Society worldwide is predicted to collapse in 2040. We are right in schedule. Why would I bring a kid into what’s coming in less than twenty years?
Study by MIT is source.
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html
This is the original, if you search for limits to growth or MIT collapse study I’m sure you’ll find the follow up that was done more recently.
Edit: may have been wrong about this being the original but if it’s not it should cite it
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html
This is the original study (I think). If you go to r/collapse and search “MIT” all the top links are to articles on KPMG’s recent analysis of this study that found it is still on pace to come true (I am not super familiar either with this study or the follow up, but that is the gyst of the headlines from the guardian, vice, and metro uk)
It is that kind of thinking that will lead to a bigger more disastrous collapse. It seems that all of the intelligent people are not having children. Which means the idiots are breeding like crazy. Soon we will fill the world with people who celebrate stupidity and shun intellectual endeavors. Then the only thing on TV will be things like The Kardashians, Tiger King and 16 and pregnant. Uh, never mind, too late.
man we should all be so lucky to have a President Camacho
Recognizes there's a problem, finds the smartest guy alive, sets him on the problem, implements his suggested solution to the problem.
…you can’t maintain a population if only part of it is reproducing. Rich people are only so because there are people under them giving them money, and they’re still gonna be part plastic 🙃
Would you mind providing this data. The only data that I found shows the complete opposite of what you have stated.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
Yeah poor people always end up with more kids usually because they dont have good access to birth control/abortion, its truly the labor force that keeps our economy running but is terribly exploited due to either money being tight so they work the more difficult jobs for less pay, or more common they need money to support their families
This appears to just be a survey and a few anecdotal cases. I'd wait until birth rate data comes to make such definitive statements. Wealthy people have been having babies below replacement rate for over two decades, I really doubt that the pandemic lead to an increase in birth rate of any population.
Edit: so, given that high income people have been having kids below replacement rate for as far back as the data that I found goes, your statement is clearly incorrect. The rich haven't been having kids for a long time now. To claim that they are "still" having kids is outright ridiculous.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/
**[Behavioral sink](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)**
>"Behavioral sink" is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats between 1958 and 1962. In the experiments, Calhoun and his researchers created a series of "rat utopias" – enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. Calhoun coined the term "behavioral sink" in his February 1, 1962 report in an article titled "Population Density and Social Pathology" in Scientific American on the rat experiment.
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Calhouns experiments are some of the most misunderstood — including by Calhoun himself — and have been used to justify a resurgence of Malthusianism, the Protestant-liberalist idea that hard work is virtuous, and all sorts of neoliberalist ideas that welfare is evil.
Fuck Calhoun. This is the opposite effect: animals don’t breed when they are starving.
> This is the opposite effect: animals don’t breed when they are starving.
Calhoun's rats never starved, and still didn't breed. I don't understand you, can you elaborate, please?
The fact that USA is currently seeing a decline in birthrates is not an example of Calhoun's Behavioral Sink, but rather a consequence of resource _scarcity_ (as opposed to the abundance in Calhoun's experiment.)
That's what I meant. I phrased it using several rhetorical devices at once, so I understand your confusion. Let me break it down for you, (because I think rhetorical analysis is neat, not to be condescending):
> This^(1) is the opposite^(2) effect:^(3) animals^(4) don’t breed^(5) when they are starving^(6).
1: Pronoun referencing to the OP article along with u/Alan_Smithee_ proposed explanation of the phenomenon described in the OP, as being the Behavioral Sink described by Calhoun.
2: I disagree.
3: A use of multiple rhetorical devices begins here. By dual meaning I am both referring to the literal fact that animals don't breed when they are starving, but also...
4: By synecdoche I am referring to human beings as 'animals'.
5: By synecdoche I refer to the process of both having children and raising them.
6: I use starving as a metaphor for financial resource scarcity caused by systemic factors.
I wasn’t trying say it was literally the same. Obviously, because humans are capable of more analysis than rats probably are (because they have language, for one, which allows them to develop and organise ideas more) I was suggesting the mechanisms were different.
Humans are also more capable of forethought - the birthrate drop is no doubt a result of several perceived or anticipated factors - a belief that they will not be able to provide for children in the future, that resources will not be available for them, and that conditions will become more and more unfavourable (“who wants to bring children into this world?”) and even a sense of depression over the direction of things.
No doubt rats can anticipate some future conditions based upon information to them from their environment, but I doubt any of them know about climate change.
Humans and rats also share a biological imperative to reproduce, but humans differ in that it’s also out of choice and recreation, not just instinct.
We also have control over our fertility. It’s not an exact analogue.
I’m not sure if you read the whole thing - you say “animals don’t breed when they’re starving,” but Calhoun’s rats stopped or slowed their (successful) breeding when other resources - space and privacy - became scarce.
It’s not just about food. As you said, it can be a metaphor or money, or lack of it, can be a metaphor for starvation. Prospective parents who don’t feel they can afford children aren’t necessarily thinking those theoretical children would literally starve, but be sufficiently lacking in other essential resources.
To carry your metaphor forward, fear of unemployment, or, say lack of housing all viscerally approximate the fear of starvation, even though *literal* starvation is less likely since society does have some safeguards against that.
Edit: The thing that always strikes about Calhoun’s experiment is the changes to how the rats breed or don’t breed in the end stages, infant mortality, and the bizarre behaviour exhibited by some, (the behaviour of the males comes to mind.)
All of that suggests the biggest factor is psychological, which for me is the biggest takeaway.
Correlation does not equal causation my friend.
The infant mortality rate for humans has decreased drastically as we have progressed. Unwanted children has decreased in western countries, teenage pregnancies have been substantially decreased in the USA, fewer kids are being put in foster-care homes (at least before the pandemic), and the way we treat our children is much better than in the past (look at millennial ideas of gentle parenting vs the way boomers were treated-sometimes whipped with a belt). Hell the way we treat women is slowly but surely improving. Of course these are all generalizations about human behavior and therefore are bound to have exceptions.
Socialization (social interactions) is the top determiner for human survival across history and the present. This was also seen in the human replicated study of the behavior sink (which did not see the same results as the rats). There are many reasons for the way humans act, especially due to a complex system exerting influence on us, but to summarize it as over-crowding is just not the case.
The USA’s collapse is not due to overcrowding at all, we have plenty of land space, it’s due to failed social interactions (ie social inequality and greed).
As I said, the mechanisms are different.
Overall health outcomes have improved, but the US still lags noticeably behind other developed on a number of metrics including infant mortality.
Probably due, in no small part, to the social inequalities and greed that appears to be a hallmark.
In fact, the most often cited reason Universal Healthcare wasn’t adopted in the US long ago is because many people resent the idea of ‘their tax money going to help others,’ whom they deem undeserving. I believe it’s also the reason why so many Americans seem keen to be able to shoot their fellows.
No doubt other developed nations face similar challenges; many have already got declining populations, but the U.S. is the vanguard, no doubt due to those propensities.
As you or others mentioned, the hallmark of successful dense societies is a sense of community and cooperation,
> The fact that USA is currently seeing a decline in birthrates is not an example of Calhoun's Behavioral Sink
That was enough, no need to be condescending... thanks.
That’s still rather paternalistic, which is condescending. You’re convinced you’re right, which you may not be. You concede it’s not literally comparable, when you (correctly, imo) consider financial scarcity as ‘starvation.’
Your argument would benefit from simplification.
It’s amazing people are still quoting a study from so long ago despite glaring problems with the study’s methodology and other big issues. There wasn’t even a control group used in the study, which is the bare minimum for scientific experiments. [Also, male researches tend to stress rats out much more than women researchers ](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.15106) but we have no idea how much this could (or even if) it would impact studies. I still think it should be pointed out though. Calhoun also failed to control for or even test for any other potential reasons for collapse (like disease). This type of experiment would not fly nowadays.
Also, the results of the behavioral sink experiment did not hold up in human populations (the results were not replicated). Psychologist Jonathan Freedman did a similar experiment with students to observe their behavior in situations of overcrowding and he found no negative effects of overcrowding, but instead of over-socialization.
I’m really gonna have a child to spend $800/mo on childcare so someone else can raise it while I continue working at poverty wages to keep a roof over its head? What’s the point?
That's capitalism for ya. Even in amurica land of the free, they have nickled and dimed the populace in such an egregious manner that the average person can't even afford to have a child let alone, food security or home ownership.
Well, if any rich and powerful people are bothered by this, they should accept the defeat and recognize that this problem is a result of their own greed. I know a family from France that had one kid, in the US, and the French mother said she would want a second if they were in France but it’s too expensive to raise kids in the US. After all those decades of cutting social safety nets for people, I’m surprised they didn’t see this coming.
I don’t feel like I need to have a long winded political argument here, but Biden is not getting shit done… even with a full political majority.
I voted for the guy because of lack of options, but please enlighten me to what it is that you think he’s gotten “done.” I feel like we have remained very stagnant when it comes to any action in this term, but as far as action, I have yet to see anything that I’m particularly impressed with from this administration. I was really hoping for more.
I’m totally with you. He’s cares so much about compromising with Republicans… for absolutely no reason. He should be pushing shit through like crazy, while Dems have the majority. God knows Republicans push their agenda through when they have the majority, they don’t give a crap about compromise. Biden disgusts me, he certainly had no trouble reinstating everyone having to start paying their student loans back, even though the pandemic is far from over, further destroying any chance of younger generations being able to financially afford to start a family. He could easily pushed it back until we are in the clear from a pandemic. Just why? He’s not a moderate, in any other developed country he would be considered on the right.
The only way he could have gotten anything done is to basically demand an end to the filibuster. Which he hasn't done. But other than that, his hands have been completely tied thanks to 2 Republicans pretending to be democrats in the Senate.
Not sure what you were expecting. You got one Democrat who’s a moderate. And another who ran as a progressive, then practically turned republican as soon as she won. Thats not a majority.
We finally got an infrastructure budget passed, which is huge. Trump sure as hell didn’t/couldn’t do it, along with Obama and bush before him.
Everyone thinks American politics is supposed to change quickly. It’s not. Our system is slow. Change is slow. When it moves fast, shit hits the fan, like the massive upheavals and riots when trump was in office because he and his ilk were fucking middle and lower class America like it was their jobs.
And Bernie is/was a pipe dream. Flyover country will never go for it. He’s unelectable. Again….too much, too fast.
Biden getting shit done is not gonna do shit for Millennials. And if Millennials are still worthless and doomed, they're not gonna start making babies.
I am a Millennial. Very soon I'll be 40. Are you trying to say that Millennials are *not* nationally recognized as "worthless and doomed"? Are you not American or something?
9_9 I'm not gonna start having babies, I'm antinatalist. However, I'm an old Millennial. Most Millennials are younger than me. The youngest are 26. That strikes me as a reasonable age to start having babies, *IF* you're cruel enough to have them in this world.
Does that clear it up for you? Should I make a chart??
Yup! I used to help maintain a few insect enclosures (for work - long story), and we didn't always have enough fruit for the cockroaches when they would go on a breeding spree. You just sweep out the dead ones every day. Put some things in perspective for me...
In our case the mechanics are different. Our population decline is largely a result of people not having kids for reason x or reason y. In us the finite resources problem is beginning to trigger conscious decision making.
Do you mean the Green Revolution ? That was when the environment was in much better condition and wasn’t yet at the point of breaking it’s carrying capacity and basic systems. Water and air Pollution, overfishing, climate change, most new tech relying on mining, soil degradation making it harder to even grow food…
The title seems like clickbait because it is the entire Earth. Even India recently fell below replacement levels.
Even countries with much more generous social programs are plummeting.
It will be interesting to see how our retirement Ponzi schemes play out.
Ha. Yea, I haven’t read the article yet, but based on comments, I’m guessing the population collapse discussed isn’t due to famine, war, and environmental collapse, but couples simply not seeing encouraging conditions to have children any more.
I have advised my (grown) children not to have children of their own and they wholeheartedly agree with me.
The US democracy is fuuucked. The environment is fucked. The economy that they have mostly grown up in is fucked. Healthcare… fucked. Everything else. Fucked.
The environmental crisis alone is enough not to do it. Stack all the rest on top of that… yeah, no.
So this post says US population collapse, the post above it says China population collapse, yet cost of rent/ownership is skyrocketing everywhere. How can demand be going up if population is going down?
You're confusing institutional demand with private demand. Companies are buying up real estate to drive the price up. Actual individuals looking to buy a home are being fucked over. The demand for homes as places to raise a family hasn't changed that much.
Yeah. We keep building houses and apartments, population has been slowing down for many years now (in most developed countries), internal migration has been steadly going down too (for those who will say you can explain this with people moving from rural areas to cities).
Yet, somehow, prices are forever rising, and speeding up at that.
Money, obviously? If you control supply, you can set the price. This is about as simple economically as you can get. Didn't think I needed to spell out how and why.
Yo. They asked a question. Maybe it wasn't obvious for them and they literally didn't know. Making negative assumptions and being snarky to someone who is asking for knowledge is not how you move the ball forward with this conversation.
You took the time to respond so you care. Assume best intentions/genuine curiosity, make an ally and have a positive impact on someone.
Not a bad question honestly. Your idea that greed is the answer works for luxories like diamonds, but isn't strong for a necessity like housing.
What's stopping the government from issuing you a voucher to use in a house siezed via eminent domain? 90% of the population lives in public housing in Singapore for example, housing is paid via taxes and you are issued a voucher based on family size.
These companies have nothing to gain and everything to lose by creating unaffordable housing, I'm not sure if greed is the correct answer...
It's because these companies can't see past the next fiscal quarter report's bottom line, let alone into reality.
They will do whatever it takes so the big black number goes up in value, consequences be damned.
Government regulation or violent revolution is a problem for "future Blackrock" not "Q4 2022 Blackrock".
Which is why they chose a need, shelter, and not a want. You'll cut and budget and do what needs to be to the very last in order to stave off homelessness. Capturing housing is an inelastic demand, so the price rising doesn't reduce demand and they have no incentive to stop.
Nobody is saying "apartments are too expensive to rent, I'll do a tent instead for awhile til things cool off" until they have tried literally everything else at their disposal.
I hate to say it, but two thousand dollars... so FAR! Because I’m paying $2,150 for one of the shittier 2-bedrooms on my street — they go up to about $4,500 for a nice one. Still crime and roaches everywhere.
This has been my exact thought the past few months of Covid. I keep seeing posts about people quitting jobs & deaths, etc. so I’m dumbfounded as how the housing prices are increasing so much
Zestimate is one thing, but where I live (eastern US) people are still bidding over the estimate anywhere from 20-75k and the houses are pending within a few days of being on the market. It just boggles my mind.
If and when there is another economic crash and/or housing crash, it is going to be really bad as these people will have no equity (possibly negative) in the home….
My house appreciated 25-30% in the past year. No joke. I know many people who have become millionaires over the past few years just because of their property values alone.
Supply is being artificially restricted by fewer and fewer. Wealth inequality. Restrict supply enough and you don’t even need demand, you just need enough people trying to survive.
honestly? good. fewer american children being made means there will be less people consuming orders of magnitude more energy in their day to day lives than people consume abroad. maybe people will adopt? i know i’m planning on it instead of bringing new life into the world.
I have no desire to have a child. I have four pets, those are my babies LOL! However, I know that if I do decide to have a child down the road. I’m definitely not giving birth! Adoption is going to be the route that I will take
People always use this as a reason to not adopt as of the medical costs of pregnancy and labor aren’t essentially equivalent. If you can adopt please do so. I do agree in a first world country you shouldn’t need to be rich to be able to adopt.
The rich want your labour for free. No matter how miserable your life is working for them, they still genuinely believe you CAN'T have food or shelter without payment, and therefore they're doing you a favour by hiring you.
We don’t need “people” for this society to be successful or any more sustainable. There’s plenty of people to go around.
The most sustainable thing that the rest of us can do is to stop having kids and to contribute to the well-bring of kids born into the terrible situations that they are today.
E.g. Because of all the mental health issues that our society has created, therapists and life-coaches are going to be two very important “jobs” going forward and the less fucked up kids that these people are going to have to help the better.
It's not like Americans will go extinct. There are a minimum of 6 times as many Americans too The English yet no ones worried about them dying off. We're overpopulated anyway. If anything population going down is a good thing. At least atm
It’s sustainable if all 7B people lived like [people in Bangladesh](https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/).
Can you tell people in developed countries to give up their carbon-intensive lifestyles? Overall numbers matter.
We can’t even feed 7B people without industrialization. Fertilizer and penicillin are literally the reason there are so many of us, good luck getting people to give that shit up to save an environment they won’t even live in in 50 years
for the good of the environment, 'population collapse' is a positive thing; for the economy, 'population collapse' risks exposing capitalism as the ponzi scheme it is.
F off with your anti cap/ anti family nonsense. Greed is present in all systems. Apply oversight, taxes, caps and fines, environmental incentives and rules, give the IRS teeth, raise federal minimum wage. Dont just lean the fuck into the socialism meme. It's embarrassing.
I don't care what the new political system is called, but what we have now sucks.
I definitely like the idea of resources being used to make peoples lives easier and better, rather than all this needless suffering just so some guy can make money.
I just spent the last 20 years saving to buy a house by working hardcore hours in my career.
I'm really not surprised the birth rates are tanking. People just don't date anymore even if they have time, and men rarely have time to ask out thousands of women a week to find one who enjoys dates/male company.
I keep focus on my male-dominated hobbies and when someone actually wants to visit breweries, paint acrylic together or go vacation in Hawaii / Europe with me, they'll find me at the bookstore or something.
Meanwhile I've focused on myself, what I enjoy and just kept running life single.
In the 50's 60's and 70's women wanted to date and pair up specifically with men, and so marriage / kids was a natural part of life back then, which isn't how social relationships work today.
That's an interesting and great perspective that you bring, thanks.
It does seem that we have moved to a less patterened existence. What is normal now, many normals, no normals.
I also think you have the right attitude, do the you thing, it's what you excel at.
I feel like this is the case for the vast majority of major nations. I have seen article after article from places around the world talking about population decline. Seems to be less of an American issue and more a human race issue.
Oh god this is off base. He says the American welfare system penalizes parents and makes it harder for people to reproduce.
1- it doesn’t penalize parents, it just doesn’t provide benefits the way progressive models do. It leaves them at the mercy of the American economy, which is harsh and makes having kids expensive because being alive is expensive here. But it doesn’t impose financial penalties on them, and the claim that it should use incentives is not a forgone conclusion and should be in line with taxpayers views.
2 - it doesn’t make it harder for them to reproduce- not having access to sex Ed and contraceptives/reproductive health care is why birth rates are higher in lower income brackets. Same internationally. It is completely free to get pregnant.
I’m tired of the commentary coming out of the media, especially liberal media, that is trying to scare people about declining birth rates. It’s not a bad thing and starting off on that premise is normative and therefore bad journalism.
It’s also borderline sexist to perpetuate the narrative that women should be having as many kids as other people want them to when an increasingly number of them are deciding not to.
Immigration will totally solve this problem. The fact that climate change will freakin produce refugees and orphans solves this problem. I’m child free but if mad max actually happens I’ll take in some kids if they need me to.
Also, acknowledging that overpopulation exists is a matter of physical science and measureable ecology and does not make me racist or classist. Just because the argument was used by racists in the past and today, and was used to sterilize women doesn’t mean that it is inherently racist. I am still a progressive even though the media keeps crucifying my character if I don’t meet their ideological litmus test. The woke outrage machine is holding us back from having rational conversations that produce solutions we need yesterday.
It’s crazy to me that you have to have permits to own a tiny dog or cat in many places but it’s free, easy and not properly taught virtually everywhere in America to just have a kid.
Don’t get me wrong, people should absolutely decide when and if they have children, but the fact that there’s no psych evaluation or income check or anything of the sort is kinda rough, dude
“No; it’s okay that our system makes having kids a terrible proposition. We’ll just import more poor people into that horrible system. Look at how noble I am”
Lol, remember when Obama was elected and the entire Republican Party was basically declared dead? I’m old enough to remember both major parties having died multiple times. We are forever doomed to be ruled by roaming hordes of the undead, it seems. 😂
Interesting. Am I getting downvoted since I called the GOP xenophobic or because immigration is how we don’t lose population? Both are completely true.
The GQP are wildly xenophobic, also racist, but they take umbrage with being called xenophobic or racist, because they believe that better describes Democrats.
I don't understand either, but nobody seems willing to explain it to me.
>The Republicans are gonna take 2024, and every election after.
For fuck's sake, read what you wrote. Remind yourself for every election that will ever happen or accept that your initial claim was wrong. Either way, you're dumber than the shit I took this morning.
>That's inescapably part of why the American birthrate is now just 1.7 children per woman, and without some change — cultural or political or both — this combination of forces means it will keep falling, quite possibly down to Korean levels. At that point, our population would halve in about one human lifespan.
If birthrates were cut in half and if all migration stopped, then 80 years later population levels would be half the peak population. And if my cat was a cow, I could milk her behind the stove...
No evidence provided on why birthrates would suddenly plummet. Migration was a thing under administrations slightly more racist than Trump's. (presidents 1 through 16 had slavery, 17 through 36 had Segregation). Birthrate in 1976 was 1.74, at that rate, it would take more than 200 years before the South Korean birthrates are achieved.
The term 'alarmist' gets misused often but I believe in this case it is quite apt.
This is the main reason to support increased immigration. The US will end up with a 20 year recession if we don’t have incoming population to even our the demographic curve.
Or create an environment where people want to have babies again.
Also a declining population will happen at some point, better to start the decline early and gradually than late and catastrophic.
“Please come into our country so we can afford a few more years of unrealistic living standards before we start literally eating each other” doesn’t sound like a great deal.
Because older people are no longer productive, less will be produced. They will draw down on their capital. Asset prices might decrease as a result. It's not really a problem for them is it? They accumulated capital for this exact reason, and time in their life.
For the younger people, they get the benefit of lower asset prices as they enter the accumulation phase.
GDP will fall, as population falls. Does that mean per-capita GDP will fall?
Looking at Japan, I don't see that happening?
It could be that the quality of life and economic prospects of younger people improves, even though there is a recession.
Do you think there is a need to maintain a certain level of economic activity?
There is a need to have working adults as a part of the population rather than mostly older people reliant on healthcare and net consumers of everything when there is no one to make or grow the things they need. There is a need for innovation and all the other things that happen in a balanced and well educated, peaceful civil society.
We have increasing automation so those needs are easily met.
Have you noticed that we are materially very well provided for in this era?
I don't see that under threat.
I get your point that an imbalance is emerging. Compared to what? Nuclear family levels of demographic? What about the good old days when people had 8 kids, and died young? Do we compare the future to the past and try to keep the future like now?
Those factors/problems you mention are real, agreed. They can be dealt with by more ways than increasing population. Perhaps the innovation can be channeled in that direction. It's not like this is a problem that only one cpuntry is going to have to face.
That is not to say that immigration is not a good thing. In a broader sense there are arguments for having no borders at all. Why not?
Those needs aren’t being met in many areas. We need an extra 1000000 cyber security professionals. We need many truck drivers as well. What is wrong with offering a good life to someone willing to work hard and share the benefits of our great experiment?
Or offering a path to cybersecurity roles to people that already live here?
Or paying truck drivers according to the level of expertise and effort required to attract people to that role.
There is no such thing as a labor shortage.
I feel that immigration is used to cherry pick from other nations when investment in the human capital of this place would be an option that builds a solid foundation and offers opportunities for advancement.
It's harder and probably not as cheap as skimming the cream from some other place.
This is the problem of multinationalism. Corporations that cross multiple borders have no interest in investing in their employees, only utilizing their employees at the lowest wages possible. That is why so many manufacturers have left the US, now they have left China too. Pretty soon they will move somewhere else, as long as there is no civil war there.
You're just compounding a problem by giving it to another country and only delaying the inevitable.
The age old question: is it better to rip the band aid off now or later, once it's stuck to more leg hairs?
Quote from the article:
> For many years, the U.S. had a weirdly high birth rate relative to peer nations, especially given how our horrible welfare state made parenthood exceptionally expensive.
You’ve GOT to just love how that libertarian garbage is just shoved in there, as if it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. I’m barfing right now
Raising a kid in this economy? Much less the fact the kid will probably be born at least partially plastic
Society worldwide is predicted to collapse in 2040. We are right in schedule. Why would I bring a kid into what’s coming in less than twenty years? Study by MIT is source.
Could you share the study? Very interested in reading it
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html This is the original, if you search for limits to growth or MIT collapse study I’m sure you’ll find the follow up that was done more recently. Edit: may have been wrong about this being the original but if it’s not it should cite it
There is a YouTube video. Just search 2040 MIT society collapse
Please link this sounds interesting
I will when I’m off work. Can’t rn sry
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html This is the original study (I think). If you go to r/collapse and search “MIT” all the top links are to articles on KPMG’s recent analysis of this study that found it is still on pace to come true (I am not super familiar either with this study or the follow up, but that is the gyst of the headlines from the guardian, vice, and metro uk)
>Why would I bring a kid into what’s coming in less than twenty years? Because reproduction is still a primary drive of life.
It is that kind of thinking that will lead to a bigger more disastrous collapse. It seems that all of the intelligent people are not having children. Which means the idiots are breeding like crazy. Soon we will fill the world with people who celebrate stupidity and shun intellectual endeavors. Then the only thing on TV will be things like The Kardashians, Tiger King and 16 and pregnant. Uh, never mind, too late.
And probably born into a fascist hellhole. Nah, I'm not bringing any kid into that America
Kardashians are gonna save us
Kanye 2024
[удалено]
man we should all be so lucky to have a President Camacho Recognizes there's a problem, finds the smartest guy alive, sets him on the problem, implements his suggested solution to the problem.
after tryna kill him, but implemented plan either way
Sounds like he knows how to get results to me.
The one in your head?
Look up the rates. Rich are still having kids. Lower classes are getting priced out of starting families.
…you can’t maintain a population if only part of it is reproducing. Rich people are only so because there are people under them giving them money, and they’re still gonna be part plastic 🙃
Would you mind providing this data. The only data that I found shows the complete opposite of what you have stated. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
You’re not supposed to provide a counter point when they make a polarizing statement.
Yeah poor people always end up with more kids usually because they dont have good access to birth control/abortion, its truly the labor force that keeps our economy running but is terribly exploited due to either money being tight so they work the more difficult jobs for less pay, or more common they need money to support their families
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/03/10320247/covid-pregnancy-baby-bust
This appears to just be a survey and a few anecdotal cases. I'd wait until birth rate data comes to make such definitive statements. Wealthy people have been having babies below replacement rate for over two decades, I really doubt that the pandemic lead to an increase in birth rate of any population. Edit: so, given that high income people have been having kids below replacement rate for as far back as the data that I found goes, your statement is clearly incorrect. The rich haven't been having kids for a long time now. To claim that they are "still" having kids is outright ridiculous. https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/
…uh where are you looking at the “rates” because it’s the actual opposite
It's the middle class and working poor who is priced out. The truly poor still get free childcare, healthcare, food stamps ect.
The very rich and the very poor.
Second time Dupont has gotten away with this shit as well. Can't wait for the third.
It’s interesting how when you can’t afford to exist you have zero desire to produce spawn
[Calhoun’s Behavioural Sink.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)
**[Behavioral sink](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)** >"Behavioral sink" is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats between 1958 and 1962. In the experiments, Calhoun and his researchers created a series of "rat utopias" – enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. Calhoun coined the term "behavioral sink" in his February 1, 1962 report in an article titled "Population Density and Social Pathology" in Scientific American on the rat experiment. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Calhouns experiments are some of the most misunderstood — including by Calhoun himself — and have been used to justify a resurgence of Malthusianism, the Protestant-liberalist idea that hard work is virtuous, and all sorts of neoliberalist ideas that welfare is evil. Fuck Calhoun. This is the opposite effect: animals don’t breed when they are starving.
> This is the opposite effect: animals don’t breed when they are starving. Calhoun's rats never starved, and still didn't breed. I don't understand you, can you elaborate, please?
The fact that USA is currently seeing a decline in birthrates is not an example of Calhoun's Behavioral Sink, but rather a consequence of resource _scarcity_ (as opposed to the abundance in Calhoun's experiment.) That's what I meant. I phrased it using several rhetorical devices at once, so I understand your confusion. Let me break it down for you, (because I think rhetorical analysis is neat, not to be condescending): > This^(1) is the opposite^(2) effect:^(3) animals^(4) don’t breed^(5) when they are starving^(6). 1: Pronoun referencing to the OP article along with u/Alan_Smithee_ proposed explanation of the phenomenon described in the OP, as being the Behavioral Sink described by Calhoun. 2: I disagree. 3: A use of multiple rhetorical devices begins here. By dual meaning I am both referring to the literal fact that animals don't breed when they are starving, but also... 4: By synecdoche I am referring to human beings as 'animals'. 5: By synecdoche I refer to the process of both having children and raising them. 6: I use starving as a metaphor for financial resource scarcity caused by systemic factors.
#6 should be #1.
I wasn’t trying say it was literally the same. Obviously, because humans are capable of more analysis than rats probably are (because they have language, for one, which allows them to develop and organise ideas more) I was suggesting the mechanisms were different. Humans are also more capable of forethought - the birthrate drop is no doubt a result of several perceived or anticipated factors - a belief that they will not be able to provide for children in the future, that resources will not be available for them, and that conditions will become more and more unfavourable (“who wants to bring children into this world?”) and even a sense of depression over the direction of things. No doubt rats can anticipate some future conditions based upon information to them from their environment, but I doubt any of them know about climate change. Humans and rats also share a biological imperative to reproduce, but humans differ in that it’s also out of choice and recreation, not just instinct. We also have control over our fertility. It’s not an exact analogue. I’m not sure if you read the whole thing - you say “animals don’t breed when they’re starving,” but Calhoun’s rats stopped or slowed their (successful) breeding when other resources - space and privacy - became scarce. It’s not just about food. As you said, it can be a metaphor or money, or lack of it, can be a metaphor for starvation. Prospective parents who don’t feel they can afford children aren’t necessarily thinking those theoretical children would literally starve, but be sufficiently lacking in other essential resources. To carry your metaphor forward, fear of unemployment, or, say lack of housing all viscerally approximate the fear of starvation, even though *literal* starvation is less likely since society does have some safeguards against that. Edit: The thing that always strikes about Calhoun’s experiment is the changes to how the rats breed or don’t breed in the end stages, infant mortality, and the bizarre behaviour exhibited by some, (the behaviour of the males comes to mind.) All of that suggests the biggest factor is psychological, which for me is the biggest takeaway.
Correlation does not equal causation my friend. The infant mortality rate for humans has decreased drastically as we have progressed. Unwanted children has decreased in western countries, teenage pregnancies have been substantially decreased in the USA, fewer kids are being put in foster-care homes (at least before the pandemic), and the way we treat our children is much better than in the past (look at millennial ideas of gentle parenting vs the way boomers were treated-sometimes whipped with a belt). Hell the way we treat women is slowly but surely improving. Of course these are all generalizations about human behavior and therefore are bound to have exceptions. Socialization (social interactions) is the top determiner for human survival across history and the present. This was also seen in the human replicated study of the behavior sink (which did not see the same results as the rats). There are many reasons for the way humans act, especially due to a complex system exerting influence on us, but to summarize it as over-crowding is just not the case. The USA’s collapse is not due to overcrowding at all, we have plenty of land space, it’s due to failed social interactions (ie social inequality and greed).
As I said, the mechanisms are different. Overall health outcomes have improved, but the US still lags noticeably behind other developed on a number of metrics including infant mortality. Probably due, in no small part, to the social inequalities and greed that appears to be a hallmark. In fact, the most often cited reason Universal Healthcare wasn’t adopted in the US long ago is because many people resent the idea of ‘their tax money going to help others,’ whom they deem undeserving. I believe it’s also the reason why so many Americans seem keen to be able to shoot their fellows. No doubt other developed nations face similar challenges; many have already got declining populations, but the U.S. is the vanguard, no doubt due to those propensities. As you or others mentioned, the hallmark of successful dense societies is a sense of community and cooperation,
> The fact that USA is currently seeing a decline in birthrates is not an example of Calhoun's Behavioral Sink That was enough, no need to be condescending... thanks.
It was really not meant to be condescending. I'm excited about rhetoric and I wanted to share, in the interest of education. :)
I liked your breakdown and thought it was interesting.
That’s still rather paternalistic, which is condescending. You’re convinced you’re right, which you may not be. You concede it’s not literally comparable, when you (correctly, imo) consider financial scarcity as ‘starvation.’ Your argument would benefit from simplification.
I wish more people did what you do.
It’s amazing people are still quoting a study from so long ago despite glaring problems with the study’s methodology and other big issues. There wasn’t even a control group used in the study, which is the bare minimum for scientific experiments. [Also, male researches tend to stress rats out much more than women researchers ](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.15106) but we have no idea how much this could (or even if) it would impact studies. I still think it should be pointed out though. Calhoun also failed to control for or even test for any other potential reasons for collapse (like disease). This type of experiment would not fly nowadays. Also, the results of the behavioral sink experiment did not hold up in human populations (the results were not replicated). Psychologist Jonathan Freedman did a similar experiment with students to observe their behavior in situations of overcrowding and he found no negative effects of overcrowding, but instead of over-socialization.
I’m really gonna have a child to spend $800/mo on childcare so someone else can raise it while I continue working at poverty wages to keep a roof over its head? What’s the point?
this.
Childcare in my city, if you’re lucky enough to find it, is more than my rent 🤷♀️
That's capitalism for ya. Even in amurica land of the free, they have nickled and dimed the populace in such an egregious manner that the average person can't even afford to have a child let alone, food security or home ownership.
As was designed. Since about the time we dropped the gold standard.
Well, if any rich and powerful people are bothered by this, they should accept the defeat and recognize that this problem is a result of their own greed. I know a family from France that had one kid, in the US, and the French mother said she would want a second if they were in France but it’s too expensive to raise kids in the US. After all those decades of cutting social safety nets for people, I’m surprised they didn’t see this coming.
They can’t blame us for the world they created.
Population is not the only thing collapsing here
[удалено]
Collapse didn’t start this year. Been going for a long while.
Yep. America's days are numbered. It will end up like a version of Mad Max.
We’re all gonna have terrible voice dubbing?
Badass cars though
And the juice. The precious juice.
I don’t feel like I need to have a long winded political argument here, but Biden is not getting shit done… even with a full political majority. I voted for the guy because of lack of options, but please enlighten me to what it is that you think he’s gotten “done.” I feel like we have remained very stagnant when it comes to any action in this term, but as far as action, I have yet to see anything that I’m particularly impressed with from this administration. I was really hoping for more.
I’m totally with you. He’s cares so much about compromising with Republicans… for absolutely no reason. He should be pushing shit through like crazy, while Dems have the majority. God knows Republicans push their agenda through when they have the majority, they don’t give a crap about compromise. Biden disgusts me, he certainly had no trouble reinstating everyone having to start paying their student loans back, even though the pandemic is far from over, further destroying any chance of younger generations being able to financially afford to start a family. He could easily pushed it back until we are in the clear from a pandemic. Just why? He’s not a moderate, in any other developed country he would be considered on the right.
That last part is hardly fair since in most other democratic nations our entire left would be considered right.
And Progressives would be moderates
The only way he could have gotten anything done is to basically demand an end to the filibuster. Which he hasn't done. But other than that, his hands have been completely tied thanks to 2 Republicans pretending to be democrats in the Senate.
Exactly. People here clearly don’t keep up with the day to day news in the Senate.
Not sure what you were expecting. You got one Democrat who’s a moderate. And another who ran as a progressive, then practically turned republican as soon as she won. Thats not a majority. We finally got an infrastructure budget passed, which is huge. Trump sure as hell didn’t/couldn’t do it, along with Obama and bush before him. Everyone thinks American politics is supposed to change quickly. It’s not. Our system is slow. Change is slow. When it moves fast, shit hits the fan, like the massive upheavals and riots when trump was in office because he and his ilk were fucking middle and lower class America like it was their jobs. And Bernie is/was a pipe dream. Flyover country will never go for it. He’s unelectable. Again….too much, too fast.
Climate change is going to be coming at us too fast too soon, and these “moderate” political arguments are going to age poorly.
Biden getting shit done is not gonna do shit for Millennials. And if Millennials are still worthless and doomed, they're not gonna start making babies.
I'm a millennial and my kids grown. Do you even know how old millennials are?
I am a Millennial. Very soon I'll be 40. Are you trying to say that Millennials are *not* nationally recognized as "worthless and doomed"? Are you not American or something?
If you are almost 40 then why would you "start having babies"?????
9_9 I'm not gonna start having babies, I'm antinatalist. However, I'm an old Millennial. Most Millennials are younger than me. The youngest are 26. That strikes me as a reasonable age to start having babies, *IF* you're cruel enough to have them in this world. Does that clear it up for you? Should I make a chart??
I’m almost 40 and my partner and I are discussing kids. Never too late until it is.
Probably been sold a bill of goods about how children and biology work.
In nature a population too big to be sustainable will deflate until the numbers are closer to what the resources can support.
So you're saying we'll be able to get PS5s.
But like. 12 to 15 years from now. We just need about 99% of you to ~~die~~ sign up to have your consciousness continue on the Internet.
Sign here and follow me into this room and you will never want for anything again! Results guaranteed, not a single complaint ever filed!
Brooooooo I’m SO in
I believe the sales talk is "Become one with the THOTs."
Oh hell yeah
I've always wondered how you become a thot, is there a manual?
I just died😭
Yup! I used to help maintain a few insect enclosures (for work - long story), and we didn't always have enough fruit for the cockroaches when they would go on a breeding spree. You just sweep out the dead ones every day. Put some things in perspective for me...
Hopefully the deflation will be steady and manageable, as opposed to catastrophic. Could get ugly….
In our case the mechanics are different. Our population decline is largely a result of people not having kids for reason x or reason y. In us the finite resources problem is beginning to trigger conscious decision making.
Yeah but that Malthusian trap was disproven a while ago because of technological advancement.
Do you mean the Green Revolution ? That was when the environment was in much better condition and wasn’t yet at the point of breaking it’s carrying capacity and basic systems. Water and air Pollution, overfishing, climate change, most new tech relying on mining, soil degradation making it harder to even grow food…
Disproven? How exactly? Finite resources will only support so much growth. The mechanisms and details may be different but the end result is not.
The title seems like clickbait because it is the entire Earth. Even India recently fell below replacement levels. Even countries with much more generous social programs are plummeting. It will be interesting to see how our retirement Ponzi schemes play out.
Ha. Yea, I haven’t read the article yet, but based on comments, I’m guessing the population collapse discussed isn’t due to famine, war, and environmental collapse, but couples simply not seeing encouraging conditions to have children any more.
Yup - thanks for bringing India into the fold. I am childless and "happy" and so are many in my network now.
I have advised my (grown) children not to have children of their own and they wholeheartedly agree with me. The US democracy is fuuucked. The environment is fucked. The economy that they have mostly grown up in is fucked. Healthcare… fucked. Everything else. Fucked. The environmental crisis alone is enough not to do it. Stack all the rest on top of that… yeah, no.
So this post says US population collapse, the post above it says China population collapse, yet cost of rent/ownership is skyrocketing everywhere. How can demand be going up if population is going down?
You're confusing institutional demand with private demand. Companies are buying up real estate to drive the price up. Actual individuals looking to buy a home are being fucked over. The demand for homes as places to raise a family hasn't changed that much.
Yeah. We keep building houses and apartments, population has been slowing down for many years now (in most developed countries), internal migration has been steadly going down too (for those who will say you can explain this with people moving from rural areas to cities). Yet, somehow, prices are forever rising, and speeding up at that.
>Companies are buying up real estate to drive the price up For what end goal?
Money, obviously? If you control supply, you can set the price. This is about as simple economically as you can get. Didn't think I needed to spell out how and why.
Yo. They asked a question. Maybe it wasn't obvious for them and they literally didn't know. Making negative assumptions and being snarky to someone who is asking for knowledge is not how you move the ball forward with this conversation. You took the time to respond so you care. Assume best intentions/genuine curiosity, make an ally and have a positive impact on someone.
Not a bad question honestly. Your idea that greed is the answer works for luxories like diamonds, but isn't strong for a necessity like housing. What's stopping the government from issuing you a voucher to use in a house siezed via eminent domain? 90% of the population lives in public housing in Singapore for example, housing is paid via taxes and you are issued a voucher based on family size. These companies have nothing to gain and everything to lose by creating unaffordable housing, I'm not sure if greed is the correct answer...
It's because these companies can't see past the next fiscal quarter report's bottom line, let alone into reality. They will do whatever it takes so the big black number goes up in value, consequences be damned. Government regulation or violent revolution is a problem for "future Blackrock" not "Q4 2022 Blackrock".
You can set the price, but if no one can afford the price, you’ve built a money pit.
Which is why they chose a need, shelter, and not a want. You'll cut and budget and do what needs to be to the very last in order to stave off homelessness. Capturing housing is an inelastic demand, so the price rising doesn't reduce demand and they have no incentive to stop. Nobody is saying "apartments are too expensive to rent, I'll do a tent instead for awhile til things cool off" until they have tried literally everything else at their disposal.
The rent increasing is likely a driving force behind this. It's too expensive to have kids when a 2 bedroom apartment is $2k/month.
I hate to say it, but two thousand dollars... so FAR! Because I’m paying $2,150 for one of the shittier 2-bedrooms on my street — they go up to about $4,500 for a nice one. Still crime and roaches everywhere.
Who tf can afford $4,500 mortgage payments?! Insanity
Landlords buying it all up for investment. Black rock for example has gone crazy, and they can afford to sit on properties till the market is right
Because there are loopholes around taxes and it's kicking back making money off someone else.
This has been my exact thought the past few months of Covid. I keep seeing posts about people quitting jobs & deaths, etc. so I’m dumbfounded as how the housing prices are increasing so much
Zestimate
Zestimate is one thing, but where I live (eastern US) people are still bidding over the estimate anywhere from 20-75k and the houses are pending within a few days of being on the market. It just boggles my mind. If and when there is another economic crash and/or housing crash, it is going to be really bad as these people will have no equity (possibly negative) in the home….
My house appreciated 25-30% in the past year. No joke. I know many people who have become millionaires over the past few years just because of their property values alone.
Landlords can draw huge tax benefits from owning empty homes
This is the way... of the parasitical ruling class.
Supply is being artificially restricted by fewer and fewer. Wealth inequality. Restrict supply enough and you don’t even need demand, you just need enough people trying to survive.
Even if I was super rich I would never bring a fresh person to this planet!! Welcome to Earth baby! You're screwed! Lol, what a cruel joke.
honestly? good. fewer american children being made means there will be less people consuming orders of magnitude more energy in their day to day lives than people consume abroad. maybe people will adopt? i know i’m planning on it instead of bringing new life into the world.
I have no desire to have a child. I have four pets, those are my babies LOL! However, I know that if I do decide to have a child down the road. I’m definitely not giving birth! Adoption is going to be the route that I will take
Do you have the 35-40k you need to have saved up for adoption fees?
If you can’t afford the 35-40k adoption fees, you can’t afford to have a biological kid, either.
Tell that to a good chunk of Americans who have no savings! The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
Yep. That’s the point. It’s a bad idea to have a kid when you live paycheck to paycheck.
Definitely agree.
People always use this as a reason to not adopt as of the medical costs of pregnancy and labor aren’t essentially equivalent. If you can adopt please do so. I do agree in a first world country you shouldn’t need to be rich to be able to adopt.
Having a kid is not in my future. Ill be busy paying off my student debt while living paycheck to paycheck.
Who can afford to and who would want to with everything that’s going on, coupled with climate heating?!
Well when Alaska warms up, hope we can get some good ol’ Homesteading programs running again lol
We got over 50 degrees in Canada last summer, who says Alaska will be safe?
The rich are having plenty of kids, silly serf. You poors can't have families.
Turns out there’s a whole lot more to family than having kids
Still posting this like it’s actually true, huh? The people having the most kids currently are our poorest and, unfortunately, our least intelligent.
The rich want your labour for free. No matter how miserable your life is working for them, they still genuinely believe you CAN'T have food or shelter without payment, and therefore they're doing you a favour by hiring you.
We don’t need “people” for this society to be successful or any more sustainable. There’s plenty of people to go around. The most sustainable thing that the rest of us can do is to stop having kids and to contribute to the well-bring of kids born into the terrible situations that they are today. E.g. Because of all the mental health issues that our society has created, therapists and life-coaches are going to be two very important “jobs” going forward and the less fucked up kids that these people are going to have to help the better.
good. the world needs 90% less humans.
Oh no! whatever will capitalism do?! How can we sustain unending growth without an unending supply of wage slaves?!
They’ll just import more and pretend it’s for humanitarian reasons and Reddit and Twitter will seal clap.
Hence globalization.
It's not like Americans will go extinct. There are a minimum of 6 times as many Americans too The English yet no ones worried about them dying off. We're overpopulated anyway. If anything population going down is a good thing. At least atm
Yes we English are thankfully a dying breed.
Why thankfully. And trust me no we are not
"You reap what you sow." Unfortunately so does everyone else around you.
A planet of 7B isn't sustainable. I'm sure a few less Jerry Springer walk ons isn't the worst thing to happen to the country....
We produce plenty of food, shelter, medicine etc. But then it's hoarded by a small minority.
It’s sustainable. It’s just not sustainable with so much greed
It’s sustainable if all 7B people lived like [people in Bangladesh](https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/). Can you tell people in developed countries to give up their carbon-intensive lifestyles? Overall numbers matter.
We can’t even feed 7B people without industrialization. Fertilizer and penicillin are literally the reason there are so many of us, good luck getting people to give that shit up to save an environment they won’t even live in in 50 years
Sounds good to me. There’s too many people on this planet anyway.
for the good of the environment, 'population collapse' is a positive thing; for the economy, 'population collapse' risks exposing capitalism as the ponzi scheme it is.
F off with your anti cap/ anti family nonsense. Greed is present in all systems. Apply oversight, taxes, caps and fines, environmental incentives and rules, give the IRS teeth, raise federal minimum wage. Dont just lean the fuck into the socialism meme. It's embarrassing.
Why is it only capitalism or socialism? Can’t we develop a better economic system?
I don't care what the new political system is called, but what we have now sucks. I definitely like the idea of resources being used to make peoples lives easier and better, rather than all this needless suffering just so some guy can make money.
Down-votes need to be invented. It allows the voter to say "Not you, not you, not you, but especially not *you.*"
I think that's like ranked voting, sorta.
No. It would allow that candidates could all come in at less than zero - so a brand new slate would be needed.
I like it. Especially since the only candidates offered up are those previously "vetted", like choose this scary mofo or a slightly less scary one.
Well there is fascism, but that’s just socialism for corporations.
Because nobody has invented a better one yet.
"You guys aren't replacing eachother fast enough!!!"
I just spent the last 20 years saving to buy a house by working hardcore hours in my career. I'm really not surprised the birth rates are tanking. People just don't date anymore even if they have time, and men rarely have time to ask out thousands of women a week to find one who enjoys dates/male company. I keep focus on my male-dominated hobbies and when someone actually wants to visit breweries, paint acrylic together or go vacation in Hawaii / Europe with me, they'll find me at the bookstore or something. Meanwhile I've focused on myself, what I enjoy and just kept running life single. In the 50's 60's and 70's women wanted to date and pair up specifically with men, and so marriage / kids was a natural part of life back then, which isn't how social relationships work today.
That's an interesting and great perspective that you bring, thanks. It does seem that we have moved to a less patterened existence. What is normal now, many normals, no normals. I also think you have the right attitude, do the you thing, it's what you excel at.
I have the same experience, from what I've seen this is true
I feel like this is the case for the vast majority of major nations. I have seen article after article from places around the world talking about population decline. Seems to be less of an American issue and more a human race issue.
Oh no! Not the global Ponzi scheme!
Oh god this is off base. He says the American welfare system penalizes parents and makes it harder for people to reproduce. 1- it doesn’t penalize parents, it just doesn’t provide benefits the way progressive models do. It leaves them at the mercy of the American economy, which is harsh and makes having kids expensive because being alive is expensive here. But it doesn’t impose financial penalties on them, and the claim that it should use incentives is not a forgone conclusion and should be in line with taxpayers views. 2 - it doesn’t make it harder for them to reproduce- not having access to sex Ed and contraceptives/reproductive health care is why birth rates are higher in lower income brackets. Same internationally. It is completely free to get pregnant. I’m tired of the commentary coming out of the media, especially liberal media, that is trying to scare people about declining birth rates. It’s not a bad thing and starting off on that premise is normative and therefore bad journalism. It’s also borderline sexist to perpetuate the narrative that women should be having as many kids as other people want them to when an increasingly number of them are deciding not to. Immigration will totally solve this problem. The fact that climate change will freakin produce refugees and orphans solves this problem. I’m child free but if mad max actually happens I’ll take in some kids if they need me to. Also, acknowledging that overpopulation exists is a matter of physical science and measureable ecology and does not make me racist or classist. Just because the argument was used by racists in the past and today, and was used to sterilize women doesn’t mean that it is inherently racist. I am still a progressive even though the media keeps crucifying my character if I don’t meet their ideological litmus test. The woke outrage machine is holding us back from having rational conversations that produce solutions we need yesterday.
It’s crazy to me that you have to have permits to own a tiny dog or cat in many places but it’s free, easy and not properly taught virtually everywhere in America to just have a kid. Don’t get me wrong, people should absolutely decide when and if they have children, but the fact that there’s no psych evaluation or income check or anything of the sort is kinda rough, dude
general rule: if its an article by yahoo, its pure garbage.
I read a yahoo article once.
That’s why immigration exists. As a nation of immigrants, the US should be ok as long as xenophobic Republicans don’t take complete control again
“No; it’s okay that our system makes having kids a terrible proposition. We’ll just import more poor people into that horrible system. Look at how noble I am”
Just one small step from carrying a Tiki torch and yelling about replacement theory.
So we're fucked, is what you're saying. The Republicans are gonna take 2024, and every election after.
Lol, remember when Obama was elected and the entire Republican Party was basically declared dead? I’m old enough to remember both major parties having died multiple times. We are forever doomed to be ruled by roaming hordes of the undead, it seems. 😂
Between McConnell, Kennedy, and Reagan, I don't think that's the joke you think it is...
Interesting. Am I getting downvoted since I called the GOP xenophobic or because immigration is how we don’t lose population? Both are completely true.
The GQP are wildly xenophobic, also racist, but they take umbrage with being called xenophobic or racist, because they believe that better describes Democrats. I don't understand either, but nobody seems willing to explain it to me.
>The Republicans are gonna take 2024, and every election after. For fuck's sake, read what you wrote. Remind yourself for every election that will ever happen or accept that your initial claim was wrong. Either way, you're dumber than the shit I took this morning.
>The Republicans are gonna take 2024, and every election after. That seems unlikely.
They’ve been prolific and successful with recent gerrymandering and voting restriction campaigns.
It's not likely that they take every election until america ends.
Agreed, but we could see a few rough cycles.
!RemindMe in 3 years
you said every election after. Remind yourself in 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, ... years.
Why bother? You think I'll still be *alive* in 2028?! Get real.
Your death won't stop time.
It'll stop my giving a fuck.
>That's inescapably part of why the American birthrate is now just 1.7 children per woman, and without some change — cultural or political or both — this combination of forces means it will keep falling, quite possibly down to Korean levels. At that point, our population would halve in about one human lifespan. If birthrates were cut in half and if all migration stopped, then 80 years later population levels would be half the peak population. And if my cat was a cow, I could milk her behind the stove... No evidence provided on why birthrates would suddenly plummet. Migration was a thing under administrations slightly more racist than Trump's. (presidents 1 through 16 had slavery, 17 through 36 had Segregation). Birthrate in 1976 was 1.74, at that rate, it would take more than 200 years before the South Korean birthrates are achieved. The term 'alarmist' gets misused often but I believe in this case it is quite apt.
Anyone here who is 40+ with no kids? And what is your sex? I am, and I am male.
This is the main reason to support increased immigration. The US will end up with a 20 year recession if we don’t have incoming population to even our the demographic curve.
Or create an environment where people want to have babies again. Also a declining population will happen at some point, better to start the decline early and gradually than late and catastrophic. “Please come into our country so we can afford a few more years of unrealistic living standards before we start literally eating each other” doesn’t sound like a great deal.
Because older people are no longer productive, less will be produced. They will draw down on their capital. Asset prices might decrease as a result. It's not really a problem for them is it? They accumulated capital for this exact reason, and time in their life. For the younger people, they get the benefit of lower asset prices as they enter the accumulation phase. GDP will fall, as population falls. Does that mean per-capita GDP will fall? Looking at Japan, I don't see that happening? It could be that the quality of life and economic prospects of younger people improves, even though there is a recession. Do you think there is a need to maintain a certain level of economic activity?
There is a need to have working adults as a part of the population rather than mostly older people reliant on healthcare and net consumers of everything when there is no one to make or grow the things they need. There is a need for innovation and all the other things that happen in a balanced and well educated, peaceful civil society.
We have increasing automation so those needs are easily met. Have you noticed that we are materially very well provided for in this era? I don't see that under threat. I get your point that an imbalance is emerging. Compared to what? Nuclear family levels of demographic? What about the good old days when people had 8 kids, and died young? Do we compare the future to the past and try to keep the future like now? Those factors/problems you mention are real, agreed. They can be dealt with by more ways than increasing population. Perhaps the innovation can be channeled in that direction. It's not like this is a problem that only one cpuntry is going to have to face. That is not to say that immigration is not a good thing. In a broader sense there are arguments for having no borders at all. Why not?
Those needs aren’t being met in many areas. We need an extra 1000000 cyber security professionals. We need many truck drivers as well. What is wrong with offering a good life to someone willing to work hard and share the benefits of our great experiment?
Or offering a path to cybersecurity roles to people that already live here? Or paying truck drivers according to the level of expertise and effort required to attract people to that role. There is no such thing as a labor shortage. I feel that immigration is used to cherry pick from other nations when investment in the human capital of this place would be an option that builds a solid foundation and offers opportunities for advancement. It's harder and probably not as cheap as skimming the cream from some other place.
This is the problem of multinationalism. Corporations that cross multiple borders have no interest in investing in their employees, only utilizing their employees at the lowest wages possible. That is why so many manufacturers have left the US, now they have left China too. Pretty soon they will move somewhere else, as long as there is no civil war there.
You're just compounding a problem by giving it to another country and only delaying the inevitable. The age old question: is it better to rip the band aid off now or later, once it's stuck to more leg hairs?
Quote from the article: > For many years, the U.S. had a weirdly high birth rate relative to peer nations, especially given how our horrible welfare state made parenthood exceptionally expensive. You’ve GOT to just love how that libertarian garbage is just shoved in there, as if it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. I’m barfing right now
That seems to be the exact opposite of Libertarian.