To think pronatalists are on to something?

[Carebearsonmybed]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I don't agree with everything this couple say or do but I do think we are approaching a demographic timebomb when the global human population starts to drop in 50 years time.

Most women probably expect to have more DCs at 20 than they end up having by 45. What can we do to get the UK birth rate to replacement rate of c 2.5 so we don't have a crisis of elderly people without enough workers to pay for or provide care and subsidence?

Can’t grow human population forever. It’s a close system.
But you know who loves population growth?

The rich at the top.

Pretty sure that this form of capitalism we are currently living in where standards of living are falling for ordinary people such that many people in the UK can’t afford to feed, clothe or house themselves let alone their kids, through no fault of their own, is sorting out the population crisis for us all by itself. Only the very rich will be able to afford a baby in future. And even then, they will have very few.

I've just read it. My main takeaway was they are clearly damaged people who should have invested in therapy rather than selecting babies based on criteria they view as desirable, having a child every 18 months, then neglecting them to the point of abuse. I'll take the end of humans if that's how we're meant to increase populations.

We need to be kind to each other and our environment, respect it and make positive changes, not whatever bullshit these people are spouting.

The way to look forward positively is to think up ways to encourage highly educated women to have 2-5 DCs rather than 0-2

It is so difficult. East Asian, Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe are all having this same problem. I think Lee Kwan Yew suggested paying female graduates a child bonus (iirc) but it wasn’t widely supported at that time.

Tbh I think a common denominator is a lack of marriageable men. But that’s just my opinion

Desolate? I hate to break it to you but we are not the only living species on this planet. Our closest relatives are critically endangered through human activity. Who's to say the human race is more important than the orangutan? They contribute to the regeneration of the planet with every movement they make. Humans just wreck it.

Probably a bit of a "there won't be enough white people" thing as well.

I couldn’t agree more with this. Humanity has proven itself to be selfish, exploitative, cruel, violent, devastatingly chaotic and an absolute blight on the planet and to all other living animals.

My husband and I feel so strongly about this that we put our money where our mouths are and chose not to have children - no way were we going to contribute to the harm that humans cause over and over again.

So falling birth rates make me happy. I don’t care if there’s no one to look after me in old age (or any of the cliches thrown out by those who want to encourage human reproduction).

Our closest relatives are critically endangered through human activity. Who's to say the human race is more important than the orangutan?

The human race is more important than the orangutan, in my opinion. We could have a chance to get off this planet and terraform other planets. Bring other species with us. But if we don’t do that, most species will die in the next mass extinction event (we will too, if we regress …)

My husband and I feel so strongly about this that we put our money where our mouths are and chose not to have children - no way were we going to contribute to the harm that humans cause over and over again

The future belongs to those who have children, so our values will ultimately win out in the long run.

The future belongs to those children, not those who create them. And you do realise your kids aren't obliged to take on your values (and hopefully they won't, because you sound even more judgemental than myself, which IS rather an accomplishment), so you can put that smug idea in a box and tie it with a ribbon.

Many don’t seem to grasp the economics of a largely older population.

Tell that to the Pharaohs.

The future belongs to those children, not those who create them. And you do realise your kids aren't obliged to take on your values (and hopefully they won't, because you sound even more judgemental than myself, which IS rather an accomplishment), so you can put that smug idea in a box and tie it with a ribbon

My children may or may not. But children generally do take on the values of their family, in aggregate.

So if you like the society you live in, then you should try to perpetuate that with children.

If you do not, well, I guess giving up and having no children is a sensible response.

It’s not really about me or my children as individuals.

Upside down pyramid schemes really don’t work. Taxes will need to increase & people will get poorer.

We have nowhere near enough suitable housing stock for example.

We need a short-term fix to care for the current large elderly population. The generations behind them are smaller. When they are elderly there will not be as many of them. The answer is not to create another baby boom and push the problem onto another generation in 80 years time.

I also think it’s quite sinister for women’s right eg China clamping down on abortions, some American states banning them etc.

I would have loved to have a big family & had money been no option I would have had several. As it is, I have one child as I can't afford any more. I actually think the benefits cap on 2 children is probably a reason why people don't have more children, which I understand, the general public cannot be expected to fund an unlimited amount of children per family, but it definitely is a factor. Add to that the lack of affordable housing, especially for larger families. I'm not going to make my own life harder so the elderly have carers in the future. I can't afford it & I daresay there are many, many people in the same situation as me.

@DramaLlamaBangBang who is arguing for a baby boom? We need a softer landing though.

I don't agree; I think the opposite to these people.

Humans have ruined the planet, it would be a good thing if the human race came to a natural, gradual end through people having fewer children.

The planet could then be reclaimed by the billions of other species that have treated it with respect.

The planet is a giant ball of rock. It has been a ball of fire and an ice ball in its time. It made no difference to the planet, and life forms evolved out of that. Humans are the most remarkable species in the known universe. Other species don't know or care if they are extinct or not. Rhinos only care if they can feed their own baby rhinos to self sufficiency and if they have another rhino to procreate with and a tribe. They don't know or care about the future of their species or if there are other rhinos in other parts of the world after they are dead. Only humans do that- about themselves and other species.. If humans need to go extinct to ' protect the planet' what's the point in all this environmental nonsense? The quicker we kill ourselves by making the planet uninhabitable fir ourselves the better. Let's burn all the fossil fuels until we choke to death.

A high quality social system that values care of babies, toddlers and elderly would help. Providing a high salary for well qualified capable, valued staff to work in care would help. Affordable homes in a community for people for public sector and low paid workers. Not a small block of affordable flats stuck to the end of a ££££ private new build, beside the sewage pipes. No private care homes, rentals, nurseries. People can have larger families when services, homes, life are affordable and the burden on NHS would drop as the need for mental health care and chronic addiction help dropped.

The planet is a giant ball of rock. It has been a ball of fire and an ice ball in its time. It made no difference to the planet, and life forms evolved out of that. Humans are the most remarkable species in the known universe. Other species don't know or care if they are extinct or not. Rhinos only care if they can feed their own baby rhinos to self sufficiency and if they have another rhino to procreate with and a tribe. They don't know or care about the future of their species or if there are other rhinos in other parts of the world after they are dead. Only humans do that- about themselves and other species.. If humans need to go extinct to ' protect the planet' what's the point in all this environmental nonsense? The quicker we kill ourselves by making the planet uninhabitable fir ourselves the better. Let's burn all the fossil fuels until we choke to death.

Yes, I don’t really get the humans are the worst and we should all die. We evolved to live on the planet like other species.

I think this is the point Malcolm and Simone ultimately make.

If you're someone who believes in women's rights, secularism, protecting the environment etc, you're likely to have fewer children than someone who believes the opposite of these things. At current trends, in a couple of generations a much higher percentage of DC will have been raised by people who don't hold those values.

I still don't want to have a whole brood of kids myself, but they seem uncomfortably right on that point.

Yes I agree we may need a softer landing, but people are still having children. The huge baby boom of elderly people born in the 1940's and 50's won't be alive by the time today's babies are taxpayers. We need to look at short term solutions to help them, and look at how AI and technology is going to change the way we live and work. We don't need as many babies to look after the elderly born in the 70's and on, because the global birthrate since then has been more or less stable since then, and we may end up eith the problem of too many young prople eith no jobs due to advances in robotics and AI. Population growth has been almost exclusively caused by people living longer, not birthrates.lower birthrates means fewer prople throughout their lives, even if they live to 100.