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Comment by matrix87 | Hacker News Reader

Because... They don't want to?

People aren't obligated to justify their own family planning. Even raising the question in the first place is overreach

And no, people aren't obligated to make family planning decisions that contribute to a desirable macroeconomic climate 30 years down the line. Not our problem, it'll sort itself out

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I agree with you but I do think it is valid, from a scientific point of view, to test this hypothesis and to answer the "why" behind changing preferences. It is also possible that overall desire has remained constant but lack of access to contraception, or increased family pressure or other factors contributed to higher birthrates in the past.

I'm not sure what you mean by "even raising the question in the first place is overreach." On an individual and personal level, it may be inappropriate or rude to ask the question. On a government level it is more complicated as I think that while government has no place in interfering with an individual's personal choice, I think there may be utility in understanding changing social trends over time, as a government that is "by the people, for the people" can better represent its constituents and form policies that its constituents want when it understands them, demographically.

But most important to me is that, on a scientific level, it is just data and knowledge. And in my opinion there is never such a thing as "too much knowledge."

I didn't specifically mention government when I was referring to overreach. But in some cases there is government overreach involved regarding family planning. At least in the USA, trust is very low regarding this atm

There's a difference between government disinterestedly researching social trends and having (particularly right wing) news media shoveling out these alarmist articles that do a lot of stereotyping

The tone of this article, coupled with recent political changes regarding family planning, reeks of overreach into people's private lives

First off, the WSJ is leftist, not right wing.

The very mention of "climate change" as being a factor for reducing offspring and second guessing kids is certainly not a right wing idea.

Secondly, anything from mainstream media outlets projects an alarmist tone. They operate on the basic impulse of fear.

While I'd rather not have the state involved in any sort of family planning, the topic is interesting to delve in.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has owned the WSJ for more than a decade now .. the family will be tickled to hear you describe them as leftist.

    Overall, we rate the Wall Street Journal Right-Center biased due to low-biased news reporting combined with a strong right-biased editorial stance. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to anti-climate, anti-science views, and occasional misleading editorials.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wall-street-journal/

Plenty of (US) right wing media sources accept climate change during the day and rubbish it after dark during peak red in the face angry host times.

> The very mention of "climate change" as being a factor for reducing offspring and second guessing kids is certainly not a right wing idea.

I mean, they aren't saying that idea because they agree with it. They could be saying it to paint a negative caricature

It would be easier to agree with you if the welfare state didn't exist. As it stands there are benefits being paid to old people that don't really have any justification for existing if there isn't a younger generation for that old generation to positively influence and assist as grand parents. There are also tax breaks for marriage/common law that have no logical reason for existing if they aren't supporting a family. We should be redeploying these expenses to more effectively encourage a higher average birthrate, ideally by encouraging the rich to have a lot of kids, as this will have a positive benefit of more effectively disbursing large fortunes vs taxation that always fails.

People are animals. When animals stop breeding, it is worthwhile to look into their environment to see why that is the case. "Want" doesn't really come into basic biological functions, it's an ex post facto rationalization.

Sex is the base biological desire. Children are just the outcome of that. But one can now happen consistently without the other.

Animals stopping breeding means they stop having sex. That is not necessarily the case with humans.

This comes off as quite a reductionist response. Beyond the biological, there’s the question of why people don’t want to start families

Perhaps they never really did, and much of the claimed past desire to start families can be seen as an example of choice-supportive bias in an environment where birth control was harder to come by, with social norms discouraging use.

I'd disagree with this, but it's easier to just point out that the trendline is for higher and higher proportions of the population to become sexually inactive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-...

> The decreases “aren’t trivial,” as the authors wrote in the study, published on November 19 in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women.

The underlying paper has more demographic breakdowns:

> Wellings et al. (2019)—using three waves of data from the UK’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) completed in 1991, 2001, and 2012—found that frequency of sex among 16–44 year olds had declined, more so among married participants and those in the 35–44 age group.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-02125-2