high cost of living. People can't afford kids. Not enough time, not enough income, even hiring help is out of most people's budget. People are being squeezed and the middle class is shrinking. No wonder they don't want kids whose lives will be worse than their own.

theworld572 7y ago
Sorry I'm going to be contrarian here but if "people can't afford kids", then why is it well established that poorer people have more kids while richer have fewer? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility). Answering my own question.. I think the reason people are having fewer kids is more to do with urbanisation and all the social and cultural changes that come with that.
- thewizardofaus 7y ago
  I surmise the following reasons: Poorer populations have less access to sex education. The government pays $850 a fortnight to a single mother, on top of a $5000 baby bonus and various other incentive schemes. Poor social classes see this as an easy means of money compared to working a "dead-end" job. Maybe they have kids to escape their reality. People cope in different ways; drugs, drinking etc. Maybe they desperately want to live through their kids.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    > Poorer populations have less access to sex education. This is likely an accurate thesis based on macro and micro studies. TLDR Education, empowerment (contraceptives), labor force participation = decline in fertility rate. Provide access to all of the above, fertility rate drops off. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... (Fertility Rate: What explains the change in the number of children women have?) Outside of Africa, there are only a handful of countries where the fertility rate is > replacement rate. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?time=1950..2015&country=OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tim...

raducu 7y ago

There's always the option that we will die off, that we are experiencing a great filter. Perhaps we have changed our environment in such a great way that it is impossible to avoid it? We have the(correct) climate change narrative that makes people think declining population is a good thing, instant communication and very rapid dissemination of information and tools which enable a "winner takes all" situation(which means 1% of the population has the means to comfortably raise 100 children, which they won't, while 99% can only raise 1.X children, which they are doing), birth control, anonymous and tolerant societies where it is ok to be childless(and it really is ok), pursuit of happiness(which was never a thing in human history), non-religiousness(all major religions value having children), long working hours, "good parenting"- which is a good thing for the children, but it makes raising children incredibly expensive in money and time, both of which most people don't have, the fall of monogamy, the ridiculous real estate prices, the rise of mental dissorders -- all of which lead to below replacement birth rates. Don't count on subgroups to save the day, their higher birth rates will plummet as soon as we hook them up to our values and we free them of their oppressive values.