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Comment by zxyzzxxx | Hacker News Reader

Developed countries offer alternative life goals. This, education and entertainment provide enough reasons not to have a family. Lower birth rate is a good thing in the long term, and getting non-developed countries into developed stage will accomplish that. See Gates' yearly letters.

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> Lover birth rate is a good thing in the long term

It most definitely is NOT a good thing to have a birth rate below replacement in a developed country, especially one with European-style social programs. Eventually you run out of workers to support the people who aren't doing so.

If you assume a developed country, you have an attractive place to live for many people from other badly developed countries. So you can simply import them.

That brings with it its own problems, as many European countries are discovering.

Bring in wealthy people like the US experimented with by bringing in the Chinese.

typically their qualifications are low, though

They're certainly higher than German-born newborns. If you can afford to educate a child from birth, you can certainly afford to train adults.

not true

I think he means there's a difference between births arising from couples in love, as opposed to births arising either by accident or from couples bound by other arrangments forced out of motives of survival, hence the qualifier being a "lover's birth rate."

As for quantifying which births are "lover's" births, and which are not, well... good luck with that.

I'm thinking typo. "Lover" birth rate doesn't really make sense in the context of the discussion.

Ha ha! Right you are, oh well...

I don't know what are you quoting me, and then talking about something I never wrote. ( rhetorical q. )

Well, to be honest I thought you meant "lower" birth rate. I've never heard of the concept of "lover birth" rate before.

Lower is what I meant, it was a typo. And that is not what I'm referring to in my parent comment, which is still valid.

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