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It's not to convince you of anything. You can't retire if you don't have savings or children to support you. Even if you have savings and/or children to suppo

It's not to convince you of anything. You can't retire if you don't have savings or children to support you. Even if you have savings and/or children to support you, you can't retire if your society didn't make enough children so that your savings can have some value. Social security was always a ponzi scheme that doesn't work in the long run as fertility rates _necessarily_ drop to or below (really, always below) replacement rate. Even without social security, if you want to retire, and to have along retirement, then you need your society to have near replacement rate fertility. Or insanely high productivity. I guess you can look forward to AI rendering most jobs obsolete, and hope that humans can -as always before- create new jobs that can't be easily automated.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
Denmark has nice a nice page for fertility rates: https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fertilitet https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer... I think GDP is somewhat disconnected from that rate though. https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/oekonomi/nationalregnskab/noegletal-for-nationalregnskabet-bnp https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/oekonomi/nationalregns...
imtringued 1y ago
The problem isn't that it's a ponzi scheme. It's that humans have to be replaced the same way anything with a finite lifespan (e.g. cars, buildings) has to be replaced. In theory your children are your pension deposit. People who don't have children should get a significantly reduced pension or they must provably support the children of a family that has more than two children per woman. The problem with modern society is that you need children at the end of your life. Agricultural subsistence requires children very early. It's a scheduling mismatch that causes people to delay having children all the way until they are no longer fertile.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago

Denmark has nice a nice page for fertility rates: https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fertilitet https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer... I think GDP is somewhat disconnected from that rate though. https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/oekonomi/nationalregnskab/noegletal-for-nationalregnskabet-bnp https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/oekonomi/nationalregns...

imtringued 1y ago

The problem isn't that it's a ponzi scheme. It's that humans have to be replaced the same way anything with a finite lifespan (e.g. cars, buildings) has to be replaced. In theory your children are your pension deposit. People who don't have children should get a significantly reduced pension or they must provably support the children of a family that has more than two children per woman. The problem with modern society is that you need children at the end of your life. Agricultural subsistence requires children very early. It's a scheduling mismatch that causes people to delay having children all the way until they are no longer fertile.