4 ms·

Yeah, there is a reason why South Korea continues to break records for the lowest fertility rate in the world, making even Japan's birth rate issues look small

Yeah, there is a reason why South Korea continues to break records for the lowest fertility rate in the world, making even Japan's birth rate issues look small in comparison. Their society appears to be deeply, deeply sick in numerous ways. Not a good place to live, unless your calling is to work all your waking hours to make the rich even richer.

dyauspitr 1y ago
[flagged]
- phinnaeus 1y ago
  It is not so hard for me to imagine a world where women have equal freedoms to men and are not actively discouraged from having children. We have structured society in such a way that it is often the more rational financial, logistical, etc choice to be child free. Do you think we can fix those problems without stripping women of freedoms? I do.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    Maybe eventually but I think South Korea is already at or very close to the point of no return from total population collapse. Given that we’ve never seen an example of what you’re referring to we probably won’t get there in time.
    - djaychela 1y ago
      https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk?si=DY3pla26JO3nTF1b https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk?si=DY3pla26JO3nTF1b This video covers it pretty well
- alex_duf 1y ago
  Sure, I mean using force and coercion is one way to obtain what you want! Not sure that's the society I want my daughters to live in though, maybe there's a way to have both equal rights and promote family values? Like having access to healthcare, reduce the social stigma of being a parent, ensuring there's support for new families, keeping the cost down... Etc!
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    Maybe, a lot of Europe has excellent governmental support systems in place and they still have very low birth rates.
    - polskibus 1y ago
      They are higher than South Korea. One big factor remains which are very high property prices and rents. People have a choice and want their kids to have space. If they cannot afford it then often they choose not to have kids (or have 1 less).
    - 9337throwaway 1y ago
      [dead]
- nathanaldensr 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - closewith 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - dyauspitr 1y ago
      This is deeply dismissive. A better response would have been to provide a fourth option with what you think is a potential viable option. I can come up with one for you something along the lines of the government, providing sizable upfront pavements or stipends to families that have kids so having kids is an immediate financial gain. I don’t think most economies can sustain that though.
      - closewith 1y ago
        This is not just dismissive - it is profoundly so, and for good reason. The author deserves to be dismissed, having constructed a false trichotomy in which every option is merely a thinly veiled excuse for their sexist and misogynistic worldview. They have not reached their position through reason, so reason cannot be used to dislodge them from it. Entertaining their chauvinism as if it merits rational debate only legitimises their position by pretending it is worthy of serious consideration. It is not. It should be called what it is: shameful. Frankly, I am shocked that someone would publish such views under their real name. It suggests they may not fully grasp the gravity of what they have said. Are they aware that such comments render them unemployable in much of the developed world? That they risk being rightly shunned by the vast majority of people?
        Snow_Falls 1y ago
        Thank you for politely explaining what I am too filled with incoherent rage to do myself. The sexism of HN is astounding sometimes, here we have men politely debating whether women deserve rights. Everytime women are brought up on HN I am only disappointed further. If GP had said that men deserved to be enslaved no one would think this was something deserving of a thought-out rebuttal, they would be told to leave. But it's fine when women are in the firing line! Genuinely despicable.
- closewith 1y ago
  > However women would have to give up a lot of their hard won rights. That's nonsense. Across the developed world, economic pressure on young people is reducing the options available to them. Many more couples would have more children if the economic barriers were removed, including the impact on career and cost of childcare. Of course, developed nations will (hopefully) never return to the 5+ children per woman which sustained and grew the world population for millennia.
  - ponector 1y ago
    The truth is birth rates are down almost everywhere, not only across rich countries. Economic issues? Loneliness? People spend time in TikTok instead of dating? Modern high standards of living makes it hard to rise children. That's why rich people usually have many. Average Joe can not afford 3 kids.
- PaulRobinson 1y ago
  If you ever think the solution to a problem is to remove agency and freedom from an entire group of people, you have not found a workable solution, you're just trying to push away blame from those who are ultimately responsible. I sincerely hope your comment is satire or sarcasm. It doesn't land that way, it just reads as misogynistic, uncaring and divorced from the modern world.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    The struggle between personal agency and duty is a familiar theme in Asian literature, where duty usually wins. When you’re dealing with a literal extinction event what takes priority?
    - PaulRobinson 1y ago
      In Western liberal democracies, individual freedom always wins. Given that the World is currently over-populated by almost every metric imaginable, and we are facing an extinction event as a result, I think you can hold back on your demand that we enslave women for a few thousand more years, yet.
      - nathanaldensr 1y ago
        With current birth rates in developed countries, it won't take a few thousand years. Not even close. Nice hyperbole, though.
        PaulRobinson 1y ago
        OK, I'll bite. How long will it take until humanity is extinct based on the global birth rate of [checks notes] 2.51 children per woman[0]? Please show your working. When you say "developed countries", I assume you mean the G20 with a birth rate of 1.65 births per woman, but that includes the most populous nations on Earth (China and India). That means what people are actually talking about is "the birth rate is fine, but it's rich people who will soon be outnumbered". That's not a human extinction event - that's a call to action on equality and inclusion, and to ensure wealth is more evenly distributed. A lot of people who make these extraordinary claims of extinction risk are themselves very rich (Musk) or people who adulate them (people on Twitter). By insisting birth rate in the G20 is the issue that needs addressing, rather than wealth inequality, they make their motivation pretty plain to see. But none of this prices in climate change as a risk. Is a human extinction event (or tipping point event) going to happen sooner or later than an extinction event caused by climate change? As the population decreases and human consumption of resources decreases, will climate change accelerate or decelerate? Why is birth rate a problem for people of this generation to address urgently, as a higher priority than climate change? If it is a priority that requires direct intervention, why should that action be - as per the person I was replying to originally - require women to have less choice and autonomy? What method will this take? What other choices are there? Frankly, I don't know why I'm putting this much effort into arguing with a flawed "philosophy" straight out of the Andrew Tate handbook, that doesn't get backed up by numbers. If you're scared of poor people having more children, do something about poverty, not telling women they should have a moral obligation to stay at home and bring up your children. [0] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Fertility_rate/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Fertility_rate/
- analognoise 1y ago
  "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Instead of fixing our societal problems - all of which have to do with the distribution of resources, healthcare, etc - you're actually advocating for enslaving (sorry, "disempowering") women? Surely we can think of a better solution than that. We've been to space, created dams that slow the rate the Earth spins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam#Terrestrial_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam#Terrestrial_i...), but we just can't do better than... that?

dyauspitr 1y ago

[flagged]

phinnaeus 1y ago
It is not so hard for me to imagine a world where women have equal freedoms to men and are not actively discouraged from having children. We have structured society in such a way that it is often the more rational financial, logistical, etc choice to be child free. Do you think we can fix those problems without stripping women of freedoms? I do.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  Maybe eventually but I think South Korea is already at or very close to the point of no return from total population collapse. Given that we’ve never seen an example of what you’re referring to we probably won’t get there in time.
  - djaychela 1y ago
    https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk?si=DY3pla26JO3nTF1b https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk?si=DY3pla26JO3nTF1b This video covers it pretty well
alex_duf 1y ago
Sure, I mean using force and coercion is one way to obtain what you want! Not sure that's the society I want my daughters to live in though, maybe there's a way to have both equal rights and promote family values? Like having access to healthcare, reduce the social stigma of being a parent, ensuring there's support for new families, keeping the cost down... Etc!
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  Maybe, a lot of Europe has excellent governmental support systems in place and they still have very low birth rates.
  - polskibus 1y ago
    They are higher than South Korea. One big factor remains which are very high property prices and rents. People have a choice and want their kids to have space. If they cannot afford it then often they choose not to have kids (or have 1 less).
  - 9337throwaway 1y ago
    [dead]
nathanaldensr 1y ago
[flagged]
- closewith 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    This is deeply dismissive. A better response would have been to provide a fourth option with what you think is a potential viable option. I can come up with one for you something along the lines of the government, providing sizable upfront pavements or stipends to families that have kids so having kids is an immediate financial gain. I don’t think most economies can sustain that though.
    - closewith 1y ago
      This is not just dismissive - it is profoundly so, and for good reason. The author deserves to be dismissed, having constructed a false trichotomy in which every option is merely a thinly veiled excuse for their sexist and misogynistic worldview. They have not reached their position through reason, so reason cannot be used to dislodge them from it. Entertaining their chauvinism as if it merits rational debate only legitimises their position by pretending it is worthy of serious consideration. It is not. It should be called what it is: shameful. Frankly, I am shocked that someone would publish such views under their real name. It suggests they may not fully grasp the gravity of what they have said. Are they aware that such comments render them unemployable in much of the developed world? That they risk being rightly shunned by the vast majority of people?
      - Snow_Falls 1y ago
        Thank you for politely explaining what I am too filled with incoherent rage to do myself. The sexism of HN is astounding sometimes, here we have men politely debating whether women deserve rights. Everytime women are brought up on HN I am only disappointed further. If GP had said that men deserved to be enslaved no one would think this was something deserving of a thought-out rebuttal, they would be told to leave. But it's fine when women are in the firing line! Genuinely despicable.
closewith 1y ago
> However women would have to give up a lot of their hard won rights. That's nonsense. Across the developed world, economic pressure on young people is reducing the options available to them. Many more couples would have more children if the economic barriers were removed, including the impact on career and cost of childcare. Of course, developed nations will (hopefully) never return to the 5+ children per woman which sustained and grew the world population for millennia.
- ponector 1y ago
  The truth is birth rates are down almost everywhere, not only across rich countries. Economic issues? Loneliness? People spend time in TikTok instead of dating? Modern high standards of living makes it hard to rise children. That's why rich people usually have many. Average Joe can not afford 3 kids.
PaulRobinson 1y ago
If you ever think the solution to a problem is to remove agency and freedom from an entire group of people, you have not found a workable solution, you're just trying to push away blame from those who are ultimately responsible. I sincerely hope your comment is satire or sarcasm. It doesn't land that way, it just reads as misogynistic, uncaring and divorced from the modern world.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  The struggle between personal agency and duty is a familiar theme in Asian literature, where duty usually wins. When you’re dealing with a literal extinction event what takes priority?
  - PaulRobinson 1y ago
    In Western liberal democracies, individual freedom always wins. Given that the World is currently over-populated by almost every metric imaginable, and we are facing an extinction event as a result, I think you can hold back on your demand that we enslave women for a few thousand more years, yet.
    - nathanaldensr 1y ago
      With current birth rates in developed countries, it won't take a few thousand years. Not even close. Nice hyperbole, though.
      - PaulRobinson 1y ago
        OK, I'll bite. How long will it take until humanity is extinct based on the global birth rate of [checks notes] 2.51 children per woman[0]? Please show your working. When you say "developed countries", I assume you mean the G20 with a birth rate of 1.65 births per woman, but that includes the most populous nations on Earth (China and India). That means what people are actually talking about is "the birth rate is fine, but it's rich people who will soon be outnumbered". That's not a human extinction event - that's a call to action on equality and inclusion, and to ensure wealth is more evenly distributed. A lot of people who make these extraordinary claims of extinction risk are themselves very rich (Musk) or people who adulate them (people on Twitter). By insisting birth rate in the G20 is the issue that needs addressing, rather than wealth inequality, they make their motivation pretty plain to see. But none of this prices in climate change as a risk. Is a human extinction event (or tipping point event) going to happen sooner or later than an extinction event caused by climate change? As the population decreases and human consumption of resources decreases, will climate change accelerate or decelerate? Why is birth rate a problem for people of this generation to address urgently, as a higher priority than climate change? If it is a priority that requires direct intervention, why should that action be - as per the person I was replying to originally - require women to have less choice and autonomy? What method will this take? What other choices are there? Frankly, I don't know why I'm putting this much effort into arguing with a flawed "philosophy" straight out of the Andrew Tate handbook, that doesn't get backed up by numbers. If you're scared of poor people having more children, do something about poverty, not telling women they should have a moral obligation to stay at home and bring up your children. [0] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Fertility_rate/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Fertility_rate/
analognoise 1y ago
"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Instead of fixing our societal problems - all of which have to do with the distribution of resources, healthcare, etc - you're actually advocating for enslaving (sorry, "disempowering") women? Surely we can think of a better solution than that. We've been to space, created dams that slow the rate the Earth spins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam#Terrestrial_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam#Terrestrial_i...), but we just can't do better than... that?