I personally love my kid. I was so excited to be a parent. I am so surprised everyone is kind of stuck in that 18-29 mindset of “I am just not ready to be a parent”
Birth rates in the future won’t be too much of a worry mind you. Robots and humans that don’t age will make up the bulk of the workforce. The economy will just tank because there wont be a trillion people buying things.
Current metrics of the economy will show that it tanks. But we have known for ages that these metrics are at best wrong and at worst devastating to the planet and people on it - since leaders and policy-makers use them to allocate resources in ways that show up-and-to-the-right graphs.
It first occurred to me when hearing about Japan’s “lost decade”. Japan is by no means perfect, but when you visit you find a place where people have their material and social needs taken care of. If you read economists though you would think that the country was doomed.
Similarly after the housing bubble burst we had job losses and other problems in Holland the same as in other places. But looking at the metrics of wealth per capita, we basically were back in the same place as less than a decade before. Was life so horrible in 2004 that this was a huge tragedy? If you are insisting on constant improvement by some arbitrary measurement, then yes.
For me the biggest example was COVID-19. We showed that if it was important that we could have a way of life with drastically less environmental impact to the planet. We surely don’t want to live exactly like that, but we could make radical changes to have a better world for ourselves and our children (yes, even with drastically lower birthrates there will still be people on the future earth).
Luckily there are rebels in economics fighting against the orthodoxy. If you want to feel a bit of hope (mixed with a large dose of pragmatism) you can check out the Economics for Rebels podcast.
Why would I want to bring another human being into this world? The planet is melting, greed is at insane levels, the future looks bleak. I don’t want my children to suffer and get thrown through the machine.
I’m glad my parents didn’t think like that. I vastly prefer non-optimal life to not existing at all.
I’m also not going to have kids but I do it because of me, not because of them. I don’t understand people who think they are so wise that they can make this judgement for others.
I vastly prefer non-optimal life to not existing at all.
How could you possibly know that? Do you remember not existing?
If I didn’t want to exists I would commit a suicide. The fact that I don’t want to do that indicates to me that it’s better for me to exist than not.
I’m glad my parents didn’t think like that. I vastly prefer non-optimal life to not existing at all.
Glad you were fortunate enough for this to be the case. It’s not the case for everyone.
I don’t understand people who think they are so wise that they can make this judgement for others.
Funny you’d say that, since you’re the only one here judging others for their personal choices.
My partner and I are content with our choice. We would not be able to give a child the life they deserve, nor will the world give that to them. Sure, maybe in another world we’d be willing. But now? Not for us.
Like it or not, by making that choice for yourself you are deciding to not bring them into the world, same as us. The outcome is the same.
Intentionally driving over someone and accidently doing so both have the same result but I don’t think you would claim that there is no difference. Intentions matter even if the outcome is the same. I’m not judging your choices but your reasoning.
In my opinion this applies to having children aswell. No one is under any obligation to have kids and there are plenty of valid reasons not to do so and this can be anything from financial, time saving or just personal preference. However, to me it’s hypocritical to justify not having children by essentially claiming that their life wouldn’t be worth living but at the same time you yourself continue your existence here. You basically set standards and then don’t apply them to yourself.
Infant mortality used to be insanely high before modern healthcare and medicine. There was no social safety nets expect for the community around you. There was no gurantees about access to food and clean water not to even mention education. Looking at virtually any metric life has never been better and yet people say “it’s not worth bringing children into this world”. I’m sorry but to me that kind of thinking is just insanely cynical and misjudged.
Oh please, you were fine with not existing for 13.8 billion years. Existence is just a phase you’ll soon grow out of.
13.8 billion years of nothing untill a bundle of stardust on a random planet called earth combined in such a way that it suddenly became aware of its own existance. To our current knowledge that is about the most complex thing that has ever happened in the universe.
Yeah, I wont be there to experience my non-existence after I’m gone, but I’m more than happy to be here now.
Came to find this comment. Always gets upvoted, never relevant to the actual issue
It doesn’t add anything meaningful to the discussion. Basically everyone is aware of those arguments. The top level comment states some facts (e.g. climate change), but does not offer deeper insight or start a discussion. Nothing was gained from reading that comment, so it may as well not have been written in the first place.
In order to turn it into a meaningful contribution the author of said comment should have added something more.
For example by going into how they feel those facts are insurmountable and therefore how they see the demographic changes as inevitable and what sort of effects this will have on their personal life/on their community/on their country. This can then lead to a discussion about the severity of the effects and people can contribute what they think possible solutions are.
Or for another example, one could use these effects on demographic change as a basis to start a discussion about one of the contributing factors. i.e. take the difficulties that arise from lower birthrates as an argument for better family oriented policies/for more climate action/against bodily autonomy (that one would certainly start a fierce discussion, lol)
Apparently all the shit big corps are putting in the food it’s working…
My wife and I work a total of 4 main jobs. I think we had 10+ total forms of income for 2023.I try to get money on the side too. I can’t afford a kid. Even if I could, what time would I have to be a parent?
My in laws want us to pop out kids. We live in a 1br place. And we are just barely keeping our heads above water. They will say stuff like “well if you wait for a perfect time there will never be one,” or saying it’s our duty to let them have grandkids.
Linux is great.
My FOSS ass immediately skipped the first two paragraphs to read the last line like a monkey neuron activation meme
We both are medical caregivers for the same disabled couple. Our main full time jobs are a data center analyst and college cafeteria work. We also both collected from unemployment. I have some stocks and CDs that have helped a bunch to keep afloat. I do some work on the side here as well.
Not to invalidate the hard work, but aren’t data center analysts pretty well compensated? I would think that would cover a 1b place pretty effectively and then the other sources of income would be gravy. Maybe I’m over-estimating the salary for the field. I am ignorant, I must admit.
