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[Obliterator]

Honestly this is really good news and hopefully global birthrates continue to go down.

 

[SDCowboy]

That's a good thing. As life expectancy continues to reach new highs, so do birth rates need to lower.

 

[n00bsauce87]

When people have good sex/family/reproduction education and control over what they can do before, during, and after intercourse will breed results like this. I don't think it's necessarily something to be alarmed, but interesting nonetheless

 

[megatronium]

Handmaid's Tale viral marketing?

1st post nails it!

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Birth rate is not the same as fertility rate

Yeah, that jumped out at me immediately as well.

Robot children will fill the void.

And robot lovers will magnify the decline in birth rate.

 

[thelatestmodel]

Girlfriend and I are child free by choice, we're part of the problem I guess

 

[Shifty1897]

Population rates need to lower globally in order to have a sustainable world food supply for generations to come. This is a good thing.

 

[SDCowboy]

When people have good sex/family/reproduction education and control over what they can do before, during, and after intercourse will breed results like this. I don't think it's necessarily something to be alarmed, but interesting nonetheless

Who's alarmed? lol

 

[BigDug13]

A solid alternative is to allow immigration to offset the low birth rates.

Of course, I agree with your sentiment of having a better quality of life instead of working to death.

The culture needs to change. Open up immigration so others can come to a work-to-death culture to live?

 

[Ovid]

Honestly this is really good news and hopefully global birthrates continue to go down.

They also decrease as a country gets richer.

The decline in the birth rate also appears to be a worldwide phenomenon.

 

[Raw64life]

I attribute it to people getting smarter and realizing how much more time they'd be able to spend enjoying the precious little time they have on this earth by not having kids. World is already overpopulated, so this is a very good thing.

 

[InfiniteBento]

I have 0 desire to ever have children tbqh

Its just too much both financially and mentally.

Id rather own pets.

 

[Jumeira]

Isn't this good news ?

Also, people are a bit more self absorbed and so want to focus only on themselves, which is completely fine. I enjoy life with my wife and don't have any desire for children just yet, still got a lot to do before I'm ready to give up all my time.

Money isn't a problem and we've got the whole world to explore, infact life hasn't been so good. Both are in late 20s early 30s, in our best years to do what we want so no children for us just yet.

 

[Sulik2]

Every single developed nation has birthrate below replacement level. I really don't know if there is permanent fix for that.

Make having and raising babies cheaper is a big one, but it will always be low in developed countries. When women have education and careers they want to be bogged down by children far less.

 

[MastAndo]

Glad to help!

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

The replacement level is overblown, the world population needs to downsize to adapt to a new reality where the value of human labor is steadily falling but the costs of life are rising. It's the only way to eventually have sustainable guaranteed income, wealth equality, and no erosion of democracy which would otherwise have to be eliminated to enforce sustainable income guarantees or an equivalent.

Japan is experiencing a necessary adjustment, the country is highly overpopulated. Doesn't mean they should not favor immigration for other reasons, but certainly not to increase the population count.

Is Japan really highly overpopulated? Tokyo maybe but the rest of the country has plenty of space.

 

[BigDug13]

Is Japan really highly overpopulated? Tokyo maybe but the rest of the country has plenty of space.

Japan is the size of California and has half the population of the entire U.S. It does have space but much of it is mountainous and not easily livable or workable for food.

 

[Vectorman]

We going into Children of Men timeline people!

 

[Skyball Paint]

When I was younger, I didn't want kids. Now that I'm older and more open-minded to the possibility, I feel like economics has made my choice for me and it sucks.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

With the state of the world, politically and environmentally, I can't imagine bringing a kid into this mess.

 

[PaulBizkit]

I'm doing my best to help out. 6th kid due in early September.

As an archbishop once told me, "Even roaches have kids."

I can understand people's reluctance to have any though.

Wow, tell me, how do you manage 5 kids? Do you have nannies? Is it economically sustainable? What does your wife think?

 

[perfectchaos007]

Immigrants are not going to solve the issue forever.

Damn the average Niger Woman is still popping out 8 kids. I guess a lot of immigrants will continue to come from that African Nation.

 

[Maedre]

Damn the average Niger Woman is still popping out 8 kids. I guess a lot of immigrants will continue to come from that African Nation.

People from niger are not really the one that are immigrating.

Tax the machines and let them be responsible for the financial aspect of supporting old people.

 

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

I can't even afford my own bills, let alone a child as well.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Immigrants are the real MVPs.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Less people at this point is a good thing. Human beings have done more damage to the livabilty of the planet for life in general than any other species at this point. If we don't voluntarily wane population growth, large segments will involuntary be killed off due to the fallout of things like climate change, disease, and war.

 

[Ether_Snake]

I agree with you that this is a good thing, but the major problem is that a population decline doesn't support the pyramid scheme that is social security and medicare.

Aging population is a problem but overpopulation just shifts the problem into a bigger one for later. We need a moonshot on health care and reversing aging. The sooner the better. Taking care of a population of jobless young people will be far costlier than putting in place the means to have sustainable guaranteed standards of living even if for a while we end up with an old population. The world will transition away from capitalism, toward a more duty and sustainability oriented sustem.

 

[Alcotholic]

I don't plan on conceiving children at all. I'm planning on adopting if I want a kid. I'd rather not bring in a child to the mess of this planet and take care of one who's already here and needs a home.

 

[Catdaddy]

So why is traffic still bad?

 

[A Grizzly Bear]

Makes sense to me. I’m 31 and my wife is 29, we bought a house last year and both have careers and while we think we want kids, it’s not 100% set in stone. It’s selfish but we have a dog which we fawn over and watching some of our friends have kids, it completely upends your life.

Honestly if it weren’t for increased chance of birth defects as my wife ages, we’d both be perfectly fine waiting another 10+ years before even trying, but the biological clock aspect of it is making us realize we need to either make this happen in the next 5 years or not at all (unless we were to adopt)

I see the pros and cons of both, and ultimately I think in your old age you probably would rather have had kids than not, but our life is pretty great without kids and the biggest factor at least for me to have them is because you’re ‘supposed’ to. I already feel the pressure from my parents since I’m the only hope right now of grandkids and my cousins are reproducing like jackrabbits (super religious).

We’ll see how it plays out over the next couple years but I completely understand the ‘no kids’ camp the longer I remain kid less as an adult.

You and I are pretty much the same person, though it's my Wife's parents pushing for the grandkids. We've done the "math" on how long we can reasonably push out our decision, but I think that's put us in a place where you begin to question if it's really something you should be doing if you're trying to reason your way through delaying it as long as you can.

 

[Falchion]

The cost of child care that my coworkers pay is enough to scare me off for the time being.

 

[Poppy]

its going to decline in developed nations until it reaches a natural equilibrium, eventually on a long enough timescale the world will be at a stable birthrate

or we can all just stop

 

[entremet]

Less people at this point is a good thing. Human beings have done more damage to the livabilty of the planet for life in general than any other species at this point. If we don't voluntarily wane population growth, large segments will involuntary be killed off due to the fallout of things like climate change, disease, and war.

Humans are both the problem and solution. We didn't even know we were doing this much damage to the Earth until very recently and have already done some amazing work in making things better--Trump's garbage decisions aside.

Demographers have known this for a bit now as well. The population will stabilize, but our social programs are not built for this. So for many progressive types, this is actually bad. You need people paying into the system for this to work.

 

[User Name Here]

Children, like mothers, can be automated.

 

[PantherLotus]

This thread TLDR: the better things get, the less people want to fuck it up by having kids.

Longer: Immortality is on our doorstep and I'm not worried about overpopulation at all.

 

[Duxxy3]

If you're not having kids, don't worry about it - other people are making it up for you.