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Why won't you have kids??
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Because the shifting age pyramid has massive consequences for the whole society....? The most obvious and easy to understand issue is that tons of old people can not live off of a few young people.
So you think a good solution is to have more babies, who will grow old, so then you need even more babies to support them, who will grow old, so you have an ever increasing amount of babies on a finite planet.
Population continues to grow at an exponential rate forever? And that's a good solution?
Stop building with so much straw.
I mean, the callous answer is to just let them die. Like has been the case for all of human history. Families either directly cared for their elderly, or those elderly died.
There does not need to be a societal upheaval at all.
Ah yes. Baby is sick? Just let it die like our ancestors did. Perfectly reasonable. Someone looks different? Just stone them like our ancestors.
Well that’s a massive incorrect comparison lmao.
Adults have complete agency over themselves and their lives. Babies do not.
The idea of an adult retiring and no longer contributing to the workforce has only existed for the last 150 or so years of humanity in general.
And even then, that adult has a literal lifetime to prepare for their own retirement.
That’s absolutely NOTHING like a baby, which has no agency, no control over their life or actions, and is completely dependent on their parents. To even make the comparison is ignorant at best.
If I make it to old age and can’t feed or wipe myself, and nobody else wants to do that, that’s a me problem. I have probably been a shitty enough person that my children and grandchildren don’t want to take care of me, and/or I’ve been financially stupid enough to not plan for that outcome. Either way, that’s my own life actions coming back to me.
A baby doesn’t get that. They exist solely because some other people brought them into the world.
So we should have kids for the benefit of old people? Those old people are who fucked up society to where it is now.
Low birth rates are the result of BETTER living conditions and more equality for women, across the world.
Also, heavy ageism.
Fortunately, soon we can just have AI look after old people. They will reap what they sowed.
I think the problem is that our growth over the last 4-5 decades isn't sustainable, and now we need to adjust policy to handle the aging population. We shouldn't grow beyond our means to support ourselves. We're in a bad place now but making more humans to handle our older population will create the program of needing to make MORE humans to handle those, with our current system, until we run into a resource constraint that will be an even worse situation.
Yes, the explosion with the boomers, hence the name, is the issue. So lots of people suddenly, then far less suddenly, that is the issue. Steady is no problem and slight decrease or increase all do not create such a catastrophic situation.
Is there literature on how catastrophic this is looking? I hear that it's going to be rough for the elderly looking for care, and could tax our medical system, but I don't think I really grasp it.