Posted on 11/03/2023 9:36:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Humanity has never had it better.
Especially the couple of billion lucky folks who live in the United States and Canada, Western Europe, and East Asia (including, now, much of China).
The details of the miracle that is modern life are worth repeating, since they are the water we swim in and easy to forget.
Deaths in childbirth and childhood are nearly nonexistent. People live longer than ever and can expect to be (physically) healthy into their seventies, not stooped by hard farm, industrial, or household labor. War and conscription have largely ended. In Europe and East Asia, all deaths of violence are stunningly rare.
Formerly unthinkable material luxuries are not merely common but expected. Inexpensive, nutritious food is available everywhere. After facing the prospect of famine for all of human existence, we suddenly must deal with obesity.
Cars and airplanes have made movement easy. Once exhausting and risky, travel is now so cheap the biggest problem is the crowds it creates - of tourists and migrants.
Free schooling through adolescence has turned literacy from a luxury of the rich into a basic right. More recently information technology has opened the deepest banks of knowledge to anyone with an Internet connection, which is everyone.
—
In the face of this unprecedented bounty of knowledge, health, and abundance, more and more humans have responded by —
Refusing our most basic biological drive and failing to have children.
This depressing reality hit me again recently, after the wedding of a couple I know. Husband and wife are in their early thirties, stable, employed, apparently happy and in love - and insisting they will not have children.
Of course, they could change their minds. But they have been together for several years and have always agreed they want to be childless. I find that choice even more depressing and confounding than people who are childless because they cannot find a partner. These are heterosexuals who have decided to pair for life (theoretically, anyway), yet they do not believe having children is their natural next step.
They are far from alone.
The “replacement rate” - the number of children a woman must have on average to keep population stable - is about 2.1. Birthrates have been below that level in many wealthy countries for decades.
—
(With 23 million people, Taiwan will have about 130,000 babies this year - not even half as many as it needs to keep its population steady. The country is erasing itself.)
—
You are probably aware of the baby bust. But you may not know how bad it has gotten. Since Covid, birth rates have fallen off a cliff.
Women in Asian countries like South Korea and Taiwan are now expected to have fewer than 1 child on average. Men do not have children (despite what the LGBTQIABCDEFGH+-* crew sometimes pretend), so you don’t need a degree in statistics to figure out that birthrate translates into demographic catastrophe.
Fertility disruption from mRNA Covid jabs may be contributing, but it is not the primary factor. The baby bust is occurring in countries that did not use the shots, too.
This choice represents individual tragedy and societal failure on an unprecedented scale.The American left pretends the baby bust is economically driven, blaming a lack of subsidized child care for young kids and the overall expense of raising children in the United States. As one feminist author said in September:
I had really been talking about a lot of these issues like paid leave, lack of childcare, and how they affected parents, primarily in the United States… People are not having their ideal number of children, even when they become parents, because they just can't make it work.
The only problem with this theory is that births are lower across Europe and Asia than the United States. And Northern European countries, which have much less income inequality than the United States, as well as the parental leave policies, heavily subsidized childcare, and national health insurance that the left demands, have seen some of the biggest recent declines.
No, whatever is happening cannot reasonably be viewed as economically driven. It is a cultural trend. And it is phenomenally powerful, because it is happening all over the world, across ethnicities, in countries and societies that are otherwise vastly different.
And it is overcoming basic human biology.
So what is it?
I don’t know if that question has an obvious answer, but I intend to explore it in the months to come. And I hope you will contribute your own views on the subject in the comments.
I’m not exaggerating when I write that nothing less than the future of humanity is at stake.
I have no children.
I celebrate that fact every day.
It’s no longer accurate to call the USA a “rich country.” The value of our money has eroded, the pres is giving away hundreds of billions, he has let millions into the country, and now we are poor.
And that’s why we are not having kids.
And that’s why the “poor and oppressed” are streaming into the country - to live off our money and to pop out a few million more babies that we will be supporting.
Don’t call us rich.
I think for humans, the “Universe 25” analogy more closely fits with regard to the resource factor. Also, even in Universe 25, the rats had more than enough space to spread out if they had wanted to. They didn’t. They never even got close to the theoretical capacity of the environment they were in.
The relevant metric is to compare the US today with the US of one hundred years ago....
In those days (especially during the Depression) millions were actually starving—as in no food and no government aid and broke churches.
Millions lived in shanty towns and shacks that would be condemned and torn down today.
Millions did not have any electricity at all—much less the many modern conveniences that went with them.
etc etc etc....
We celebrate too. 😂
Europe and Canada will become Islamic.
“It’s no longer accurate to call the USA a “rich country.” “
True. We would need to find a suitcase with 34 trillion in it before we could even claim to be flat broke.
I am convinced that agricultural societies create great incentives to have lots of kids while industrial and post-industrial societies have negative incentives for having kids.
Humans react to incentives—no matter what they claim or say...
And France and Hungary have failed to reverse population decline despite pro-Natalist policies.
RE: Don’t call us rich.
So, why are we still shouldering nearly 1/4 of the United Nation’s Budget and most of the defense budget of NATO?
You see it everywhere. My hometown in rural upstate NY had a population 7,000 in 1980, and my senior class that year had 188 graduates.
The town’s population today is still at 7,000, but recent high school graduations have featured only 90-100 students.
Poland tried too.
Good luck now, since the pro-abortionists just won there.
...or worse than poor. Poor people have no money. We have $42T in debt.
Such debt makes it impossible to raise children.
RE: And France and Hungary have failed to reverse population decline despite pro-Natalist policies.
Heck, China is trying to reverse its population decline through its over 35 years of disastrous one-child policy by now ENCOURAGING a 3-child policy. It’s STILL not working !
And it has been estimated that China now has 30 million MORE women than men. Where are these 30 million horny young men going to find brides?
Having kids throws you and your spouse into desperate financial situation over night. 2 working adults can take care of themselves quit comfortably. If they work their asses off with little free time. Modern society is anti family unless you are really rich or really poor.
No really.
I wish I could argue with that assessment, but I can’t. Demography is destiny. If you want to predict the future, answer this ancient question:
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Feminism. Divorce laws. The utterly destroyed dating field. To name a few.
After dating as a young man I learned I do not want a wife or to have kids. The only people who seem bothered by it are busy bodies. I don’t regret either decision.
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