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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#417701: Nov 27th 2023 at 1:21:55 PM

[up][up]I remember, I was in that yelling match :)

Anyway, I was speaking in general. It's one of those things where a lot of people take other people not making the same choice as them as an attack on them personally.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#417702: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:18:43 PM

Look, I don't think it's a huge mental or mathematical leap to figure out: new humans = 0, therefore humans go extinct.

Obviously we need to make it easier for people to have children in the developed world. It's stupidly expensive and can be destructive for careers.

I feel like there's a social movement against childbearing as a concept, regardless of the economic considerations, which is genocidal for the species. It's tied into the Malthusian idea that we need fewer human beings to reduce the resource stress on our planet, which is simply false to fact. We have room for quite a few more if we can manage the resources a little better.

Edit: If I'm going to be accused of being some kind of aberrant monster for thinking that humans need to make humans for there to be humans, then I don't know what to tell you. Guilty as charged, throw me in the oubliette.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 27th 2023 at 5:22:43 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Risa123 Since: Dec, 2021 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#417703: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:23:18 PM

[up]

I feel like there's a social movement against childbearing as a concept
Of course there is. There is a movement for everything. The important question is said movement actually important enough for you to worry about ? I do not think so.

fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#417704: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:34:55 PM

I feel like there's a social movement against childbearing as a concept

lolwhat? Antinatalism is a fringe concept. The idea that there isn’t substantial pressure to get married and have kids on a societal level to the point of outright population decline is laughable.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#417705: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:35:10 PM

[up][up][up] And here's the exact problem, Fighteer. You're going way too long term on this. We are not even remotely at risk of going extinct from population decline any time soon. It is not a reasonable fear for Millennials or Zoomers or even Alpha. Even the countries panicking about it aren't at risk that soon. We are talking about the problems people are facing right now and you're trying to go big picture and long timeframe. But we can't get to that big picture or long timeframe without 1) acknowledging that everyone has the right to decide if they want kids or not and constantly implying that people are somehow lesser for choosing not to have kids is a really shitty thing to do, 2) actually fixing the current system so people stop getting punished for having kids and 3) giving people hope of an actual future that won't be just a horrible slow decline, which pretty much everyone in power is absolutely garbage at doing.

If you don't manage those three things first, you cannot solve this problem. Because this is a psychological/sociological problem, not a pure logistics problem. And treating it like a pure logistics problem makes you sound like a eugenicist, even if that's not your intent, because it means ignoring the actual very real very present problems that are impacting tons of people today.

It's all well and good to go city-builder on ideas in the abstract, but we're not talking about the abstract. What's your solution to excessive childcare bills? What's your solution to people going bankrupt for giving birth? What's your solution to the generational ennui hitting the youngest three generations? What is your solution for the modern system that is making having children as difficult and punishing as possible? What's your solution to the disgustingly high maternal mortality rate in the US?

If you insist on going big-picture-long-term and not engaging properly with the short term stuff that must be dealt with first, that means you must have solutions for all these things correct? Because if you don't, you're treating the problem like you're playing a strategy game and not like you're talking about millions or billions of real people, all of whom are real people with real thoughts and feelings and full inner lives and that must be acknowledged and taken into account.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 27th 2023 at 5:39:33 AM

fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#417706: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:36:30 PM

Not to mention the fact that pregnancy itself is a life threatening condition. Seriously, it borders on Body Horror.

Blueace Surrounded by weirdoes from The End Of the World Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Surrounded by weirdoes
#417707: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:41:01 PM

That's probably on the second point. Making it so women who decide to have children have access to proper medical help during the whole process.

Wake me up at your own risk.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#417708: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:42:04 PM

Also, it is, to be blunt, straight up revolting to compare "everyone should have the right to decide if they want kids or not" to anti-natalism. Which is exactly what you did, Fighteer, there's literally no other way to parse what you said in the context because no one said any antinatalist talking points, everyone else is solidly in the "everyone gets the right to choose" camp. And you are doing a thing which is...completely indistinguishable from arguing against it. Not great.

Either you actually dislike the idea of people having full and free rights to choose whether or not they have children, or you're arguing against a point you agree with in order to either be contrarian or to cosplay as a city-builder game style big picture thinker.

This isn't Frostpunk, it's not Terraforming Mars, we are in a modern situation where population decline is not a realistic risk and behaving like it is means getting in the way of discussions about how to actually make things better for people.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 27th 2023 at 5:45:53 AM

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#417709: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:48:44 PM

There is still a social pressure, even in developed countries, to increase the fertility rates of the middle class and higher earning brackets.

What there isn't is actual support to do so because living is already horribly expensive if you are living by yourself, let alone constituting a family with more than 1 child, even more or so if you have 2 or 3, which removes at least one spouse from work.

Fighteer is right on the point that having a family is so horribly expensive, time consuming and stressing that the current generations are downright opting out of having one. This is exactly the economic factors outweighing the social ones.

The Republicans want to "fix" this issue by forcing births and removing education from lower classes, where they'd theoretically have more children. But they couldn't give a single fuck about them after the child is born.

Having a program to give actual incentives, not just social incentives, like parental aid and care programs, better schools and cheaper services and products for couples with children would do wonders. Along with better housing and recreational areas for both parents and children.

There are solutions to these problems but they involve: spending money from the taxpayer, making laws protecting mothers from being fired for being pregnant, having the parental leave be just as long as the maternal leave, making aid programs for parents and children and investing in more child friendly infrastructure.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#417710: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:51:09 PM

Also taxing the absolute fuck out of the wealthy.

Whinging on about population decline as the big problem is actually directly counter-intuitive to solving it, because it means overlooking the real problem involved.

We do not live in a city-builder. We do not live in a strategy game. Attacking a sociological problem like a logistical one will fail.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 27th 2023 at 5:53:36 AM

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#417711: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:54:52 PM

Yes, specially those companies that have a shit track record with worker rights and pay. Those that can fire women and men for having to rear children or leave work to *gasp* care for their children.

I find ridiculous that we have companies that profit billions and are worth trillions (virtual assets like stocks, but still) and yet the household earnings remained steady and barely followed inflation.

Inter arma enim silent leges
jawal Since: Sep, 2018
#417712: Nov 27th 2023 at 2:55:01 PM

Movements that called for humans to stop having children had existed since the time of ancient Persia.

They never succeeded in convincing the majority of people to follow them, so I don't think there is any reason to fear for the survival of the human species.

Besides, the world is not just the West, there are countries in the world suffering from the exact opposite problem, when people are unemployed, living in a place without any welfare system, and yet still having ten or more children destined for poor education and limited career options.

So whatever dangers humanity faces, extinction because of people not wanting to reproduce is not one of them.

............

Also, I feel this conversation will be better without making personal insinuations or using inflamatory or hyperbolic assumptions.

Edited by jawal on Nov 27th 2023 at 11:56:17 AM

Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417713: Nov 27th 2023 at 3:13:27 PM

Hm. Seems to me that there are at least two levels of analysis that overlap here. On an individual level, having children is a personal choice for one or more adults to undertake as a life goal. Or not. Providing people with the support they need to undertake the life goals they choose is a no brainer, provided society can afford it, and that the cumulative choices of the majority of people are sustainable. As we have seen in a different context (global warming), this can't be assumed.

The other level is societal. Following the demographic transition, the trend is for childbearing to reduce as an indirect result of women becoming better educated. As global populations have been increasing for a very long time (I am old enough to remember the "Population Explosion" being regarded as a serious problem), this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Currently the birthrate in many developed countries is slightly below the replacement rate—we make up for this (in theory) by encouraging immigrants from less developed countries (this has both benefits and costs from the perspective of the destination and source countries, but that's another issue).

It is foreseeable that as immigrants to more developed nations receive better education, and as under-developed nations develop, more and more populations will experience the demographic transition, at which point, if current trends hold, global birthrate may fall slightly below the replacement rate. As the Earth is commonly considered to be over-populated, this may be a good thing, although the consequences for economic development (which in current form depends on population growth) are not clear.

At some point, if global population actually declines, the value of labor will increase, much as it did after the Black Death in Europe (though, hopefully, to a significantly less extreme degreee). This should increase the value of having children to the point that the birthrate should stabilize at around the replacement rate.

What the exact global population will be at that point depends on so many factors that it isn't worth trying to predict, nor how long this process might take.

But it seems to me that global population is a problem that isn't worth worrying about. Climate change will cause a much greater population reduction than the demographic transition will, so lets worry about that instead.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 27th 2023 at 6:15:43 AM

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#417714: Nov 27th 2023 at 3:26:11 PM

I feel like there's a social movement against childbearing as a concept,

Is this ‘social movement’ in the room with us now?

Look, I agree with you that the child-haters (who are often children themselves) on Reddit shouldn’t be allowed to be a guiding philosophy for our society. But they’re not here in this thread and never have been, so I really don’t get why we keep getting dragged back to arguing about them instead of having an adult discussion amongst ourselves about the barriers that exist to parenthood.

In the end your fundemental assertion at the start of this is wrong. People not having children isn’t a self-solving problem because it’s not one normally bought about by personal ideology, it’s one bought about by circumstances. Some people cannot afford children (or are to old to have as many as they’d have wanted by the time they can afford children), some who can afford children aren’t allowed to have them (barriers to LGBT+ adoption can be huge), some people would have liked children but have been harmed by society such that they’re no longer in a position to do so.

You know why a chunk of people in the US don’t have children? Because the maternal mortality rate in the US is so high that they either choose not on safety grounds to or they die around the first child and thus aren’t around to have a second.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 27th 2023 at 12:01:46 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#417715: Nov 27th 2023 at 3:44:12 PM

Stuff like natalism or childfree movements exist but they have very little, if any traction, so I don't think it makes much sense to worry about them. The idea of having children as the norm is deeply ingrained in most societies (i'd say often to a negative extent, frankly) and that's not changing anytime soon.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417716: Nov 27th 2023 at 4:19:38 PM

It's more that in the US at least, there are few institutional incentives for childrearing. This is a result of policy—we could turn it around if we wanted to. But for a variety of political and cultural reasons, committing the resources required to provide American children with an enriched environment just aren't a priority, and haven't been for years.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Tremmor19 he/him (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
he/him
#417717: Nov 27th 2023 at 4:29:46 PM

it is a shame, tho, when a significant number of people who do want children are unable to afford them. it seems backwards, how the trend has been simultaneously towards increasing isolation (less family support), increasing burden and expectations on parents, longer time spent fully dependent on parents (and often, controlled by them), and lower wages and higher rent. Its hard to say how much is people not wanting children vs people making the rational choice that it's more trouble than they can afford.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417718: Nov 27th 2023 at 4:31:28 PM

Ultimately, it's a function of increasing wealth disparity (the upper classes have no problem affording children).

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#417719: Nov 27th 2023 at 4:40:23 PM

If this is the case, then the strategy of the upper class to Kill the Poor has taken a long-term meaning.

ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#417720: Nov 27th 2023 at 5:12:45 PM

Keep in mind that parental leave laws in the US are abysmal. Things differ by state but it seems like some of the most generous include 12 unpaid maternity leave weeks as a federal standard - THREE MONTHS - and only 6 paid paternity leave weeks, which is basically only in California and New York.

People aren't refusing to have children because they hate the human race or whatever other bugbear is being assigned to them, they're refusing to have children because two working adults can barely cover rent on an apartment in most US cities and a broken condom could legitimately derail the rest of their entire lives.

Edited by RedSavant on Nov 27th 2023 at 10:13:08 PM

It's been fun.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417721: Nov 27th 2023 at 6:07:55 PM

The Republicans want to "fix" this issue by forcing births and removing education from lower classes, where they'd theoretically have more children. But they couldn't give a single fuck about them after the child is born.

Reminds me of Russia's approach.

In Russia the way they're dealing with this is to shame women for wanting to go to college and telling them to get married and pregnant by age 20.

Disgusted, but not surprised
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417723: Nov 27th 2023 at 8:03:31 PM

Donors either don't think they are getting their money's worth, or they already got what they wanted (killing abortion rights) and don't think there is a need to keep sending money.

Edited by M84 on Nov 28th 2023 at 12:03:49 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#417725: Nov 27th 2023 at 8:13:00 PM

Or they're all sending their money to the former guy, and he's not sharing.

Edited by Resileafs on Nov 27th 2023 at 11:35:07 AM


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