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[–] 219 points 1 year ago (19 children)

Want higher birthrates? Just convince people that tomorrow will be better than today.

That's how you see a spike in birth rates.

To maintain a steady birthrate, just convince potential parents that the world will not be any worse for their children than it is today.

See, easy.

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  • [–] 86 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Capitalist Corporations: .... hmmmm .... I guess there's no choice .... artificial human breeding it is!

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Then they do the calculation on the costs to raise the children and decide it's not economically viable.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    It’s always economically viable, just a matter of tracking all the expenses and adding it to the child’s debt. As soon as it’s old enough to work you can garnish it’s wages for all that unpaid debt

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  • [–] 70 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    You said ban birth control and porn? Got it.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago

    They're taking the opposite approach.

    In the past families had a bunch of kids because they needed extra laborers to stay afloat, plus childhood mortality rates were so dire they needed spares to cover for the ones who wouldn't make it.

    We're already seeing pushes towards removing child labor laws, and RFK Jr is well on his way to ensuring death from easily preventable diseases makes a comeback.

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  • [–] 174 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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    [–] 94 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    I'm trying to get pregnant, but it's kinda hard when you're a guy. I won't stop trying, tho. 🫡

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    [–] 74 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

    Growing up, I was of the mindset that I would have got married and started a family by this point in my life. But as of the last few years, my thoughts have done just about a 180.

    Even if I was currently with someone/married, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to raise kids in this day and age in the US (the bullet dodged me when my ex-girlfriend used plan b after we got intimate without protection). I think best case scenario for me now would be DINK, but gotta find someone that can put up with my dumpster fires first.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Just find someone with similar dumpster fires, then you'll both burn in the passions of what you love

    Also, thanks for mentioning DINK - Double Income No Kids .... never heard of that before and now I learned something new.

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    [–] 61 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    A friend of mine has three kids and works 70 hours a week. He is not able to make enough to support his family, and social services have been cut so much that his only option is to take out a personal loan, which will only make his problem worse.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    14 hours leaves you barely 2 hours of personal time in a day. That's barely enough to just eat and maybe relax but then if you have 3 kids even that time is gone taking care of them. How and why would anyone put themselves through this, like after the first or second kid wouldn't your own limits become apparent

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    [–] 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    why would I want to bring somebody into this world. they'd only have to fight for basic things like "let's be nice to each other" and "maybe we should pool our money to spend it on big things that benefit us all"

    fuck that. I'll live my little servile life as a cog in the machine as best I can, and then I'll die. and the dumb fucks who won't stop breeding while they try to make things worse for their children will repopulate the earth

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    [–] 45 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    On a more positive note the newest IPCC report on climate has population decline being the biggest positive impact on climate change, so keep at it!

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    [–] 42 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    im not spending a fortune to raise a child when i can barely afford eggs

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    [–] 39 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The birth rate moral panic is 100% manufactured by neoliberal capitalists who simultaneously want high consumption and low wages, which is a logical impossibilty. You cannot have a consumerist society where the average consumer lives paycheck to paycheck

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    [+] 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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    [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I mean you're half right. In a zoo, the keepers care for their animals, making sure they're well fed, enriched, and healthy.

    We're being farmed. They are using us to make money from our produce (labour). They're using us to make money. We're so over exploited we simply cannot afford to have children.

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    [–] 25 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Dumb question: do we really need more people? It feels very much like technology/productivity will allow us to support a good lifestyle with fewer people.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    The problem developed nations are currently facing is that we need enough young people working to continue to support the current population as it ages and retires. The absolute population probably doesn't need to be as big as it is (unless you plan on starting a war like Russia for example) but it's not clear how to manage a reducing population gracefully.

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    By taxing corporations and reversing this insane wealth concentration.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Mhmm the uber wealthy have all the toys that the rest of the population could ever dream of. Taking away their extra ones allows you to pay for everyone else to get the level of care they deserve. Even then you will have an absurd amount of surplus that can be used to pay for decades of services that the general population needs while still letting the rich have some of their toys.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    To me, that's the most disgusting part: they could live the most lavish lifestyle possible and not put a dent in their savings.

    Nobody deserves that kind of wealth, nor should any one person control that much wealth. All those billions they're sitting on are funds that should have been allocated for better education, healthcare, transportation improvements and upgrades, affordable housing, etc.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    It’s only a dumb question if you’re looking at all the people now. Birth rates across the board are declining and most developed countries are well below replacement. We’re just not noticing yet because people live like 80 years.

    Most population projections have us peaking in 25-50 years, then population declines. That’s not all bad but how steeply does population decline and when does it stop? How does it impact economies, politics, who had influence and power. It looks like it could be steep and disruptive, with no prediction on when it will level off.

    However if we start mitigating that, start encouraging people to have children, provide more support for raising children, give more hope to potential parents, working together for a brighter future consistently for the next 50 years perhaps we can manage the decline for least disruption. Perhaps we can find a sustainable population to level off at which is still big enough for today’s rapid advancements

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    [+] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)
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    [–] 24 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I want biological kids, and I'm right about the point in my life where it would make the most sense to have them. But whenever family asks about it, I tell them I'm not raising children in this kind of administration. They try to suggest that it's not that bad and I stand firm that they're not seeing grandbabies until the government stops being so fashy.

    Actually, millennials could probably hold our hypothetical babies hostage, see what's more important to them.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago*

    Actually, millennials could probably hold our hypothetical babies hostage

    Given how many kids are in some combination of foster systems, detention centers, corrections programs, or concentration camps, maybe millennials need to start finding the actual babies and liberating them.

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    [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation...

    Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce.

    The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits. It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. If this demand is continually increasing, the reward of labour must necessarily encourage in such a manner the marriage and multiplication of labourers, as may enable them to supply that continually increasing demand by a continually increasing population.

    • Adam Smith, the father of capitalism
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    [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    Born in 84, I've noticed something of a trend in my area. Late gen X and late millennials are having children, most are having two or three, but a lot of people like me born in the mid 80's aren't. While this is by no means universal, there does seem to be more people within five years of my age going without kids.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I love this person's glasses.

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