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I posted about this before and one commenter said something that stayed with me. Something along the lines of if all the people that feared having children due

I posted about this before and one commenter said something that stayed with me. Something along the lines of if all the people that feared having children due to climate change didn't have children, the only people having children would be those who had no fear of climate change. This would obviously affect the overall perspective of those in our society and skew them toward non-believers who don't push toward action on climate change. Kurzgesagt has a great video that touches on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

Konnstann 3y ago
That's been the trend regardless of what metric you choose, people with higher income have fewer children, more educated people have fewer children, etc.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Rich Americans have more kids than average Americans. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12148 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12148
  - Konnstann 3y ago
    The data reported by that study doesn't even support the hypothesis, both the hybrid and adjusted fertility rates of women with <12 and 12 years of schooling are shown to still be higher than those of women with college and advanced degrees. Unless I'm misinterpreting something all this suggests is that there's a partial reversal, not an upheaval, of one of the most widely studied trends in fertility worldwide. The study does point out that childcare costs have outstripped wages of women with a high school diploma or less education though, which is alarming.
- biomcgary 3y ago
  If idiocracy (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) ever happens (or has already happened ;-), it is primarily because of the "smart" set doing exactly this. I was shocked at how few of the students in my evolutionary biology graduate program were planning to have kids. Having two kids or less is the definition of unfit parents (unless you are propagating clonally).
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Given the tech already exists for genetic screening, IVF, cloning, etc., if that scenario ever looks like[0] a real risk I'm sure we'd very quickly rehabilitate the whole "eugenics" brand. [0] Perception is everything: It's very very easy to ignore the uncomfortable bits of history, no matter how important the lesson
    - reducesuffering 3y ago
      It's possible that if a current 100 IQ society doesn't notice the trend, then future 90 IQ won't notice the ever worsening, nor will the next 80 IQ...
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Eugenics is still plenty popular to the American philosophy, just under the hood. Plenty of racism is rooted in bad ~breeding stock~ "culture"
  - mihaic 3y ago
    The fact that this is being downvoted might be because it hits a bit too close to home for a few people here?
  - salawat 3y ago
    Counterpoint: Humanity has to cope with these little things called ethics, morality, and empathy. While it may be the definition of evolutionary "unfitness" in the scientific sense, the ability to exercise foresight, to predict the suffering coming from one's behavior, being averse to bringing a life into the world without having a reasonable answer to the issues you can reasonably forsee, and having the will to act on said understanding are all socially desirable traits that also fly in the face of natural selection. In a conflict over livability and finite resources unrestrained growth is a losing game for everyone, guaranteed. The only variable is when.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> if all the people that feared having children due to climate change didn't have children, the only people having children would be those who had no fear of climate change How correlated are the climate views of the parent and child correlated in the West? (I’m also sceptical the real reason isn’t economic insecurity.)
- achates 3y ago
  Political opinions are moderately heritable in general, not sure about CC specifically.
  - wrycoder 3y ago
    If you have children.
zmgsabst 3y ago
[flagged]
- 1270018080 3y ago
  Doing things to help other people isn't the collapse of society and the modern incarnation of evil.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    I didn’t describe “doing things to help other people” in general, but particular pathologies disguised as those. There are many pathologies that pose as “doing good things” — and I think it’s interesting that you didn’t respond to my particular examples, but a strawman.
BobbyJo 3y ago
Long term, I don't think this will matter though. If your house is underwater, your farm stops surviving winter, or your heating/cooling costs become untenable, you'll be force to change how you live regardless of what you believe.
- 1270018080 3y ago
  That's happening right now though, and people are still fervently climate change deniers. When it comes to conspiracy theories or cults, no amount of evidence or rational thinking is going to change someone's mind. It's not a tool they use to perceive the world.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Indeed. People who will believe anything instead of facing change will just get MORE ANGRY as that reality forces it's way into their life. They will hit back harder, become more radical, and be willing to push for harsher measures against whatever scapegoat they have found.
  - aapl88889 3y ago
    Which coastlines are burying houses underwater?
    - undersuit 3y ago
      What if your house wasn't buried... but the increased sea levels have made your pacific island inhabitable? How much water and food can you afford to ship to your perfectly safe home?
      - revelio 3y ago
        What if pacific islands aren't actually sinking? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5 ha (2.9%), despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls. Note how dishonest the scientists are. Their abstract starts by saying "Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations" before getting to the part just quoted where they admit their data says the islands are getting bigger. This kind of brazen dishonesty is pervasive throughout modern academic science. It's not just the "lab leaks are impossible" crowd, you see it in many fields. Data tables don't match summaries which don't match abstracts which don't match IPCC reports which don't press releases which don't match TV news. Here, climatologists used picturesque Pacific islands to motivate major social changes without even bothering to measure whether their claims were true or not up until very recently. And when they did, and discovered the claims were not true, this fact was promptly buried and given no coverage. The misinformation gets repeated - which isn't your fault. After all, how were you to know?
matsemann 3y ago
Almost the premise of the movie Idiocracy.
refurb 3y ago
That assumes that beliefs are genetically passed down. They aren't.
- willio58 3y ago
  Of course beliefs aren't passed down genetically, but they are likely to be passed down through a parent raising a child. It happens with adopted children too. For example, if both of your parents are Republicans, you are much more likely to be a Republican than if both of your parents were Democrats.
  - refurb 3y ago
    For example, if both of your parents are Republicans, you are much more likely to be a Republican than if both of your parents were Democrats. Source? It seems to me that kids tend to rebel against their parents beliefs whatever they are. Conservative parents end up with liberal kids and vice versa. That's just how kids are. How many teenagers do you know who say "Yeah, my parents are right about almost everything!"
foobiekr 3y ago
A friend with similar opinions worries that the Quiverfull movement will result in Christian nationalists taking over. Me, I like to think that obsessive natalism will result in the Moties from "The Mote in God's Eye."
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Turns out "regular" american Christianity didn't need an excuse to push for Christofacist nationalism. It's attempting to take hold literally right now.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  > A friend with similar opinions worries that the Quiverfull movement will result in Christian nationalists taking over. I'm less worried about that, because I grew up in that subculture - my parents were early adopters, before the label had been coined - and the extreme religious belief doesn't really stick. So far as I am aware, none of the kids in my cohort have followed in our parents' footsteps. Many of us abandoned religion entirely, and those who kept with it have found more conventional expressions; none of us have gone on to raise enormous families of our own. It makes sense, when you consider why people are drawn to join extreme religious movements in the first place; of course the kids they raise are going to have a very different experience and perspective on life, and they're likely to go looking for what they need in a different direction.
tzs 3y ago
> This would obviously affect the overall perspective of those in our society and skew them toward non-believers who don't push toward action on climate change. That's not at all obvious. Children are expensive to have and raise, both in money and time. That gives those without children an advantage when it comes to accumulating power and wealth and influence. That might be enough to counter the influence of the parents, especially if kids continue to be heavily influenced by social media.
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]

Konnstann 3y ago

That's been the trend regardless of what metric you choose, people with higher income have fewer children, more educated people have fewer children, etc.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Rich Americans have more kids than average Americans. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12148 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12148
- Konnstann 3y ago
  The data reported by that study doesn't even support the hypothesis, both the hybrid and adjusted fertility rates of women with <12 and 12 years of schooling are shown to still be higher than those of women with college and advanced degrees. Unless I'm misinterpreting something all this suggests is that there's a partial reversal, not an upheaval, of one of the most widely studied trends in fertility worldwide. The study does point out that childcare costs have outstripped wages of women with a high school diploma or less education though, which is alarming.
biomcgary 3y ago
If idiocracy (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) ever happens (or has already happened ;-), it is primarily because of the "smart" set doing exactly this. I was shocked at how few of the students in my evolutionary biology graduate program were planning to have kids. Having two kids or less is the definition of unfit parents (unless you are propagating clonally).
- ben_w 3y ago
  Given the tech already exists for genetic screening, IVF, cloning, etc., if that scenario ever looks like[0] a real risk I'm sure we'd very quickly rehabilitate the whole "eugenics" brand. [0] Perception is everything: It's very very easy to ignore the uncomfortable bits of history, no matter how important the lesson
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    It's possible that if a current 100 IQ society doesn't notice the trend, then future 90 IQ won't notice the ever worsening, nor will the next 80 IQ...
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Eugenics is still plenty popular to the American philosophy, just under the hood. Plenty of racism is rooted in bad ~breeding stock~ "culture"
- mihaic 3y ago
  The fact that this is being downvoted might be because it hits a bit too close to home for a few people here?
- salawat 3y ago
  Counterpoint: Humanity has to cope with these little things called ethics, morality, and empathy. While it may be the definition of evolutionary "unfitness" in the scientific sense, the ability to exercise foresight, to predict the suffering coming from one's behavior, being averse to bringing a life into the world without having a reasonable answer to the issues you can reasonably forsee, and having the will to act on said understanding are all socially desirable traits that also fly in the face of natural selection. In a conflict over livability and finite resources unrestrained growth is a losing game for everyone, guaranteed. The only variable is when.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> if all the people that feared having children due to climate change didn't have children, the only people having children would be those who had no fear of climate change How correlated are the climate views of the parent and child correlated in the West? (I’m also sceptical the real reason isn’t economic insecurity.)

achates 3y ago
Political opinions are moderately heritable in general, not sure about CC specifically.
- wrycoder 3y ago
  If you have children.

zmgsabst 3y ago

[flagged]

1270018080 3y ago
Doing things to help other people isn't the collapse of society and the modern incarnation of evil.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  I didn’t describe “doing things to help other people” in general, but particular pathologies disguised as those. There are many pathologies that pose as “doing good things” — and I think it’s interesting that you didn’t respond to my particular examples, but a strawman.

BobbyJo 3y ago

Long term, I don't think this will matter though. If your house is underwater, your farm stops surviving winter, or your heating/cooling costs become untenable, you'll be force to change how you live regardless of what you believe.

1270018080 3y ago
That's happening right now though, and people are still fervently climate change deniers. When it comes to conspiracy theories or cults, no amount of evidence or rational thinking is going to change someone's mind. It's not a tool they use to perceive the world.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Indeed. People who will believe anything instead of facing change will just get MORE ANGRY as that reality forces it's way into their life. They will hit back harder, become more radical, and be willing to push for harsher measures against whatever scapegoat they have found.
- aapl88889 3y ago
  Which coastlines are burying houses underwater?
  - undersuit 3y ago
    What if your house wasn't buried... but the increased sea levels have made your pacific island inhabitable? How much water and food can you afford to ship to your perfectly safe home?
    - revelio 3y ago
      What if pacific islands aren't actually sinking? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5 ha (2.9%), despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls. Note how dishonest the scientists are. Their abstract starts by saying "Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations" before getting to the part just quoted where they admit their data says the islands are getting bigger. This kind of brazen dishonesty is pervasive throughout modern academic science. It's not just the "lab leaks are impossible" crowd, you see it in many fields. Data tables don't match summaries which don't match abstracts which don't match IPCC reports which don't press releases which don't match TV news. Here, climatologists used picturesque Pacific islands to motivate major social changes without even bothering to measure whether their claims were true or not up until very recently. And when they did, and discovered the claims were not true, this fact was promptly buried and given no coverage. The misinformation gets repeated - which isn't your fault. After all, how were you to know?

matsemann 3y ago

Almost the premise of the movie Idiocracy.

refurb 3y ago

That assumes that beliefs are genetically passed down. They aren't.

willio58 3y ago
Of course beliefs aren't passed down genetically, but they are likely to be passed down through a parent raising a child. It happens with adopted children too. For example, if both of your parents are Republicans, you are much more likely to be a Republican than if both of your parents were Democrats.
- refurb 3y ago
  For example, if both of your parents are Republicans, you are much more likely to be a Republican than if both of your parents were Democrats. Source? It seems to me that kids tend to rebel against their parents beliefs whatever they are. Conservative parents end up with liberal kids and vice versa. That's just how kids are. How many teenagers do you know who say "Yeah, my parents are right about almost everything!"

foobiekr 3y ago

A friend with similar opinions worries that the Quiverfull movement will result in Christian nationalists taking over. Me, I like to think that obsessive natalism will result in the Moties from "The Mote in God's Eye."

mrguyorama 3y ago
Turns out "regular" american Christianity didn't need an excuse to push for Christofacist nationalism. It's attempting to take hold literally right now.
marssaxman 3y ago
> A friend with similar opinions worries that the Quiverfull movement will result in Christian nationalists taking over. I'm less worried about that, because I grew up in that subculture - my parents were early adopters, before the label had been coined - and the extreme religious belief doesn't really stick. So far as I am aware, none of the kids in my cohort have followed in our parents' footsteps. Many of us abandoned religion entirely, and those who kept with it have found more conventional expressions; none of us have gone on to raise enormous families of our own. It makes sense, when you consider why people are drawn to join extreme religious movements in the first place; of course the kids they raise are going to have a very different experience and perspective on life, and they're likely to go looking for what they need in a different direction.

tzs 3y ago

> This would obviously affect the overall perspective of those in our society and skew them toward non-believers who don't push toward action on climate change. That's not at all obvious. Children are expensive to have and raise, both in money and time. That gives those without children an advantage when it comes to accumulating power and wealth and influence. That might be enough to counter the influence of the parents, especially if kids continue to be heavily influenced by social media.

ldehaan 3y ago

[dead]