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> what if people have fewer children simply because they want to > The whole tone of discussions about low birth rates always contains this implicit assumption

> what if people have fewer children simply because they want to > The whole tone of discussions about low birth rates always contains this implicit assumption that there's anything wrong with it First, only certain societies have only recently arrived at a value that there is nothing wrong with having more kids. Traditionally, having babies and raising them was considered to be of utmost importance. Second, it still is of utmost importance given how our societies are structured. You want to work until your 60's, then retire and live until mid-80's? Fine. But who is going to work/pay for your food, entertainment, healthcare, security and general societal infrastructure? All those things need humans which you are not going to raise. So "developed" societies seem to convince themselves that there is nothing wrong with not having babies, while at the same time utterly reliant on "underdeveloped" societies to import people from. > investing more resources in fewer kids is what pays off How do you plan to balance Social Security and budget with fewer people working?

Barrin92 6y ago
I think the most straight-forward answer is that the working age needs to be raised, budgets need to be balanced, people need to be self-reliant and responsible for their own future, and if all else fails we have a safety net. I don't actually think that retiring at 60 is reasonable in a society like this, but I also don't think this is a huge problem because many people don't want to retire that early, myself included. In a society with fewer kids we'll need to plan ahead more, but we also are much more productive, so I don't see this as a problem, and most importantly not in conflict with liberalism. Subjecting personal choice about how many kids to have to welfare debates or population planning to me is the opposite of liberalism if anything.
tom_mellior 6y ago
I hate this narrative of "a pyramid scheme was set up by people who were bad at math and/or knew they would be dead before the consequences hit; now you must produce babies to feed the monster they created". There are so many other ways of stabilizing retirement systems. If by "Social Security" you specifically mean the US system, there is this interesting fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#Ways_to_eliminate_the_projected_shortfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States... "If workers and employers each paid 7.6% (up from today's 6.2%), it would eliminate the financing gap altogether." (Also, the payroll ceiling is ridiculously low, and why does it even exist anyway?)
- gruez 6y ago
  >(Also, the payroll ceiling is ridiculously low, and why does it even exist anyway?) Political support. Currently social security is framed as a forced retirement plan. You pay into it while you're working and once you're retired, your payout is roughly proportional to what you've paid in. If you change it to something resembling transfer payments (ie. what you put in is unlimited but what you get back is fixed) republican support will evaporate.
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  Social security's solvency depends on a continuous flow of immigrants to the US, which proves my point. Also, that is one aspect. There are multiple others where US depends heavily on immigrant labor (eg. agriculture industry heavily dependent on illegal immigrants). You also need young workers for other functions of the society. If everyone decides not to have babies, then societies have a very precarious future.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    > Social security's solvency depends on a continuous flow of immigrants to the US If social security depends on a continuous stream of new suckers who pay into the system, then by definition it is a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are inherently broken. Births and immigration can prop the system up for now, but the longer we do that the more painful the inevitable crash will be. (Painful for the new suckers, of course. Not "our" problem!) The only way to fix this is to move away from a system that assumes that exponential growth forever is possible on a finite Earth. If I founded a financial services company offering a retirement fund advertised as "pay in a little, get more out, and don't worry about how that can work as long as we can get new suckers to pay out those who came first", I would be in prison in no time. Rightly so. Let's not pretend that governments can make this work. I'm about as governments friendly as they come, but math says no.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      I mean, this is why we’ve gone from defined benefit to defined contribution. The problem is that we kind of foisted retirement planning onto individuals without some prerequisite level of financial security, so now you have people working into their old age because their math didn’t work out in the end.
airhead969 6y ago
Yeah. If someone doesn't have kids, they're basically dying alone in terrible conditions or even homeless when they get dementia. If someone is an only child and doesn't have kids, their genes and their family dies with them. In all honesty, to me, someone who doesn't want kids is inherently signaling that they're a loser in the game of life. All of the dumb people will have a million kids and displace them if they do that, Idiocracy-style.
- EliRivers 6y ago
  In all honesty, to me, someone who doesn't want kids is inherently signaling that they're a loser in the game of life. So what do the winners of that game win? If the prize of winning the game of life is that your death will be less horrible, well... what fucking awful prizes this game has.
- orhmeh09 6y ago
  This is a game to you? Who wins? What’s the prize?
- imtringued 6y ago
  You already lost the moment you are born.
- epakai 6y ago
  Why are offspring the only worthwhile outcome of having lived a life? To me it's not particularly important whose genes get propagated. I just want to see humanity improve and produce great outcomes. Sure it is an OK method to try to have offspring with my own values, but it's not the only way I can contribute.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    > I just want to see humanity improve and produce great outcomes. That kinda requires that the most intelligent people do not remove themselves from the genetic pool en masse. (So far, people who are highly intelligent and also highly religious seem to prevent that outcome.)
- 6y ago

Barrin92 6y ago

I think the most straight-forward answer is that the working age needs to be raised, budgets need to be balanced, people need to be self-reliant and responsible for their own future, and if all else fails we have a safety net. I don't actually think that retiring at 60 is reasonable in a society like this, but I also don't think this is a huge problem because many people don't want to retire that early, myself included. In a society with fewer kids we'll need to plan ahead more, but we also are much more productive, so I don't see this as a problem, and most importantly not in conflict with liberalism. Subjecting personal choice about how many kids to have to welfare debates or population planning to me is the opposite of liberalism if anything.

tom_mellior 6y ago

I hate this narrative of "a pyramid scheme was set up by people who were bad at math and/or knew they would be dead before the consequences hit; now you must produce babies to feed the monster they created". There are so many other ways of stabilizing retirement systems. If by "Social Security" you specifically mean the US system, there is this interesting fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#Ways_to_eliminate_the_projected_shortfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States... "If workers and employers each paid 7.6% (up from today's 6.2%), it would eliminate the financing gap altogether." (Also, the payroll ceiling is ridiculously low, and why does it even exist anyway?)

gruez 6y ago
>(Also, the payroll ceiling is ridiculously low, and why does it even exist anyway?) Political support. Currently social security is framed as a forced retirement plan. You pay into it while you're working and once you're retired, your payout is roughly proportional to what you've paid in. If you change it to something resembling transfer payments (ie. what you put in is unlimited but what you get back is fixed) republican support will evaporate.
RestlessMind 6y ago
Social security's solvency depends on a continuous flow of immigrants to the US, which proves my point. Also, that is one aspect. There are multiple others where US depends heavily on immigrant labor (eg. agriculture industry heavily dependent on illegal immigrants). You also need young workers for other functions of the society. If everyone decides not to have babies, then societies have a very precarious future.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  > Social security's solvency depends on a continuous flow of immigrants to the US If social security depends on a continuous stream of new suckers who pay into the system, then by definition it is a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are inherently broken. Births and immigration can prop the system up for now, but the longer we do that the more painful the inevitable crash will be. (Painful for the new suckers, of course. Not "our" problem!) The only way to fix this is to move away from a system that assumes that exponential growth forever is possible on a finite Earth. If I founded a financial services company offering a retirement fund advertised as "pay in a little, get more out, and don't worry about how that can work as long as we can get new suckers to pay out those who came first", I would be in prison in no time. Rightly so. Let's not pretend that governments can make this work. I'm about as governments friendly as they come, but math says no.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    I mean, this is why we’ve gone from defined benefit to defined contribution. The problem is that we kind of foisted retirement planning onto individuals without some prerequisite level of financial security, so now you have people working into their old age because their math didn’t work out in the end.

airhead969 6y ago

Yeah. If someone doesn't have kids, they're basically dying alone in terrible conditions or even homeless when they get dementia. If someone is an only child and doesn't have kids, their genes and their family dies with them. In all honesty, to me, someone who doesn't want kids is inherently signaling that they're a loser in the game of life. All of the dumb people will have a million kids and displace them if they do that, Idiocracy-style.

EliRivers 6y ago
In all honesty, to me, someone who doesn't want kids is inherently signaling that they're a loser in the game of life. So what do the winners of that game win? If the prize of winning the game of life is that your death will be less horrible, well... what fucking awful prizes this game has.
orhmeh09 6y ago
This is a game to you? Who wins? What’s the prize?
imtringued 6y ago
You already lost the moment you are born.
epakai 6y ago
Why are offspring the only worthwhile outcome of having lived a life? To me it's not particularly important whose genes get propagated. I just want to see humanity improve and produce great outcomes. Sure it is an OK method to try to have offspring with my own values, but it's not the only way I can contribute.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > I just want to see humanity improve and produce great outcomes. That kinda requires that the most intelligent people do not remove themselves from the genetic pool en masse. (So far, people who are highly intelligent and also highly religious seem to prevent that outcome.)
6y ago