No one has any money for rent, food, or living expenses.
Everyone is overworked.
We’re paid pennies compared to CEO’s.
Every single company fucks us by raising prices because they can, and our governments do nothing because they haven’t worked for the people in decades…
While that is all generally true, the status of most people in developed countries today is better than its ever been in history.
That’s what’s driving fertility down. People who have access to education, medical care, relative comfort and security have fewer children.
My wife and I are part of a younger generation whose culture revolves around NOT having children until all those things you mentioned are attained. The stress of even having a kid, let alone multiple, is not something we’re going to address until we hit financial security.
And at least in most places of the world, you are unlikely to ever achieve financial security because the government inflates your fiat currency until it’s worthless.
The subtext there is that you feel that financial security is something which is attainable.
No it isn’t, there’s no implication of that. Just that they won’t reproduce until they see it happening.
I figure it’s a combination of problems. I come home from work exhausted and don’t want to go out. So I’m at home alone. On the bad side, the work, the stress, the balance of keeping everything because the way the modern world has gone to make it difficult to look for new jobs especially if you lost yours just makes going out difficult.
But that’s because to “go out” I’d have to drive half an hour or more away to maybe a bar. And the bar is filled with people who are going to visit said bar.
We’re at a point where it’s easier to communicate with people hundreds of miles away instead of someone in our neighborhood, and comfortable enough to do it, while stressed enough to not make the attempts. Stack on those that are married, there’s the problem of just having enough time of day from both people having to work overtime.
Pretty sure throughout history most (if not all) generations have worked to give their kids a better (if not approximately equal) quality of life to their own. That isn’t feasible for many people, and older generations are frustrated that it wasn’t/isn’t feasible for many who are currently young adults. That, along with the ability to control if you have kids, makes the choice for many of us. Why would you choose to have kids if their lives are worse than your own and you don’t enjoy your own?
This is in the good economies too! In most of Africa life is even shittier. I can only imagine. Well, is still mostly better than it’s ever been. History is cruel, and present but at least % of population living decent is much higher globally. Still, USA richest country in the world and we can’t Even get universal healthcare, and instead of aiding homeless domestically, or money for food abroad etc… We give a genocidal maniac hundreds of billions to play with.
And yet you do nothing but complain on the internet.
If you really had no options you’d be desperate enough to kill your boss or his boss or the CEO.
Ah yes the ol 'you’re not murdering people so none of your problems are valid". I have a cross-stitch of that in the living room
Do you have an Etsy?
I’m all for “eat the rich”, but my boss doesn’t make much more than me
I really like my boss. He is a happy, older, Santa Claus looking dude that buys us a real lunch on the day we have to come in. Always makes sure we have everything we need.
He sounds amazing! I’m happy you have him as a boss
I am as well. I didn’t know what to make of him because he didn’t say a lot in the interviews (it was a panel style set up) and was worried he would be a hard ass.
Nope, nicest boss I ever had. “Just do your work and ask questions before you get behind, and if you get behind say something before it’s bad.”
What 😂
Yeah, why fight for a better life when you can get put away for life for murder?
I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to have kids in this environment.
Not only that, but with the increasingly credible threat of automation looming, I don’t think we should be looking to traditional economic wisdom for advice about labor shortages.
If we run out of resources, the rich will taste good.
Cringe af. Can you please stop with the constant violent rhetoric? This does not solve any problems and instead divides humanity. You will not create a better future by killing more people.
History repeats itself. Unless laws change to reign in the 1% and the billionair class, heads will guaranteeably roll…the question is whether it’s sooner or later. It just comes down to a question of how much are people willing to put up with before someone takes matters into their own hands, and that will be the catalyst that causes change. Either others will follow suit, or the laws will get passed to control these people.
Economic violence is violence. The war has begun
By that logic the war has never ceased and has been going on basically forever
Indeed, welcome aboard
You’re telling me the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles? I think you might onto something there 🤔
Oceania was always at war with Eurasia.
We’d have a better present right now if we guillotined rich fucks and their bootlickers.
Don’t kid yourself Richard, If Zuckerberg ever got the chance he’d eat you and everyone you care about!
But seriously, you worry about a divided humanity? We’ve been divided for centuries, and the people at the top aren’t going to willingly step down from their mountain of corpses to slum it with the rest of us.
It requires killing a lot fewer people than the .01% kills every day through economic violence. They’re just a walking trolley problem at this point.
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Totally agree. Instead of trying to create understanding, violence and thinking of other people as non-human only tears people apart.
All rights are won through violence.
Automation considered a threat is sad. What fucked up world we live in.
It has to be deprivatised if it’s going to be a positive for humanity, otherwise it’s just another upward wealth transfer.
Yep. Basically we already have answer to question “what if we had replicator?” and it is “DMCA”. Technology is not enough for society to be better.
Our modern rich think that with enough technology they can insulate themselves from our power entirely. The way I see it we either prove them wrong, or die.
Automation (eliminating work) only is a problem (eliminating jobs) in our shitty economic system.
The economic system (capitalism) only values AI for its ability to create problems for us (poor people)
Dont forget climate uncertainty
Yes, my wife and I considered not for environmental reasons. My parents thought we were nuts citing the threat of nuclear war when they were kids and everyone continuing to have kids then. They’ve come around to understand our hesitation now, mostly, but it was distressing that they couldn’t understand , if not agree, with hesitating.
Of course, the environment is just one thing that gives us pause these days. People are crazy. Politicians and the laws they create are (or the dissolution of certain laws is) crazy. Plenty of reasons to pause.
We did have a child, and I do not regret it, but we also have the means to support her and a way to escape the U.S. if things get much worse. Many Americans don’t have either option, and no child should be neglected or abused and every child should have a robust support system. I wish we would encourage and educate people on contraception on a grand scale.
My wife travels a lot for work, and I dabbled in genealogy years ago to track down my own birth relatives. By combining the two, my wife and our daughter now have EU passports, and I’m eligible for a long-term visa.
Theoretically I could be eligible for Slovakian citizenship (which is not their EU country) based on my own DNA ties, but that would require some mental gymnastics and a very progressive interpretation of how closed infant adoption affects legal rights.
I am actually very fond of Texas, and I think the idea of it is worth fighting for, and that there’s a strain of tolerance and hospitality and diversity here that could be compatible with a much more progressive worldview. I have hope that it can be better than it is. I think any place with people who love it is worth trying to make into the best version of itself, to say nothing of the people who couldn’t leave even if they wanted to…
but we’re also not going to be the last ones out if we lose that hope.
Hmmm, what dna tiws do you need to be eligible for Slovakian citizenship?
You need a grand-grandparent (or more recent) born in Slovakia. My biological great grandmother was born in a small town in the eastern half of what is now Slovakia, and immigrated to the US in the late 1920s. I was adopted as an infant though, so my legal family has no such connections, and while I could try to make my case, it would be both circumstantial and rather technical unless I could get help from my birth father, which is, shall we say, unlikely.
Interesting. My grandmother was.
I’ve wondered what my options to get to the EU are if I really wanted. That…is interesting.
Edit: do you have a source by any chance? So far I only see rules allowing if parents were Slovakian citizens.
The Australian embassy seems to have updated their page more recently than the US or Canada, and they mention the grandparents and great grandparents thing. I’d check with the US embassy (assuming you’re in the US) to confirm, but it looks like the long-discussed law change did happen. I kinda lost interest when I realized the doors I’d have to barge in to have a plausible chance of success. YMMV. :-)
And you only need to escape Indiana.
Not if Trump is president. My daughter is queer, she and I are both Jewish, and my wife is a librarian. They either want us to be part of their genocide or, in my wife’s case, in prison.
I have dual citizenship with the UK and also theoretically German citizenship. And I am sure as hell going to take advantage of that depending on what happens in November. I don’t even care about me, I care about my daughter.
Well, as I’ve said before, Illinois is close, and probably easier to get to on short notice if necessary. I’m a ways north of you (in IL), but my home is available to you if you find yourself in danger.
Edit: And you’d be coming this way anyway to fly overseas out of O’Hare, right?
Honestly, I’d probably drive somewhere less prominent and fly out from there. No reason to attract attention if you’re fleeing. But I appreciate the offer.
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That’s really awesome of him! I don’t care whether it was being friendly or officially announcing it. Either way, that’s amazing!
Yes, the same here. We had 2 kids (and then a vasectomy). We’re not rich, but we do have a house we could sell to aid leaving, and we have enough in savings to make it without selling the house, if we needed to leave right away. Of course, environmental issues will be a global problem, but the response to those will likely be better in some places as compared to others.
Quick note though, one child is still far below replacement rate. Though you didn’t state if you’re one and done or not.
True, and we were definitely one and done and now my wife is 46, so it would be way too risky. We wouldn’t have been able to financially support a child and I didn’t want to end up having a favorite, which sure happened with me and my brother who could do no wrong despite being a major asshole. I wouldn’t want to have a favorite, but I wouldn’t be able to prevent it either. And I wouldn’t want to have more than one kid if it turned out I thought one was better than the other. That could lead to proper child care issues.
Also, raising just the one has been a herculean effort due to all sorts of things, so I don’t regret it. I love her more than anything in the world and I don’t regret any of the effort I’ve made, but I don’t know that I would have been able to handle two such kids on a mental level.
Replacement level for whom? To sustain the current population? Population growth? Status quo? Corporations?
Not sure any of these things are needed to be sustained at the levels we are currently at.
Someone please explain the detrimental repercussions of not having an equal to or greater than replacement level.
Not only that, but we’re simultaneously talking about how we’re adding a force multiplier to labor with the advent and improvement of AI.
We’re literally in the process of decoupling social progress and productivity from reliance on population, and juggling the impending social burden that’s going to create if jobs decrease accordingly, yet we should be worried we’re not popping out kids to maintain population growth?
Why the fuck should we create larger generations of unemployable humans for the future we’re building?
Especially when having a kid is one of the worst possible actions you could take regarding environmental impact, and the people already alive are facing quite serious environmental consequences for such impacts.
I’ll take a crack.
Slow population loss, while concerning for policy makers, can be managed theoretically by moving money around. Taxation, subsidies, etc.
The US is currently at 1.6 fertility rate. 2.1 is replacement rate, so a pretty steep drop of 25% loss per generation. But we have substantial immigration to make up the shortfall. It’s an issue, and it’s trending down, but manageable for now.
Fertility rates of 1 or less are terrifying. Each generation is half the size of the one before. Half as many workers supporting the elderly. Retirement/pension systems will be strained then collapse, allowing retirees to fall into poverty. Half as many workers to maintain infrastructure, half as many doctors, half as many nurses, half as many experts in every field, means half as many researchers making discoveries and breakthroughs.
God forbid you go to war and have half as many soldiers to call on, from a workforce already stretched beyond any before. It’s a recipe for mass suffering in a scale never before seen.
South Korea and Japan are currently below 1. China might be even lower. People are, generally, resilient and resourceful. Adjustments will be made. People will work into their 70’s and 80’s because there is work to be done. But there will be a great deal of suffering.
If we didn’t rely on constant growth to keep our economy working this would be great news.
Yep, a planned economy is the way to go and more than doable. But so many people are jealous spiteful dimwits. So essentially, we’re fucked.
Make the world one that people actually want to live in and this won’t be a problem
Maybe stop treating the common person like utter dogshit. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
🥳🥳🥳
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Why would I want to have kids in this shithole. And I have it pretty darn good, always had enough to eat, roof over my head, relative luxuries. Still would never bring a kid into this world.
Why the fuck would I bring to the world someone to live in this overheating unrestrained capitalist hellscape ? Invisible hand my ass. The invisible hand doesn’t seem to stop them from poisoning us with forever chemicals… And so much more. Why would I bring someone to suffer ? They would surely have a worse life than me. Who wants to give that to their kids ? Who ?
Good. A lower population is truthful and beautiful, as my old philosophy professor would say.
Sounds like a problem for governments to figure out
Immigration was always an outsourced bandaid for solving population decline.
Phew. The population needs to be reduced significantly, this will help!
Does it really, though?
Every issue “overpopulation” is blamed for is just the fault of corporate greed.
Yes.
An important point for the people cheering lower population - this is way under replacement level. As previous generations die off and this becomes apparent, the fear is a sudden depopulation enough to disrupt some economies, societies. Picture Detroit, many times over (apologies to Michiganders, since I’ve been to Detroit recently and things are finally looking up after half a century of urban blight) but r pivcture infrastructure like Flint, MI water system many time over. Unstable economies and societies are bad for us all
Given that the article is posted on a science site, and people are discussing this on fairly new technology, I also want to point out that science, technology, innovation are all “luxuries” of an expanding population. As we depopulate and an increasing share of resources go toward elderly care, infrastructure, etc, that’s less for science, technology, innovation.
Some economies could use some disruption. I’m all for shaking things up a bit.
We can still eat the rich, right?
Absolutely.
Nothing wrong with that. Let population levels drip until about 2 billion or so. The rest of the worlds biosphere will thank us. Also all of humanity will thank us as life will become a whole lot more livable
Over what timeframe? Because if you go below a rate of what 1.8 or so you get gerontocracy and the productivity demanded of the working and child-rearing age population to support the elderly will be overwhelming meaning you’ll have an even lower birth rate meaning things get even more dire.
And yes pretty much all developed nations are at that point already: It’s either counter-steer to get up to 2.0 again, or enter a death spiral (have a look at Korea for one in full swing), or immigration but with the rest of the world ceasing to grow that won’t be a solution for long.
Lol too late
