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Except shut-ins rarely procreate, and just that will be a huge hit on their average contribution to society. It's cool if an individual finds their niche, but a

Except shut-ins rarely procreate, and just that will be a huge hit on their average contribution to society. It's cool if an individual finds their niche, but as a generational trend it seems highly problematic to me.

defrost 3y ago
> Except shut-ins rarely procreate, Do they mentor others and pass skills on though? I've travelled in Japan and met childless swordmakers and glass blowers who have apprentices and former students who have their own aprentices. You're aware not all things are due to nepotism I assume?
ZaoLahma 3y ago
Ah yes, the ongoing conundrum of trying to maintain a clearly very unsustainable quality of life while also increasing the population numbers to ensure the productivity needed to sustain the large and quickly aging parts of the population. Fun times ahead.
Dalewyn 3y ago
You're welcome to procreate and compensate the head count yourself if the idea of someone not siring children disturbs you so.
abrookewood 3y ago
I do not agree that breeding should be equated with contributing to society.
- ZaoLahma 3y ago
  As cynical as this will sound, breeding is contributing to society in the sense that you provide productivity to it. Ensuring your retirement, in essence. In many (western inspired) parts of the world, the retirement scheme depends on productivity being increased for every generation. This because every generation that retires is larger than the previous generation that retired. The population growth drives the need for an increase in productivity. You can increase the productivity by either increase the size of the working population, or make the working population more productive per individual. Up until recently we actually did both. That's why our elderly now can enjoy VERY comfortable retirements compared to two generations ago. For us, those who are now working, it doesn't look great. We're not having children and it's getting hard to squeeze more productivity out of us. Here according to the latest projections, I'm not supposed to retire until I'm 69. And this is with today's data. I fully expect it to increase further. Those that were born in 2015 or later are expected to work until they are 71, according to today's data. The problem is that I don't think that on average we can work until we hit 70. My father's generation was quite broken right about around 65 when they retired.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    Short-sightedly, increasing the (young) population is increasing productivity as you said, but when thinking a tiny bit deeper about it, we're already consuming each year twice the resources Earth can provide us, so continuing on this "econo-societal runaway" is completely bonkers. The population should imperatively shrink, it should already be at most half of the current size. With this completely different viewpoint, the real contributors to society wellness are those who have less (or no) children.
    - ZaoLahma 3y ago
      I absolutely agree with you. 100%. The problem is how we can make this transition from a large population to a smaller one with as little suffering as possible. As I said, here we are expected to work into our 70s on average already, which just will not be possible. At some point there won't be enough resources to care for those who can't produce. We need a substantial increase in productivity per individual for society to keep working while the population numbers are decreasing, and that doesn't seem to be happening.
      - henearkr 3y ago
        Yeah... the consensus is that the more we wait before reducing willingly the population, the more it will happen suddenly and violently (wars, famines) at the snap point (or at snap points, plural). Not pretty thoughts, but just mechanistically unavoidable... I'd say, let's reduce our comfort, let's do it now, yeah we'll be poorer and all. Still better than the alternative. The point is to go out of our way to remain (and become more) altruistic and united at a global scale... in order to spread evenly the diminishing resources. If everybody gets poor in a similar way, it will reduce anger and unrest. Or avoid wars, if that's a country that would have felt wronged otherwise.
    - sneak 3y ago
      We are not consuming more resources than the Earth can provide. The idea that our population is too big is subjective and arbitrary. The Earth can easily support 2-10x as many humans as presently live on it. Our way of life, however, is quite wasteful and inefficient.
- barrysteve 3y ago
  Then you won't have a society pretty soon.
  - alpaca128 3y ago
    That scenario is realistically impossible with the current size of the world population and the fact the majority will always try to procreate.
- wsc981 3y ago
  I think if you and your significant other have good genes, it can be beneficial for society, humankind, if you procreate. More change to get healthy, smart kids when might achieve great things.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    It's been a long time that Humans don't solve problems through natural Evolution anymore... Thanks to medicine, the burden of ailments on individuals has become negligible, and moreover the speed at which our culture and technology evolves is incomparable to the speed of genetic selection. Education has arguably way more impact on the success of an individual than their genes.
chii 3y ago
> a generational trend it seems highly problematic to me. why is it problematic? Procreation is not the be all and end all of one's purpose in life.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Except shut-ins rarely procreate, and just that will be a huge hit on their average contribution to society. it's already decreasing in first world countries, so this isn't a problem limited to shut-ins.
Climato 3y ago
[flagged]
- sneak 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Climato 3y ago
    [flagged]
082349872349872 3y ago
TIL shut-ins could remain true to the lifestyle, procreating without ever physically meeting, as long as they live within ~24h shipping distance of each other. (compare "A Boy and His Dog", 1975) (for those not into the whole recombination thing, I haven't heard anything about human cloning yet, but there was a high-level equine competition recently in which six of the competitors shared their genotype)

defrost 3y ago

> Except shut-ins rarely procreate, Do they mentor others and pass skills on though? I've travelled in Japan and met childless swordmakers and glass blowers who have apprentices and former students who have their own aprentices. You're aware not all things are due to nepotism I assume?

ZaoLahma 3y ago

Ah yes, the ongoing conundrum of trying to maintain a clearly very unsustainable quality of life while also increasing the population numbers to ensure the productivity needed to sustain the large and quickly aging parts of the population. Fun times ahead.

Dalewyn 3y ago

You're welcome to procreate and compensate the head count yourself if the idea of someone not siring children disturbs you so.

abrookewood 3y ago

I do not agree that breeding should be equated with contributing to society.

ZaoLahma 3y ago
As cynical as this will sound, breeding is contributing to society in the sense that you provide productivity to it. Ensuring your retirement, in essence. In many (western inspired) parts of the world, the retirement scheme depends on productivity being increased for every generation. This because every generation that retires is larger than the previous generation that retired. The population growth drives the need for an increase in productivity. You can increase the productivity by either increase the size of the working population, or make the working population more productive per individual. Up until recently we actually did both. That's why our elderly now can enjoy VERY comfortable retirements compared to two generations ago. For us, those who are now working, it doesn't look great. We're not having children and it's getting hard to squeeze more productivity out of us. Here according to the latest projections, I'm not supposed to retire until I'm 69. And this is with today's data. I fully expect it to increase further. Those that were born in 2015 or later are expected to work until they are 71, according to today's data. The problem is that I don't think that on average we can work until we hit 70. My father's generation was quite broken right about around 65 when they retired.
- henearkr 3y ago
  Short-sightedly, increasing the (young) population is increasing productivity as you said, but when thinking a tiny bit deeper about it, we're already consuming each year twice the resources Earth can provide us, so continuing on this "econo-societal runaway" is completely bonkers. The population should imperatively shrink, it should already be at most half of the current size. With this completely different viewpoint, the real contributors to society wellness are those who have less (or no) children.
  - ZaoLahma 3y ago
    I absolutely agree with you. 100%. The problem is how we can make this transition from a large population to a smaller one with as little suffering as possible. As I said, here we are expected to work into our 70s on average already, which just will not be possible. At some point there won't be enough resources to care for those who can't produce. We need a substantial increase in productivity per individual for society to keep working while the population numbers are decreasing, and that doesn't seem to be happening.
    - henearkr 3y ago
      Yeah... the consensus is that the more we wait before reducing willingly the population, the more it will happen suddenly and violently (wars, famines) at the snap point (or at snap points, plural). Not pretty thoughts, but just mechanistically unavoidable... I'd say, let's reduce our comfort, let's do it now, yeah we'll be poorer and all. Still better than the alternative. The point is to go out of our way to remain (and become more) altruistic and united at a global scale... in order to spread evenly the diminishing resources. If everybody gets poor in a similar way, it will reduce anger and unrest. Or avoid wars, if that's a country that would have felt wronged otherwise.
  - sneak 3y ago
    We are not consuming more resources than the Earth can provide. The idea that our population is too big is subjective and arbitrary. The Earth can easily support 2-10x as many humans as presently live on it. Our way of life, however, is quite wasteful and inefficient.
barrysteve 3y ago
Then you won't have a society pretty soon.
- alpaca128 3y ago
  That scenario is realistically impossible with the current size of the world population and the fact the majority will always try to procreate.
wsc981 3y ago
I think if you and your significant other have good genes, it can be beneficial for society, humankind, if you procreate. More change to get healthy, smart kids when might achieve great things.
- henearkr 3y ago
  It's been a long time that Humans don't solve problems through natural Evolution anymore... Thanks to medicine, the burden of ailments on individuals has become negligible, and moreover the speed at which our culture and technology evolves is incomparable to the speed of genetic selection. Education has arguably way more impact on the success of an individual than their genes.

chii 3y ago

> a generational trend it seems highly problematic to me. why is it problematic? Procreation is not the be all and end all of one's purpose in life.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>Except shut-ins rarely procreate, and just that will be a huge hit on their average contribution to society. it's already decreasing in first world countries, so this isn't a problem limited to shut-ins.

Climato 3y ago

[flagged]

sneak 3y ago
[flagged]
- Climato 3y ago
  [flagged]

082349872349872 3y ago

TIL shut-ins could remain true to the lifestyle, procreating without ever physically meeting, as long as they live within ~24h shipping distance of each other. (compare "A Boy and His Dog", 1975) (for those not into the whole recombination thing, I haven't heard anything about human cloning yet, but there was a high-level equine competition recently in which six of the competitors shared their genotype)