8 ms·

I mean, a relatively easy fix to a negative replacement rate (at least when you have a well-run, wealthy, attractive country) is immigration. Replacement rate

I mean, a relatively easy fix to a negative replacement rate (at least when you have a well-run, wealthy, attractive country) is immigration. Replacement rate isn't a problem when you let more folks in

consumer451 1y ago
I agree, but this only works if one is willing to accept a changing racial profile/culture. It appears that many people do not accept this idea. Not just in the USA, but look at Japan or South Korea, for example. To me, the really interesting question is how to stop what appears to have been inevitable for the last 40+ years: when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what could help here involves all kinds of non-market solutions which are hard to solve, and very not cool at the moment. The reason that I find this important is that even though I personally have no problem with race/culture mixing, in-fact I love Korean BBQ tacos... eventually with the immigration solution, there is an end state where all societies and countries are economically advanced, and have negative birth rates. What then? As a Star Trek fan, I have ideas about post-scarcity.
- exe34 1y ago
  > when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. heck maybe that's what trump's doing - tank the American economy and hope it brings the birth rate back up...
- WeylandYutani 1y ago
  You know NYC is already minority white right?
  - consumer451 1y ago
    My most controversial take, even though it is 100% true: The entire planet is minority "white." I put that in scare quotes because even as the lightest skinned person in the land, I know that "white" is a made up in/out group term. As a Slav, I was not "white" according to US immigration law as recently as the 1950s. There is technically no such thing as being white, there is only passing for white. The definition of white entirety depends on the day, and who you ask. Slavs, Irish, Italians, Greeks, were not "white" until very recently. It's a silly word that really means nothing. If one wants to slow down "white" people becoming the minority more and more due to their economic advancement, clearly the solution is carpet bombing poor countries with e-readers preloaded with Wikipedia. That is the only moral way to even things out!
    - joshuaissac 1y ago
      > The definition of white entirety depends on the day, and who you ask. Slavs, Irish, Italians, Greeks, were not "white" until very recently. Indeed, in some parts of Russia, white supremacists do not consider Caucasians to be white. It really does depend on who and when you ask.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what could help here involves all kinds of non-market solutions which are hard to solve, and very not cool at the moment. There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: The first generation to become affluent enough to own property does so and then lobbies for policies that increase home prices. These policies create housing scarcity both for homes and rental units. That saddles later generations with unreasonably high housing costs and makes them unable to afford to start a family, so the fertility rate drops. If you want more kids, build more housing.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    As mentioned in this other comment [0], I find this to be one of the most interesting problems of our time. > There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: If you have a moment, would you mind pointing me to this documentation? It sounds very correct to me, but I would love to have the receipts when I quote you in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      There are numerous studies showing that higher housing costs reduce the fertility rate, e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572
      - consumer451 1y ago
        Thank you. This is excellent. I am really curious how we fix this in the future.
        monknomo 1y ago
        My crank idea to fix both of the issues you mention is mandatory national service. This would provide everyone a common ground, similar to how widespread military service in wwii did. It would promote civic virtue by exposing everyone to how they personally can make the government useful. And it could be made such that we have our national service corp just build useful things, like houses. Additionally we could provide similar benefits to folks that go through national service as the military - healthcare, payment for college, etc.
- Retric 1y ago
  I think you need to consider history if you think this is a new thing. People literally paid for indentured servants, even outside of the slave trade. Importing cheap labor has been a constant throughout the countries history, look at camps of people building the railroads you’ll see lots of Chinese people etc.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    But if we zoom out, there is an end to this. We run out of poor people to be migrants eventually, right? I don't just mean as the USA, or any country, but as the Earth. How do we solve the issue of the end state, where all economies have reached our current level of advancement? I assume we solve it, or we go extinct, and that would be an odd reason to do so after millions of years, wouldn't it?
    - Retric 1y ago
      Countries are just arbitrary here. What happens long term is there’s massive selective pressure because children of people that reproduce in wealthy economies are the only people to be around in 200+ years. The USA as a whole has 1.7 births per woman which is really close to the ~2.1 needed. However that isn’t evenly distributed ethic Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander’s living in the US actually sit just above replacement rate. Give it 200 years and that may very well increase. Really 3 kids needs to be seen as normal long term because some people just aren’t going to have any.
    - pnutjam 1y ago
      Why does less then replacement rate equal extinction? It just requires a reimagination of the economy it's not an extinction level threat. That's just scare mongering.
- patagurbon 1y ago
  The US was very good for a very long time at integrating immigrants. It should continue that tradition and work even harder at it. I believe it was some Republican president who said something to the effect of “if you move to Germany you may be a citizen but you are not a German… But if you move to America and become a citizen you are an American”. It’s worth noting that not all advanced societies have fared as badly as Korea and Japan. Scandinavia for instance is below replacement but not nearly as catastrophically as Korea. It’s possible that a bit more policy tweaking and more productivity=>leisure time could get them back to a replacement rate.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    The US was historically rather hostile towards new waves of immigrants in practice, treating them very much like second class citizens (Irish, Italians, Latinos etc), effectively pressuring them to assimilate by becoming "more American than Americans" to avoid such attitudes. One can argue that the system kinda sorta worked in the long run, but I don't think it makes it worthy of emulation.
- charlie90 1y ago
  I assume if it reaches dire levels the government will just mandate that you raise children. I dont see anything wrong with that, personally. Raising kids is a duty like paying taxes or registering for the draft. Previously, it was just assumed that people would do it on their own, but it seems like the government needs to add "sticks" to get people to do it.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    This is such a cool topic. Homo sapiens are exactly evolved to reproduce. This is instruction #1, or else we wouldn't be here to discuss it. We might call this the super-not-weak anthropic principle? We produce multiple hormones which control our behavior to reproduce, and then different ones to raise those kids. It's been nice for millions of years. Parents think that creating their children is the best thing they ever did, generally speaking. Yet... we have recently created what is otherwise a really cool economic system, which somehow overrides all of that! Aside from "are we alone in the universe," this is one of the most interesting problems in my mind.
nostrademons 1y ago
Fertility rates are below replacement on every continent except Africa, and they're dropping quickly there. Immigration isn't going to save us, at least not long-term. I think what'll happen is that areas that still have a vibrant age pyramid will put up borders (either geographic or economic or both) with ones that don't, and say "Sorry, you're on your own" to the latter. They protect their children at the expense of their elders, basically. It won't be national borders either: the fertility issue cuts across most major nations, but there are certain regions where people still raise children.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Stop trying to solve problems 100 years from now in other countries though. The US is an enormously attractive immigration target and can easily bring in enormous numbers of new workers if it wants to. It's so good at this that it actually has and those people pay taxes but don't get government benefits.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    There is no "other countries", it's a global economy. Mexico exports $450B worth of stuff to the US every year. When their fertility rate was 6 and then one or two of those kids immigrate to the US, that's fine for them. Now that their fertility rate is below the population replacement rate too, if their kids emigrate their country is screwed. Then there's nobody to make that $450B worth of stuff, because the kids who migrated are busy filling the existing jobs in the US. Meanwhile what do you expect to happen in countries with fertility rates below population replacement and net out-migration of the youth? Is it morally reasonable to willingly cause that to happen, even without considering the consequences to the US of that level of desperation spreading through the rest of the world? The alternative would be to get the fertility rate back to the population replacement rate.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Assuming current trends are unchanged we’re still talking about having billions of humans for hundreds of years. On that kind of timescale we might see significant life extension, artificial wombs, and hard core genetic engineering. Some countries like South Korea are going to face major challenges far sooner, but frankly having the most extreme examples collapse means the average stays higher.
barry-cotter 1y ago
This doesn’t fix your problem if the people you let in cost more than they contribute in taxes. See for example the Netherlands where non-Western immigrants are large net negative contributors and their children are no better. https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf Similar results apply in Denmark. https://docs.iza.org/dp8844.pdf https://docs.iza.org/dp8844.pdf EU style negatively selected immigration where easily a billion people are eligible for asylum and refugee status with easy family reunification means immigration is a large net negative fiscal contributor.
- throwaway473825 1y ago
  They might still create more value than they cost. For example, a bus driver enables many people to work, but has a low wage and hence pays little in taxes.
  - simianwords 1y ago
    On average you are paid according to your value so this doesn't track.
    - garfield_light 1y ago
      So a top TikTok influencer is more valuable than a surgeon?
      - simianwords 1y ago
        Yes. They provide a scaled entertainment. You are forgetting the reach that this person has. Compared to a surgeon who's impact is more local, they might help a few patients in a week. Do you think a combat soldier is more important than a VP of Google?
        garfield_light 1y ago
        You have the delusion that true value is the same as a fungible one dimensional number, that externalities (negative or positive) don't exist, we have perfect information and local minima aren't real. The original example is that certain economic activities are force multipliers, the guy who actually does a good job in servicing the metro in my city (we avoid 10 minutes of delay) has more impact than most local CEO day to day. A good supply of bus drivers make certain services possible, which in turn boost productivity. The social influencer entertains like shitty cocaine, we don't have a lack of inane shit, their absurd payout exists because ZIRP happened. Bad entertainment has costs beyond the directly measured by dollars. Getting everybody addicted to nicotine is profitable but bad, correct? A hypothetical world were we "stagnated" on MySpace equivalents could've existed and surely the generated value would be higher.

consumer451 1y ago

I agree, but this only works if one is willing to accept a changing racial profile/culture. It appears that many people do not accept this idea. Not just in the USA, but look at Japan or South Korea, for example. To me, the really interesting question is how to stop what appears to have been inevitable for the last 40+ years: when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what could help here involves all kinds of non-market solutions which are hard to solve, and very not cool at the moment. The reason that I find this important is that even though I personally have no problem with race/culture mixing, in-fact I love Korean BBQ tacos... eventually with the immigration solution, there is an end state where all societies and countries are economically advanced, and have negative birth rates. What then? As a Star Trek fan, I have ideas about post-scarcity.

exe34 1y ago
> when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. heck maybe that's what trump's doing - tank the American economy and hope it brings the birth rate back up...
WeylandYutani 1y ago
You know NYC is already minority white right?
- consumer451 1y ago
  My most controversial take, even though it is 100% true: The entire planet is minority "white." I put that in scare quotes because even as the lightest skinned person in the land, I know that "white" is a made up in/out group term. As a Slav, I was not "white" according to US immigration law as recently as the 1950s. There is technically no such thing as being white, there is only passing for white. The definition of white entirety depends on the day, and who you ask. Slavs, Irish, Italians, Greeks, were not "white" until very recently. It's a silly word that really means nothing. If one wants to slow down "white" people becoming the minority more and more due to their economic advancement, clearly the solution is carpet bombing poor countries with e-readers preloaded with Wikipedia. That is the only moral way to even things out!
  - joshuaissac 1y ago
    > The definition of white entirety depends on the day, and who you ask. Slavs, Irish, Italians, Greeks, were not "white" until very recently. Indeed, in some parts of Russia, white supremacists do not consider Caucasians to be white. It really does depend on who and when you ask.
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what could help here involves all kinds of non-market solutions which are hard to solve, and very not cool at the moment. There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: The first generation to become affluent enough to own property does so and then lobbies for policies that increase home prices. These policies create housing scarcity both for homes and rental units. That saddles later generations with unreasonably high housing costs and makes them unable to afford to start a family, so the fertility rate drops. If you want more kids, build more housing.
- consumer451 1y ago
  As mentioned in this other comment [0], I find this to be one of the most interesting problems of our time. > There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: If you have a moment, would you mind pointing me to this documentation? It sounds very correct to me, but I would love to have the receipts when I quote you in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    There are numerous studies showing that higher housing costs reduce the fertility rate, e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572
    - consumer451 1y ago
      Thank you. This is excellent. I am really curious how we fix this in the future.
      - monknomo 1y ago
        My crank idea to fix both of the issues you mention is mandatory national service. This would provide everyone a common ground, similar to how widespread military service in wwii did. It would promote civic virtue by exposing everyone to how they personally can make the government useful. And it could be made such that we have our national service corp just build useful things, like houses. Additionally we could provide similar benefits to folks that go through national service as the military - healthcare, payment for college, etc.
Retric 1y ago
I think you need to consider history if you think this is a new thing. People literally paid for indentured servants, even outside of the slave trade. Importing cheap labor has been a constant throughout the countries history, look at camps of people building the railroads you’ll see lots of Chinese people etc.
- consumer451 1y ago
  But if we zoom out, there is an end to this. We run out of poor people to be migrants eventually, right? I don't just mean as the USA, or any country, but as the Earth. How do we solve the issue of the end state, where all economies have reached our current level of advancement? I assume we solve it, or we go extinct, and that would be an odd reason to do so after millions of years, wouldn't it?
  - Retric 1y ago
    Countries are just arbitrary here. What happens long term is there’s massive selective pressure because children of people that reproduce in wealthy economies are the only people to be around in 200+ years. The USA as a whole has 1.7 births per woman which is really close to the ~2.1 needed. However that isn’t evenly distributed ethic Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander’s living in the US actually sit just above replacement rate. Give it 200 years and that may very well increase. Really 3 kids needs to be seen as normal long term because some people just aren’t going to have any.
  - pnutjam 1y ago
    Why does less then replacement rate equal extinction? It just requires a reimagination of the economy it's not an extinction level threat. That's just scare mongering.
patagurbon 1y ago
The US was very good for a very long time at integrating immigrants. It should continue that tradition and work even harder at it. I believe it was some Republican president who said something to the effect of “if you move to Germany you may be a citizen but you are not a German… But if you move to America and become a citizen you are an American”. It’s worth noting that not all advanced societies have fared as badly as Korea and Japan. Scandinavia for instance is below replacement but not nearly as catastrophically as Korea. It’s possible that a bit more policy tweaking and more productivity=>leisure time could get them back to a replacement rate.
- int_19h 1y ago
  The US was historically rather hostile towards new waves of immigrants in practice, treating them very much like second class citizens (Irish, Italians, Latinos etc), effectively pressuring them to assimilate by becoming "more American than Americans" to avoid such attitudes. One can argue that the system kinda sorta worked in the long run, but I don't think it makes it worthy of emulation.
charlie90 1y ago
I assume if it reaches dire levels the government will just mandate that you raise children. I dont see anything wrong with that, personally. Raising kids is a duty like paying taxes or registering for the draft. Previously, it was just assumed that people would do it on their own, but it seems like the government needs to add "sticks" to get people to do it.
- consumer451 1y ago
  This is such a cool topic. Homo sapiens are exactly evolved to reproduce. This is instruction #1, or else we wouldn't be here to discuss it. We might call this the super-not-weak anthropic principle? We produce multiple hormones which control our behavior to reproduce, and then different ones to raise those kids. It's been nice for millions of years. Parents think that creating their children is the best thing they ever did, generally speaking. Yet... we have recently created what is otherwise a really cool economic system, which somehow overrides all of that! Aside from "are we alone in the universe," this is one of the most interesting problems in my mind.

nostrademons 1y ago

Fertility rates are below replacement on every continent except Africa, and they're dropping quickly there. Immigration isn't going to save us, at least not long-term. I think what'll happen is that areas that still have a vibrant age pyramid will put up borders (either geographic or economic or both) with ones that don't, and say "Sorry, you're on your own" to the latter. They protect their children at the expense of their elders, basically. It won't be national borders either: the fertility issue cuts across most major nations, but there are certain regions where people still raise children.

XorNot 1y ago
Stop trying to solve problems 100 years from now in other countries though. The US is an enormously attractive immigration target and can easily bring in enormous numbers of new workers if it wants to. It's so good at this that it actually has and those people pay taxes but don't get government benefits.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  There is no "other countries", it's a global economy. Mexico exports $450B worth of stuff to the US every year. When their fertility rate was 6 and then one or two of those kids immigrate to the US, that's fine for them. Now that their fertility rate is below the population replacement rate too, if their kids emigrate their country is screwed. Then there's nobody to make that $450B worth of stuff, because the kids who migrated are busy filling the existing jobs in the US. Meanwhile what do you expect to happen in countries with fertility rates below population replacement and net out-migration of the youth? Is it morally reasonable to willingly cause that to happen, even without considering the consequences to the US of that level of desperation spreading through the rest of the world? The alternative would be to get the fertility rate back to the population replacement rate.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Assuming current trends are unchanged we’re still talking about having billions of humans for hundreds of years. On that kind of timescale we might see significant life extension, artificial wombs, and hard core genetic engineering. Some countries like South Korea are going to face major challenges far sooner, but frankly having the most extreme examples collapse means the average stays higher.

barry-cotter 1y ago

This doesn’t fix your problem if the people you let in cost more than they contribute in taxes. See for example the Netherlands where non-Western immigrants are large net negative contributors and their children are no better. https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf Similar results apply in Denmark. https://docs.iza.org/dp8844.pdf https://docs.iza.org/dp8844.pdf EU style negatively selected immigration where easily a billion people are eligible for asylum and refugee status with easy family reunification means immigration is a large net negative fiscal contributor.

throwaway473825 1y ago
They might still create more value than they cost. For example, a bus driver enables many people to work, but has a low wage and hence pays little in taxes.
- simianwords 1y ago
  On average you are paid according to your value so this doesn't track.
  - garfield_light 1y ago
    So a top TikTok influencer is more valuable than a surgeon?
    - simianwords 1y ago
      Yes. They provide a scaled entertainment. You are forgetting the reach that this person has. Compared to a surgeon who's impact is more local, they might help a few patients in a week. Do you think a combat soldier is more important than a VP of Google?
      - garfield_light 1y ago
        You have the delusion that true value is the same as a fungible one dimensional number, that externalities (negative or positive) don't exist, we have perfect information and local minima aren't real. The original example is that certain economic activities are force multipliers, the guy who actually does a good job in servicing the metro in my city (we avoid 10 minutes of delay) has more impact than most local CEO day to day. A good supply of bus drivers make certain services possible, which in turn boost productivity. The social influencer entertains like shitty cocaine, we don't have a lack of inane shit, their absurd payout exists because ZIRP happened. Bad entertainment has costs beyond the directly measured by dollars. Getting everybody addicted to nicotine is profitable but bad, correct? A hypothetical world were we "stagnated" on MySpace equivalents could've existed and surely the generated value would be higher.