1w ago

The real reason no govt can resolve the fertility rate issue is because none of them are farsighted enough

Everybody knows what needs to be done. Parenthood needs to be sustainable for the parents. There's just no political will to implement a policy that will only start paying off in 20+ years. Every politician kicks the can down the road, or implements half-hearted policies.

Edit: Just realised I posted this to the wrong instance comm 😅

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The issue is not the lower fertility rate itself. The issue is
capitalism assuming the impossible - infinite pop growth
governments with a tribal mindset trying to outcompete each other in number of heads, so they force their populations to murder or subjugate each other
- Infinite growth is absolutely possible as long as it's combined with regular terrifying contraction and reduction; When growth slows down, engineer genocide until there's plenty of room to grow. It's a long embraced human tradition.
  
  mmm bring on that malthusian magic
  
  I think that globalised megacorporations make this sort of chainsaw growth less feasible over time, since you can't extract surplus value from dead people. That wasn't a big deal before because corporations were mostly restricted by country/government, but now they're basically everywhere.
  [inb4: this does NOT mean that globalised megacorporations are against genocide. Far from that - it's just that they'd rather order their governments to engage in genocide in other situations. Such as megacorpo turf wars.]

Alternative approach: let the population decline so we have more natural resources per person
- We have no real shortage of natural resources, the problem lies with equitable distribution of said resources.
  
  At this rate we might run out tho

There's a fundamental disconnect between people who live in highly developed nations and their awareness of how much populations from intentionally underdeveloped nations are subsidizing their ability to accrue material wealth. I believe this creates a scenario where the only way to continue maintaining the high living standards the West has known for 50+ years without incurring increasing costs is through the manipulative create of underclasses that allow capital accumulation to occur. Unfortunately now that globalization is out of fashion, many governments are shifting to bringing these underclasses much closer to home, which is adding to the resulting anti-immigrant, xenophobic political discourse we're now seeing. Population growth could mostly be a flash in the pan, but if countries really do start shutting the door on immigration and have to also contend with collapsing fertility rates you can bet they're gonna start rationalizing how to strip women's rights away; have to keep the underclass there to feed the billionaires and scare the workers.

Everybody knows what needs to be done.
I'm not convinced it's as simple as you make it out to be, as places that experience more poverty and violence appear to have higher fertility rates (1).
- In places with poverty and violence, kids are an asset. They work and contribute to the family in times of crisis.
  General lack of education, awareness and access to birth control means there are no options for women.
  Women have fewer or no rights, and little to no say in whether they have kids.
  Unless we're planning on this route (which it seems the US is set on), the alternative is to make parenthood attractive (or at least not-unattractive) enough to negate the costs.
  Additionally, fertility rates are dropping worldwide, even in low-income countries. They're further back on the curve, but they're definitely moving along it. Some institutes claim we've already dropped below the global replacement rate of ~2.3, though it'll take a few years to confirm the current statistics.
  
  Poverty and violence also increase the likelihood of losing children, so people have more in case.
  
  You forget that most of the assholes in charge right now don't give a flying fuck about fertility rates, having an educated workforce, or even anyone's rights and opportunities. All that matters to them is making more money and hanging onto power. The fuckers can practically read the future as long there is a dollar sign in front of it, and as far as they are concerned, the rest of us don't factor into that future.
- Israel has high fertility.

A gentle drop in fertility rate is preferable to steady growth until there's a crisis triggering a population crash. Check out this crazy ass line:
Keeping our society stable and happy while the economic system adjusts may be tough.
- I agree, but based on current trends there's nothing gentle about the coming decline. Some countries are going to see their populations drop by more than half within decades

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