| I don't get this argument. We skip over fixing the birthrate and instead rely on immigration. There's a whole bunch of reasons people give for why we can't fix it like costs, jobs, housing, etc. Ok, so then first wouldn't immigrants also have the same problem once they get here or do they have a way of bypassing our low birthrate somehow but then we were told we can't bypass it, it exists because of the costs, jobs. etc. So the immigrants end up with the same birth rate and then we have to bring in more immigrants. So there would have to be a constant source of excess people somewhere else for this to be sustainable. So it gets to a point where I wonder if this is really the plan. |
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| ▲ | UncleOxidant a day ago | parent [-] | | > We skip over fixing the birthrate You're assuming the birthrate can be "fixed". Japan has an even worse demographic problem. They've tried "fixing" it and nothing much works. Similar for South Korea. Japan would certainly benefit from opening up to more immigration. Countries that can attract more immigration are going to benefit economically as the birthrates continue to decline globally. Why not be attractive to immigrants instead of wanting to repel them? | | |
| ▲ | strenholme a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It is very much possible to use government force to solve the birthrate problem. Romania did it in the 1960s. Mind you, this would cause a lot of misery and suffering but it has been done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 | |
| ▲ | account42 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can definitely fix it. You might not like what it takes but others don't like their culture being replaced either. | | |
| ▲ | tuesdaynight a day ago | parent | next [-] | | So tell us what it takes, I'm curious | | |
| ▲ | strenholme a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Make abortion and contraception illegal, and strongly enforce those laws. It worked with Romania in the 1960s and 1970s. Mind you, it caused a bunch of other problems to crop up, but Romania did solve their low birth rate problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 | | |
| ▲ | mrguyorama 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That very link shows it did not work Primarily, because : https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/ | | |
| ▲ | strenholme 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Depends on what you mean by “work”. It worked: The birth rate exceeded the rate of deaths until Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989. There was some level of circumvention in the 1970s and 1980s, but birth rates continued to outpace death rates up until the day Ceausescu was overthrown and Decree 770 was made null and void. (If you have a different definition of “work” than “it increased fertility”, please let me know what that definition is) Mind you, as I said before, there were a lot of undesirable, shall we say, side effects because of this decree, but it did solve the fertility problem. {Snark tag: Obviously, I do not endorse doing something as Orwellian as having a government like the Romania of the 1960s and 1970s, and the unwanted kids caused a huge amount of intergenerational trauma. To get back to the issue of fertility collapse, fertility collapse is an issue which will last only one generation: The people who have kids will have worldviews which encourage having more children} | | |
| ▲ | strenholme 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Talking to myself: I enjoyed the novelette at https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/ It’s probably a bad prediction of the future, but having an exaggerated dystopian view of the future is a classic trick used in golden age science fiction (e.g. Decision at Doona from 1969 had a grossly overpopulated Earth) so one I was able to accept while reading the story. It definitely has a bias; it doesn’t mention the stories of women regretting abortions at all, except (minor spoiler) mentioning that Asenath Smith didn’t want an abortion. As someone who has had multiple women confide their abortion stories to me, it’s quite common for women to deeply regret having them. I understand why a story as political as this one doesn’t want to get in to the nuance of the trauma abortion can cause, because it’s written in the same year Roe vs. Wade was overturn, so it’s a story of how much women need access to pregnancy tests and to abortion. [1] [1] I personally believe in the right to an abortion, for the simple reason that, when a woman has a miscarriage or a baby which just isn’t viable, the medical treatment she gets should be a decision doctors make, not a decision people with guns and cages make. |
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| ▲ | tuesdaynight 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I want to know if that is the proposed solution or if we finally found some libertarian idea that I'm unknown about | | |
| ▲ | strenholme 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | The “proposed solutions” are very misogynistic. They include repealing the 19th amendment (not letting women vote), repealing sex discrimination laws, and enforcing “patriarchy”. See, for example https://archive.ph/20260624060135/https://nitter.net/Schtal2... for the kind of nonsense these kinds of people are proposing, based on lies and fabrications. | | |
| ▲ | tuesdaynight 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | I know what some X users say about that, and I know that some people here have these same ideas. I was just wondering if that is the supposed solution that the person suggested | | |
| ▲ | strenholme 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | You’ll have to ask @account42, but I will bet you it’s the same answer I came up with: Take away people’s freedoms and have a hard, strongly enforced (i.e. Orwellian levels of enforcement) ban on contraception and abortions. Both @account42 and myself agree this isn’t a particularly good solution, and I’m not worried about the fertility collapse myself: It is an issue which will last for only one generation. | | |
| ▲ | tuesdaynight 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure if they agree with you that is not a good solution, though. I don't even consider it a solution the same way that I don't consider slavery a solution for lack of workers. | | |
| ▲ | strenholme 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Here is what they said: “You can definitely fix it. You might not like what it takes but others don't like their culture being replaced either.” I think he’s implying he has some pretty, shall we say, interesting views on the matter. As someone who has been in an interracial marriage and multiple interracial relationships, I probably don’t agree with those particular views. It would be nice to know what he’s advocating for, but he’s gotten pretty mum after I pointed out it could be done, but only with Orwellian levels of suppression. |
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| ▲ | 15feetOfclay a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Teenage pregnancy, limited rights for unmarried women, heavily surveilled birth-control usage, all that good stuff. So long as the culture is preserved! There are 14 words that basically sum it all up |
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| ▲ | bad_haircut72 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, the only way to preserve USAs culture of freedom of the individual is to dissuade/force women from making choices that dont benefit the group. Else we will fall to communism!! | | |
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| Or, crazy idea, we make life livable for the locals and then we incentivize them to have kids of their own? And before you say it, I'm an immigrant from the 3rd world myself. I'm not anti-immigratiom, but the birth rate talking point is a very poor one. Not to mention how unsustainable it is anyways, what happens a few years down the line when the immigrants stop having kids? There isn't an infinite ocean of people you can import on a whim, and definitely not forever. |
