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▲ nandomrumber 7 hours ago

[flagged]

▲triceratops 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans... And seems to think it can just import people from other, far, away places.

Shoving immigration diatribes randomly into unrelated discussions is really tiresome. Sir, this is a comment thread about nuclear power.

▲artursapek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s absolutely related. It's constantly being excused by politicians as a solution to labor shortages.

▲triceratops 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It’s absolutely related

To nuclear power?

▲burkaman 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What do labor shortages have to do with nuclear power?

▲artursapek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The OP was drawing a connection between how the West has become less energy independent (not producing nuclear, importing energy) and how it’s become less labor independent (not producing people, importing them instead). The two are related because they are both caused by complacency, and they’re both destabilizing to the West.

▲triceratops 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a leap of logic. Europe also imports consumer goods, digital services, and much else. Why not talk about that?

▲artursapek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Those are not mission critical for the survival of a civilization.

▲triceratops 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Clothing isn't critical? It's on Maslow's hierarchy. Digital and financial services are quite critical for modern society.

If you really think Europe isn't dependent on anything foreign other than energy and labor, you really haven't thought it through.

▲iso1631 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Nuclear power is a solution to labour shortages?

Because of powering AI?

▲roenxi 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else).

> And seems to think it can just import people from other, far, away places.

That seems fundamentally OK? The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources. We can't unlimit resources. There isn't a very nice way to force people to stop having children. The remarkably low birthrate is an amazing outcome of a superficially intractable problem.

If the Africans catch up with everyone else and stop having too many children, the only thing that needs to happen is better education and the situation is actually good. We're on a reasonable trend with AI and robots. People are choosing not to have kids. That's workable.

▲ben_w 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources.

It really isn't. The raw materials in our lives are a tiny fraction of our living costs in the west. 200 tons of concrete, steel, and plastic etc. in appropriate proportions is enough for a very nice house, yet it would cost less than a tenth of the sale price of that house: what you need to turn it into a nice house is expensive human labour.

The raw materials are cheap because we have machines to help extract them; before we invented them, those materials were also expensive.

▲JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources

Not particularly. We've ridden massive increases in both quality of life and population (at both the per-country and global scales) over the last two centuries.

▲roenxi 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the sense that the global median income crept from about $0 to $10,000 sure over a few centuries. That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary.

▲ben_w 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the global median income crept from about $0 to $10,000 sure over a few centuries

The floor is 2-300 USD equivalent, because that's what subsistence farming is, and it took two centuries to go from $1500 to $18811: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-ca...

> We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary.

that's a massive shift of goalposts from "not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources".

▲JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary

I actually agree with this vision. But I wouldn't say every human not being a millionaire is "the #1 problem" today.

▲mytailorisrich 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And we have brought the planet to its knees in the process...

▲modo_mario 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources. We can't unlimit resources. There isn't a very nice way to force people to stop having children.

>People are choosing not to have kids. That's workable.

It sounds like one of those not very nice ways you describe more so than an active societywide choice. People aren't exactly choosing in the wide sense of the word. Their states population keeps going up despite often many decades of below replacement birthrates (thus aleviating pressure in places that retain higher birthrates) whilst they feel like they struggle with housing, childcare, pressure on their wages trough migration (and other things) and leave the parental nest at historically late times.

▲swiftcoder 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> Their states population keeps going up

What states, exactly? The EU as a whole has a population growth rate of 0.3% according to the world bank - that's as close to flat as makes no difference (and that's accounting for immigration!)

The only EU countries with a >1% growth rate are Ireland and Portugal.

▲modo_mario 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Mine for example. Belgium.

The population has not shrunk a single year since the world wars but the natality has been below replacement since the start of the 70's if you take the colloquial replacement natality rate and since the world wars if you take the more realistic one.

I think just about every surrounding country is similar.

That growth is indeed slowing down but that has more to do with the natality continuing to drop.

There are indeed eastern european countries with far less migration which saw declines pulling the average down.

▲Levitz 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't see how any of this makes sense.

>The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources.

Taking this as true (it very evidently isn't), then since Europe already has declining birth rates, the logic step would be to prevent migration no? An influx of people would hurt.

>There isn't a very nice way to force people to stop having children. The remarkably low birthrate is an amazing outcome of a superficially intractable problem.

You say this as if this "amazing outcome" came out of nowhere, magically. People are forced into this because finances make it hard. That is not very nice.

>If the Africans catch up with everyone else and stop having too many children

Why would this happen? From your comment, it doesn't seem to be something to expect?

By the way

>People are choosing not to have kids. That's workable.

This sentence is so extremely out of touch as to be insulting.

▲iso1631 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Renewables and storage are cheaper and faster.

I agree that Europe needs to be energy independent. And population decline is a global problem.

Nuclear was the correct solution in the 90s. It's not now. Arguably you need to keep a small amount going to maintain a nuclear deterrent and subsidise it for that purpose, but that doesn't need to be any more than the current level of production.

▲TacticalCoder 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

▲formerly_proven 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else).

In my state the immediate costs to parents for raising a kid up to the age of 18 are around eight median gross incomes with the opportunity costs usually estimated about as high. This means having a kid loses parents around one quarter to one third of their total lifetime income. That's before even considering environmental factors. I don't think there's a decision an average person can make that's more ecologically destructive than having a child.

Having kids is a financial and ecological disaster. As an outside observer it's remarkable to me people are still having any kids at all, which speaks to the strong subjective factors overpowering whatever objective considerations one might have about it.

▲chrisweekly 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Add in college and support through early-twenties (pretty baseline scenario for upper-middle class parents in the US) and the financial calculation is even tougher.

That said, if the most thoughtful potential parents don't have and raise civic-minded children, the percentage of new humans raised by less "enlightened" parents will increase, leading to a downward spiral.

For my part, I'm confident that the world is a better place because my two daughters are in it, and I'm definitely a better person for having been their father.

▲brightball 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This means having a kid loses parents around one quarter to one third of their total lifetime income.

There's no better investment.

▲subscribed 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Do you suggest every generation has it better in terms of the disposable income, so the kids can easily afford to support themselves _and_ fund their parents retirement? :)

▲brightball 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I suggest that the costs around children are a marketing scare tactic from people who want to create a fear of having children.

▲anal_reactor 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

VWCE

▲okanat 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Unfortunately our economic system is a ponzi scheme that requires having children while constantly putting them into deeper and deeper debt. It will eventually collapse and take VWCE with it.

▲bavell 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

HN bio checks out.

Kids are an investment, not a sunk cost.

▲mcmcmc 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anti-natalism is such a weird concept to me. Taken to the logical extreme aren’t you just arguing we should all kill ourselves?

▲__alexs 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Having kids is pretty far down my priority list but like, there's more to life than earning money.

▲subscribed 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, as long as you're comfortable, meaning you can find a good job that will work around your parental duties, and thst pays well enough you can rent or buy within a catchment area :)

Sure, that's doable. Millions of working parents in powerty in every G7 country can attest how easy it is.

▲__alexs 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I grew up only a notch or two above poverty, I know what it's like and you can still be a good parent and not well off.

▲Levitz 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kids that the population doesn't have will simply get imported from other countries. It has no impact.

▲leoedin 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Having kids is a financial and ecological disaster. As an outside observer it's remarkable to me people are still having any kids at all, which speaks to the strong subjective factors overpowering whatever objective considerations one might have about it.

Objectively if no-one has kids then there will be no more humans. I guess you could consider that an ecological win. If you don't, then someone has to have kids.

▲thrownthatway 6 hours ago | parent [-]

No, there will be plenty of Hindus and Muslims, cos they largely don’t give a fuck about any of this noise.

But Christianity and Western Civilisation can kiss its own arse goodbye if it thinks this is a reasonable ideology to instil in to its young people.

Don’t have kids because it’ll economically ruin your life, and it’s bad for the environment anyway.

Righteo then, get on ya spaceship n fuck off to Mars then. Free up some resources and economy for us who believe having a family is the most important thing humans can do and that Western civilisation is actually pretty neat!

▲inglor_cz 6 hours ago | parent [-]

"No, there will be plenty of Hindus and Muslims, cos they largely don’t give a fuck about any of this noise."

Have you looked at the TFRs in India and more developed Muslim countries lately?

Mostly under 2 and still dropping like a stone. Turkey, Iran or UAE are every bit as much on the road to disastrous demography as Europe is, only with some delay.

Does not surprise me... in both Europe and East Asia, the worst and deepest drops in fertility happened in previously very socially conservative societies (Spain, South Korea), while the trend was less sharp and sudden in, say, Scandinavia.

▲thrownthatway 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Well fuck hey.

Israel may be mankind’s only hope.

As far as I’m aware Israel is the only developed Western nation with a fertility rate above replacement.

Of course, it’s more nuanced than that.

Definitely seems to be a positive correlation between religiosity and fertility rate.

▲bombcar 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Then I can be a millionaire just by having five, six kids! Because that is 48 median gross incomes, which is $4m. Better growth curve than most YC startups!

▲ben_w 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Losing money on each unit and making up for it in scale may win VC money, but doesn't work elsewhere.

▲NeutralForest 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Having kids is a financial and ecological disaster. As an outside observer it's remarkable to me people are still having any kids at all, which speaks to the strong subjective factors overpowering whatever objective considerations one might have about it.

Absolutely insane take imo. You do you man.

▲thrownthatway 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

▲artursapek 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Having kids and raising them is your primary purpose as a man. Anything else you spend your time on is secondary to that.

▲thrownthatway 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You’re absolutely 100% correct.

As a mid-fourties family-less man, I absolutely regret many of the decisions I’ve made that got me here.

I’ve realised I’ve been playing at a low steaks table. Smashing box and doing drugs is something a guy should do very briefly, if at all, in his early twenties. This is not a Man’s Game.

Then he’d better man up and focus on what is Good and Right or his life will be a fucking waste.

I mean even just purely selfishly, being frail-aged and having no one who genuine cares about me is fucking terrifying.

▲artursapek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Damn, that’s heavy man. I’m sorry. I don’t know your situation but men are fortunate enough to be able to reproduce later in life so you could still turn it around.

I had my first kid accidentally in college and dropped out to focus on that. Very grateful for it.

▲thrownthatway 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I also had a vasectomy about seven years ago, which are notoriously difficult to reverse.

> I had my first kid accidentally in college and dropped out to focus on that. Very grateful for it.

Good man.

▲nokz 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This (rational) attitude is why state pensions need to have a strong correlation with the number of children you parent until they complete secondary schooling -- there needs to be a financial payoff for the time, effort and money invested; those children are the ones financing the state pensions.

▲ben_w 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The people planning for retirement are mostly past child raising age; the best way to have bugger families is to encourage low standards and unprotected sex amongst young adults, which is the exact opposite of the public health and morality pressure my entire generation and those that followed me have been on the recieving end of.

That said, medical tech is speeding up like everything else, so non-human surrogacy, artificial wombs, longevity meds, are all likely to impact this balance on similar timescales to such a cultural shift.

▲thrownthatway 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> bigger families is to encourage low standards and unprotected sex amongst young adults

Factually incorrect.

The best way to ensure big families is to foster a culture getting marriage younger, stating married, and starting families younger.

Women have their best years of fertility from about 17 to their early thirties. Telling young women to prioritise long educations and a career over family is counter productive to carrying on a civilisation, and has largely gone on to be proven something many women regret - unsurprisingly.

Strong, cohesive, multigenerational families don’t come simply from encouraging young people to have unprotected sex, although yes that is a crude component of it.

▲ben_w 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You have a western view of things. There are other cultures which have communal upbringing, e.g. Kibbutz, Hadza, and ǃKung; and while they have ceremonies which are called marriage, Europe has seen religious conflicts over the things smaller than the difference between ǃKung and Catholic marriage sanctity.

The fact is that marriage as it is understood in the west today bears little in common with the institution of the same name in the same place in the 1950s, which itself was different from the institution of the same name in the 1800s depending on if you were in a Catholic or Protestant area, all of which differ from the institution of the same name in the 1500s, all of which differ from the institution of the same name in the 1200s, which themselves varied from Roman and Greek marriage that were different from each other. In the present day, the Mosuo so-called "walking marriage" is essentially indistinguishable from what a European or American would call "teens dating and being allowed to stay the night".

> Strong, cohesive, multigenerational families

I didn't say any of those adjectives.

The Mosuo case demonstrates your claim is false, regardless.

Furthermore, when the fear is a concern of not enough workers in the next generation to pay out the pensions of the old, it is unclear why any of your list of adjectives matter.

▲thrownthatway 4 hours ago | parent [-]

You’re a cultural relativist.

You think all cultures are equal?

They’re not.

Only one culture gave us pretty much everything the modern world enjoys today: Western European culture.

Microchips, invented be Westerners. Electricity. Telecommunications. Space travel, space probes, space telescopes. We pioneered and perfected all of those things. First to end slavery. Universal suffrage, gay marriage. We did all of that. Modern medicine, antibiotics. First to solve HIV. Eradicated malaria, tuberculosis, polio. All Western achievement.

Other than the Jewish tradition you mentioned, the others are merely irrelevant.

Other then Israel in the Middle East, basically no one is queuing to get in to countries other then Western ones. Everyone wants to come to the advanced European economies, France and Germany, the UK, and the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia.

Why? Because we’re awesome and everyone wants what we have.

▲notachatbot123 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Humankind should depopulate, we cannot sustain infinite growth and are already destroying our planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

▲derektank 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There’s more forested land in Europe today than there has been since the middle ages

▲Y-bar 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Almost half of which is monocultural plantations and not actual _forests_.

That’s about as ecologically true as calling a bunch of crop fields grasslands.

▲subscribed 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wouldn't focus on the Europe's forests though.

The biodiversity and nature loss around the world are staggering, and the meagre gains on one tiny continent don't offset that.

▲nickserv 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Citation needed.

Also, even if true, a lot is likely due to people leaving the countryside and migrating to the cities during the latter half of the 20th century. To feed these urban populations, an enormous amount of food needs to be imported from other countries. So really the deforestation has been exported, same as pollution from manufacturing.

▲tokai 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You don't need citation for common knowledge.

▲nickserv 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If OP had said "in last 40 years" then yeah sure.

But since the middle ages, or 500 years ago, how is that common knowledge?

▲actionfromafar 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

More tree plantations.

▲ 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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▲brightball 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]