2 ms·

What's fascinating to me about this shift is that I've yet to see a clearly identified root cause. Some people on the left identify cost of living and things l

What's fascinating to me about this shift is that I've yet to see a clearly identified root cause. Some people on the left identify cost of living and things like that, but we're generally richer and better off than ever and still having fewer kids. In fact higher standards of living seem generally negatively correlated with number of children. Some people on the right blame birth control or women not knowing their place or whatever, but it seems odd that propagation of a species would rely on essentially forced participation of prospective parents. Given those things, I wonder if there is an actual problem here or we just don't have the experience to see how it resolves. It's hard to see the side effects of increased standards and living or more choice and equality for women as inherently bad or something we need to fight against, especially when there seem to be few effective solutions that are compatible with a free and modern society.

bentcorner 1y ago
> Some people on the right blame birth control or women not knowing their place or whatever, but it seems odd that propagation of a species would rely on essentially forced participation of prospective parents. The simple explanation is that there is no local "cost" to doubling your household's income. The only thing you "pay" is to have fewer children. As smaller households become more competitive, average costs rise and the only way to stay competitive is for other households to also stay small. Looking at world-wide graphs and it's extremely worrying - many countries are completely upside-down and over the next 25-50 years as the elderly die, these populations will crash. IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track, I suspect the children of today are just going to have to suffer the consequences of a large population decrease. It's certainly plausible that this is all for the best for Earth's sustainability, but I expect the coming years to be turbulent nonetheless.
- rainsford 1y ago
  > IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track... I guess my thought is that it's non-obvious what "doing something" would have looked like. The seemingly inevitable outcome of economic, social, and technological progress has been declining birthrates, and many proposed solutions would effectively involve reversing one of those three things. I'm honestly not sure that would be a better outcome. I'd welcome a more palatable alternative, but it's not clear one will be forthcoming.
Gibbon1 1y ago
Cost disease applies to children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect We aren't supposed to think of children as an economic good. For one children don't pay money for their care so it's difficult for capital to exploit the relationship. Unpaid work especially done by women is valued at zero. Or seen as a sunk cost. If we reject that than we see that it takes similar amounts of time and labor to raise children as it did a 100 years ago. Other resources have increased. Particularly raising children in an urban environment costs more than rural. And unlike rural children's labor has no value in urban environments. That totally sets up cost disease. I've been thinking along the lines of generalized Malthusian limits it's not just malnutrition and disease that limits population growth. Toss in cost disease and you can argue for urban, capitalist industrial economies we've overshot some nebulous limit that doesn't show up in mortality statistics.

bentcorner 1y ago

> Some people on the right blame birth control or women not knowing their place or whatever, but it seems odd that propagation of a species would rely on essentially forced participation of prospective parents. The simple explanation is that there is no local "cost" to doubling your household's income. The only thing you "pay" is to have fewer children. As smaller households become more competitive, average costs rise and the only way to stay competitive is for other households to also stay small. Looking at world-wide graphs and it's extremely worrying - many countries are completely upside-down and over the next 25-50 years as the elderly die, these populations will crash. IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track, I suspect the children of today are just going to have to suffer the consequences of a large population decrease. It's certainly plausible that this is all for the best for Earth's sustainability, but I expect the coming years to be turbulent nonetheless.

rainsford 1y ago
> IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track... I guess my thought is that it's non-obvious what "doing something" would have looked like. The seemingly inevitable outcome of economic, social, and technological progress has been declining birthrates, and many proposed solutions would effectively involve reversing one of those three things. I'm honestly not sure that would be a better outcome. I'd welcome a more palatable alternative, but it's not clear one will be forthcoming.

Gibbon1 1y ago

Cost disease applies to children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect We aren't supposed to think of children as an economic good. For one children don't pay money for their care so it's difficult for capital to exploit the relationship. Unpaid work especially done by women is valued at zero. Or seen as a sunk cost. If we reject that than we see that it takes similar amounts of time and labor to raise children as it did a 100 years ago. Other resources have increased. Particularly raising children in an urban environment costs more than rural. And unlike rural children's labor has no value in urban environments. That totally sets up cost disease. I've been thinking along the lines of generalized Malthusian limits it's not just malnutrition and disease that limits population growth. Toss in cost disease and you can argue for urban, capitalist industrial economies we've overshot some nebulous limit that doesn't show up in mortality statistics.