5 ms·

The artificial womb will be the great invention of whatever century. It's not a false dichotomy for women who practically get ripped in half and are never quite

by Grakel 6y ago

The artificial womb will be the great invention of whatever century. It's not a false dichotomy for women who practically get ripped in half and are never quite the same again, but are expected to stay fit. Of course birth rates go down as women start to get treated like people.

raducu 6y ago
I'm sure that's a minor reason why people don't have kids. The main reasons are economical in nature.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I always worry about pregnancy if I'd have a kid. Not only could you get a kid with a disability, your SO could be injured or die too. Not to mention post-partum. I knew of a woman whose sister gave birth and something happened where the birth cause a brain hemorrhage in her and she basically became a quadriplegic. Not only is it devastating for everyone involved, but essentially as the father, you're now a caregiver for two people. How the hell would you work a full time job, take care of a newborn AND your now paralyzed SO? Pregnancy is a real scary dice roll that you just hope luck stays on your side all 9 months.
  - raducu 6y ago
    As an anxious person myself, I feel you so much. And I know or heard of people in my immediate circle with serious health issues in children, it's heart breaking. It almost feels like, people in the past just didn't know of all these risks and they just went with the flow, but knowing about all these issues, as an anxious person, certainly doesn't help one bit.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
      Part of me believes that it could've stemmed from people birthing at younger ages though. Since most women appear to be having children at older ages as well as men being older when they finally conceive, that could cause many of the issues as well.
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  Mainly economics, although it has some relation to what the parent post is talking about. Unfortunately the sexual revolution happened in the US about the same time when labor unions got fucked, labor power got diminished due to globalization/deindustrialization/automation, and people started be compensated less dollars per productivity. In an ideal world where Keyne's prediction was right, we (both genders) would work only 15 hours a week due to technological advancement and spend the rest on taking care of famliy and community (including special considerations for women on pregnancy), but it seems that these lower-working-hour dreams haven't come true. But then there's an even more insidious cultural part of neoliberalism: for an increasing number of people you're not just supposed to just do your job, you have to indulge in it to prove your self-worth to the boss, you need to advance and maintain your "career", and have to race to the bottom to get a clutch on getting a chance of moving up the social ladder (or else you're going to work at a call center or increasingly precarious part-time gig jobs). Kids are just a liability in this hyper-competitive world; no wonder why women aren't going to have kids, when every aspect of society is telling you (in indirect ways) not to. Agree that the artificial womb is an undererstimated milestone technology that will radically change the world. But such a technological solution isn't a perfect solution for low birth rates if you take care of the fact that you still need to take care of the kids born out of these artificial wombs (even though it could radically improve women's lives).

by Grakel 6y ago

raducu 6y ago

I'm sure that's a minor reason why people don't have kids. The main reasons are economical in nature.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I always worry about pregnancy if I'd have a kid. Not only could you get a kid with a disability, your SO could be injured or die too. Not to mention post-partum. I knew of a woman whose sister gave birth and something happened where the birth cause a brain hemorrhage in her and she basically became a quadriplegic. Not only is it devastating for everyone involved, but essentially as the father, you're now a caregiver for two people. How the hell would you work a full time job, take care of a newborn AND your now paralyzed SO? Pregnancy is a real scary dice roll that you just hope luck stays on your side all 9 months.
- raducu 6y ago
  As an anxious person myself, I feel you so much. And I know or heard of people in my immediate circle with serious health issues in children, it's heart breaking. It almost feels like, people in the past just didn't know of all these risks and they just went with the flow, but knowing about all these issues, as an anxious person, certainly doesn't help one bit.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    Part of me believes that it could've stemmed from people birthing at younger ages though. Since most women appear to be having children at older ages as well as men being older when they finally conceive, that could cause many of the issues as well.
lasagnaphil 6y ago
Mainly economics, although it has some relation to what the parent post is talking about. Unfortunately the sexual revolution happened in the US about the same time when labor unions got fucked, labor power got diminished due to globalization/deindustrialization/automation, and people started be compensated less dollars per productivity. In an ideal world where Keyne's prediction was right, we (both genders) would work only 15 hours a week due to technological advancement and spend the rest on taking care of famliy and community (including special considerations for women on pregnancy), but it seems that these lower-working-hour dreams haven't come true. But then there's an even more insidious cultural part of neoliberalism: for an increasing number of people you're not just supposed to just do your job, you have to indulge in it to prove your self-worth to the boss, you need to advance and maintain your "career", and have to race to the bottom to get a clutch on getting a chance of moving up the social ladder (or else you're going to work at a call center or increasingly precarious part-time gig jobs). Kids are just a liability in this hyper-competitive world; no wonder why women aren't going to have kids, when every aspect of society is telling you (in indirect ways) not to. Agree that the artificial womb is an undererstimated milestone technology that will radically change the world. But such a technological solution isn't a perfect solution for low birth rates if you take care of the fact that you still need to take care of the kids born out of these artificial wombs (even though it could radically improve women's lives).