Male birth control breakthrough safely switches off fit sperm for a while

Do you mean they might vote for forced reproduction to combat collapsing birthrates?

Female as substantial bearer of risk, is in control

>but that’s only 70% of the cases of birth during marriage.

The idea that 30% of childbirths are not by the child's supposed father is a misnomer: it's much closer to 1-2%[0]. Certainly, if you've been in a long-term relationship and have been cheated on, you'd probably be very scarred and think that you can never trust women, you can never know if the kids are actually yours, etc. And I can understand that sentiment, especially since in Western society, all the stages leading up to marriage, and all the negative experiences people have, often lead them to become very cynical. But trust me, once you hit around 30, interest in sex starts to decrease, and people are too wrapped up in work, family, and general social obligations to even think about sleeping around. It does happen that two people who are unsatisfied in their marriages, who are good friends and happen to spend a lot of time together, might end up having an affair, but rarely would that lead to another kid, especially since the woman would be extra careful about pregnancy.

Now, I'll grant that if someone is mentally unstable, or its even a power thing, its entirely possible that a woman could cheat on her husband, lie about being on birth control, and get herself pregnant to another man because its like the only way she can get off. But that's probably relatively rare, and there are numerous other cases where the reason is far more mundane, perhaps a woman feels pressured to get married to a man while she has another lover, but her groom is more financially stable and can provide for her better. Or maybe she is just crazy, sleeping with a bunch of different guys without telling any of them about the others, and as soon as she gets pregnant she just tells the most gullible one that its his. But its still 1 in 30 at most. Not something you should think about, unless its too obvious to ignore.

[0]https://insidestory.org.au/the-fatherhood-myth/

I think in both cases the OP assumes there are 100 men and 100 women.

Case A: 1 man on birth control, 0 women on birth control.

Case B: 0 men on birth control, 99 women on birth control.

But it's hard to infer exactly what they meant because their wording/reasoning was so sloppy.

> That logic doesn't make any sense unless you assume there are 100 men to every woman on earth, or alternatively, that women have 100 times more sexual partners than men. Evidence suggests otherwise.

Even if men and women have the same number of sexual partners female birth control will be more efficient if that number is more than one.

Consider a hypothetical group of 1000 men and 1000 women that consists of 500 monogamous couples, using no birth control and frequently having sex. If you randomly pick half the men and give them male birth control or randomly pick half the women and give them female birth control then you'll but the number of births approximately in half.

For that group then male and female birth control are equally efficient.

Consider a similar group, 1000 men and 1000 women, but without monogamous couples. Each person has a dozen partners they regularly have sex with. In that group giving 500 women birth control will cut the number of births in half. Giving 500 men birth control will lower the number of births some but not much.

For that group female birth control is more efficient.

This is a viewpoint that always comes up in these discussions, and I find it to be one entirely lacking in nuance.

Society is not comprised of entirely free individuals that evaluate every decision rationally and carefully before making any action.

It is full of powerful forces (corporate, religious, ideological, political, etc.) that seek to influence people and push them toward one thing or another - or merely to make everything more chaotic. This state of affairs has gotten even more complicated in the last ~half century, where we now have billion dollar corporations entirely focused on influencing your behavior.

It’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that society could be more conducive to having children, promote ideas that encourage having children, not fund things that discourage having children, and so forth - without that somehow being equivalent to “forcing people to have children.”

> I don't really understand the premise. We're already pushing several limits for global sustainability due to the human (over-)population (climate change, food supply, loss of fauna diversity).

> Why is it not a good thing to reduce the population size?

Because the shareholders expect constant growth (of their investments)

Fertility is not a heritable trait; it is a norms-based, cultural trait. This was recently highlighted in a good paper by Greg Clark, author of A Farewell to Alms: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2...

Once fertility declines, it's extremely hard to reverse the decline without a massive cultural shift. Countries like S.Korea and Hungary have made heroic efforts -- without much success. People raised in a generational culture of small families tend to have small families themselves. So either your culture shifts, or your culture is quickly replaced by high-fertility subcultures such as the Amish, Quiverfull, and Haredim. ("Quickly" in generational terms, of course.)

My thinking is that if you value your culture and its values, you should want to see it persist. The only way for it to persist in meaningful terms is for it to reproduce to at least a replacement level. The alternative -- which might be better for the environment in the short term, but not on very long timescales -- represents not a temporary lull but probably a permanent cultural decline.

I agree with you that being richer means less children, but what you proceed to say makes no sense: The rich can't afford to live?

Can we truly say that these populations are wealthy then?

Christians, by the data, are middle of the road re: large families by religion:

    Pew Research Center analyzed data on six religious groups – Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and people with no religious affiliation.

    Globally, the average Muslim lives in the biggest household (6.4 people), followed by the average Hindu (5.7), Christian (4.5), Buddhist (3.9), “none” (3.7) and Jew (3.7)

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/12/12/household-pa...

Many of the pronatalist altruists are more rich than religious; eg Musk and others:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40473060

It doesn't seem that a Christian worldview is neccesary for many with large families.

I don't agree with the GP at all, but I think it was pretty much established that money is not the primary reason people have less children. Perhaps obvious example, in general it's the rich countries that have problems with replacement rate and the poor countries pick up the slack (and not the other way around). For a more direct example, the populist government in my country started giving out money, no strings attached, to people with children, and the fertility didn't change at all (even declined a bit). So I think it's pretty clear we need other solution if we want to fix that.

The future could also be comprised of the few that do engage with these technologies having one child lording over the many with 10 kids.

Not saying it will, but I want to point out the flaws in your logic.

>mindlessly downvoted

I downvoted him because what he said doesn't make sense. Namely, his argument that rich people can't afford costs of living. That is straight up hypocrisy.

Otherwise I agree that richer people have less children. Money is a problem factor, but it's not because someone doesn't have enough of it.