I am curious as to your age.

I am Gen X, born right at the end of 73. I have run this thought exercise myself and pretty much everyone I can remember from high school has kids. All of my wife and my siblings have kids.

All of my first cousins have kids except the Gen Y's. That's the demarcation. Of four Gen Y cousins I have, all boys in their 30's - 40's, two are married (and just recently) and one has a kid.

Urban Ag said:

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I am curious as to your age.

I am Gen X, born right at the end of 73. I have run this thought exercise myself and pretty much everyone I can remember from high school has kids. All of my wife and my siblings have kids.

All of my first cousins have kids except the Gen Y's. That's the demarcation. Of four Gen Y cousins I have, all boys in their 30's - 40's, two are married (and just recently) and one has a kid.

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You and I are almost exactly the same age. Days apart. Agree with you. The only Gen X'ers we know that don't have kids are us and our best friends. We two couples are the outliers. I do have one other good friend who does not have kids but it's not because he never wanted to; he simply never found a mate. It kills him he never got to have kids.

We've joked about getting a compound together because no one else is going to take care of us.

However, once I dive into my millennial and younger demographic friends the baby making dies off pretty dramatically.

flown-the-coop said:

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I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.

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IP confirmed….

My wife and I are both in late 60s.
Both Class of '80.

In contrast, our son and DIL are both Class of '10. Now in their late 30s. They and all their Aggie friends I can think of have kids and lots of them.

As long as I get to pick the 50%

YouBet said:

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Urban Ag said:

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I am curious as to your age.

I am Gen X, born right at the end of 73. I have run this thought exercise myself and pretty much everyone I can remember from high school has kids. All of my wife and my siblings have kids.

All of my first cousins have kids except the Gen Y's. That's the demarcation. Of four Gen Y cousins I have, all boys in their 30's - 40's, two are married (and just recently) and one has a kid.

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You and I are almost exactly the same age. Days apart. Agree with you. The only Gen X'ers we know that don't have kids are us and our best friends. We two couples are the outliers. I do have one other good friend who does not have kids but it's not because he never wanted to; he simply never found a mate. It kills him he never got to have kids.

We've joked about getting a compound together because no one else is going to take care of us.

However, once I dive into my millennial and younger demographic friends the baby making dies off pretty dramatically.

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I'm an elder millennial, and while there are some DINKs among my friend group, the vast majority have kids.

On top of that, I live in a city with a plethora of women who've done the career first/kids second path…and their motivation to find a husband in their mid/late thirties is borderline unhinged.

flown-the-coop said:

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I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.

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I don't think we need less people.

I don't think we "need" more, though either.

But, having a fertility rate at population replacement seems like a good goal in order to keep the species alive. That is about 2.1 . We are a long way from 2.1 in most projections.

I have known a number of guys that have gotten the divorce in the early to mid 40's and then remarried to one of these women you speak of. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

You already did the having kids thing now you're signing up to do it again with a women in her late 30's, who by the time she's out of the "baby years" and hits her horny 40's, you'll be mid 50's. Again, think about what you're signing up.

We are not the smarter gender.

YouBet said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.

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You also can't maintain government spending and intrusion with fewer people.

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Not sure about that at all, especially the intrusion part.

BusterAg said:

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YouBet said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.

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You also can't maintain government spending and intrusion with fewer people.

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Not sure about that at all, especially the intrusion part.

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Addressed the latter already. They can keep up the intrusion via technology, if we continue to let them. Already are via the Infrastructure Bill.

First one is just math. They will have to figure out some new math to maintain current spending with fewer humans.

Blessed be the fruit

tysker said:

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Furthermore, I'm guessing you're old and rely on government entitlement programs that my generation (GenX) and future generations don't expect to see.

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You would be guessing wrong. I rely on savings I set aside during my working years. I held a belief I needed to be in a position to provide for me and my wife without any assistance from the government. I was concerned about the stability of social security and had an expectation that those who had lived within their means and saved would receive nothing while others who had not would benefit from the ss taxes I had paid into the system.

No mention of the 63-64 million abortions performed in this country since Roe v. Wade in 1973?

tysker said:

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The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money

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Need more people at the bottom of the pyramid scheme

captkirk said:

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tysker said:

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The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money

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Need more people at the bottom of the pyramid scheme

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The Walmarts, dollar stores, and store brand manufacturers would like to keep making their profits thanks to the bottom folk, that's for sure.

Larry Mondello said:

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tysker said:

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Furthermore, I'm guessing you're old and rely on government entitlement programs that my generation (GenX) and future generations don't expect to see.

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You would be guessing wrong. I rely on savings I set aside during my working years. I held a belief I needed to be in a position to provide for me and my wife without any assistance from the government. I was concerned about the stability of social security and had an expectation that those who had lived within their means and saved would receive nothing while others who had not would benefit from the ss taxes I had paid into the system.

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Good for you. I'm glad you pay for all of your medical bills in full too! No Medicare or Medicare Plan B or D for you! That's great for you and your family; you should be proud.

But you know you are the extremely rare exception. So, tell me, do you currently send the Social Security checks back? How does that work?

Biz Ag said:

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No mention of the 63-64 million abortions performed in this country since Roe v. Wade in 1973?

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Definitely a factor but it's an outcome of one of the primary root issues discussed in the article - women's lib.

This is exactly what the globalist and bull gates want. Who's going to be shown to be a evil vile person as everything comes out.

We have plenty of things contributing to this

A the education of women but I wouldn't say it's good education. As Andrew wilson says we take a woman's more fertile and healthy years and have her in school.

B the hormone blockers they have pumped into us. Lowering the testosterone in both men and women. As men become less sexual
So do women.

C abortion

D infertility in both men and women caused by many things in our lives.

E people believing the lie that children are not a blessing from God happy is the man that has a whole quiver full

We have plenty of resources. We've been ripped off but also We've believe the lie it's better to live in a mansion with 2 80k cars
Travel
Eat well

Than to have a lady preggo
Making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Living in a 2 or 3 bed room 1300 square feet gone or even mobile home where kids are in bunk beds.

The govt wants this which is why health insurance is so high.

A declining population is a curse. We have tons of space. We have to s of food, quit using
Wheat corn for car fuel.

Feminism cannot exist permanently as a cultural norm. It can only last a few generations until the society's birthrate collapses, and a more patriarchal culture outbreeds it. Natural selection.

YouBet said:

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infinity ag said:

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YouBet said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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If you argue for more babies, more population you are making the argument for open borders and immigration.

You may not think you are, but you are.

Once you say "parks at capacity, Moose at the front should have told you" then you can manage the population down to more sustainable levels.

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Are you referring to someone else in this thread then? The article was a discussion on the pros and cons of population decline which is inevitable. The demographer in the article's own opinion is that it is inevitable. I share the same opinion.

I have zero issue with more babies in this country if we stop all immigration and those babies are coming from native Americans. We are one of the least dense countries on the planet. We have plenty of room here. But that point is meaningless because it's not happening.

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Be careful of this. Having space does not mean good standard of life. If we bring in 10000000000 people, they can still live here, but we will become Sudan or Somalia. Do you want that?

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No, I do not want that. I said exactly the opposite of wanting that. You even quoted it.

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Ah gotcha. You are right.

I keep asking every time this subject comes up, whether on here or elsewhere, whether the rise of AI and automation doesn't mitigate or even fully offset the population losses in terms of striking the proper balance socioeconomically.

That doesn't change the fact that as a Christian I believe we are generally designed for marriage and family, but in terms of the secular concerns I wonder if people are overly concerned about something in depopulation which may be a partial solution to an even bigger concern in the rise of AI and automation.

No Spin Ag said:

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RyanAg08 said:

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Three of my wife's friends are still single in their mid to late 30s. All of them have expressed sadness over the potential loss of never having children. All of them followed the "boss babe" path.

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They have until their early 40s, per the Google, to still safely have kids. And they don't need to be in a relationship with a man for that.

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Not really. It gets harder in the late 30s, even if it's possible. Max 1 is the basic assumption at that point if it happens (and 'if' is more prevalent than you'd think).

If you've waited that long, you've missed your window for ease and abundance (the number you want, rather than are constrained to).

DTP02 said:

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I keep asking every time this subject comes up, whether on here or elsewhere, whether the rise of AI and automation doesn't mitigate or even full offset the population losses in terms of striking the proper balance socioeconomically.

That doesn't change the fact that as a Christian I believe we are generally designed for marriage and family, but in terms of the secular concerns I wonder if people are overly concerned about something in depopulation which may be a partial solution to an even bigger concern in the rise of AI and automation.

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This is happening in churches too. It takes more than a robust theology of humanity to overcome; if your kids spend 40+ hours a week in public school, it's an uphill (but not impossible) battle. Public school and society is geared to launch everyone into the workplace to pursue their passion and find a career.

Spergin said:

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K2-HMFIC said:

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https://substack.com/home/post/p-197850696

Derek Thompson is a lib at The Atlantic, but did an absolute phenomenal interview with University of Pennsylvania economist Jess Fernndez-Villaverde on the sources and implications of the global fertility crisis.

Big highlights first:

• Black birthrates have collapsed in the US and have been passed by whites for the first time in the history of the US.
• Latin America and the Middle East are in an absolute nose dive.
• The US has a higher birth rate (1.7) than Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and Thailand

Causes:

• Big shocker…female employment in a service based economy
• Actual shocker…likely the global spread of western norms through social media and the mass popularity of cell phones since 2012.

Big Question remaining:

• Will birthrates recover as people are having fewer people later (ie. delayed parenthood)? Or is this a sustained demographic bobsled like China, South Korea, and Japan?
• How does this impact the rise of AI?

I just hope somewhere, this interview is being read to Paul Ehrlich on repeat for eternity.

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The only solution that works is reducing female employment and income and increasing male employment and income. You can see this in all types of stats: one of the most interesting being lottery winners. Male winners get married and have kids. Female winners either get divorced or become promiscuous or even more single.

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Blackpill.

Can you provide a source for the lottery winner data?

flown-the-coop said:

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aggie93 said:

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Gilligan said:

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I'm ok with less people.

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Only because you don't realize what that really means. The only thing that might save us is robotics.

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Yea, no. There is so much incredibly flawed logic in the oft cited models that people should be ashamed to even bring it up.

The ones pushing this **** are the ones who envision a future of countless people building ever bigger things in evermore places.

There are other much more sensible and plausible futures with a much much better quality of life that does not require depleting of all resources and colonizing the the universe.

HTH.

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All of our economic policy and social policy is based around having more children. Without more people it collapses starting with the culture. The only thing that can prevent it is possibly technology and robotics. Look at Europe and many other countries where 1000 year old towns are basically abandoned. A society with an upside down pyramid of demographics is pretty much screwed historically and we have never seen it happen on such a mass scale so we don't know what will happen. It is very concerning that the areas that are seeing population growth (primarily Africa and Muslim countries) don't share Western values pretty much at all.

Choose to blow it off if you want but it's naive.

AGC said:

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DTP02 said:

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I keep asking every time this subject comes up, whether on here or elsewhere, whether the rise of AI and automation doesn't mitigate or even full offset the population losses in terms of striking the proper balance socioeconomically.

That doesn't change the fact that as a Christian I believe we are generally designed for marriage and family, but in terms of the secular concerns I wonder if people are overly concerned about something in depopulation which may be a partial solution to an even bigger concern in the rise of AI and automation.

---

This is happening in churches too. It takes more than a robust theology of humanity to overcome; if your kids spend 40+ hours a week in public school, it's an uphill (but not impossible) battle. Public school and society is geared to launch everyone into the workplace to pursue their passion and find a career.

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This is consistent with my experience in high school (1997-2000).

You are taught how to write a resume, have a job interview, and choose a career.

You are not taught how to date, have a relationship, or what to look for in a partner. If you struggle in this area, it's just assumed that you'll grow out of it.

Close the border, deport, encourage assimilation, nationalism, patriotism, build our productive vital industries domestically, encourage healthy behavior, improve care for mothers and children and maybe setup savings account for children born in the USA.

Guess what? Trump is doing those things. So it's not being ignored. But it's not NEAR the imminent existential threat it's made out to be on these threads.

Them welfare "brood" mares better get busy!

The Earth can support a hell of a lot more people. It's a myth that we're overpopulated.

AGC said:

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No Spin Ag said:

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RyanAg08 said:

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Three of my wife's friends are still single in their mid to late 30s. All of them have expressed sadness over the potential loss of never having children. All of them followed the "boss babe" path.

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They have until their early 40s, per the Google, to still safely have kids. And they don't need to be in a relationship with a man for that.

---

Not really. It gets harder in the late 30s, even if it's possible. Max 1 is the basic assumption at that point if it happens (and 'if' is more prevalent than you'd think).

If you've waited that long, you've missed your window for ease and abundance (the number you want, rather than are constrained to).

---

I was watching a few different YouTube documentaries and commentaries on the global population collapse.

One researcher found the strongest universal correlation was the females age at first child. Women are waiting too long, many women who wanted kids end up not having them because they don't find a partner they believe is worthy, or they have fertility issues, or they end up having fewer than they might have had otherwise.

What are the big contributors to delayed child rearing?
- birth control.
- women chasing careers first instead of family.
- growing equality and even imbalance in female earning power.

Females having equal earning power to men seems like a societal positive, but biological female instincts drive women to only select men that can provide more for them than they can provide for themselves. That causes women to eliminate a larger fraction of the male population as partners, and now many females cannot find anyone they feel is worthy to have kids with. This is an impossible to avoid side effect of higher relative female influence and earning power.

Our kids and grandkids will marvel at the massive populations and dense cities we have today, which are at their peak. Everything from here will be a downward population trend, and the young will be few and far between among the elderly.

It will be very depressing for many elderly in the future who have no kids and no family. The next 50-100 years will witness the first age inversion in recorded human history where the old outnumber the young. This might not end well as we have seen how the boomers have burdened the younger generations with massive inflation and taxes to fund their social services. Well, there won't be any young people to tax, or to physically provide care for the elderly.

In a generation or two many cities and towns will be ghost towns, and cities will have large areas of abandoned housing and commercial real estate.

Humans will adapt and survive, but it's going to hard to predict what the economy will be like.

DTP02 said:

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I keep asking every time this subject comes up, whether on here or elsewhere, whether the rise of AI and automation doesn't mitigate or even full offset the population losses in terms of striking the proper balance socioeconomically.

That doesn't change the fact that as a Christian I believe we are generally designed for marriage and family, but in terms of the secular concerns I wonder if people are overly concerned about something in depopulation which may be a partial solution to an even bigger concern in the rise of AI and automation.

---

The hope, and frankly assumption, by the tech futurists is that AI and robotics will be the mitigating factor for population losses...from a functional standpoint. In that, AI and robotics will take over management and maintenance of systems and infrastructure that humans can no longer support or operate.

The flip side of that is that these same people's solution for all of these humans no longer doing anything but leisure activity is UBI. Ther assumption for funding UBI is that AI and robotics solves scarcity and money is really no longer even relevant. This last sentence is a hopium pipe dream until it's not.

Quote:

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It is very concerning that the areas that are seeing population growth (primarily Africa and Muslim countries) don't share Western values pretty much at all.

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Funny how the education and the equal treatment of women may be an obvious solution in those locations as well

K2-HMFIC said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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One big issue is that the decline won't be geographically isolated. That means all the current infrastructure - electrical grid, roads, bridges, water, sewage, etc... - will have to be maintained with fewer people to do it. That's a disaster in the making.

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Look at Detroit: A city of 650k people with infrastructure left over from 1950 when it had 1.8 million people.

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I think this could be a big deal if fertility rates continue but I think there's some reason for optimism that the "delayed" birth model will kick in the next few years and slow things down.

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Little chance. Average age of woman's first child continues to go up. 27.5 now. And will continue to go up (e.g., rising housing costs). higher age of first child demographically almost certainly means lower fertility rate over a woman's lifetime.

" The flip side of that is that these same people's solution for all of these humans no longer doing anything but leisure activity is UBI. Ther assumption for funding UBI is that AI and robotics solves scarcity and money is really no longer even relevant. This last sentence is a hopium pipe dream until it's not."

I think that this could be as pessimistic as Musk is optimistic. There is a middle ground where lower cost of goods means rising overall prosperity, but that doesn't mean that contributors and non-contributors have equal wealth.

Over_ed said:

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" The flip side of that is that these same people's solution for all of these humans no longer doing anything but leisure activity is UBI. Ther assumption for funding UBI is that AI and robotics solves scarcity and money is really no longer even relevant. This last sentence is a hopium pipe dream until it's not."

I think that this could be as pessimistic as Musk is optimistic. There is a middle ground where lower cost of goods means rising overall prosperity, but that doesn't mean that contributors and non-contributors have equal wealth.

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Maybe so. I will admit I'm generally pessimistic on such things simply because governments usually fail or f* everything up like this.