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Is there any way to have a productive conversation about what we, as a theoretical interdependent society, should do (or not) to encourage (or deter) people fro

Is there any way to have a productive conversation about what we, as a theoretical interdependent society, should do (or not) to encourage (or deter) people from having kids? It’s one of those topics where there’s a lot of data but most people have a position and whatever counter data is provided is typically discarded as irrelevant. For example plenty would argue about whether having a child so “someone takes care of you when you’re older” or “so you’re not lonely” is a valid reason to have a child at all. And on and on with no foundational agreement on what the outcomes or impacts of social demands on major individual life decisions should be promoted or even allowed legally. This is again despite a lot of data about what happens when cultures are either coerced into a fertility management programs (one child program , forced sterilization in the south etc), or let people freely choose and the waxing and waning of populations and societies historically documented since antiquity

tuatoru 2y ago
This is a deep question, I think. In the past, children just happened. We no longer have load-bearing conceptual or moral frameworks for thinking about reproduction. Religious leaders have lost their moral authority, if they ever had any. Coercion happens when there are no means of persuasion (except for psychopathic leaders in authoritarian societies, of course: then you get coercion whether or not persuasion is possible). The two standard reasons you list suffer from free-riding. If other people do it, but you don't, you come out ahead. How should that be addressed? Are, indeed, those even valid reasons at all? The same applies to techno-utopian reasons. "Have children because more people means more ideas, and more ideas means more progress". Free-riding problem again. The Ev. Psych. people would say it's a matter of mimesis, or social proof: people have children when they see (respectable) people similar to themselves having children. How far do you go in creating "influencers", then? And to what end? As to how to have the conversation: step one is persuading feminists that this is not a right-wing reactionary issue, code for undoing all the advances in rights that women have so recently won. That's a tall step.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I think it is simple though. Empower people who don't want to have children to not have them, that is their right. Society can reconfigure itself accordingly based on the outcomes of agency and free will.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    While completely fair to do so, one consequence is that it might dissolve any intergenerational social contract, and it is entirely reasonable for the younger generation to vote to defund pension programs, not provide elder care (or make it extremely expensive), etc. Essentially, looking at things from a high level, if the previous generation's decision to not have children means that the current generation has to spend an overly burdensome fraction of their economic output to support the previous generation, then it's their prerogative to simply not take care of them. Particularly for people who have no ties to the current generation.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Full disclosure, I help folks get permanent birth control who want it [1] to empower and provide agency in a system that is attempting to not provide it to humans. Why? Because the intergenerational social contract already doesn't exist. Outside of a handful of countries with pro natalist policies, there is no material support. In the US, the expectation is that people should have kids so line goes up, broadly speaking (productivity = capital market gains and pay as you go social program funding), while making working arrangements as tenuous as possible, no daycare subsidies, no guaranteed paid time off, requiring to go into debt to procure an education credential employers can mandate but not need for a role, etc. Per the Brookings Institute, it costs ~$310k to raise a child 0-18 (not including daycare and college). ~40% of annual pregnancies are unintended, per the Guttmacher Institute. It is a pyramid scheme that is upset the latest entrants have wised up to the scam and do not want to be juiced for their working life. Therefore, society must make potential parents a better offer, or live with the consequences at scale (rapidly falling fertility rates) of rational actors making rational decisions to protect themselves from an adversarial system they are forced to exist in. Is it young cohorts' fault society ran up this enormous liability [2] [3] [4] they must now pay? It is not. They do not exist to pay off someone else's credit card tab, nor should they be encouraged to have children as a means to fund these liabilities. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 [2] https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-more-than-35-trillion-what-does-that-mean https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-mo... ($35T US national debt, does not include unaccounted for liabilities around future societal obligations, pollution remediation, carbon emission sequestration, etc) [3] https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ICF-CR-Cost-of-Climate-Change-Study.pdf https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... ("The cost of climate change to a baby born in 2024 in America could be around $500,000 over their lifetime. When more uncertain factors are included, the costs could reach about $1 million.") [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-... ("Climate change damage could cost $38 trillion per year by 2050, study finds")

tuatoru 2y ago

This is a deep question, I think. In the past, children just happened. We no longer have load-bearing conceptual or moral frameworks for thinking about reproduction. Religious leaders have lost their moral authority, if they ever had any. Coercion happens when there are no means of persuasion (except for psychopathic leaders in authoritarian societies, of course: then you get coercion whether or not persuasion is possible). The two standard reasons you list suffer from free-riding. If other people do it, but you don't, you come out ahead. How should that be addressed? Are, indeed, those even valid reasons at all? The same applies to techno-utopian reasons. "Have children because more people means more ideas, and more ideas means more progress". Free-riding problem again. The Ev. Psych. people would say it's a matter of mimesis, or social proof: people have children when they see (respectable) people similar to themselves having children. How far do you go in creating "influencers", then? And to what end? As to how to have the conversation: step one is persuading feminists that this is not a right-wing reactionary issue, code for undoing all the advances in rights that women have so recently won. That's a tall step.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
I think it is simple though. Empower people who don't want to have children to not have them, that is their right. Society can reconfigure itself accordingly based on the outcomes of agency and free will.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  While completely fair to do so, one consequence is that it might dissolve any intergenerational social contract, and it is entirely reasonable for the younger generation to vote to defund pension programs, not provide elder care (or make it extremely expensive), etc. Essentially, looking at things from a high level, if the previous generation's decision to not have children means that the current generation has to spend an overly burdensome fraction of their economic output to support the previous generation, then it's their prerogative to simply not take care of them. Particularly for people who have no ties to the current generation.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Full disclosure, I help folks get permanent birth control who want it [1] to empower and provide agency in a system that is attempting to not provide it to humans. Why? Because the intergenerational social contract already doesn't exist. Outside of a handful of countries with pro natalist policies, there is no material support. In the US, the expectation is that people should have kids so line goes up, broadly speaking (productivity = capital market gains and pay as you go social program funding), while making working arrangements as tenuous as possible, no daycare subsidies, no guaranteed paid time off, requiring to go into debt to procure an education credential employers can mandate but not need for a role, etc. Per the Brookings Institute, it costs ~$310k to raise a child 0-18 (not including daycare and college). ~40% of annual pregnancies are unintended, per the Guttmacher Institute. It is a pyramid scheme that is upset the latest entrants have wised up to the scam and do not want to be juiced for their working life. Therefore, society must make potential parents a better offer, or live with the consequences at scale (rapidly falling fertility rates) of rational actors making rational decisions to protect themselves from an adversarial system they are forced to exist in. Is it young cohorts' fault society ran up this enormous liability [2] [3] [4] they must now pay? It is not. They do not exist to pay off someone else's credit card tab, nor should they be encouraged to have children as a means to fund these liabilities. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 [2] https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-more-than-35-trillion-what-does-that-mean https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-mo... ($35T US national debt, does not include unaccounted for liabilities around future societal obligations, pollution remediation, carbon emission sequestration, etc) [3] https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ICF-CR-Cost-of-Climate-Change-Study.pdf https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... ("The cost of climate change to a baby born in 2024 in America could be around $500,000 over their lifetime. When more uncertain factors are included, the costs could reach about $1 million.") [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-... ("Climate change damage could cost $38 trillion per year by 2050, study finds")