6 ms·

> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to

by shock 6y ago

> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. I don't think the quotes around 'choosing' are valid. Having children is a choice, especially in today's age when contraceptive measures abound, and trying to paint it like it's not really a choice is disingenuous. Next, we're gonna have people argue that getting a loan to buy a house is not in fact a personal choice, because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have a place to live in in order for society to survive.

rayiner 6y ago
At an individual level, it's a choice. At the societal level, it's not. You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. That's true more or less however you slice it--even if you take lots of immigrants, those immigrants are going to have to have kids (or you're externalizing the cost of child raising onto other societies). This is a hard scientific limit that you're not going to get around. From the perspective of analyzing society, therefore, treating having children as a choice is unworkable. If your societal design doesn't accommodate 2.1 kids per person, its useless. It's like designing an electric car that can't be recharged. Nobody cares what other characteristics it has.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  I just want to say, thanks for your posts in here. You're making excellent points. I don't even need to respond to this guy's comment personally because you've handled it so well here.
- shock 6y ago
  > You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. I don't understand this statement. Is it 2.1 kids per person or per family/couple? Has society collapsed in countries where the average is below the 2.1 figure you are quoting? If you are talking about the extinction of the human race and not societal collapse, then I don't buy for a second the argument that someone choosing whether to have children or not is making the choice based on the "human race extinction" factor. When making choices, most humans could care less for their 2-days-in-the-future-self, nevermind caring for the human race.
  - satyrnein 6y ago
    Replacement rate is usually described as 2.1 children per woman. Basically every 2 person couple needs to have 2.1 kids, because some die of accidents, etc. Going below that doesn't cause instant societal collapse, but if you look at Japan for example, they now consume more adult diapers than baby diapers, which will not be good for the viability of their pensions, etc. I personally decided that I did feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race, and that nothing else I would likely do could ever rival that in terms of lasting consequence. And folks who are interested in making it harder for parents or harder for children because they feel like families get too much slack or something, they are de facto aligned against the mission of continuing the human race, and I hope they change their minds over time.
    - shock 6y ago
      > I personally decided that I did feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race I also feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race, but I don't pretend that I didn't make a choice, that somehow there was no other real option for me to choose.
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        You really aren't understanding that we are talking about societal choices writ large, not about individual choices. Think bigger. If enough people make the individual choice not to have children then civilization is kaput.
        shock 6y ago
        I understand that when enough people do not have children the human race will disappear. Civilization might disappear before then. I'm not talking about that. I'm also not talking about people having children or not. I'm arguing for people to assume responsibility for their choices(whatever the choice may be) and to not go "Oh, I really didn't have a choice in the matter". I especially dislike it when people present their choice as a sacrifice for humanity. Another poster put it better: > People can have children without congratulating themselves for a sacrifice well delivered ... Kinship for species only extends so far and not much at all when there is parental entitlement.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Where does this 2.1 number come from? [..] The single most important factor in population growth is the total fertility rate (TFR). If, on average, women give birth to 2.1 children and these children survive to the age of 15, any given woman will have replaced herself and her partner upon death. A TFR of 2.1 is known as the replacement rate.[..] In other words, if a woman has 2.1 children, she can replace herself and her partner. Even halving this number will not result in ‘the disappearance of society’. There will be a dip in population. Which is actually desirable because we are at 8 billion and our resources are fast depleting as we are in the midst of the sixth extinction event. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility [..] Sub-replacement fertility does not automatically translate into a population decline because of increasing life expectancy and population momentum: recently high fertility rates produce a disproportionately young population, and younger populations have higher birth rates. This is why some nations with sub-replacement fertility still have a growing population, because a relatively large fraction of their population are still of child-bearing age. But if the fertility trend is sustained (and not compensated by immigration), it results in population ageing and/or population decline. This is already happening and impacts first most of the countries of Europe and East Asia.[..] [..] Some governments, fearful of a future pensions crisis, have developed natalist policies to attempt to encourage more women to have children. Measures include increasing tax allowances for working parents, improving child-care provision, reducing working hours/weekend working in female-dominated professions such as healthcare and a stricter enforcement of anti-discrimination measures to prevent professional women's promotion prospects being hindered when they take time off work to care for children. Over recent years, the fertility rate has increased to around 2.0 in France and 1.9 in Britain and some other northern European countries, but the role of population policies in these trends is debated.[52] In Italy, for example, natalist policies may have actually discouraged the Italian population from having more children. This "widespread resistance" was the result of the Italian government, at one point,[when?] taxing single persons and criminalizing abortion and even contraception.[53][..] As a female, I am disgusted by how women’s bodies and reproductive ability is being commoditised. Natalist economic policies are akin to forcing them into flesh trade. And then there is religion. I don’t want to risk a aneurysm and will refrain from that commentary.
pixl97 6y ago
>we're gonna have people argue that getting a loan to buy a house is not in fact a personal choice And they would be right. Tell me what percent of the population can buy a house without a loan? And if you dare say rent, that is just a loan by proxy. Your ideals don't seem to be in line with how our reality currently works.
- shock 6y ago
  > Tell me what percent of the population can buy a house without a loan? Maybe we should not all buy houses. After all, at the moment of out birth nobody decreed "This person is a house buyer". Maybe some of us should build our houses, which will almost certainly come out cheaper than buying. This is another choice we can make. Maybe one can buy a house in another area without getting a loan. This is another choice. Acting like someone else is forcing our choices on us I think it's ultimately self defeating. Another thing to consider is that using the banks' money to buy houses inflates the price of the houses similarly to that happened to college tuition.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    I have to say you really don't have much experience with any of this. Have you ever built a house? I have, and it's a lot of work. And it's still a massive amount of money. Loans do increase costs in asset inflation. At the same time they increase home ownership. Also it's not the same thing as college tuition. Bankruptcy is an option on home loans.
    - shock 6y ago
      > Have you ever built a house? I have, and it's a lot of work. Is work bad, somehow? Should one get a house without work, simply because one wants a house?
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        The philosophy you're arguing for is a cruel one, very much "everyone for themselves". It's a good thing most people in society don't believe in it, and do in fact think it's a good idea to help everyone out and provide some basic minimum standard of living. You should read about the veil of ignorance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

by shock 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

At an individual level, it's a choice. At the societal level, it's not. You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. That's true more or less however you slice it--even if you take lots of immigrants, those immigrants are going to have to have kids (or you're externalizing the cost of child raising onto other societies). This is a hard scientific limit that you're not going to get around. From the perspective of analyzing society, therefore, treating having children as a choice is unworkable. If your societal design doesn't accommodate 2.1 kids per person, its useless. It's like designing an electric car that can't be recharged. Nobody cares what other characteristics it has.

CydeWeys 6y ago
I just want to say, thanks for your posts in here. You're making excellent points. I don't even need to respond to this guy's comment personally because you've handled it so well here.
shock 6y ago
> You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. I don't understand this statement. Is it 2.1 kids per person or per family/couple? Has society collapsed in countries where the average is below the 2.1 figure you are quoting? If you are talking about the extinction of the human race and not societal collapse, then I don't buy for a second the argument that someone choosing whether to have children or not is making the choice based on the "human race extinction" factor. When making choices, most humans could care less for their 2-days-in-the-future-self, nevermind caring for the human race.
- satyrnein 6y ago
  Replacement rate is usually described as 2.1 children per woman. Basically every 2 person couple needs to have 2.1 kids, because some die of accidents, etc. Going below that doesn't cause instant societal collapse, but if you look at Japan for example, they now consume more adult diapers than baby diapers, which will not be good for the viability of their pensions, etc. I personally decided that I did feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race, and that nothing else I would likely do could ever rival that in terms of lasting consequence. And folks who are interested in making it harder for parents or harder for children because they feel like families get too much slack or something, they are de facto aligned against the mission of continuing the human race, and I hope they change their minds over time.
  - shock 6y ago
    > I personally decided that I did feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race I also feel a duty to do my part to continue the human race, but I don't pretend that I didn't make a choice, that somehow there was no other real option for me to choose.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      You really aren't understanding that we are talking about societal choices writ large, not about individual choices. Think bigger. If enough people make the individual choice not to have children then civilization is kaput.
      - shock 6y ago
        I understand that when enough people do not have children the human race will disappear. Civilization might disappear before then. I'm not talking about that. I'm also not talking about people having children or not. I'm arguing for people to assume responsibility for their choices(whatever the choice may be) and to not go "Oh, I really didn't have a choice in the matter". I especially dislike it when people present their choice as a sacrifice for humanity. Another poster put it better: > People can have children without congratulating themselves for a sacrifice well delivered ... Kinship for species only extends so far and not much at all when there is parental entitlement.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Where does this 2.1 number come from? [..] The single most important factor in population growth is the total fertility rate (TFR). If, on average, women give birth to 2.1 children and these children survive to the age of 15, any given woman will have replaced herself and her partner upon death. A TFR of 2.1 is known as the replacement rate.[..] In other words, if a woman has 2.1 children, she can replace herself and her partner. Even halving this number will not result in ‘the disappearance of society’. There will be a dip in population. Which is actually desirable because we are at 8 billion and our resources are fast depleting as we are in the midst of the sixth extinction event. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility [..] Sub-replacement fertility does not automatically translate into a population decline because of increasing life expectancy and population momentum: recently high fertility rates produce a disproportionately young population, and younger populations have higher birth rates. This is why some nations with sub-replacement fertility still have a growing population, because a relatively large fraction of their population are still of child-bearing age. But if the fertility trend is sustained (and not compensated by immigration), it results in population ageing and/or population decline. This is already happening and impacts first most of the countries of Europe and East Asia.[..] [..] Some governments, fearful of a future pensions crisis, have developed natalist policies to attempt to encourage more women to have children. Measures include increasing tax allowances for working parents, improving child-care provision, reducing working hours/weekend working in female-dominated professions such as healthcare and a stricter enforcement of anti-discrimination measures to prevent professional women's promotion prospects being hindered when they take time off work to care for children. Over recent years, the fertility rate has increased to around 2.0 in France and 1.9 in Britain and some other northern European countries, but the role of population policies in these trends is debated.[52] In Italy, for example, natalist policies may have actually discouraged the Italian population from having more children. This "widespread resistance" was the result of the Italian government, at one point,[when?] taxing single persons and criminalizing abortion and even contraception.[53][..] As a female, I am disgusted by how women’s bodies and reproductive ability is being commoditised. Natalist economic policies are akin to forcing them into flesh trade. And then there is religion. I don’t want to risk a aneurysm and will refrain from that commentary.

pixl97 6y ago

>we're gonna have people argue that getting a loan to buy a house is not in fact a personal choice And they would be right. Tell me what percent of the population can buy a house without a loan? And if you dare say rent, that is just a loan by proxy. Your ideals don't seem to be in line with how our reality currently works.

shock 6y ago
> Tell me what percent of the population can buy a house without a loan? Maybe we should not all buy houses. After all, at the moment of out birth nobody decreed "This person is a house buyer". Maybe some of us should build our houses, which will almost certainly come out cheaper than buying. This is another choice we can make. Maybe one can buy a house in another area without getting a loan. This is another choice. Acting like someone else is forcing our choices on us I think it's ultimately self defeating. Another thing to consider is that using the banks' money to buy houses inflates the price of the houses similarly to that happened to college tuition.
- pixl97 6y ago
  I have to say you really don't have much experience with any of this. Have you ever built a house? I have, and it's a lot of work. And it's still a massive amount of money. Loans do increase costs in asset inflation. At the same time they increase home ownership. Also it's not the same thing as college tuition. Bankruptcy is an option on home loans.
  - shock 6y ago
    > Have you ever built a house? I have, and it's a lot of work. Is work bad, somehow? Should one get a house without work, simply because one wants a house?
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      The philosophy you're arguing for is a cruel one, very much "everyone for themselves". It's a good thing most people in society don't believe in it, and do in fact think it's a good idea to help everyone out and provide some basic minimum standard of living. You should read about the veil of ignorance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance