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Comment by 32gbsd | Hacker News Reader

As well written and funny as the article is it still finds itself in a tunnel vision scenario because if the population is rising continuously and no one wants to have kids anymore then where are all these extra kids coming from?

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As Yogi Berra said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.”

Because usually population means US and sometimes you can include Europe.

Arbsorlurtlrey.

The developing world. Lack of birth control + poverty + lower cost of raising children has our population exploding in all the places that haven't developed yet.

You forgot the most important point, security when your old, if you have 10 children's the "burden" to provide money/time to the parents is smaller per child.

If the state is not providing "insurance" the family has to.

China and India both have declining fertility rates as well. It seems like fertility is incompatible with economic development.

It depends on the culture, I guess - AFAIK the birth rate in western countries is decreasing.

On the other hand, the taxi drivers I remember talking to about children, had all a certain (non-western) background, and they had (as far as I remember) 2, 4, 3, 8 children, respectively.

Aside from the apt Yogi Berra reference, a lot of kids are made by "accident" by people who didn't "want" to but accept their fate when it's "happened". Oopsie!

There aren't just extra kids, there's extra old people.

Population growth is both more kids being born, and people living longer.

We're now in the people living longer stage.

Hans Rosling did a simple demonstration of this with boxes over a decade ago.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_global_population_gro...

edit: better illustration of the point, still Hans with Boxes here:

https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI?t=203

It’s also survival rates of the babies being born. People don’t realize how many babies died back in the day.

That can still be filed under ‘people living longer,’ no?

Sure. But we tend to speak of infant mortality and old age differently.

That was fascinating. Thanks for the link.

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