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It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

jimbob45 4y ago
2.1 is the right value. That's replacement rate. Anything above is subject to healthy debate.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Replacement rate and “right” are not necessarily congruous. If you have the opinion that there are insufficient resources in the world to live the lifestyle you want for yourself or those you care about, you may think a lower fertility rate is more “right”. And if you think your tribe is in a competition for resources with all the other tribes, then you may want a higher fertility rate for your tribe and a lower one for the others.
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    Any less than 2.1 and you have to have an uncomfortable conversation about which nation is going to be the sacrifice. Any more and you have to worry about overpopulation. That said, I'm of the opinion that we'll never really need to have any tough conversations about birth rates because they've fallen so drastically across the board. It seems that it will be enough to universally encourage higher birth rates in every nation for the foreseeable future (with the expected outcome being that most will still struggle to hit 2.1).
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      I think there will be some interesting conversations, namely around women’s civil rights. Incentivizing a woman to have a baby is extremely expensive, and I do not think any country has come up with an offer so attractive such that it causes birth rates to go up. Which brings up 2 questions: how much does a society have to offer women, and would that society continue to be competitive on a global playing field relative to other countries that might go a different way, such as restricting women’s rights and getting birth rates up by removing women’s agency.
      - hgsgm 4y ago
        > getting birth rates up by removing women’s agency. The USA just did this.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        It definitely changed women’s agency. We are becoming more like the European Union in that sense.
    - blep_ 4y ago
      > Any less than 2.1 and you have to have an uncomfortable conversation about which nation is going to be the sacrifice. Only if you're the sort of person who cares about such things. I don't see any moral imperative to make sure any particular ethnicity or culture continues. Before someone calls me the usual assortment of bad things, please take a moment to consider (1) the difference between treating existing people well and making new people, and (2) that I mean this literally and not in the "all the cultures besides the US should go away" sense, and would still take this position even in the blatantly racist "but that means you'd be a minority" situation you're about to try to catch me with.
      - llanowarelves 4y ago
        Why is it racist to care if you're a minority? Current minorities care about it a quite a lot. Not only that -- they see a moral imperative that their particular ethnicities and culture exist. Are some groups "allowed" this, and not others? Of course the term minority/majority is relative to the scope you're talking about, too. The "majority" of Americans are global minorities.
        Elinvynia 4y ago
        So if I understand correctly, you are afraid of becoming a minority because you don't want to be treated like the current minorities? Mask off moment there.
        llanowarelves 4y ago
        No. You just dislike reciprocity
        blep_ 4y ago
        (2) was intended to proactively dismiss one specific attempted "gotcha" that I hear often in response to this view: people think I'm saying that it's okay for minority cultures specifically to die out, and that I would feel differently if it was American culture being overtaken as a result of high birth rates in some other country and low birth rates in the US. This is not what I am saying. I don't think American culture is special. > Are some groups "allowed" this, and not others? So no, my position is that no groups are "allowed" this. Another way I can express this, that may be more clear, is that a culture isn't a thing on its own. It's a description of the way its members live. Those members may be very attached to that way of life, and it is immoral to take it from them (see (1) above), but the question of whether new people start living in that way is morally neutral.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Who’s to say that the current world population is “best”? Maybe we’d be happier in aggregate if it shrank to a stable 5 billion people. Or maybe if it grew to 9 billion. The global optimum matters (IMO) more than an assumption of “whatever we have is just right”
finiteseries 4y ago
China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
- User23 4y ago
  Subsaharan Africa is going to keep human population growth going to at least ten billion persons by 2100[1], even with China[2] and the rest of the world's reduced population growth[3]. [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/947 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9... [2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/156 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/1... [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...
  - finiteseries 4y ago
    That isn’t the measure of growth people are worried about, tap Growth Rate on each of [1], [2], and [3]. Subsaharan Africa was completely bypassed by the Green Revolution and largely lacks access to basic infrastructure like eg consistent electricity (outside portable fuel powered generators) on the typical small, family, partly subsistence based farm. It’s not a solved problem with all the geographical and political issues, but it’s quite literally the world’s last frontier for trade.
  - sien 4y ago
    This is disputed : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02522-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02522-6 Population growth fell much faster than expected in many places such as Singapore and Iran. Today in Africa people have mobile phones and hence much better access to information on things like birth control. That Nature article shows that the population expected at 2100 has a realistic range from about 9 Bn to 11 Bn. That difference comes from slightly different assumptions about the change in birth rates in Africa and other places. From the article : "In 2014, a group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna produced its own forecast. It said that world population is most likely to peak at 9.4 billion around 2070 and will fall to 9 billion by the end of the century. The group’s numbers rose slightly in a 2018 report3 that projected a peak of about 9.8 billion around 2080; a subsequent update has population cresting at a little under 9.7 billion around 2070."
causasui 4y ago
If you trace this thread backwards to its root (by essentially responding to every answer with "so what?"), you end up with the question "would it a 'bad thing' if humanity were to become extinct?" Anecdotally, the vast majority of people I've met - from all walks of life and religious/political leanings - will answer this question with an unthinking "yes, of course that's bad". I've been curious lately why this is. From the standpoint of Christianity, isn't the end goal rapture followed by total extinction anyway? From the standpoint of agnosticism/atheism, wouldn't an extinction mean the end of human suffering? Why are we as a species so afraid of not being able to sustain ourselves through a constant churning of new births? Is it just our monkey brain ultimately calling the shots?
- sanxiyn 4y ago
  You are a monkey brain. It is not the case you should replace your monkey brain value system with some "better" value system. Or rather, if you choose to replace your monkey brain value system with some better value system, such choice can be made only under your monkey brain value system. Value-system-yet-to-be-adopted is not your value system yet (entire question is about whether it should be your value system) and can't be the basis of your choice. (Yes, humans often make mistakes here, but that's because humans are vulnerable to circular reasoning, not because circular reasoning is valid.)
- sokoloff 4y ago
  The end of human suffering also represents the end of the (IMO vastly greater) aggregated joy of being alive as a human.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    What's the point of aggregated joy if only a few select elites have it? Why even give birth to humans that are most likely not wanted in this world?
    - idlehand 4y ago
      I would say most children in Western nations are wanted by their parents. They're mostly just a cost economically speaking, so no incentive to have more than you want. I think most people can achieve happiness in their situation, even under bad conditions, if they have a sound mind. Those elites might have a better shot at accidental happiness, but being upset over that will do nothing good for your own state of mind, so why let it bring you down? You can't change how the world works. Happiness comes from within, and from meaningful social connections.
screye 4y ago
"More Kids (than 1st world countries are having is) Good" is generally true. Social security relies of the young bearing the burden of the old. Don't even get me started on the intangible energy of having little kids around. Not everyone wants kids, but most people like being a cool uncle/aunt. > What's the "right" value for TFR? Difficult problems exist in Grays. But even the most fervent believers on either side agree that the 'right number' is likely between and 1.5-2.5. With western TFR plummeting under 1.5, we can safely say the the call for 'more kids' is effectively a call for a slower decline in population; not 'more kids'. > carrying capacity Yep, that ecosystem is called the economy and the carry capacity is a lower bound, not an upper bound. Too few young people is the death knell of a civilization. Also, population explosion is presently led by Africa in rates, and South Asia in sheer numbers. A few dozen more/less westerners (who're we kidding? mostly white people) isn't going to change the numbers by much.
spullara 4y ago
Less than replacement means we go extinct eventually and while that is happening we don't have enough people to support those that leave the workforce as they age.
- trhway 4y ago
  Automation is the answer. Food, housing, medical care are the main things for the aged out for the society to take are about. Automation will solve food. Less people less housing needed. And the medical care productivity will be significantly improved by the automation. Currently growing population seems to still be an economically net-positive thing as we still need people in order to do new and bigger things. I think though that soon it will become net-negative as average person's total lifetime productivity will be losing to automation and you don't need 20+ years to start the robot up and 20+ years to take care about that robot once it got worn out. In that situation we'd better have less people yet more educated, trained etc. in order to be productive beyond what is replaceable by more and more automation.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Just like "more than replacement" doesn't necessarily lead to Malthusian apocalypse, "less than replacement" doesn't necessarily lead to extinction. We have a largish number of generations to change the birthrate before either happens.
scythe 4y ago
>What's the "right" value for TFR? Probably somewhere between 1.8 and 2.2. Rapid increases or declines in population create economic disruptions. Even if you favor a less (or more!) populated world, it's better for us to get there slowly.
Gatsky 4y ago
Well it's more that the aging demographics of current civillisation is unprecdented in human history... it's one of those 'experiments' we run on ourselves without much consent or thought. I like to use the example of the invention of the mirror. We take it for granted now, but being able to see and carefully examine your appearance in private multiple times a day has had a huge impact on many facets of human life, probably net negative I would say. How much anguish and folly has arisen from seeing only our surfaces in perfect detail? Narcissus had to look at his reflection in water, but the myth isn't even worth telling these days. The social, cultural and economic implications of an older population are very likely to be profound. A rapid demographic 'crunch' is not a good idea. One example is that nobody is quite sure how to keep funding socialised healthcare and support aged care in the face of a transition to an increasingly elderly and infirm population who don't earn income. We will see it playing it out initially between countries with older demographics (Italy, Japan) and younger demographics (India, African nations, even the USA is relatively young).

jimbob45 4y ago

2.1 is the right value. That's replacement rate. Anything above is subject to healthy debate.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Replacement rate and “right” are not necessarily congruous. If you have the opinion that there are insufficient resources in the world to live the lifestyle you want for yourself or those you care about, you may think a lower fertility rate is more “right”. And if you think your tribe is in a competition for resources with all the other tribes, then you may want a higher fertility rate for your tribe and a lower one for the others.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Any less than 2.1 and you have to have an uncomfortable conversation about which nation is going to be the sacrifice. Any more and you have to worry about overpopulation. That said, I'm of the opinion that we'll never really need to have any tough conversations about birth rates because they've fallen so drastically across the board. It seems that it will be enough to universally encourage higher birth rates in every nation for the foreseeable future (with the expected outcome being that most will still struggle to hit 2.1).
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I think there will be some interesting conversations, namely around women’s civil rights. Incentivizing a woman to have a baby is extremely expensive, and I do not think any country has come up with an offer so attractive such that it causes birth rates to go up. Which brings up 2 questions: how much does a society have to offer women, and would that society continue to be competitive on a global playing field relative to other countries that might go a different way, such as restricting women’s rights and getting birth rates up by removing women’s agency.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      > getting birth rates up by removing women’s agency. The USA just did this.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        It definitely changed women’s agency. We are becoming more like the European Union in that sense.
  - blep_ 4y ago
    > Any less than 2.1 and you have to have an uncomfortable conversation about which nation is going to be the sacrifice. Only if you're the sort of person who cares about such things. I don't see any moral imperative to make sure any particular ethnicity or culture continues. Before someone calls me the usual assortment of bad things, please take a moment to consider (1) the difference between treating existing people well and making new people, and (2) that I mean this literally and not in the "all the cultures besides the US should go away" sense, and would still take this position even in the blatantly racist "but that means you'd be a minority" situation you're about to try to catch me with.
    - llanowarelves 4y ago
      Why is it racist to care if you're a minority? Current minorities care about it a quite a lot. Not only that -- they see a moral imperative that their particular ethnicities and culture exist. Are some groups "allowed" this, and not others? Of course the term minority/majority is relative to the scope you're talking about, too. The "majority" of Americans are global minorities.
      - Elinvynia 4y ago
        So if I understand correctly, you are afraid of becoming a minority because you don't want to be treated like the current minorities? Mask off moment there.
        llanowarelves 4y ago
        No. You just dislike reciprocity
      - blep_ 4y ago
        (2) was intended to proactively dismiss one specific attempted "gotcha" that I hear often in response to this view: people think I'm saying that it's okay for minority cultures specifically to die out, and that I would feel differently if it was American culture being overtaken as a result of high birth rates in some other country and low birth rates in the US. This is not what I am saying. I don't think American culture is special. > Are some groups "allowed" this, and not others? So no, my position is that no groups are "allowed" this. Another way I can express this, that may be more clear, is that a culture isn't a thing on its own. It's a description of the way its members live. Those members may be very attached to that way of life, and it is immoral to take it from them (see (1) above), but the question of whether new people start living in that way is morally neutral.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Who’s to say that the current world population is “best”? Maybe we’d be happier in aggregate if it shrank to a stable 5 billion people. Or maybe if it grew to 9 billion. The global optimum matters (IMO) more than an assumption of “whatever we have is just right”

finiteseries 4y ago

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

User23 4y ago
Subsaharan Africa is going to keep human population growth going to at least ten billion persons by 2100[1], even with China[2] and the rest of the world's reduced population growth[3]. [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/947 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9... [2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/156 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/1... [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...
- finiteseries 4y ago
  That isn’t the measure of growth people are worried about, tap Growth Rate on each of [1], [2], and [3]. Subsaharan Africa was completely bypassed by the Green Revolution and largely lacks access to basic infrastructure like eg consistent electricity (outside portable fuel powered generators) on the typical small, family, partly subsistence based farm. It’s not a solved problem with all the geographical and political issues, but it’s quite literally the world’s last frontier for trade.
- sien 4y ago
  This is disputed : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02522-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02522-6 Population growth fell much faster than expected in many places such as Singapore and Iran. Today in Africa people have mobile phones and hence much better access to information on things like birth control. That Nature article shows that the population expected at 2100 has a realistic range from about 9 Bn to 11 Bn. That difference comes from slightly different assumptions about the change in birth rates in Africa and other places. From the article : "In 2014, a group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna produced its own forecast. It said that world population is most likely to peak at 9.4 billion around 2070 and will fall to 9 billion by the end of the century. The group’s numbers rose slightly in a 2018 report3 that projected a peak of about 9.8 billion around 2080; a subsequent update has population cresting at a little under 9.7 billion around 2070."

causasui 4y ago

If you trace this thread backwards to its root (by essentially responding to every answer with "so what?"), you end up with the question "would it a 'bad thing' if humanity were to become extinct?" Anecdotally, the vast majority of people I've met - from all walks of life and religious/political leanings - will answer this question with an unthinking "yes, of course that's bad". I've been curious lately why this is. From the standpoint of Christianity, isn't the end goal rapture followed by total extinction anyway? From the standpoint of agnosticism/atheism, wouldn't an extinction mean the end of human suffering? Why are we as a species so afraid of not being able to sustain ourselves through a constant churning of new births? Is it just our monkey brain ultimately calling the shots?

sanxiyn 4y ago
You are a monkey brain. It is not the case you should replace your monkey brain value system with some "better" value system. Or rather, if you choose to replace your monkey brain value system with some better value system, such choice can be made only under your monkey brain value system. Value-system-yet-to-be-adopted is not your value system yet (entire question is about whether it should be your value system) and can't be the basis of your choice. (Yes, humans often make mistakes here, but that's because humans are vulnerable to circular reasoning, not because circular reasoning is valid.)
sokoloff 4y ago
The end of human suffering also represents the end of the (IMO vastly greater) aggregated joy of being alive as a human.
- imtringued 4y ago
  What's the point of aggregated joy if only a few select elites have it? Why even give birth to humans that are most likely not wanted in this world?
  - idlehand 4y ago
    I would say most children in Western nations are wanted by their parents. They're mostly just a cost economically speaking, so no incentive to have more than you want. I think most people can achieve happiness in their situation, even under bad conditions, if they have a sound mind. Those elites might have a better shot at accidental happiness, but being upset over that will do nothing good for your own state of mind, so why let it bring you down? You can't change how the world works. Happiness comes from within, and from meaningful social connections.

screye 4y ago

"More Kids (than 1st world countries are having is) Good" is generally true. Social security relies of the young bearing the burden of the old. Don't even get me started on the intangible energy of having little kids around. Not everyone wants kids, but most people like being a cool uncle/aunt. > What's the "right" value for TFR? Difficult problems exist in Grays. But even the most fervent believers on either side agree that the 'right number' is likely between and 1.5-2.5. With western TFR plummeting under 1.5, we can safely say the the call for 'more kids' is effectively a call for a slower decline in population; not 'more kids'. > carrying capacity Yep, that ecosystem is called the economy and the carry capacity is a lower bound, not an upper bound. Too few young people is the death knell of a civilization. Also, population explosion is presently led by Africa in rates, and South Asia in sheer numbers. A few dozen more/less westerners (who're we kidding? mostly white people) isn't going to change the numbers by much.

spullara 4y ago

Less than replacement means we go extinct eventually and while that is happening we don't have enough people to support those that leave the workforce as they age.

trhway 4y ago
Automation is the answer. Food, housing, medical care are the main things for the aged out for the society to take are about. Automation will solve food. Less people less housing needed. And the medical care productivity will be significantly improved by the automation. Currently growing population seems to still be an economically net-positive thing as we still need people in order to do new and bigger things. I think though that soon it will become net-negative as average person's total lifetime productivity will be losing to automation and you don't need 20+ years to start the robot up and 20+ years to take care about that robot once it got worn out. In that situation we'd better have less people yet more educated, trained etc. in order to be productive beyond what is replaceable by more and more automation.
adrianN 4y ago
Just like "more than replacement" doesn't necessarily lead to Malthusian apocalypse, "less than replacement" doesn't necessarily lead to extinction. We have a largish number of generations to change the birthrate before either happens.

scythe 4y ago

>What's the "right" value for TFR? Probably somewhere between 1.8 and 2.2. Rapid increases or declines in population create economic disruptions. Even if you favor a less (or more!) populated world, it's better for us to get there slowly.

Gatsky 4y ago

Well it's more that the aging demographics of current civillisation is unprecdented in human history... it's one of those 'experiments' we run on ourselves without much consent or thought. I like to use the example of the invention of the mirror. We take it for granted now, but being able to see and carefully examine your appearance in private multiple times a day has had a huge impact on many facets of human life, probably net negative I would say. How much anguish and folly has arisen from seeing only our surfaces in perfect detail? Narcissus had to look at his reflection in water, but the myth isn't even worth telling these days. The social, cultural and economic implications of an older population are very likely to be profound. A rapid demographic 'crunch' is not a good idea. One example is that nobody is quite sure how to keep funding socialised healthcare and support aged care in the face of a transition to an increasingly elderly and infirm population who don't earn income. We will see it playing it out initially between countries with older demographics (Italy, Japan) and younger demographics (India, African nations, even the USA is relatively young).