"The popular narratives and assumptions about childbearing and family life that undergird anti-reproductive norms are mostly false. The ordinary risks of childb

"The popular narratives and assumptions about childbearing and family life that undergird anti-reproductive norms are mostly false. The ordinary risks of childbirth are quite navigable and the actual costs of children—instead of those of parental conspicuous consumption to keep up with current standards of respectability—are quite low. It is far easier to combine children with other pursuits in one’s energetic twenties than in the late thirties or beyond. But most people do not make these decisions based on theory or argument. They do so because their friends and relatives and role models are also happily raising children around them." That's the core issue here - people being memetic animals instead of thinking for themselves and taking decisions in matters that are (or should be) of utmost personal importance. Ideology won't solve this problem, it may just kick it a bit further down the road, and that's it. For pretty much their entire history as species, humans did not had to take reproduction related decisions. It just happened, and in both conception and child rearing, the instincts were there to help continue the bloodline. For (what is supposed to otherwise be) a rational being, it was hardly a rational decision. Only now, when the conditions changed enough to sever the effects of this instinctual "olimbical chord", a true exam of rational capacity begins. A lot will fail and much of the current genepool will vanish, but in all fairness, sooner or later it will have to. The article looks ahead, to a far future, where humankind is supposed to face higher degrees of challenge, thus the demands for rational behavior will most likely be higher too. Now may be the best occasion for such a feat. Maybe addressing the factors that hinder reproduction and child rearing (for those that happen to consciously choose it) will render positive effects, but actively encouraging people to have children when they wouldn't otherwise? How could this make sense (from a species level prospective)?