5 ms·

Global Population Crash Isn't Sci-Fi Anymore

42 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

nitwit005 3y ago
> We used to worry about the planet getting too crowded, but there are plenty of downsides to a shrinking humanity as well. Will write a negative article no matter what happens.
- romusha 3y ago
  Worrying about the planet getting too crowded is no longer cool so it's time to worry about less population
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  The Sensation Industrial Complex demands sensationalism!
- roenxi 3y ago
  The future is always bleak. It is hard to foresee one that doesn't end with everyone dying. Maybe super-intelligent robots can push back on that (although even then, one day it ends). Although it must be said, this fertility collapse is easily the best thing that could be happening in the world of demographics. Overpopulation is much less pleasant for more people. The problems with under-population are still concerning. The part that worries me it who looks after all the old people who can't care for themselves? It isn't much fun dying alone and incapacitated.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    I find that a lot of future doomerism is rooted in not doing anything now: “We have to build a world where human society retreats and tens of millions die alone unsupported, because [insert warning about centuries away based on dubious assumptions].” We don’t have to, we’re celebrating failure because of nebulous future concerns that seem post hoc rationalizations. I think at a societal level, abuses of psychology in marketing, PR, propaganda, and all its euphemisms have driven us collectively mad.
    - jvanderbot 3y ago
      My mental model is that people look at a small amount of data we have about advanced civilizations (ours), fit lines to those few, noisy, highly clustered points, or worse, assume exponential when it's really logistic / S curve. Then you can predict any old doom you want. The future is lots of things, but stable or predictable it ain't.
  - Supermancho 3y ago
    > The problems with under-population are still concerning. Primarily the starvation.
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  Is it negative for humanity -- or negative for the finance world since things must go up and to the right?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
matt3210 3y ago
People needing each other is what causes communities and strong families.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
[flagged]
- roenxi 3y ago
  That doesn't really gel with the global nature of the trend. Something extremely foundational is happening, probably related to advances in contraception in the 60s. You're going to cultural factors. If it was that then there'd be advanced countries somewhere with high birth rates.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    Contraception is a means to an end. It only gives people a chance another way to choose. It doesn't change the calculus of why they choose one thing or another.
  - nemomarx 3y ago
    The most direct conclusion is that people didn't really /want/ to have kids, they didn't have a choice or they felt they needed to have large families for other social reasons (like risks of those kids dying, the need for people to take care of you later in life, cultural assumptions). If you change contraception and push culture a bit, people's revealed preferences are saving money or spending it on themselves over having kids, is all. This seems to basically track across every region.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      > spending it on themselves over having kids Not at all, it’s that having kids used to be financially beneficial for parents, and now it’s horrendously expensive. The situation changed 180 And in addition, threat of climate change means you aren’t sure into what kind of world you are bringing children
  - Brybry 3y ago
    U.S. fertility rate was dropping long before the 60s (and even before the great depression) [1] though it does sound like contraception may have had an impact. [2] [1] https://www.prb.org/resources/the-decline-in-u-s-fertility https://www.prb.org/resources/the-decline-in-u-s-fertility [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm
cokeandpepsi 3y ago
Not surprising I can't recall a time in america where life didn't feel like it wasn't balanced on a knifes edge It takes so long to feel safety your near the end of the fertile window at least in the case of my wife and I for us it was the '08 recession for others something else I'm sure; we've built a pretty shitty world my siblings who luckily missed that window had 2-3 kids each and still struggle financially even with "decent" jobs and education.. I can help them with that but that's not the case for others
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > we've built a pretty shitty world The world has always been harsh and unforgiving. When did humans create a better world, and how do you quantify that? I think we're still very well off.
  - imoverclocked 3y ago
    I agree. However, there is a strong sentiment with a significant part of the population that "things suck" which leads to a dim view of the world... which is a horrible way to live. I would go so far as to say that it is self-reinforcing and leads people toward apathy toward the world in general. Alternatively, if people collectively see the world as a place they are responsible for making better, and that it's better for each individual to do so, then the world becomes a better place. This is hard to get to because "better" at scale is really hard to define. People start worrying about things like human-induced climate change, other environmental pollution, social welfare, etc. Even if we can collectively agree on things that are globally "good," sometimes making things better in one arena causes problems in another arena of "global good."
  - cokeandpepsi 3y ago
    [dead]
silverquiet 3y ago
I was listening to The NY Times Sunday Read this morning which was about some of the isolation research NASA is doing on people in advance of a possible Mars mission. But what stood out to me was a bit of a throw-away line about the reasons people look to Mars; among them was the sense that the planet is dying. I also had a hair dresser casually throw the same idea out to me awhile ago as sort of run of the mill conversation. I know that somewhere in the last decade or so, I lost any hope for the future myself, and I think that that is an essential aspect of the desire to have children. This article touched on it as well.
- pama 3y ago
  One simple counterargument to those who think that our planet dying is a rationale for driving their desire for going to mars is that the most habitable part of mars is incomparably worse/more dead than the worst possible place on earth, be it Antarctica, Death Valley, the Sahara, or next to an active volcano. One could argue that a post-nuclear-apocalypse earth would be more habitable than mars, but I think that all these arguments would get silly fast.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    I think most of the appeal of going to Mars is a sense of "starting over" and or course not bringing "them" with, for your favorite definition of "them".
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      I don't think so. I think everyone who considers the idea seriously is aware that Mars is much harsher than Earth, that many people will die there working to colonize it, and that society on Earth won't be going away any time soon (hence, nothing will start over). What makes Mars colonies (and moon colonies) interesting to me is a recognition that recorded civilization is only about 12,500 years old. That prior to that the entire planet was experiencing an ice age which lasted ~100,000 years, and prior to that people were already "behaviorally modern" in ways which left impressions in the archeological record. This suggests that our home planet could have a meteor or ice age shaped surprise for us any moment, and that it might not be a bad idea to have remote backups. I also think that working to live somewhere other than Earth will teach us much more about exactly why and how Earth is special.
quadhome 3y ago
The dates on that graph track pretty closely to the availability / legalisation of effective birth control for those countries. Surely it isn’t that simple?
- imoverclocked 3y ago
  That is one factor and the article did touch on it a couple of times.
- kredd 3y ago
  In the past, more people wanted to have children. Every year, that percentage seems to be decreasing [1]. Birth control mostly decreases chances of unwanted pregnancies, and that is good, in my opinion. How do we make people want to have children? Well, that's the hard problem that every developed country seems to be facing, and nobody has found substantial success so far. To be fair, I am a part of the problem as well. The opportunity loss for people in their late 20s to have a child is huge. It's even bigger for women, so I really can't blame anyone. And that's all on top of the usual "gloom and doom" thoughts when you think what your child could be facing in today's world. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-s...
- remarkEon 3y ago
  Birth control also coincided with a very deliberate push to get women in the work force at scale. In retrospect, it was obvious that doing this would cause fertility rates to decrease regardless of the popularity of birth control. My wife would absolutely love to quit her job and stay at home full time, but it's hard (note quite impossible, but very very hard) to actually do this today. All her friends with kids want to do it too. Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did.
  - andrewjl 3y ago
    > Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did. If you're talking about the 1950s a non-trivial percentage of married American women at that time routinely took stimulants and barbiturates.
anonzzzies 3y ago
Lot of the article tries to be negative but reads to me as positive. And the entire premise doesn’t spell collapse either; collapse seems more likely to come from other factors; having more humans makes the misery greater at that point. Let’s colonise planets; population will pick up on the New Worlds as people will feel it as their duty again. Here, not so much as breeding cannon fodder is not a great stimulus.
Lammy 3y ago
[flagged]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xyzelement 3y ago
I don’t totally get it but somehow in the last few decades the narrative crept in that it is not good for you and not good for the world if you chose to have children. It’s the kind of thing where childless people will lecture you on the impossibility of having kids all day long and meanwhile there’s someone in exactly the same situation living next door who’s got 3-4 kids and is way happier and more fulfilled. Recently I started to think of religion as a sort of Chesterton a fence. We thought all the focus on the family in religion is just quaint but perhaps it’s just codification of safeguards that allowed a wiser minority to escape the previous analogous collapse.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I don't doubt that religion has important social functions that propagated it and the societies that believed in them (memetic evolution in addition to genetic evolution). The problem is there's a lot of unbelievable stuff (as in I'm literally unable to believe in them) that seems required to tie the whole thing together. For instance, that I don't believe in L Ron Hubbard's idea of Thetans which seems like a core tenant of the Scientology religion.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Not re Scientology specifically but have you tried to go deep to understand, or is the inability to believe based on superficial secular knowledge?
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      I'd say it's based on a childhood of attempted indoctrination into a few Christian denominations, primarily by my Catholic parents. Comically enough, I told them I was an atheist when I was 7 years old, but either they think I forgot, or they forgot it themselves. Either way I went to the church and Sunday school for the required 18 years and did the rituals I was supposed to. Nowadays I just go with them once in awhile to keep them happy and I don't talk about it with them. I think mainly it was the science denial that other Christian denominations engage in that put me off the whole thing as a child, but as I learned more about the religion as I grew up, I also stopped believing that (almost) anyone really believes in them; few of the followers of Jesus seem to want to replicate his radical love and compassion. Scientology just seems like one most people agree is unbelievable.
ericd 3y ago
If you look at the graph of different countries' birth rates, it looks like the US rate declined rapidly in the years following 2008 (it was a local maximum before that). US birth rate also had trouble during the 70s energy crisis. So maybe it's just as simple as affordability issues/economic turmoil. Right now, inflation's running very hot, especially when you focus on housing and services like childcare and education. One interesting thing, Italy in the early 90s experienced a big dip and then recovered somewhat. Anyone have any ideas about what might've happened there? South Korea, a big dip around 2015/2016.
decafninja 3y ago
I look at our friends and peer aged family who have kids, and can’t help but see them just tired. Physically they are perpetually exhausted and visibly more aged. Financially, unless they were pretty well off before having a child, they’re struggling. Do they look unhappy? I don’t know. All of our friends with children post pictures of their kids in mundane everyday settings nonstop on Instagram so I almost have too much information on how they live, at least outwardly. But it’s probably taboo to openly say you’re unhappy about having a child. The closest I’ve come is seeing some cracks while talking to one of my best friends about how tired he is. Who will be more happy when we’re 60 or 70? Even that I’m not sure. I know plenty of elderly people who have little to no contact with their adult kids. Some with kids who are estranged and hate them. Is that any better than not having kids at all?
- RhysU 3y ago
  Those who have children will never wonder what could have been. Even a horrific outcome answers that question. There is no other way to do do.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    Anyone can wonder what might have been - those with 2 children could wonder how more would have changed their lives, or could wonder what might have been had they had none. Some changes we make to our lives forever close off other paths.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Have kids, partner and I occasionally talk about what life would’ve been like if we made different choices. We’re on rails now until they’re adults, but we try to help others make different choices when the topic comes up and we are asked for our opinion based on life experience. Are you wealthy? Robust family support? Low volatility in your living and work situations? Strong relationship that will endure what children incur? Might be fine; without those components, you’re gonna have a bad time (statistically speaking and from a preponderance of the data). > There is no other way to do do. You can come to a conclusion you made a poor choice and still choose to do the best you can because it’s the right thing to do. https://thehill.com/business/3608647-new-estimate-projects-cost-of-raising-a-child-at-310k/ https://thehill.com/business/3608647-new-estimate-projects-c... http://blog.dol.gov/2023/01/24/new-childcare-data-shows-prices-are-untenable-for-families http://blog.dol.gov/2023/01/24/new-childcare-data-shows-pric... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171291/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171291/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.901362/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062063/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062063/ (n=1, ymmv)
politelemon 3y ago
> societies progress up the hierarchy of needs from physical survival to emotional self-actualization, and as they do so, rearing children gets short shrift because people pursue other, more individualist aims. … People find other ways to find meaning in life That's a nice standout for me. Taking into account the humans only aspect, it's good to see that those people are happier and finding more self fulfillment than in the alternative scenario. Of course that is just in a vacuum, though it does show that a huge part of the perception of this "problem" is a system that unnaturally requires more of us.
Euphorbium 3y ago
I had to move to another city to find a place to rent that would accept me with a cat. And if I had children, it would be impossible. The landlords have destroyed the human habitat.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I don’t doubt your story but I’ve seen many apartments with “no pets” policy but never a “no kids” one. But also, millions of people in the US have cats, kids, or both. So while I am sure your story is true it doesn’t sound representative.
  - Euphorbium 3y ago
    It is illegal out right claim that, at least in my country. But 100% of landlords still silently do it.
  - alphabettsy 3y ago
    Senior apartments don’t allow kids, but that’s not a majority.
  - GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
    I think they're implying that finding an affordable space to raise kids in their city would have been impossible
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      I guess I struggle to visualize that because that would imply that nobody (or only the very rich) have kids in his city, which is probably not true?

42 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

> We used to worry about the planet getting too crowded, but there are plenty of downsides to a shrinking humanity as well. Will write a negative article no matter what happens.

romusha 3y ago
Worrying about the planet getting too crowded is no longer cool so it's time to worry about less population
Dalewyn 3y ago
The Sensation Industrial Complex demands sensationalism!
roenxi 3y ago
The future is always bleak. It is hard to foresee one that doesn't end with everyone dying. Maybe super-intelligent robots can push back on that (although even then, one day it ends). Although it must be said, this fertility collapse is easily the best thing that could be happening in the world of demographics. Overpopulation is much less pleasant for more people. The problems with under-population are still concerning. The part that worries me it who looks after all the old people who can't care for themselves? It isn't much fun dying alone and incapacitated.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  I find that a lot of future doomerism is rooted in not doing anything now: “We have to build a world where human society retreats and tens of millions die alone unsupported, because [insert warning about centuries away based on dubious assumptions].” We don’t have to, we’re celebrating failure because of nebulous future concerns that seem post hoc rationalizations. I think at a societal level, abuses of psychology in marketing, PR, propaganda, and all its euphemisms have driven us collectively mad.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    My mental model is that people look at a small amount of data we have about advanced civilizations (ours), fit lines to those few, noisy, highly clustered points, or worse, assume exponential when it's really logistic / S curve. Then you can predict any old doom you want. The future is lots of things, but stable or predictable it ain't.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > The problems with under-population are still concerning. Primarily the starvation.
sergiotapia 3y ago
Is it negative for humanity -- or negative for the finance world since things must go up and to the right?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

matt3210 3y ago

People needing each other is what causes communities and strong families.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

[flagged]

roenxi 3y ago
That doesn't really gel with the global nature of the trend. Something extremely foundational is happening, probably related to advances in contraception in the 60s. You're going to cultural factors. If it was that then there'd be advanced countries somewhere with high birth rates.
- morkalork 3y ago
  Contraception is a means to an end. It only gives people a chance another way to choose. It doesn't change the calculus of why they choose one thing or another.
- nemomarx 3y ago
  The most direct conclusion is that people didn't really /want/ to have kids, they didn't have a choice or they felt they needed to have large families for other social reasons (like risks of those kids dying, the need for people to take care of you later in life, cultural assumptions). If you change contraception and push culture a bit, people's revealed preferences are saving money or spending it on themselves over having kids, is all. This seems to basically track across every region.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > spending it on themselves over having kids Not at all, it’s that having kids used to be financially beneficial for parents, and now it’s horrendously expensive. The situation changed 180 And in addition, threat of climate change means you aren’t sure into what kind of world you are bringing children
- Brybry 3y ago
  U.S. fertility rate was dropping long before the 60s (and even before the great depression) [1] though it does sound like contraception may have had an impact. [2] [1] https://www.prb.org/resources/the-decline-in-u-s-fertility https://www.prb.org/resources/the-decline-in-u-s-fertility [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm

cokeandpepsi 3y ago

Not surprising I can't recall a time in america where life didn't feel like it wasn't balanced on a knifes edge It takes so long to feel safety your near the end of the fertile window at least in the case of my wife and I for us it was the '08 recession for others something else I'm sure; we've built a pretty shitty world my siblings who luckily missed that window had 2-3 kids each and still struggle financially even with "decent" jobs and education.. I can help them with that but that's not the case for others

Supermancho 3y ago
> we've built a pretty shitty world The world has always been harsh and unforgiving. When did humans create a better world, and how do you quantify that? I think we're still very well off.
- imoverclocked 3y ago
  I agree. However, there is a strong sentiment with a significant part of the population that "things suck" which leads to a dim view of the world... which is a horrible way to live. I would go so far as to say that it is self-reinforcing and leads people toward apathy toward the world in general. Alternatively, if people collectively see the world as a place they are responsible for making better, and that it's better for each individual to do so, then the world becomes a better place. This is hard to get to because "better" at scale is really hard to define. People start worrying about things like human-induced climate change, other environmental pollution, social welfare, etc. Even if we can collectively agree on things that are globally "good," sometimes making things better in one arena causes problems in another arena of "global good."
- cokeandpepsi 3y ago
  [dead]

silverquiet 3y ago

I was listening to The NY Times Sunday Read this morning which was about some of the isolation research NASA is doing on people in advance of a possible Mars mission. But what stood out to me was a bit of a throw-away line about the reasons people look to Mars; among them was the sense that the planet is dying. I also had a hair dresser casually throw the same idea out to me awhile ago as sort of run of the mill conversation. I know that somewhere in the last decade or so, I lost any hope for the future myself, and I think that that is an essential aspect of the desire to have children. This article touched on it as well.

pama 3y ago
One simple counterargument to those who think that our planet dying is a rationale for driving their desire for going to mars is that the most habitable part of mars is incomparably worse/more dead than the worst possible place on earth, be it Antarctica, Death Valley, the Sahara, or next to an active volcano. One could argue that a post-nuclear-apocalypse earth would be more habitable than mars, but I think that all these arguments would get silly fast.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  I think most of the appeal of going to Mars is a sense of "starting over" and or course not bringing "them" with, for your favorite definition of "them".
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    I don't think so. I think everyone who considers the idea seriously is aware that Mars is much harsher than Earth, that many people will die there working to colonize it, and that society on Earth won't be going away any time soon (hence, nothing will start over). What makes Mars colonies (and moon colonies) interesting to me is a recognition that recorded civilization is only about 12,500 years old. That prior to that the entire planet was experiencing an ice age which lasted ~100,000 years, and prior to that people were already "behaviorally modern" in ways which left impressions in the archeological record. This suggests that our home planet could have a meteor or ice age shaped surprise for us any moment, and that it might not be a bad idea to have remote backups. I also think that working to live somewhere other than Earth will teach us much more about exactly why and how Earth is special.

quadhome 3y ago

The dates on that graph track pretty closely to the availability / legalisation of effective birth control for those countries. Surely it isn’t that simple?

imoverclocked 3y ago
That is one factor and the article did touch on it a couple of times.
kredd 3y ago
In the past, more people wanted to have children. Every year, that percentage seems to be decreasing [1]. Birth control mostly decreases chances of unwanted pregnancies, and that is good, in my opinion. How do we make people want to have children? Well, that's the hard problem that every developed country seems to be facing, and nobody has found substantial success so far. To be fair, I am a part of the problem as well. The opportunity loss for people in their late 20s to have a child is huge. It's even bigger for women, so I really can't blame anyone. And that's all on top of the usual "gloom and doom" thoughts when you think what your child could be facing in today's world. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-s...
remarkEon 3y ago
Birth control also coincided with a very deliberate push to get women in the work force at scale. In retrospect, it was obvious that doing this would cause fertility rates to decrease regardless of the popularity of birth control. My wife would absolutely love to quit her job and stay at home full time, but it's hard (note quite impossible, but very very hard) to actually do this today. All her friends with kids want to do it too. Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did.
- andrewjl 3y ago
  > Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did. If you're talking about the 1950s a non-trivial percentage of married American women at that time routinely took stimulants and barbiturates.

anonzzzies 3y ago

Lot of the article tries to be negative but reads to me as positive. And the entire premise doesn’t spell collapse either; collapse seems more likely to come from other factors; having more humans makes the misery greater at that point. Let’s colonise planets; population will pick up on the New Worlds as people will feel it as their duty again. Here, not so much as breeding cannon fodder is not a great stimulus.

Lammy 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

xyzelement 3y ago

I don’t totally get it but somehow in the last few decades the narrative crept in that it is not good for you and not good for the world if you chose to have children. It’s the kind of thing where childless people will lecture you on the impossibility of having kids all day long and meanwhile there’s someone in exactly the same situation living next door who’s got 3-4 kids and is way happier and more fulfilled. Recently I started to think of religion as a sort of Chesterton a fence. We thought all the focus on the family in religion is just quaint but perhaps it’s just codification of safeguards that allowed a wiser minority to escape the previous analogous collapse.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
silverquiet 3y ago
I don't doubt that religion has important social functions that propagated it and the societies that believed in them (memetic evolution in addition to genetic evolution). The problem is there's a lot of unbelievable stuff (as in I'm literally unable to believe in them) that seems required to tie the whole thing together. For instance, that I don't believe in L Ron Hubbard's idea of Thetans which seems like a core tenant of the Scientology religion.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  Not re Scientology specifically but have you tried to go deep to understand, or is the inability to believe based on superficial secular knowledge?
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    I'd say it's based on a childhood of attempted indoctrination into a few Christian denominations, primarily by my Catholic parents. Comically enough, I told them I was an atheist when I was 7 years old, but either they think I forgot, or they forgot it themselves. Either way I went to the church and Sunday school for the required 18 years and did the rituals I was supposed to. Nowadays I just go with them once in awhile to keep them happy and I don't talk about it with them. I think mainly it was the science denial that other Christian denominations engage in that put me off the whole thing as a child, but as I learned more about the religion as I grew up, I also stopped believing that (almost) anyone really believes in them; few of the followers of Jesus seem to want to replicate his radical love and compassion. Scientology just seems like one most people agree is unbelievable.

ericd 3y ago

If you look at the graph of different countries' birth rates, it looks like the US rate declined rapidly in the years following 2008 (it was a local maximum before that). US birth rate also had trouble during the 70s energy crisis. So maybe it's just as simple as affordability issues/economic turmoil. Right now, inflation's running very hot, especially when you focus on housing and services like childcare and education. One interesting thing, Italy in the early 90s experienced a big dip and then recovered somewhat. Anyone have any ideas about what might've happened there? South Korea, a big dip around 2015/2016.

decafninja 3y ago

I look at our friends and peer aged family who have kids, and can’t help but see them just tired. Physically they are perpetually exhausted and visibly more aged. Financially, unless they were pretty well off before having a child, they’re struggling. Do they look unhappy? I don’t know. All of our friends with children post pictures of their kids in mundane everyday settings nonstop on Instagram so I almost have too much information on how they live, at least outwardly. But it’s probably taboo to openly say you’re unhappy about having a child. The closest I’ve come is seeing some cracks while talking to one of my best friends about how tired he is. Who will be more happy when we’re 60 or 70? Even that I’m not sure. I know plenty of elderly people who have little to no contact with their adult kids. Some with kids who are estranged and hate them. Is that any better than not having kids at all?

RhysU 3y ago
Those who have children will never wonder what could have been. Even a horrific outcome answers that question. There is no other way to do do.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Anyone can wonder what might have been - those with 2 children could wonder how more would have changed their lives, or could wonder what might have been had they had none. Some changes we make to our lives forever close off other paths.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Have kids, partner and I occasionally talk about what life would’ve been like if we made different choices. We’re on rails now until they’re adults, but we try to help others make different choices when the topic comes up and we are asked for our opinion based on life experience. Are you wealthy? Robust family support? Low volatility in your living and work situations? Strong relationship that will endure what children incur? Might be fine; without those components, you’re gonna have a bad time (statistically speaking and from a preponderance of the data). > There is no other way to do do. You can come to a conclusion you made a poor choice and still choose to do the best you can because it’s the right thing to do. https://thehill.com/business/3608647-new-estimate-projects-cost-of-raising-a-child-at-310k/ https://thehill.com/business/3608647-new-estimate-projects-c... http://blog.dol.gov/2023/01/24/new-childcare-data-shows-prices-are-untenable-for-families http://blog.dol.gov/2023/01/24/new-childcare-data-shows-pric... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171291/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171291/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.901362/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062063/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062063/ (n=1, ymmv)

politelemon 3y ago

> societies progress up the hierarchy of needs from physical survival to emotional self-actualization, and as they do so, rearing children gets short shrift because people pursue other, more individualist aims. … People find other ways to find meaning in life That's a nice standout for me. Taking into account the humans only aspect, it's good to see that those people are happier and finding more self fulfillment than in the alternative scenario. Of course that is just in a vacuum, though it does show that a huge part of the perception of this "problem" is a system that unnaturally requires more of us.

Euphorbium 3y ago

I had to move to another city to find a place to rent that would accept me with a cat. And if I had children, it would be impossible. The landlords have destroyed the human habitat.

xyzelement 3y ago
I don’t doubt your story but I’ve seen many apartments with “no pets” policy but never a “no kids” one. But also, millions of people in the US have cats, kids, or both. So while I am sure your story is true it doesn’t sound representative.
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  It is illegal out right claim that, at least in my country. But 100% of landlords still silently do it.
- alphabettsy 3y ago
  Senior apartments don’t allow kids, but that’s not a majority.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  I think they're implying that finding an affordable space to raise kids in their city would have been impossible
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    I guess I struggle to visualize that because that would imply that nobody (or only the very rich) have kids in his city, which is probably not true?