The East Asian high-rise development model is catastrophic for birth rates | Hacker News Reader

The East Asian high-rise development model is catastrophic for birth rates

taipeitimes.com

16 pointsilamont10 comments

I've been saying this for years but nobody listens. I mean, you have kids because you feel lonely and take a lover. From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint people should be less interested in having children if they feel crowded. The literature is ambivalent on the topic though:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/225997

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1340041/

https://www.milbank.org/wp-content/uploads/mq/volume-54/issu...

Good, we don’t need any more people. There’s over 8 billion already, and that’s enough. I’m always surprised when I hear the too common refrain that birth rates are too low.

Are you willing to sign your right away to a pension?

Don’t have one. Not all pensions are pyramid schemes.

Further, flat growth would be acceptable if that is your primary concern.

Flat population would be fine with me, declining population makes many things unmanageable as would a rapidly increasing population.

Fortunately there's no risk of declining population, except in rare/brief circumstances. Why alarmism over falling birthrates is misplaced.

Genuine question - what is your retirement plan? I have seriously looked and didn't find one yet which doesn't need population growth and/or productivity growth.

One way or another there is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_ratio

and it affects all the ways you might retire, no matter if it is "my children will take care of me", "my government will take care of me", "my mutual funds will take care of me".

The situation gets more favorable with more population/economic growth, is difficult in the steady state, and is atrocious in a state of decline. See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)

My personal plan, or one for everyone?

I don’t have a pension. I do have a 401k/ira, and would prefer my social security taxes were in there as well.

Lower population would help the housing crisis, which is a huge tax on everyone. Own a home and a garden.

This comment section is going to fill up with urbanist walls of texts in 5... 4...

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