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A democratic nation with powerful economy and complex social rules. Parents push kids to study hard in school. Kids learn a lot, so they pass exams, create smar

by yhavr 3y ago

A democratic nation with powerful economy and complex social rules. Parents push kids to study hard in school. Kids learn a lot, so they pass exams, create smarphones, robots, yet unable to create an environment where people would be motivated to bring their kids and wouldn't be as stressed or suicidal. South Koreans on HN, any ideas why? ;-) For me personally, South Korea is a great example, how entire nations of homo sapiens can be unconsciously cognitively trapped, and in how technological progress, science and ability to solve differential equations !== wellbeing.

pixl97 3y ago
It is my thinking that successful religions are built on at least one tenant of "have kids and teach them the religion" otherwise as social complexity grows we tend to forget the have kids point and the society falters, and this has been an issue with humans for much more than the modern age. I'm not saying religions are right or closer to some ground truth here, but evolution does hing on the point of requiring reproduction of some type.
- yhavr 3y ago
  From my knowledge, religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents. "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. However, there is a problem. The way religious community organised at least empirically somehow matches human biology. E.g. small tribes, support, shared ideals. However, it turns out, modern humans have around-zero practical knowledge how to build a "modern" successful state for millions of individualists that would adequately respond to all changes/challenges. Yes, there are countries that were lucky to get a ~d20 roll~ stable democratic govt at some point. But if you look closer, even in these "developed" countries feedback loops are often extremely slow and clumsy.
  - feoren 3y ago
    > religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents Really? Is daycare cheaper for Christians? Are Christian families (causally) less likely to have two parents working full-time? Because it seems to me that slogging your ass to church every Sunday to be told you're not Godly enough and should vote Republican just seems like Yet Another Fucking Thing that working parents have to do each week, on top of everything else. Do you have any, y'know, evidence at all, that religious parents have more of a support network around them than non-religious? (And that this difference is due to religion, not confounding factors like socioeconomics?) > "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. Another hot take, eh? Any evidence for this one either? This is an unbelievably over-simplistic take. I guarantee whatever trend you think you're seeing here is just as prevalent among the highly religious. If you want to know why individual communities are breaking down, you'd be much better off looking at car dependence, the abundance of suburbs, and zoning laws than just deciding it must be the godlessness of those heathens causing all the problems.
    - reducesuffering 3y ago
      It sounds like you'll never step into a church for a few months to learn this, understandably so. But the answer to all you're questions is obviously yes. Churches are generally tight-knit, welcoming, and very community oriented. They are a literal support network, that will often weekly hear out any concerns of people and try to help them. They often have more kids, so they help each other with the daycare of kids. They are more likely to prioritize single income households, and will move to places more accommodating to church support networks and single income households to live that lifestyle.
    - lancesells 3y ago
      I'm an atheist and am very much anti-religion in that I think it's a net bad and imaginary in the worst ways, but I do think, just like any group of like-minded people, that it does support a social network. Religion provides a common ground and shared set of beliefs. It's the same way expats find each other in countries because there's some commonality, or how you go off to school and can find "your people". As much as I'm not a fan of religion I can admit there are some good things about it and plenty of good people who practice it.
sneed_chucker 3y ago
South Korea isn't special for having bad demographics, it's just farther along the curve. Every single industrialized country is well below replacement rate TFR. The fact that modern society has this effect on fertility is something that every affected country is going to have to address sooner or later.
- matrix87 3y ago
  I don't think there's a monotonic curve where more development leads to lower fertility. Both Sweden and New Zealand have higher HDIs than SK, but their fertility rates are higher than many countries which are considered less developed I mean, there's definitely a correlation globally speaking, but after a certain point of development (e.g countries with HDI 0.8 and above) it looks like the correlation isn't as strong Edit: this Wikipedia page shows what I'm referring to, see section on Contrary Findings -> J-curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility You can see on the chart, for HDIs >= 0.8 there isn't a visible trend of decrease to the level where SK is currently
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Swedish fertility rate could also be driven by immigration numbers. And considering a significant fraction of Swedish immigrants don't even know the language, that's definitely going to be a skewed number.

by yhavr 3y ago

pixl97 3y ago

It is my thinking that successful religions are built on at least one tenant of "have kids and teach them the religion" otherwise as social complexity grows we tend to forget the have kids point and the society falters, and this has been an issue with humans for much more than the modern age. I'm not saying religions are right or closer to some ground truth here, but evolution does hing on the point of requiring reproduction of some type.

yhavr 3y ago
From my knowledge, religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents. "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. However, there is a problem. The way religious community organised at least empirically somehow matches human biology. E.g. small tribes, support, shared ideals. However, it turns out, modern humans have around-zero practical knowledge how to build a "modern" successful state for millions of individualists that would adequately respond to all changes/challenges. Yes, there are countries that were lucky to get a ~d20 roll~ stable democratic govt at some point. But if you look closer, even in these "developed" countries feedback loops are often extremely slow and clumsy.
- feoren 3y ago
  > religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents Really? Is daycare cheaper for Christians? Are Christian families (causally) less likely to have two parents working full-time? Because it seems to me that slogging your ass to church every Sunday to be told you're not Godly enough and should vote Republican just seems like Yet Another Fucking Thing that working parents have to do each week, on top of everything else. Do you have any, y'know, evidence at all, that religious parents have more of a support network around them than non-religious? (And that this difference is due to religion, not confounding factors like socioeconomics?) > "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. Another hot take, eh? Any evidence for this one either? This is an unbelievably over-simplistic take. I guarantee whatever trend you think you're seeing here is just as prevalent among the highly religious. If you want to know why individual communities are breaking down, you'd be much better off looking at car dependence, the abundance of suburbs, and zoning laws than just deciding it must be the godlessness of those heathens causing all the problems.
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    It sounds like you'll never step into a church for a few months to learn this, understandably so. But the answer to all you're questions is obviously yes. Churches are generally tight-knit, welcoming, and very community oriented. They are a literal support network, that will often weekly hear out any concerns of people and try to help them. They often have more kids, so they help each other with the daycare of kids. They are more likely to prioritize single income households, and will move to places more accommodating to church support networks and single income households to live that lifestyle.
  - lancesells 3y ago
    I'm an atheist and am very much anti-religion in that I think it's a net bad and imaginary in the worst ways, but I do think, just like any group of like-minded people, that it does support a social network. Religion provides a common ground and shared set of beliefs. It's the same way expats find each other in countries because there's some commonality, or how you go off to school and can find "your people". As much as I'm not a fan of religion I can admit there are some good things about it and plenty of good people who practice it.

sneed_chucker 3y ago

South Korea isn't special for having bad demographics, it's just farther along the curve. Every single industrialized country is well below replacement rate TFR. The fact that modern society has this effect on fertility is something that every affected country is going to have to address sooner or later.

matrix87 3y ago
I don't think there's a monotonic curve where more development leads to lower fertility. Both Sweden and New Zealand have higher HDIs than SK, but their fertility rates are higher than many countries which are considered less developed I mean, there's definitely a correlation globally speaking, but after a certain point of development (e.g countries with HDI 0.8 and above) it looks like the correlation isn't as strong Edit: this Wikipedia page shows what I'm referring to, see section on Contrary Findings -> J-curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility You can see on the chart, for HDIs >= 0.8 there isn't a visible trend of decrease to the level where SK is currently
- fakedang 3y ago
  Swedish fertility rate could also be driven by immigration numbers. And considering a significant fraction of Swedish immigrants don't even know the language, that's definitely going to be a skewed number.