I know how obvious this connection probably seems to everyone, but I find it so fascinating that birthrates can be such a good indicator of economic health. Hopefully Millenial birthrates are only delayed, not completely reduced by the economic challenges they face.
There were a couple points in there that could, may, should have been left on the cutting room floor.
Some good points were made however.
Social Security in its original Ponzi-Schemesque form will end up even worse for wear with declining birthrates. (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ).
The observation of millenials being reluctant to have children is also spot on. Many that I have spoken to in the demographic are very much a "lost generation". They've seen parent's and elder's life savings disappear.
They have a harder and harder time adjusting to a world that seems specifically tuned to resist and feed off of them. See financial product/debt product proliferation.
It's harder to find opportunity when one has an additional complication of digital footprint to manage with a dearth of interest in anyone older than them willing or interested in making sure the past engraved on the net doesn't mark them for life.
The hamfisted "feminist" overtones aside, the article makes a chilling point. Long cycle economic predation and the social pressures to avoid debt first and foremost are an effective suicide switch at the population scale. An entire generation has been shaped by these pressures, and with no relief in sight, a drastic shift in values may be needed to avoid a grievous societal destabilization.
Great critical analysis. Generally, I avoid Vox articles due to the unsubtle feminist ideologies that are interwoven in their articles. Saw a recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth and avoided the issues he brought up as usual. Personally, I see the writing on the wall for America and am doing everything I can to move out of here in the next 4 years. As a young American cis gendered man in his 30's, I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy. I can have a higher quality of life and and my SMV will be higher in most developing countries. I wonder if we will start seeing a massive exodus from America by professional Gen X/ millennials.
Yup. Most men will actually marry down economically, but women generally marry up economically. Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals. With women graduating college at higher rates, perhaps this changes?
My wife prefers a career working with autistic children, and earns much less than I do as a software developer because of that preference. She is amazing and I want to enable her to do whatever she is happiest doing using the money I am fortunate to be earning, as much as she is willing to let me help. You're looking at other human beings as merely economic objects and that's not going to net you happiness long-term. Consider each human you meet on the merits of their character, not their wallets...
This thread is ridiculous. Come back to earth, get out and meet real people.
My wife cares very little about money. She developed her own methods for getting the most out of life without it, and is always suggesting that I spend less of it. I've been able to show her the benefits of having extra money and she's been able to show me how to live well frugally (not that I'm a big spender in the first place).
It is on the mind of every young person. It is becoming more common to do everything on your own. You cannot rely on a good partner to share and build a life together with. The traditional routes and social contract are broken. That is why many young people are listening to lectures on youtube and voted for nationalism. But hey, downvote me into oblivion and ridicule me, I could care less. Just sharing my insights and truths. Perhaps turning men into non toxic soy boys who salivate at being feminist activists will turn America into utopia for all.
I notice that a lot of your comments are declared as absolute truths, often applying to large demographics, without much to back those claims up.
It feels like you've got strong opinions (that's perfectly okay!) and think your view of the world is shared by many / most other people (this, not so much).
I read a lot of studies and listen to political scientist lectures who draw the same conclusions that I do (Charles Murray. Victor David Hanson). Most times, I am too lazy to link to the case studies or books that discuss my points. Guilty as charged for having strong opinions; however, when I try to discuss them I am attacked, vilified and down voted into oblivion. Do this often enough and you will start to get resentful and seek like minded individuals who think the same way. Then bam, you are trapped in your own ideological echo chamber. I recognize this and am trying to grow beyond that. J Peterson lectures on maps of meaning, actually helped me realize this and I now see that it goes both ways. Growing up, my peers and elders told me I was very intelligent and had enormous potential. If I had not able to out think my frustration and anger, then perhaps I would have been one of these incel mass shooters when I was a young teen. That same rage and frustration I was able to overcome, I see it prevalent in many young men and women. People often tell me I am insightful and have future vision at times, so my concern for humanity and our collective future often leads me to ranting like a cranky old curmudgeon with anonymous throwaway accounts. This is one of few available outlets to vent and express myself.
Self expression is all well and good, but when participating in a discussion, we'd all be much better served if you didn't hurl offensive and ungrounded insults at large segments of the population. Curmudgeonly is one way to put it; immature and ignorant is another.
Thanks for the insight, was not trying to do that, but in review I certainly did. Always trying to aim higher. Can you recommend any good political science or demographic books beside from author William Strauss? My intention is really to understand to understand the chaos around me. Forgive me for coming off steamed, but as I was an orphan as a child and was a ward of the court until I was emancipated at age 18. State Bureaucracies, Social trends, Demographics, Poverty and Education were elements that shaped my life and continue to fascinate me and instill a desire to seek answers. truly being genuine here.
I would recommend learning more about the things you hate.
I used to hate modern art. I thought it was only for obnoxious people. Then I decided to take a college course on it and it's my favorite period of art because I learned to understand it. For the same reasons, I decided to take a course on the black power movement. My parents were racist so I was probably racist so I wanted to learn more. I learned about the Civil rights movement and discovered many personal heroes. I used to dislike John McCain and politics even though I knew very little about either, until I saw a documentary about McCain and learned he was literally a hero. I used to think finance, statistics, and programming were for smart people unlike me, until I learned more and developed a love for it.
I used to think the red pill was complete trash until someone forced me to watch the red pill documentary. It led to a painful breakup where we both weren't able to empathize with each other's traumas. I could not empathize with his pain of feeling inferior (because that's my status quo) and he could not empathize with the systemic oppression and violence against women (physical, sexual, and emotional). I feel he felt that his father may have been taken advantage of, abused and used financially and feared that for himself. While I watched my father abuse my mother, emotionally and financially, and feared that for myself. It was strange how we both felt strongly about both sides, the same problem, except we were passionately divided simply because of gender. I learned a lot and probably will always be learning from that experience.
Every time I've challenged my views, I've been rewarded.
Two books I've enjoyed or am enjoying that are about chaos:
Evicted by Mathew Desmond covers American poverty from a housing perspective.
The Big Short covers the 2008 financial crisis and it's much more informative than the film.
I trust that you'll take my comments in good faith.
Smart people often tend to assume extremes of the people they're talking to - either that they're very smart, like themselves, or very dumb. Naturally, there's a spectrum.
Having strong opinions, as you note, can sometimes put people off -- but you say that when you try to discuss them you feel attacked. I felt from your comments in this thread that you weren't here to discuss [your opinions]. I may be misinterpreting, of course, and it'd be up to you to decide if this, and other exchanges are going as you'd expected.
I appreciate the appeal of like-minded individuals -- though I've yet to find any : ) -- and I'm cheered to see that you're wary of the echo chamber risk. If it's a genuine concern, rather than hyperbole, that it may (have) led to some extreme anti-social / violent incidents, then I'd strongly and seriously encourage you to talk to people more experienced than randos on HN.
lol the awesome thing about incels is they make it immediately obvious to everyone as to why they've been unsuccessful at finding a partner because of their revolting personalities
Hey, I'm not a soy boy, I'm a soy man, and I'm up to my eyeballs in cute, fun, financially self-sufficient women.
Shame they show so much interest when you're engaged to another cute, fun, actualized lady, eh?? Sorry, to use the jargon you might understand....cute, fun, actualized female.
I was being a dick there, I admit it. Just a subject that I am passionate about. But the thread did spiral into something else. Sometimes you just throw shit and see what sticks.
I am going to give some unsolicited advice to you:
Do not fall into the incel trap. Do not start hating women.
Hate society if you want, understand that due to your perspective as a guy, you will fixate on what is wrong with women but what is wrong with women is what is wrong with society at large, the bias of your perspective aside.
Focus on yourself, toughen up and learn to accept rejection and just meet as many women as you can. That is the only path to success. Do you think those bitter incels are celebrating their misogyny? Sure, but only through their tears.
That life is not worth it. It is harder to build yourself up than tear other people down but more worthwhile.
Sometimes you do, but please resist the temptation to do it here. We're trying for a higher quality of discussion than is prevalent on the rest of the internet, and for that to work, we need users like you on board.
>The traditional routes and social contract are broken.
There is definitely some truth here. Can you find a partner and/or community of people who share your understanding of the traditional social expectations?
PUA is a community of sorts, but also has core beliefs so inimical to the opposite sex that it doesn't seem very sustainable.
Duuuude, just get a Nintendo Switch. Fuel up on some soylent. Watch an inspirational TED Talk, and you'll feel great in no time.
I used to think I'd be alone forever, then my old high school sweetheart got divorced from her terrible [broke] first husband and got with me. I'm teaching her son how to program. Life has never been better.
It was also used by the pick up artist communities before that too. Basically anyone who studies modern human sexuality. But hey, write me off as a Incel or whatever you want. All non feminist men are toxic, right?
Interesting. This has me wondering about something:
I'm no incel or whatever, I'm also not particularly focused on a relationship (or sex, although there is a non-committed person in my life I see with regularity for both the casual romp and coffee dates to just sit and enjoy company), in married to the degree but I'm curious what you think: is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA? I'm someone who enjoys flirting and playful banter but have learned to have tempered expectations.
Part of me thinks that at the core, it's ALL an act of mind games to convince another person why you're worth their time (or conversely showing them why you're worth theirs) and there's going to be some level of duplicity involved. Be it "oh yeah I love sushi" (when you're really just passive about it) or "I drive a fancy car I can give you all the things" (when you're really leasing a slightly less than luxury sedan).
There is a way to do this without being toxic. If you are harming the other person, making them feel less so you feel more powerful, then it is a problem.
I am able to flirt with a woman without making them feel less so I don't know how to answer your question beyond that.
While I can certainly appreciate the response there, it isn't quite what I'm asking:
is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA?
Not asking if it's merely possible to court/flirt without being toxic (because of course there is, absolutely, I agree). I pose the question the way I have because I have yet to be wholly convinced that PUA is inherently toxic, and we aren't allowing the manifestation of bad actors to paint a view of enjoying the transactional nature of flirting to the point of finding ways to make it more engaging than simply engaging in small-talk/banter/exchanging statements back and forth at each other about life, the universe and etcetera-and subsequently-wanting to find ways of improving how you go about courting relationships.
> Part of me thinks that at the core, it's ALL an act of mind games to convince another person why you're worth their time (or conversely showing them why you're worth theirs) and there's going to be some level of duplicity involved.
I tried that for the longest time and it was exhausting and unfruitful. When I relented and simply focused on meeting as many women as I could - and having the patience for a natural attraction to occur - it made a big difference. It sounds a bit Zen but when I stopped trying to "score" it seemed much easier to meet plenty of interesting women.
Like all fringe, alternative movements, there are elements of truth and arguably good stuff (helping men gain confidence and be more sociable, teaching them how to clean up and become generally more attractive) mixed in with a lot of bad stuff (the mind games that are not only misogynist but downright misanthropic and mechanical, the cultlike dynamics that come with being in an alternative fringe community that claims to know the one true way to do something). In a healthier society there would be better, less controversial approaches to help men and boys gain the sort of benefits they seek from PUA and these subcultures.
My sense is that incels are red pilled and nu males aren't. So they might be similar in that they both fail to live up to a certain image of masculinity, but incels view that as a problem (or, at least, a hindrance) whereas nu males don't.
Red Pill comes from a famous late 90’s Sci Fi movie called The Matrix. The main characters world is not exactly what it appears to be at first and he is offered a choice of the red pill which would show him the truth or the blue pill that would keep him living the lie.
It has since been picked up by many communities as a way of saying they are ‘woke’ to the truth. It is currently in widespread use amongst the community of the subreddit The Donald by people claiming to have woken up from the liberal agenda or something along those lines.
In this context it probably refers to an infamous subreddit called the_red_pill that was a cess pool of pick up artists essentially training each other on how to hurt abuse and/or use women. It was banned sometime ago, during the Ellen Pao era I think. I believe they used it in the context of being woken up from the ‘lies’ of treating women as normal human beings if you want to find a lover.
Think it through though. It's easy to follow the bandwagon of guys that purport that life to be the solution (I read all this stuff too), and I thought it was too at some point. I think you should go taste that lifestyle, but I think you'd find it to be only a short term fix and the same sort of "trap" awaiting you at the end.
The solution to just simply arm yourself with all the knowledge you can, and then embark on the path to self-actualize. Between self-actualization and playing things close to your vest and smart, I think you can still make it work very well in America. Nowhere has the same purchasing power parity too for tech salaries (except maybe Switzerland).
Much appreciated man. Yeah, I have been doing the digital nomad lifestyle and lived abroad for a few weeks at a time for the past five years. I do see the trap that befalls most expats and am aware of risks. The months that I spend abroad are the happiest time of my life, when I come back to the states and can't get a date, am told I am toxic and a potential rapist and have to live in a city where homelessness is spiraling out of control and cost of living constantly rising beyond wage inflation, then I start to question everything that society tells me.
I appreciate the advice for self actualization. That is what constantly working on. In my free time, I am finishing my B.S. in Comp Sci/EE, travel internationally, work on certs, hang with my bros, hone my craft, enjoy new hobbies, write creatively, and try to stay sane and physically fit. The problems is that the more I walk down this path, the less tolerance I have for those who deter me from achieving these goals and those who don't impact my life in any positive way. As a 5'll light skinned multi-racial young man, when I try to date online or approach the opposite sex for any sort of intimacy or potential relationship, I get rejected and told I am too short, ethnic looking and am not rich enough by women who earn less than me and made bad life choices. Sigh, I suppose that makes me the asshole for not wanting to deal with this, trying to understand these trends and looking for a way out.
If you are constantly getting turned down for dates, you are doing something wrong - probably approaching the wrong kind of people in the first place. Instead of looking for the super hot chick at the bar and then using cheesy pickup lines, why don't you seek out people who share your same interests, even if they don't seem like "your type". Most times you'll find their company vastly more enjoyable than the hot bar chick and you also won't have to pretend to be something you're not.
Appreciate the advice Man. Being from born and raised in L.A I admit to being a little superficial. A doctor here once stated "LA is a bunch of sevens, trying to be tens, chasing elevens". The potential rapist thing is because I work in academia and there is a lot of awareness emails that go to my email and mandatory orientation, etc. Just gets to be a bit much. I mean every boy got the raping is wrong talk when we were 13 right,?
That's cool you tried it. I've done prolonged fast travel before, which is overrated. But staying in one spot for 1-3 months is something I think could be underrated and I want to try.
One trick I use sometimes is to imagine that I'm abroad even though I'm in my normal city. It makes things more interesting and gives me more energy for interactions.
The short and ethnic thing I could understand being frustrating. I'm basically 6' and white and pretty good looking. But even so, it's not the end all. It just opens the door. I don't get with the "cool" types of girls because I don't follow pop culture and play those games. Those types of girls you don't even want. It's tough though. Best way to meet girls is meetup-type stuff like a local running group, local language meetup, etc. Actually care about the activity and befriend the guys, etc. Then the benefits with girls come in a few months (take it slow and don't be the creepy/loser guy just there for girls). ex. I started going to the language meetup, and going hard in the languages and being kind of silly and fun. Now 2 years in, all the regulars know me and I have cred there. If I ever take a girl there, she knows I'm cool. Or new girls there know that I'm cool from the social proof.
If I didn't have a great family that I want to see monthly, I would definitely consider the moving overseas thing.
Basically you just focus on YOUR PATH and believe in what you spend YOUR TIME on. I think people get magnetized towards people with a "purpose" who can spread life energy instead of trying to take energy(this girl should give me love, this guy should give me respect or validation, etc).
...as much as I know it's pointless commenting on things...
Here's my perspective. I'm thirty, I've been in a relationship since I was 17...the same relationship..we've talked about kids a lot...at this point...I really don't think even with both of us steadily working for several years now at decent jobs we can afford to raise a kid. We've agreed we don't feel like it's fair to raise a child without being able to provide a decent standard of life and our own standard of life ia not the best as it is, despite both of us working full time, with regular overtime, at skilled jobs.
As far as online presence goes...clearly as I'm shadowbanned on here I haven't quite grasped the...uh...I would say subtlties, I suppose, of having a reasonable online presence. I haven't gotten used to the idea of the internet being a place where one posts real personal information, despite having been on the internet since the early nineties....I still see it as a place where identities don't matter and people who post personal information online are fucking idiots.
In all honesty, i've never really participated much on online communities until recently but still go about it with that nineties mindset not really understanding people are fairly hypersensitive (a bunch of little bitches) to stuff online these days.. I keep a fairly strict separation between stuff I do on a computer online and everything else in my life. I realize it's a necessity to start mixing the two...but I find it hard to combine an online presence with my real life stuff.
It's one of these thing's i've beeen working on though because i've found that's what all my friends and people I know have done.
> (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ).
Social Security works with economic growth. It doesn't matter if you get 10 babies or 10 robots. Automation makes possible to keep proper living standards without exponential population growth.
Social Security, as other services like education, stops working because it is not shared.
Actually, with enough automation, it is easier to satisfy a smaller population.
There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. Self-driving trucks mean that you need 3.5 million fewer babies to carry out that task. Just 3 million if you actually need 500,000 people to maintain the software.
So, I agree with you that in the past Social Security was depending on population growth. That has been changing fast for the past 50 years. There is no economical reason to not have Social Security in the future.
I believe you mean that some theoretical structure vaguely like social security could work, in principle, without population growth. However, the social security system we actually have acquires its funds from the income of individuals.
You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works.
Self driving trucks don’t pay payroll taxes (as distinct from general income tax). The engineers and mechanics maintaining them do, but if the net cost of them plus the tech isn’t cheaper than the current human driving approach then the industry wouldn’t be switching to it anyway.
I assume the point is that if (for instance) 3 people today make the equivalent of 159 people in the past, then it still works out. (Whether or not that's true, I don't know.)
That's a really disingenuous number, most people were not eligible for social security the first few years it was in place, so the worker:beneficiary ratio was very high. The ratio has been pretty stable for 50 years. Its about 3:1 now, it was about 3:1 in 1970 [0][1].
The narrative that social security will eventually bankrupt the country (or the updated version: "it's a ponzi") dates back to its inception 80 years ago and it's been pretty consistent ever since:
While the economy has grown about ~400% dependency ratios have gone up about 11% I think. Social security's affordability has always been about political choice - e.g. tax cuts for the wealthy or money for pensioners.
Also a lot of people don't want children. It's a lot of responsabilities and constraints, so you need to feel the desired for it.
The new generation grew with aids, feel less influenced by the authority selling the one family lifestyle and use more contraception.
Now wait for Vasalgel to take off. When males will have total control of their involvment in pregnancy, you will see the numbers go down even more. And probably some serious changes in the man/woman dynamics.
Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College:
"I think the most important and concerning thing about this is not the number of people who are voluntarily childless, but the tremendous gap between the number of children women said they wanted to have and the number that they will probably have. Early this year, the gap reached its highest level in 40 years. I think we need to think very seriously about what it is that pushes people into this kind of 'delaying.'"
Edit: I see we're talking past eachother. I was responding to your claim that "Also a lot of people don't want children." I'm pointing out that, while that's true, the real problem is people who report wanting children but not having any.
I wasn't responding to your comment about male birth control. Although if you want my opinion, I think it will be good for men to share the burden of family planning. But I doubt it will cause the birth rates to plummet much. Men want children too.
"In a nationally representative survey of single, childless people in 2011, more men than women said they wanted kids."
"A different poll from 2013 echoed those findings, with more than 80 percent of men saying they’d always wanted to be a father or at least thought they would be someday. Just 70 percent of women felt the same."
Granted, I don't have tons of studies, and some of this data is a few years old (but still after the 2008 recession,) but I think it's reasonable to conclude that the drop in birth rate can not be explained solely by a decline in the number of men or women who want kids. For sure, that is a big part of it. But the fact that couples who want kids are not having them, and that this gap grew after the recession, leads me to think there are structural issues with our economy at play.
Isn't just economic, methinks: Millennials also tend to be more perceptive about the costs of overpopulation and the approach of global warming. The wisdom of Small Is Beautiful is not so lost on them.
Speak for yourself. I'm petrified by the prospect of lack of growth. It is what our economy is built on, and a larger population could result in better science. There is plenty of land in the United States. Even our cities in the rust belt are underpopulated.
The value of general labor generally decreases with advancements in tools (automation).
There are enough people in the US now, enough children, that our education system could focus better on technological and scientific advances for those who show the aptitude (by increasing opportunity and decreasing inequal access to education and jobs).
Yeah, on this same forum we complain constantly about how automation is going to remove a bunch of jobs. Wouldn't having fewer kids solve that problem really nicely?
The growth-based economic model is flawed. Countries should be rewarded economically/politically by some sort of sustainability index where all of their positive/negative externalities are accounted for.
We do not need more people on this planet. It will only increase the likelihood of a major catastrophe like famine -> war -> nuclear war, which will then put scientific research back decades if not centuries.
> Countries should be rewarded economically/politically by some sort of sustainability index where all of their positive/negative externalities are accounted for.
From which growth-based economies will those rewards be taken? If not that way, then how?
The whole point is a paradigm shift where sustainability is rewarded instead of uncontrolled growth. The reward can probably be political clout, to drive the direction of things moving forward. Essentially that is what we reward uncontrolled growth with currently.
The whole point is that I am assuming there isn't enough incentive on a large scale to deal with environment problem BEFORE they occur. With global warming, once we go past the point of no return, it won't be a quick fix. We will throw the equilibrium out of whack. If we were to pragmatically balance things now/going back a few decades, we could avoid the big swing that will occur.
So basically, the population may fall from 8 billion to 3 billion because of famine/war, etc. Immensely painful things... Or we could just have pragmatic restraint through rewarding sustainability, and it would naturally level out to 5/6 billion or whatever that number is... but without the immense pain of billion fighting/dying.
Let those places grow feral again. We don't need to take up the entire damn planet as a species. Or at least the entire "fertile" bits of it.
I could not be more diametrically opposed to your position. It's clear to me we have far too many people as it is, and the only way out is through population decline. Anything else is ridiculous line noise to argue about. Once you solve the CO2 climate change problem you have about 10 other just-as-bad crises right behind it if population growth continues.
Sure, as you say there could be some more black swan events in science/technology that technically lets us expand in the short term much like modern agriculture has. I don't see that as a positive as it simply delays the inevitable and makes it even more impossible to recover from.
I suppose it's a matter of how much you appreciate human achievement. Detroit could become the realization of a new Metropolis. Hyperloop could be built between Detroit and Cleveland and other cities with much less regulatory constraint. The promise of these mid-western cities excites me much more than the west coast because we do not need to be bogged down by preservation of natural landscapes there. They are the areas that could have delivered millennials from their stagnation if momentum had taken hold.
There is no choice but to grow. People like to travel, conduct scientific research, and face and conquer new technical challenges. You cannot do this without more people and the productivity they provide. Period.
There's already 7,6 billion of us, tendency rising, I see no good reason why I should contribute to that number growing even faster because it seems already unsustainable enough as it is.
In that context, I see especially no reason to have any biologically related offspring. It's not like there's a shortage of orphans, because adoption might just as well be another option to actualize this inherent need to "leave something lasting behind as to give purpose to our existence", by passing on values and life-lessons.
Too bad the barrier of entry to that is usually very high, I guess for good reasons.
I think it's cutting in at both ends of the economic spectrum as well. For millennials the world over you have a choice in your early twenties - you can get a degree, move to a big city and focus on your career. This means you probably get married/start settling down closer to 30, and limit yourself at 1-2 children (if any). Or you can stay closer to where you grew up and focus on your family at a younger age.
The American situation is increasingly sharp on both ends - if you're making $40k as a household in rural America, you're financially screwed if anything bad happens to you - in ways that aren't even relevant in other countries (thank you no state healthcare / no maternity leave), but at the top end, you're also pushed out - because you've graduated with $40k + in loans, and can't buy a house for less than $500k+ (and what, $1m+ in the Bay Area).
Structurally things are very bad for millennials. But things will change - it's never as bad as the news makes it out to be. In the next ten years the voting power blocs will change, and politicians will be forced to change policy in our favour. I only hope we don't screw the coming generations like the boomers did for us with their lack of foresight.
you could buy a reasonable home for about $229,000 in many areas with some jobs, but even that is still a massive financial burden that is not easily solved with "just get some tenants"
Back in the day, house prices were 1 year's salary. Now it's more like 6-7 years of salary, with a high tax assessment and no job security or pensions too.
It's not just economic; it's a combination of great expectations and poor results. Millennials have been lied to, nonstop, for their entire lives. They are a resource to be mined, not citizens to be valued as they were always told. Maybe some of them have realized it, but many seem to be just locking up. It's similar to what I saw in people my own age in Japan around 1999-2000. Sure they might be materially more wealthy than e.g. a subsistence farmer, but no one ever told the subsistence farmer that student loans were a sure path to a great career.
In the past it was not infrequent among cultures to choose not to keep children via various forms of infanticide. Some prophylactic and abortive options existed as well. Though, yes, not as assured or safe as present methods.
Children used to be a source of labor and providing generational wealth. Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them.
it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them
I would speculate that the disincentive is larger for wealthier people. A lot of child-related expenses are for positional goods (house in a good school district, saving for college) where the price is basically "all your spare income". So if you're rich having kids means giving up awesome vacations and the option of retiring before 50; if you're poor those things were never on the table.
Having a child is literally one more mouth to feed, I hardly think the disincentive is larger for wealthy people. That's just a bizarre piece of logic.
> Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them.
Yet it's low-income households who have the highest birth rates [0] afaik this isn't unique to the US, in Germany the situation looks similar.
It's extremely interesting how this relation between income&fertility doesn't just hold true on a country vs country scale, but also on a domestic level inside these countries, there must be something very fundamental at work here.
I'm not sure I completely agree with the economic argument, particularly because birth rates and wealthiness tend to move in opposite directions and because a comparative analysis doesn't show that strong welfare states which protect a person's income, income stability and alleviate all the costs of being a parent, don't show strong birth rates either. It feels like getting children is still very much a choice, but that our cultural norms about what a 'proper life' means has changed. No longer as a young person do I feel as compelled to marry, get a home in a suburb with a yard and a dog not to be cast out or judged. It's not because it's more difficult for me to afford kids than my parents or their parents, who struggled financially more than I do and had to work more hours, had less leisure time, fewer luxuries etc. I think it's a bit too easy to say 'kids these days saw parent' savings disappear in the financial crisis' as if their parents' parents didn't see their parents in world war ii, and their grandparents in the great depression as a reason not to have kids. Again, wealth and birth rates move in opposite directions. Kids used to be a form of welfare system, too, you had no state or business to give you a pension or pay for your care, but your kids did. Now we're rich enough where kids aren't needed as an economic asset (working the land) or welfare asset (caring for you in retirement). But to say they're less affordable than before, I'm not so sure.
Most of the predictions about the welfare state are true, though. In that some of its effects mimic a ponzi scheme.
I'd urge everyone and anyone to look up an age pyramid for their country from 1950 and onwards. It's absolutely telling. Preferably an animation.
You can click through every 5 years. It's like a snake with food passing through it's body, starting with a big blob of young people who gradually move into old age, without replacement. The proportion of young (suppose an arbitrary <40 or >=40) to old completely flips over. In Japan it was 75% in 1950, but just 44.5% in 2010. If you take 65+ as a threshold, it was just 5% in 1950, but 23% in 2010. That's 4x as many retirees to support on a dwindling young (mostly) working population. 5% 65+ and 95 <65 is a 1:19 retiree to young (often working) person. 23% vs 77% is less than 1:4.
You basically spend a ton at birth and as an old person. With low birth rates and massive improvements to healthcare increasing life expectancy, we're heading for a disaster. The tax base is rapidly depleting and the tax burden is rapidly increasing.
In regards to your conclusion, I'm not sure this is really entirely true.
While Japan is a disaster right now, their situation (by my understanding) was made massively worse through bad economic choices when their economy first started slowing down.
Germany and South Korea are two examples of extremely robust economies that have had terrifically low birth rates for a long time now, Germany has had fairly high levels of immigration, but South Korea certainly hasn't.
There's also the fact that countries like the US and the UK don't have particularly bad population pyramids but are still strangling the youth to some extent, it's more a political problem than a fundamental outcome of low birthrates and welfare states.
I'm not so much referring to the economy right now necessarily. That will be affected, but the population pyramid is just one of many other factors, it's not a great proxy for the long-term sustainability of the welfare state and the burdens on young and middle-aged people in 30 years from now.
Anyway, Japan and Korea really aren't comparable. Just look at their pyramids.
Starting with the 64+ population, grew in Japan from 5% to 26%. Further, it's not just children (<14) who're a lower share than before, but also the working population of 15-64 which is smaller than before (from 64% to 60%).
In short, old:working age went from 1:13 to 1:2 (rounded off).
South Korea is in a very different stage. Its 64+ population only went from 3% to 13%. Meanwhile its working population from 15-64 didn't drop like in Japan but went up from 53% to 73%. If anything, Korea is in an amazing position right now and has been for some time. It's only now levelling off and going the other direction.
In short, old:working age went from 1:18 to 1:6 (rounded off). For every old person in Japan, Korea has 3 times as many working age people. And that puts a lot of pressure on the tax base, even if the economy is doing well, a greater share of production is redistributed away from young and working people to old and not working people. In a country where one young person has to produce as much wealth for himself and one old person, as another country where two young people can share that burden, there's a difference in pressure and sustainability of the welfare state.
Fact of the matter is that Japan is running a deficit on its social security system. You either need to raise taxes or expect welfare state retrenchment (which has happened in most developed countries over the past 30-40 years in large parts anyway). You can only raise taxes so much (Laffer curve). It's typically deemed as inevitable that Japan's welfare state will retrench unless it accepts immigration or technology rapidly does away with humans. I don't see either of these happening in the next few decades, so young people pay to support a system today that they're likely not going to enjoy to the same degree in the future.
There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles.
If women had not entered the workforce in massive numbers things could have continued based on old trajectories. The male breadwinner/housewife lifestyle was a formula that made it ideal for raising children cheaply, even if it didn’t seem like the most equitable.
If I had a good job and settled with a wife straight out of college I’m sure I’d be a father to two children by now. My income could easily support a non-working spouse and some kids.
But many of the women around me were not the type to settle so early, so I chased the money and ever more ambitious women. And with no family to support, I had dangerous amounts of money to spend on ever increasing prices and property.
And if I should marry a woman with equal earning power as me, we will be able to spend even more on whatever inflated prices are set before us. If you’ve ever been in a gay household with two men earning typical male salaries and no children, one thing you notice is that they always have tons of purchasing power. What do you think that does to the economy when it scales out?
> There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles.
Except that Japan has kept traditional gender roles, where the woman leaves her job when marries, and they have one of the lower fertility rates in the world.
At the same time, Sweden with very strong gender equality has a higher fertility rate than other European countries. Even that it is still low compared with historical hights.
Western countries have lower rates than Japan when you exclude for native birth rates. Western countries get a big boost in birth rate when you account for non-natives having population booms.
There is research hinting that we prefer/are more inclined to mate and is beneficial to mix the genes. Evidently the opposite is incest and the direct result is not desirable.
With the exception of Israel & Ireland, which are the only two western countries to have a positive native birth rate (avg >2.2 births/woman - supposedly 2.2 is the magic number that keeps a population size stable).
Sounds to me like the problem isn't dismantling of gender roles and more that our society and workplace was designed for single income families. This is why many activists are fighting for paid family leave (including paternal leave), more flexibile work schedules, and affordable child care.
Why would we have kids and suffer when we could not have kids and enjoy life to the fullest?
We make just enough to have a really good life without kids or have a really stressful life with them. We don’t even have a house yet (and I mostly don’t want one, but that’s another conversation). I ran the numbers, and I didn’t like the outcome.
Everyone that I know that has kids is sleep deprived, unable to do much of anything outside of the house and are in a lot of debt. Some people think that kids make up for all of that. Not us.
Just had my first 9mo ago. I’m exhausted. I’m 44 years old (and not financially stable yet due to divorce). It’s hard work at this age. But is it worth it? Absolutely.
I had no affection for children at all before this. I don’t (even now) like other people’s kids that much. But today I came home from a long day of filing SR&ED paperwork (Canadian research tax benefit) and my daughter would just not go to sleep - awful night. But I’m happy. The wonderful things about having kids aren’t in the shitty crap you go through every day. They are in the look that child gives you when you get home. That lasts forever.
My situation is not too dissimilar - 52 yrs old, divorced, w/ a 12 yr old boy. The first few years ARE difficult, but the older they get both the easier and more fun it becomes. They're increasingly self-sufficient which means your focus can shift from the mundane (diapers, etc) to educating them about life. My kid was unplanned, which was especially challenging in that I never had a particular desire to be a parent. So far it's been rewarding. I have his mom to thank for at least half of that.
44 with a 9 month old? I feel for you :). I consider myself a late starter by having my first kid seven and a half years ago (I am also 44 right now). Many times I've considered that this would definitely be easier if I were twenty years younger. Wouldn't be nearly so financially stable however, so that's a trade off.
I'm totally with you on how awesome kids are. They are hard work, expensive, and ... totally worth it. Wouldn't give up my boy & girl for anything. Ambivalent about other people's kids, but I try to be polite.
The equation is different for everyone. I'm sleep deprived, and my social life - and personal time - have definitely suffered. But it's worth it, for me.
If you don't think it is for you, don't let other people convince you otherwise.
You don't need to share blood with your child in order for it to be a meaningful and fulfilling relationship.
I'm from a large extended family that has overwhelmingly chosen to not breed and adopt children into our lives, when we are READY and WANT THEM, instead.
I'm proud of the fact that I will never breed. I will probably raise a child at some point though. Genetics are over-rated.
Intelligence (all g-factors, not just IQ but reaction time, etc) are roughly 40-55% heritable, depending on which study you choose to run with. Similar numbers are found for behavior, political leanings, conscientiousness, etc.
The blank slate hypothesis has been widely discredited. After work, the best contribution the high-IQ, high-conscientiousness people on this site can make to society is propagation of their genetic material.
> You can choose to have a family when you want
Fertility specialists would tend to disagree with your total disregard of reality, here.
> You don't need to share blood with your child in order for it to be a meaningful and fulfilling relationship.
> I'm from a large extended family that has overwhelmingly chosen to not breed and adopt children into our lives, when we are READY and WANT THEM, instead.
>> Fertility specialists would tend to disagree with your total disregard of reality, here.
For someone with such a high inherited IQ you sure do have poor reading comprehension.
People are watching us constantly, everyone has more-or-less enough food, there's a ton of shiny stuff and panda tasks in the enclosure, there's nasty loud machines everywhere, and if you have some young they're like this tiny very-vulnerable creature who will be shortly moved to a different enclosure to be watched by different creatures.
As a 24 year old married man sitting in the nursery with my premature son, I feel truly sad that more people cannot experience this. I don't have a house, I rent my apartment, we share a car and we both (were) working. So what? Time marches on.
So many people seem cynical about having kids or doing anything else involving sacrificing happiness for meaning. And yet people complain of indulgence and a lack of meaning? It confuses me. You can have difficult but meaningful if you want: start a company and a family. You can also have happy and (likely) less meaningful: go all in on hedonism.
People can't seem to cope with all the opportunity and optionality modern life presents. Makes people anxious it seems. So much self loathing (don't have kids for the environment?). If you don't want kids, don't have them. If you do, have them. They will not starve and you won't either.
Life will never be easy, to expect it to be is somewhere in between whining and delusion.
I mean, if folks are working for $10 an hour and living at home, it is not exactly the time to start a family. And I am not going to use the fact they own a (financed) iphone as an excuse to chide them.
People shouldn't have kids if they're not ready. If a guy has a kid with a woman and then they get divorced in 5 years. That kid will turn out worse.
Also, if everybody has kids early, the population of the world is going to rise above the carrying capacity of the planet. Which will cause future famines, wars, etc.
Finally, maybe other people derive meaning from other things. What life experiences would you have had if you didn't have a kid at 24? From 24-35 you could've experienced a music scene more deeply, traveled the world and become fluent in languages, worked on a Phd in a field. But you chose a kid, which is great! But other people chose otherwise. I agree that having a kid is a MUST-DO in life. But maybe later is better.
Our population growth comes almost entirely from Africa. Africans who are aware of this are quite happy with the thought of the world becoming more Africanized (most people like themselves, even if their societies aren't known for being super productive or well run). They won't stop having children any time soon.
Ironically, the genes being selected out of the gene pool are the genes of people in productive and highly organized societies. Especially those genes that lend themselves towards selflessness and universal empathy/friendliness.
What I mean is, you aren't doing the world a favor by not having children.
If you want to enjoy your money and play Nintendo Switch in lieu of passing on your genes, that's fine. But it's not a moral high ground.
> If you do, have them. They will not starve and you won't either.
Plenty of Americans live in poverty, and plenty of kids go hungry every day. "Have kids, things will magically turn out fine" is terrible advice. "Have kids and start a company, two of the most stressful things a person can do" is also terrible advice.
Congratulations on the birth of your son, and I wish you and your family all the best; I've got a two year old tot at home, and I love her and I'm glad I have her. But it's not for everyone, and not all times are equally good to start a family.
So many people seem cynical about having kids or doing anything else involving sacrificing happiness for meaning.
Ah, the ol' "kids give my life meaning, how can anyone live a life without meaning?" trope. Hey, more power to you, but spreading DNA around isn't the only road to a meaningful life. Your false choice of "have kids, or live a life of hedonism" strikes me as the argument of the religious zealot. Speaking of religion, Jesus Christ didn't have kids, and he seemed to do okay on the "meaningful" scale.
If you don't want kids, don't have them.
And if you do have them, try to avoid attempting to convince the rest of the world that yours is the only right, moral, and meaningful choice.
I tried to engage more deeply with this post, but your counter-argument involves calling me a religious zealot and invoking Jesus as an example of someone who proves my ignorance. Presumably if the point is that Jesus had a meaningful life without having children, that I would relate to the Jesus example. I am an atheist, no one told me to have kids, but I'm glad I did. Jesus can do whatever he wants, I am pro personal freedom, and pro kid-having (clearly).
In terms of being a zealot in general, there are few things harder to counter-argue as adaptable than having children. Certainly it doesn't make sense for the majority of people to have kids in the context they are in, but it's very hard to against having kids period. It's an old thing because it is in many cases true in practice. So it's hard to counter-argue on the basis that we are monkeys on a rock who should know better, when we don't, and never will. Because eventually, everyone exists because someone had kids, and so on.
There is a significant relativity to meaning. It's not that having kids is a binary (meaning vs. no meaning). It's that for me, I feel, and others, it's that having kids is a step function in what meaning is. The first time you work and have that feeling of contributing, that's very meaningful. Having a kid is like that times 100. So kids are impactful on meaning in a relative, as opposed to binary sense. Very meaningful, relative to other meaningful things. And certainly relative to meaningless things.
So I think almost all of history too much emphasis has been placed on kid having. But among this community (Western Liberals?), kid having has a bad rep, for mostly bad reasons, that will almost definitely turn out be a failed social experiment (or else, this community as it exists will just stop existing and be replaced by children of those who chose to have them, in whatever form that takes, better or worse). The point isn't, everyone should have kids, at all. The point is, it's meaningful, and you don't need a house, two cars or two incomes to make it sustainable. That in fact, the struggle and financial impact may be worth it in the end.
I miss one factor and that is egocentrism. Why have children if you have your inner child still being enticed to all that is.
This era is marked with individualiTy. What is the statistic on entrepreneurs, on indie developers to name a few. How many people would play (video) games in their 20's all day in previous generations.
I seriously think this factor is heavily overlooked.
Showing pictures of your kids was the defacto social exchange, now it's showing pictures of yourself.
Many parents report a "hole", a lack of identity or general anxiety after kids leave the nest. This suggests raising kids means it requires a lot less me time.
I also suspect life-behind-a-screen is an accomplice to this somewhere in the equation.
The GOPConservative have engineered a situation whereby its too expensive to have a family. The US currently is a country where employers are allowed to not have to pay for an employees health insurance-- where health insurance companies are allowed to jack up prices for no reason knowing that their buddies in congress will not investigate and noone makes enough money to spend whats left out of their paychecks after paying nearly 60% of their monthly salary on the inflated rents they allow their Party donation REIT buddies set.
Want to know why theres less kids? Check out the price of just birthing one. Socialize the healthcare at least, and well have lots of babies.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] threadSome good points were made however.
Social Security in its original Ponzi-Schemesque form will end up even worse for wear with declining birthrates. (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ).
The observation of millenials being reluctant to have children is also spot on. Many that I have spoken to in the demographic are very much a "lost generation". They've seen parent's and elder's life savings disappear.
They have a harder and harder time adjusting to a world that seems specifically tuned to resist and feed off of them. See financial product/debt product proliferation.
It's harder to find opportunity when one has an additional complication of digital footprint to manage with a dearth of interest in anyone older than them willing or interested in making sure the past engraved on the net doesn't mark them for life.
The hamfisted "feminist" overtones aside, the article makes a chilling point. Long cycle economic predation and the social pressures to avoid debt first and foremost are an effective suicide switch at the population scale. An entire generation has been shaped by these pressures, and with no relief in sight, a drastic shift in values may be needed to avoid a grievous societal destabilization.
Interesting times indeed.
> (...) recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth
> (...) I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy.
That escalated quickly!
How do you intend to deal with illness, career changes & family raising?
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/marrying-down-why-men-are-the...
If the first phrase is true, then the second must also be.
Of course we're conflating income with wealth (or 'economical value'), which may be fraught.
> Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals.
I think asking all men to think the way you think is going to be disappointing.
I also think that proposing the evaluation of people based on income and/or economic potential is breathtakingly depressing.
This thread is ridiculous. Come back to earth, get out and meet real people.
I don't mean to be offensive but don't you think she considered your earning potential while choosing you as her husband?
There is nothing wrong with doing it, ppl have beeen doing it forever. Nothing immoral about it. It does go into the equation.
It feels like you've got strong opinions (that's perfectly okay!) and think your view of the world is shared by many / most other people (this, not so much).
Aim higher.
I used to hate modern art. I thought it was only for obnoxious people. Then I decided to take a college course on it and it's my favorite period of art because I learned to understand it. For the same reasons, I decided to take a course on the black power movement. My parents were racist so I was probably racist so I wanted to learn more. I learned about the Civil rights movement and discovered many personal heroes. I used to dislike John McCain and politics even though I knew very little about either, until I saw a documentary about McCain and learned he was literally a hero. I used to think finance, statistics, and programming were for smart people unlike me, until I learned more and developed a love for it.
I used to think the red pill was complete trash until someone forced me to watch the red pill documentary. It led to a painful breakup where we both weren't able to empathize with each other's traumas. I could not empathize with his pain of feeling inferior (because that's my status quo) and he could not empathize with the systemic oppression and violence against women (physical, sexual, and emotional). I feel he felt that his father may have been taken advantage of, abused and used financially and feared that for himself. While I watched my father abuse my mother, emotionally and financially, and feared that for myself. It was strange how we both felt strongly about both sides, the same problem, except we were passionately divided simply because of gender. I learned a lot and probably will always be learning from that experience.
Every time I've challenged my views, I've been rewarded.
Two books I've enjoyed or am enjoying that are about chaos:
Evicted by Mathew Desmond covers American poverty from a housing perspective.
The Big Short covers the 2008 financial crisis and it's much more informative than the film.
I trust that you'll take my comments in good faith.
Smart people often tend to assume extremes of the people they're talking to - either that they're very smart, like themselves, or very dumb. Naturally, there's a spectrum.
Having strong opinions, as you note, can sometimes put people off -- but you say that when you try to discuss them you feel attacked. I felt from your comments in this thread that you weren't here to discuss [your opinions]. I may be misinterpreting, of course, and it'd be up to you to decide if this, and other exchanges are going as you'd expected.
I appreciate the appeal of like-minded individuals -- though I've yet to find any : ) -- and I'm cheered to see that you're wary of the echo chamber risk. If it's a genuine concern, rather than hyperbole, that it may (have) led to some extreme anti-social / violent incidents, then I'd strongly and seriously encourage you to talk to people more experienced than randos on HN.
Shame they show so much interest when you're engaged to another cute, fun, actualized lady, eh?? Sorry, to use the jargon you might understand....cute, fun, actualized female.
You don't deserve to be part of this discussion throwing around these phrases. This is why you are being downvoted.
You contribute no value. You make the conversation worse through your participation.
Do not fall into the incel trap. Do not start hating women.
Hate society if you want, understand that due to your perspective as a guy, you will fixate on what is wrong with women but what is wrong with women is what is wrong with society at large, the bias of your perspective aside.
Focus on yourself, toughen up and learn to accept rejection and just meet as many women as you can. That is the only path to success. Do you think those bitter incels are celebrating their misogyny? Sure, but only through their tears.
That life is not worth it. It is harder to build yourself up than tear other people down but more worthwhile.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There is definitely some truth here. Can you find a partner and/or community of people who share your understanding of the traditional social expectations?
PUA is a community of sorts, but also has core beliefs so inimical to the opposite sex that it doesn't seem very sustainable.
I used to think I'd be alone forever, then my old high school sweetheart got divorced from her terrible [broke] first husband and got with me. I'm teaching her son how to program. Life has never been better.
It’s a term used amongst red pill/incel and such communities.
I’m not at all surprised that you are feeling economic & social pressure in modern society.
Your reaction is interesting...
PUA in a nutshell is lying to women, degrading them etc in a way to manipulate someone into a relationship. It is toxic to the core.
I'm no incel or whatever, I'm also not particularly focused on a relationship (or sex, although there is a non-committed person in my life I see with regularity for both the casual romp and coffee dates to just sit and enjoy company), in married to the degree but I'm curious what you think: is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA? I'm someone who enjoys flirting and playful banter but have learned to have tempered expectations.
Part of me thinks that at the core, it's ALL an act of mind games to convince another person why you're worth their time (or conversely showing them why you're worth theirs) and there's going to be some level of duplicity involved. Be it "oh yeah I love sushi" (when you're really just passive about it) or "I drive a fancy car I can give you all the things" (when you're really leasing a slightly less than luxury sedan).
Just curious what your thoughts are
I am able to flirt with a woman without making them feel less so I don't know how to answer your question beyond that.
is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA?
Not asking if it's merely possible to court/flirt without being toxic (because of course there is, absolutely, I agree). I pose the question the way I have because I have yet to be wholly convinced that PUA is inherently toxic, and we aren't allowing the manifestation of bad actors to paint a view of enjoying the transactional nature of flirting to the point of finding ways to make it more engaging than simply engaging in small-talk/banter/exchanging statements back and forth at each other about life, the universe and etcetera-and subsequently-wanting to find ways of improving how you go about courting relationships.
tl;dr - "hate the player, not the game", etc.
I tried that for the longest time and it was exhausting and unfruitful. When I relented and simply focused on meeting as many women as I could - and having the patience for a natural attraction to occur - it made a big difference. It sounds a bit Zen but when I stopped trying to "score" it seemed much easier to meet plenty of interesting women.
incel = Involuntarily Celibate.
What's red pill?
Also, how does the 'Nu male' relates to, or is different from an incel dude?
It has since been picked up by many communities as a way of saying they are ‘woke’ to the truth. It is currently in widespread use amongst the community of the subreddit The Donald by people claiming to have woken up from the liberal agenda or something along those lines.
In this context it probably refers to an infamous subreddit called the_red_pill that was a cess pool of pick up artists essentially training each other on how to hurt abuse and/or use women. It was banned sometime ago, during the Ellen Pao era I think. I believe they used it in the context of being woken up from the ‘lies’ of treating women as normal human beings if you want to find a lover.
Never hear of Nu Male, sounds like 4chan to me.
The solution to just simply arm yourself with all the knowledge you can, and then embark on the path to self-actualize. Between self-actualization and playing things close to your vest and smart, I think you can still make it work very well in America. Nowhere has the same purchasing power parity too for tech salaries (except maybe Switzerland).
I appreciate the advice for self actualization. That is what constantly working on. In my free time, I am finishing my B.S. in Comp Sci/EE, travel internationally, work on certs, hang with my bros, hone my craft, enjoy new hobbies, write creatively, and try to stay sane and physically fit. The problems is that the more I walk down this path, the less tolerance I have for those who deter me from achieving these goals and those who don't impact my life in any positive way. As a 5'll light skinned multi-racial young man, when I try to date online or approach the opposite sex for any sort of intimacy or potential relationship, I get rejected and told I am too short, ethnic looking and am not rich enough by women who earn less than me and made bad life choices. Sigh, I suppose that makes me the asshole for not wanting to deal with this, trying to understand these trends and looking for a way out.
One trick I use sometimes is to imagine that I'm abroad even though I'm in my normal city. It makes things more interesting and gives me more energy for interactions.
The short and ethnic thing I could understand being frustrating. I'm basically 6' and white and pretty good looking. But even so, it's not the end all. It just opens the door. I don't get with the "cool" types of girls because I don't follow pop culture and play those games. Those types of girls you don't even want. It's tough though. Best way to meet girls is meetup-type stuff like a local running group, local language meetup, etc. Actually care about the activity and befriend the guys, etc. Then the benefits with girls come in a few months (take it slow and don't be the creepy/loser guy just there for girls). ex. I started going to the language meetup, and going hard in the languages and being kind of silly and fun. Now 2 years in, all the regulars know me and I have cred there. If I ever take a girl there, she knows I'm cool. Or new girls there know that I'm cool from the social proof.
If I didn't have a great family that I want to see monthly, I would definitely consider the moving overseas thing.
Basically you just focus on YOUR PATH and believe in what you spend YOUR TIME on. I think people get magnetized towards people with a "purpose" who can spread life energy instead of trying to take energy(this girl should give me love, this guy should give me respect or validation, etc).
Here's my perspective. I'm thirty, I've been in a relationship since I was 17...the same relationship..we've talked about kids a lot...at this point...I really don't think even with both of us steadily working for several years now at decent jobs we can afford to raise a kid. We've agreed we don't feel like it's fair to raise a child without being able to provide a decent standard of life and our own standard of life ia not the best as it is, despite both of us working full time, with regular overtime, at skilled jobs.
As far as online presence goes...clearly as I'm shadowbanned on here I haven't quite grasped the...uh...I would say subtlties, I suppose, of having a reasonable online presence. I haven't gotten used to the idea of the internet being a place where one posts real personal information, despite having been on the internet since the early nineties....I still see it as a place where identities don't matter and people who post personal information online are fucking idiots.
In all honesty, i've never really participated much on online communities until recently but still go about it with that nineties mindset not really understanding people are fairly hypersensitive (a bunch of little bitches) to stuff online these days.. I keep a fairly strict separation between stuff I do on a computer online and everything else in my life. I realize it's a necessity to start mixing the two...but I find it hard to combine an online presence with my real life stuff.
It's one of these thing's i've beeen working on though because i've found that's what all my friends and people I know have done.
Social Security works with economic growth. It doesn't matter if you get 10 babies or 10 robots. Automation makes possible to keep proper living standards without exponential population growth.
Social Security, as other services like education, stops working because it is not shared.
Actually, with enough automation, it is easier to satisfy a smaller population.
There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. Self-driving trucks mean that you need 3.5 million fewer babies to carry out that task. Just 3 million if you actually need 500,000 people to maintain the software.
So, I agree with you that in the past Social Security was depending on population growth. That has been changing fast for the past 50 years. There is no economical reason to not have Social Security in the future.
You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works.
Yes. 100% true. I just mean that it can be changed. It is not an economic constraint, but it is the current situation.
This would be true except the SS tax ceiling is extremely low. SS does not scale on the rich past $128,400.
One man owning 10 robots will pay less SS than 10 workers.
This is the whole reason why the "crisis" of SS is vastly overstated and a political choice, given the obvious available solutions.
That can be changed. The difficulty is more related to corruption and lobbying than any economical constrain.
But, you are right. If nothing changes on how taxes are collected, or if it continues changing against social wellfare then it is a problem.
It's absolutely tied to population.
[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons
[1] https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/post_9910_b_7988...
While the economy has grown about ~400% dependency ratios have gone up about 11% I think. Social security's affordability has always been about political choice - e.g. tax cuts for the wealthy or money for pensioners.
The new generation grew with aids, feel less influenced by the authority selling the one family lifestyle and use more contraception.
Now wait for Vasalgel to take off. When males will have total control of their involvment in pregnancy, you will see the numbers go down even more. And probably some serious changes in the man/woman dynamics.
This is true, but are enough people feeling liberated enough to not have kids to have this be a significant part of the lowered birth rate?
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/23/birth-rate-drop
Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College:
"I think the most important and concerning thing about this is not the number of people who are voluntarily childless, but the tremendous gap between the number of children women said they wanted to have and the number that they will probably have. Early this year, the gap reached its highest level in 40 years. I think we need to think very seriously about what it is that pushes people into this kind of 'delaying.'"
You often need a man to make the baby.
Edit: I see we're talking past eachother. I was responding to your claim that "Also a lot of people don't want children." I'm pointing out that, while that's true, the real problem is people who report wanting children but not having any.
I wasn't responding to your comment about male birth control. Although if you want my opinion, I think it will be good for men to share the burden of family planning. But I doubt it will cause the birth rates to plummet much. Men want children too.
If you interrogate only women, it's completely off.
"In a nationally representative survey of single, childless people in 2011, more men than women said they wanted kids."
"A different poll from 2013 echoed those findings, with more than 80 percent of men saying they’d always wanted to be a father or at least thought they would be someday. Just 70 percent of women felt the same."
Granted, I don't have tons of studies, and some of this data is a few years old (but still after the 2008 recession,) but I think it's reasonable to conclude that the drop in birth rate can not be explained solely by a decline in the number of men or women who want kids. For sure, that is a big part of it. But the fact that couples who want kids are not having them, and that this gap grew after the recession, leads me to think there are structural issues with our economy at play.
Um, E. F. Schumacher had 8 kids. He was more concerned with how people interacted with each other and not overpopulation.
At the same time, prosperous cities are booming and rents are rising. It's polarizing.
There are enough people in the US now, enough children, that our education system could focus better on technological and scientific advances for those who show the aptitude (by increasing opportunity and decreasing inequal access to education and jobs).
We do not need more people on this planet. It will only increase the likelihood of a major catastrophe like famine -> war -> nuclear war, which will then put scientific research back decades if not centuries.
From which growth-based economies will those rewards be taken? If not that way, then how?
The whole point is that I am assuming there isn't enough incentive on a large scale to deal with environment problem BEFORE they occur. With global warming, once we go past the point of no return, it won't be a quick fix. We will throw the equilibrium out of whack. If we were to pragmatically balance things now/going back a few decades, we could avoid the big swing that will occur.
So basically, the population may fall from 8 billion to 3 billion because of famine/war, etc. Immensely painful things... Or we could just have pragmatic restraint through rewarding sustainability, and it would naturally level out to 5/6 billion or whatever that number is... but without the immense pain of billion fighting/dying.
I could not be more diametrically opposed to your position. It's clear to me we have far too many people as it is, and the only way out is through population decline. Anything else is ridiculous line noise to argue about. Once you solve the CO2 climate change problem you have about 10 other just-as-bad crises right behind it if population growth continues.
Sure, as you say there could be some more black swan events in science/technology that technically lets us expand in the short term much like modern agriculture has. I don't see that as a positive as it simply delays the inevitable and makes it even more impossible to recover from.
There is no choice but to grow. People like to travel, conduct scientific research, and face and conquer new technical challenges. You cannot do this without more people and the productivity they provide. Period.
In that context, I see especially no reason to have any biologically related offspring. It's not like there's a shortage of orphans, because adoption might just as well be another option to actualize this inherent need to "leave something lasting behind as to give purpose to our existence", by passing on values and life-lessons.
Too bad the barrier of entry to that is usually very high, I guess for good reasons.
The American situation is increasingly sharp on both ends - if you're making $40k as a household in rural America, you're financially screwed if anything bad happens to you - in ways that aren't even relevant in other countries (thank you no state healthcare / no maternity leave), but at the top end, you're also pushed out - because you've graduated with $40k + in loans, and can't buy a house for less than $500k+ (and what, $1m+ in the Bay Area).
Structurally things are very bad for millennials. But things will change - it's never as bad as the news makes it out to be. In the next ten years the voting power blocs will change, and politicians will be forced to change policy in our favour. I only hope we don't screw the coming generations like the boomers did for us with their lack of foresight.
Back in the day, house prices were 1 year's salary. Now it's more like 6-7 years of salary, with a high tax assessment and no job security or pensions too.
Sent from my car
Once people can choose to not children, factors like the economy affect population growth.
I would speculate that the disincentive is larger for wealthier people. A lot of child-related expenses are for positional goods (house in a good school district, saving for college) where the price is basically "all your spare income". So if you're rich having kids means giving up awesome vacations and the option of retiring before 50; if you're poor those things were never on the table.
Yet it's low-income households who have the highest birth rates [0] afaik this isn't unique to the US, in Germany the situation looks similar.
It's extremely interesting how this relation between income&fertility doesn't just hold true on a country vs country scale, but also on a domestic level inside these countries, there must be something very fundamental at work here.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
Most of the predictions about the welfare state are true, though. In that some of its effects mimic a ponzi scheme.
I'd urge everyone and anyone to look up an age pyramid for their country from 1950 and onwards. It's absolutely telling. Preferably an animation.
e.g. Japan here: https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/
You can click through every 5 years. It's like a snake with food passing through it's body, starting with a big blob of young people who gradually move into old age, without replacement. The proportion of young (suppose an arbitrary <40 or >=40) to old completely flips over. In Japan it was 75% in 1950, but just 44.5% in 2010. If you take 65+ as a threshold, it was just 5% in 1950, but 23% in 2010. That's 4x as many retirees to support on a dwindling young (mostly) working population. 5% 65+ and 95 <65 is a 1:19 retiree to young (often working) person. 23% vs 77% is less than 1:4.
And that matters a ton because there's a gigantic age asymmetry in terms of expenditure by age group in certain fields. Take healthcare expenses by age: https://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/935941/joi160128f...
You basically spend a ton at birth and as an old person. With low birth rates and massive improvements to healthcare increasing life expectancy, we're heading for a disaster. The tax base is rapidly depleting and the tax burden is rapidly increasing.
While Japan is a disaster right now, their situation (by my understanding) was made massively worse through bad economic choices when their economy first started slowing down.
Germany and South Korea are two examples of extremely robust economies that have had terrifically low birth rates for a long time now, Germany has had fairly high levels of immigration, but South Korea certainly hasn't.
There's also the fact that countries like the US and the UK don't have particularly bad population pyramids but are still strangling the youth to some extent, it's more a political problem than a fundamental outcome of low birthrates and welfare states.
Anyway, Japan and Korea really aren't comparable. Just look at their pyramids.
Starting with the 64+ population, grew in Japan from 5% to 26%. Further, it's not just children (<14) who're a lower share than before, but also the working population of 15-64 which is smaller than before (from 64% to 60%).
In short, old:working age went from 1:13 to 1:2 (rounded off).
https://countryeconomy.com/demography/population-structure/j...
South Korea is in a very different stage. Its 64+ population only went from 3% to 13%. Meanwhile its working population from 15-64 didn't drop like in Japan but went up from 53% to 73%. If anything, Korea is in an amazing position right now and has been for some time. It's only now levelling off and going the other direction.
https://countryeconomy.com/demography/population-structure/s...
In short, old:working age went from 1:18 to 1:6 (rounded off). For every old person in Japan, Korea has 3 times as many working age people. And that puts a lot of pressure on the tax base, even if the economy is doing well, a greater share of production is redistributed away from young and working people to old and not working people. In a country where one young person has to produce as much wealth for himself and one old person, as another country where two young people can share that burden, there's a difference in pressure and sustainability of the welfare state.
Fact of the matter is that Japan is running a deficit on its social security system. You either need to raise taxes or expect welfare state retrenchment (which has happened in most developed countries over the past 30-40 years in large parts anyway). You can only raise taxes so much (Laffer curve). It's typically deemed as inevitable that Japan's welfare state will retrench unless it accepts immigration or technology rapidly does away with humans. I don't see either of these happening in the next few decades, so young people pay to support a system today that they're likely not going to enjoy to the same degree in the future.
If women had not entered the workforce in massive numbers things could have continued based on old trajectories. The male breadwinner/housewife lifestyle was a formula that made it ideal for raising children cheaply, even if it didn’t seem like the most equitable.
If I had a good job and settled with a wife straight out of college I’m sure I’d be a father to two children by now. My income could easily support a non-working spouse and some kids.
But many of the women around me were not the type to settle so early, so I chased the money and ever more ambitious women. And with no family to support, I had dangerous amounts of money to spend on ever increasing prices and property.
And if I should marry a woman with equal earning power as me, we will be able to spend even more on whatever inflated prices are set before us. If you’ve ever been in a gay household with two men earning typical male salaries and no children, one thing you notice is that they always have tons of purchasing power. What do you think that does to the economy when it scales out?
Except that Japan has kept traditional gender roles, where the woman leaves her job when marries, and they have one of the lower fertility rates in the world.
At the same time, Sweden with very strong gender equality has a higher fertility rate than other European countries. Even that it is still low compared with historical hights.
We make just enough to have a really good life without kids or have a really stressful life with them. We don’t even have a house yet (and I mostly don’t want one, but that’s another conversation). I ran the numbers, and I didn’t like the outcome.
Everyone that I know that has kids is sleep deprived, unable to do much of anything outside of the house and are in a lot of debt. Some people think that kids make up for all of that. Not us.
Just had my first 9mo ago. I’m exhausted. I’m 44 years old (and not financially stable yet due to divorce). It’s hard work at this age. But is it worth it? Absolutely.
I had no affection for children at all before this. I don’t (even now) like other people’s kids that much. But today I came home from a long day of filing SR&ED paperwork (Canadian research tax benefit) and my daughter would just not go to sleep - awful night. But I’m happy. The wonderful things about having kids aren’t in the shitty crap you go through every day. They are in the look that child gives you when you get home. That lasts forever.
I'm totally with you on how awesome kids are. They are hard work, expensive, and ... totally worth it. Wouldn't give up my boy & girl for anything. Ambivalent about other people's kids, but I try to be polite.
If you don't think it is for you, don't let other people convince you otherwise.
You can choose to have a family when you want.
You don't need to share blood with your child in order for it to be a meaningful and fulfilling relationship.
I'm from a large extended family that has overwhelmingly chosen to not breed and adopt children into our lives, when we are READY and WANT THEM, instead.
I'm proud of the fact that I will never breed. I will probably raise a child at some point though. Genetics are over-rated.
Intelligence (all g-factors, not just IQ but reaction time, etc) are roughly 40-55% heritable, depending on which study you choose to run with. Similar numbers are found for behavior, political leanings, conscientiousness, etc.
The blank slate hypothesis has been widely discredited. After work, the best contribution the high-IQ, high-conscientiousness people on this site can make to society is propagation of their genetic material.
> You can choose to have a family when you want
Fertility specialists would tend to disagree with your total disregard of reality, here.
> You don't need to share blood with your child in order for it to be a meaningful and fulfilling relationship.
> I'm from a large extended family that has overwhelmingly chosen to not breed and adopt children into our lives, when we are READY and WANT THEM, instead.
>> Fertility specialists would tend to disagree with your total disregard of reality, here.
For someone with such a high inherited IQ you sure do have poor reading comprehension.
People are watching us constantly, everyone has more-or-less enough food, there's a ton of shiny stuff and panda tasks in the enclosure, there's nasty loud machines everywhere, and if you have some young they're like this tiny very-vulnerable creature who will be shortly moved to a different enclosure to be watched by different creatures.
May not be economic!!
So many people seem cynical about having kids or doing anything else involving sacrificing happiness for meaning. And yet people complain of indulgence and a lack of meaning? It confuses me. You can have difficult but meaningful if you want: start a company and a family. You can also have happy and (likely) less meaningful: go all in on hedonism.
People can't seem to cope with all the opportunity and optionality modern life presents. Makes people anxious it seems. So much self loathing (don't have kids for the environment?). If you don't want kids, don't have them. If you do, have them. They will not starve and you won't either.
Life will never be easy, to expect it to be is somewhere in between whining and delusion.
Also, if everybody has kids early, the population of the world is going to rise above the carrying capacity of the planet. Which will cause future famines, wars, etc.
Finally, maybe other people derive meaning from other things. What life experiences would you have had if you didn't have a kid at 24? From 24-35 you could've experienced a music scene more deeply, traveled the world and become fluent in languages, worked on a Phd in a field. But you chose a kid, which is great! But other people chose otherwise. I agree that having a kid is a MUST-DO in life. But maybe later is better.
Ironically, the genes being selected out of the gene pool are the genes of people in productive and highly organized societies. Especially those genes that lend themselves towards selflessness and universal empathy/friendliness.
What I mean is, you aren't doing the world a favor by not having children.
If you want to enjoy your money and play Nintendo Switch in lieu of passing on your genes, that's fine. But it's not a moral high ground.
Plenty of Americans live in poverty, and plenty of kids go hungry every day. "Have kids, things will magically turn out fine" is terrible advice. "Have kids and start a company, two of the most stressful things a person can do" is also terrible advice.
Congratulations on the birth of your son, and I wish you and your family all the best; I've got a two year old tot at home, and I love her and I'm glad I have her. But it's not for everyone, and not all times are equally good to start a family.
Ah, the ol' "kids give my life meaning, how can anyone live a life without meaning?" trope. Hey, more power to you, but spreading DNA around isn't the only road to a meaningful life. Your false choice of "have kids, or live a life of hedonism" strikes me as the argument of the religious zealot. Speaking of religion, Jesus Christ didn't have kids, and he seemed to do okay on the "meaningful" scale.
If you don't want kids, don't have them.
And if you do have them, try to avoid attempting to convince the rest of the world that yours is the only right, moral, and meaningful choice.
In terms of being a zealot in general, there are few things harder to counter-argue as adaptable than having children. Certainly it doesn't make sense for the majority of people to have kids in the context they are in, but it's very hard to against having kids period. It's an old thing because it is in many cases true in practice. So it's hard to counter-argue on the basis that we are monkeys on a rock who should know better, when we don't, and never will. Because eventually, everyone exists because someone had kids, and so on.
There is a significant relativity to meaning. It's not that having kids is a binary (meaning vs. no meaning). It's that for me, I feel, and others, it's that having kids is a step function in what meaning is. The first time you work and have that feeling of contributing, that's very meaningful. Having a kid is like that times 100. So kids are impactful on meaning in a relative, as opposed to binary sense. Very meaningful, relative to other meaningful things. And certainly relative to meaningless things.
So I think almost all of history too much emphasis has been placed on kid having. But among this community (Western Liberals?), kid having has a bad rep, for mostly bad reasons, that will almost definitely turn out be a failed social experiment (or else, this community as it exists will just stop existing and be replaced by children of those who chose to have them, in whatever form that takes, better or worse). The point isn't, everyone should have kids, at all. The point is, it's meaningful, and you don't need a house, two cars or two incomes to make it sustainable. That in fact, the struggle and financial impact may be worth it in the end.
I did no such thing, but I'll allow that perhaps English is a second language for you and analogies might not come across as well as I'd like.
This era is marked with individualiTy. What is the statistic on entrepreneurs, on indie developers to name a few. How many people would play (video) games in their 20's all day in previous generations.
I seriously think this factor is heavily overlooked.
Showing pictures of your kids was the defacto social exchange, now it's showing pictures of yourself.
Many parents report a "hole", a lack of identity or general anxiety after kids leave the nest. This suggests raising kids means it requires a lot less me time.
I also suspect life-behind-a-screen is an accomplice to this somewhere in the equation.
Tldr; The selfie way
Want to know why theres less kids? Check out the price of just birthing one. Socialize the healthcare at least, and well have lots of babies.