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Comment by bluescrn | Hacker News Reader

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids?

It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic.

Other cultures continue to have kids even in relative poverty, they don't choose to stop having families because times are tough.

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Which cultures still have kids? India is now below replacement as well. SE Asia is doing worse than the west.

There's Africa, sure, and maybe Mongolia. But it's not clear that it will hold or that they have any secret sauce beyond just not having been yet hit with the full blown modernity.

African birth rates are falling faster than projected.

I’m just going to throw this out there.

What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society.

On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and adaptive but adapting takes time and energy. During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.

Put those things together and… are we, in fact, doing the rational thing here?

Keep in mind that no trend is forever.

In the 1970s people predicted global Malthusian collapse in part by extrapolating past birth rates infinitely far into the future.

Seems to me that population collapse alarmists are doing the same thing. “If this trend continues forever there will be nobody left!”

> What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

If rational people stop reproducing, all we'll have left is irrational people.

This runs into trouble when the older people rely on the younger ones to pay for their retirement and government services. Having fewer children means fewer people to pay taxes, so while a lower birth rate might address environmental and automation/AI challenges, it creates significant headaches elsewhere and requires a society-wide shift in expectations and responsibilities.

Young people can't pay for their own retirements, as they're effectively funding their parents retirements.

social welfare in almost any nation (excl. energy rich countries) is not sustaniable long term. maybe we can start with ack. that fact? Sure retired people can get some amounts and free food but bigger amounts in budget just don't make sense? I mean calculate and see it. Countries literally pay these with DEBT. How hard it is for avg people to get this? It is such a simple thing to calculate too. When debt gets too big for so many countries, entire thing collapses? we know that already

This has been a refrain of the political right for several decades now, particularly in the US, and appears to be ideological rather than factual.

I dont support right, just search for countries by gdp/debt %. It's been just incresing for decades, that is not sustanaible + welfare + any govern. service that relies on that debt.

More simple , it's not sustainable because new workers dont earn much, people live longer and % from the state budget just keeps growing.

Think of it as income growth getting slower and liabilities growing just bigger with more old people in terms of %. how can you or we fix that?

> just search for countries by gdp/debt %. It's been just incresing for decades, that is not sustanaible

This is an idealogical argument more than a factual one. It certainly appears to be sustainable.

Step back from the gdp/debt ratio figures though. The argument is really only about whether a decreasing workforce can support an increasing population of retirees.

If government pays retirees then retirees get a direct payout, and use it to buy goods and services that younger people provide.

If (like in Australia) we make everyone invest through their life then each has a well-funded retirement account largely tied up in the stock-market. This represents part ownership of assets in the productive economy, which can be converted to funds that retired people will use ... to buy goods and services that younger people provide.

Where the money comes from seems less important to me than the fact if there is an ever increasing population of retirees, then one way or another they are supported by working people.

The mechanism is just an abstraction. The demographic problem is probably more real.

I’m in my 40s and have never believed retirement would be a thing for me unless I make a whole lot of money.

Retirement for all was an artifact of rapidly growing populations and shorter life spans. Back 50-100 years ago you had each young person supporting maybe 0.1 to 0.25 retired people, and a retirement age in the 60s meant you’d get a few years before now easily treatable heart conditions would kill you. (Everyone smoked too, which “helped” clear the retirement rolls.)

In a world with even a stable population (let alone a declining one) retirement isn’t viable. Or at the very least the age will be raised a lot. I could see 80 as a retirement age in 2050.

Honestly an institutionalized retirement age in the 60s today is unfair and exploitative toward young people. It’s generational economic cannibalism, stopping young people from establishing themselves to fund the old.

> What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

Well, lower birth rates are the perpetual excuse for more immigration. Even Trump made a U-turn on H1B and he's now OK with more immigration. Low birth rates and high immigration give credence to the various "replacement" theories and become a political force that can bring nationalists to power.

Next, lower birth rates could be "rational" if they led to higher standard of living and better quality of life, but that's not the case now, in fact we are seeing the opposite because less children make the work force cheaper thus increasing profits. Increased profits go towards increased power and influence which make the trend irreversible.

> During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.

Nonsensical in the current environment of birth rates below replacement level and falling.

> In the 1970s people predicted

Not people - the mass media. They are just noise and BS which should not be considered in a serious conversation - one way or the other.

> constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism

Or perhaps, and I know this is a wild idea, we could attempt to address these problems instead of complaining about the "messaging" ?

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