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doubloon

you know what else would?

walkable cities

more time off from work

more third spaces

less air pollution

less inequality

of course none of that "increases productivity or GDP" so the ruling class won't consider it. of course when they start dying like Japan with low birth rates, their 'solution' is to have a government funded dating app instead of doing the obvious.

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Less air pollution does increase productivity (air pollution is actually really bad for your mental performance, it's a surprisingly strong effect) and it seems to me "the ruling class" does consider it seeing as the Clean Air Act exists.

Btw, Japan has walkable cities of course but also has low inequality (but not so high wealth). Approximately nothing is known to increase birth rates except for being highly religious though; it seems they mostly collapse when people have anything else to do for fun besides have sex. So basically it's caused by being on your phone too much.

"Japan doesn't have walkable cities" is not a logical conclusion one can draw from the grandparent.

Given the opportunity, people will do anything else than have more than 2 children, which is the requirement to increase the population. There’s just better stuff to do than spend multiple years taking care of the baby. Any argument other than “for the greater good” won’t sound reasonable to educated population. Talking to my friends, especially women who already have a child, they keep mentioning the opportunity loss when you go through pregnancy and birth (career, vacations, personal growth and etc.). You can call it selfish, but it’s the reality and nobody wants to fall behind. Everything you mentioned is great, and I support it, but I doubt it’ll convince young people to sacrifice at the very minimum 6 years of their life (pregnancy + first year).

Are people really saying they missed out on "personal growth" when they had kids?

Taking care of kids is not that hard or much of a sacrifice really. It would be super easy if things were even more communal. There's just really not that much great stuff that you are missing out on after like 35/40+. In truth most of the stuff geared to people in that age range is designed for people with kids. I think a lot of people would prefer to have more than 2 kids. The major issue is that SO much stuff is designed for the family of four. Yeah there's 3rd row seating, but it's annoying. Furniture that comes in 2 packs, theme parks, restaurant tables, vacation accommodations, etc. Because of modern life and the things we are accustomed to the logistical management burden of more than two children is very significant.

Not 35+, think of mid/late 20s as it used to be about 20 years ago. Peak health, some disposable income, educated, but also good age to bear a child. If you start having children at 35-40, it’ll be harder for you to have 3+ children, but now for health reasons.

Up here in Canada, according to statistics, only 20% of couples want to have 3+ children. If I recall it correctly, it’s not that they have it, but plan to, which might not even happen due to socioeconomic reasons.

I don’t think majority of young people want to have 3 children though, as you mentioned. Even if I do an extremely unscientific look around in my circles, the number of couples who want that is 0. I obviously might be in a bubble, but it’s a fairly common sentiment especially for my age group.

For me having kids has been massive personal growth. In some ways having kids is synergistic with many of life’s goals and personal growth. Career, less so, but I can a more capable human for being a parent.

You’re most likely right, but people achieve the same result with having one or two children as well. It’s having minimum of 3 children that is needed to have a population growth, and that’s sometimes a bad life choice for a young woman nowadays. Again, back to opportunity loss.

It’s way easier for me to babble, because if I was a father I wouldn’t have to go through pregnancy period. Statistically it also shows men want more children than women, and that’s fair because it affects our physical health way less.

"walkable cities" is the solution to virtually everything these days, apparently.

I keep seeing this /r/antiwork crap in the most unexpected places around here.

Are there lower rates of dementia in places that have those things?

Nah, man.

I'll take the Capitalism and the pills.

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