www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/health/us-birth-rate-decline-2023-cdc/index.html
US fertility rate dropped to lowest in a century as births dipped in 2023
ArticleSo what? What are they going to do, bodily force me to fuck raw? Take me to the semen extracting factory? Force me to adopt a kid?
No, they’re just going to do everything they can to make abortion impossable.
And contraception and BC
That’s ok. It seems people are losing interest in sex these days (are they’re too tired/broke/depressed/isolated) to have any.
No problem. In Brave New World didn't they make babies asexually, in test tubes?
Pleasure? Soma/Prozac.
Same in 1984. They didn’t even want married couples to have sex as it would arouse passion and connection to their partner. The state wanted complete control over the genetics of new people being born and if doing that contributes to lessened attachment to their partner, so much the better.
Rapists aren’t too tired or disinterested
I mean in America (and most of Western countries) the birth rate is going down like never before seen. But in other countries like Africa and the Middle East the birth rate is rising exponentially, thus the reason we made it to another billion humans within a decade. So if anything this just means in the near future there might be a collapse of American and Western societies due to a lack a new generation to keep society running . . Either that or more immigration from those countries with rising birth rates.
Check your sources. I don’t know of many countries with rising birth rates. There are many countries in the Middle East and Africa with rising populations because their birthrate is still above 2.1 but the birth rates are dropping everywhere. It’s just that in Africa it’s dropping from 6 or 7 to 3 or 4 which is still higher than 2.1
Short sighted statistics if at all true. . The fact of the matter is that humanity as a whole took over thousands of years to reach 1 billion up until the 1800’s. Since then, we have grown 7 billion within just those 200 years and projected to reach 10 billion within the next 30 years. . Again “Billions” . . I don’t see any slowing down of which you speak off.
Man, I’ve never been so happy to have tumors, (I had to get a tubal ligation) lol 😂
So as a non-American I’m curious what your plans for your twilight years and the future of your society are?
I’d like to know genuine thoughts on this.
We have pensions in my country, so we are dependent on both the success of the public pension funds as well as on future contributions.
Neither of those will do great unless we have more people. So what’s the plan? The genuine plan, not the eddgelord ”fuck everything” plan.
Immigration can help, but I don’t believe that it can or should fix everything, since a) it’s not the job of poorer countries to serve as human incubators for rich countries b) poorer countries are rapidly becoming less poor, so less likely to seek a life in the classical developed countries, and also betting on them to stay poor seems unethical and c) mass immigration seems to have a destabilizing effect for various reasons: some of it perhaps due to cultural reasons, some due to propaganda and some due to the fact that mass immigration seems to focus pressure in the housing market to existing global hubs.
I do think that having multinational corporations and a billionaire class that can escape taxes is fucked, and should be fixed asap. But even if we did (come on, EU) it won’t solve THIS issue.
Immigration is the most practical and viable option, whether you like it or not. How a country decides to integrate these populations could be worth looking at. If I were an optimist, I'd wager on automation as well and advances in longevity, cuts in pensions and raising the retirement age, but that's further down the line. Realistically, humans are never going to stop having kids, so it's going to be a combination of immigration and low fertility rates that will make it through an 'adjustment' period. But because I'm inclined to be pessimistic, I do believe a sort of societal collapse is likely, and it may be a catalyst for something worse or something better. I won't be around to worry, nor will my descendants (because I won't have any, obviously).
Immigration yes, but someone also gave birth to those people. So you are still banking on births.
But also, humanity kind of already stopped having kids. I mean that we now know that it is possible and apparently common that a society can plunge deep beneath the replacement rate of 2.1 births.
South Koreans, Italians, etc. did indeed stop having children, societally speaking.
When birth rates are below 2.1, it doesn’t mean the population is stabilizing at a smaller size. For that, birth rates should increase back to 2.1. We don’t really know whether that could happen.
If the trend continues indefinitely, the population will keep shrinking. At some theoretical point, the population is so small a midsize cataclysm could render it extinct (N.B. a planetary cataclysm can always do that while we are not interplanetary).
Extinction may be such an abstract concept that it’s not really a problem.
But the road to extinction may well be incredibly hard for societies, rendering social programs etc. impossible.
And your solution to this is, no solution is needed because you’ve adopted a kind of a societal solipsism: ”There is only I. Only I matter.” It doesn’t matter if we have to take kids from poor countries. It doesn’t matter because…? You won’t be here? But you are here now.
Not caring is a bit of a problem since you are the beneficiary of infrastructure, services and knowledge that is produced through inter and intrasocietal work of exchange and upkeep.
Housing, mobility, infrastructure, mobility, medicine, internet, movies and games are all a part of this same system you are a beneficiary of.
The entire human species is banking on births, not just the pensions you look forward to. I happen to be here now, so what? I live my life, and then I die without dumping my progeny on the conveyor belt to solve whatever 'problems' may be at hand at any given time. Antinatalism isn't defined as solipsism, it falls under the umbrella of negative utilitarianism. Look it up.
It also seems you don't have much faith or understanding in the resilience of the human species if you imagine Homo sapiens would go extinct because a handful of people from advanced economies aren't having kids. Ever heard of the Toba eruption? I assume not, since you're crying about extinction with a current population of 8 billion and counting. And more recent, the Black plague; significant losses in population, and yet, in the aftermath, it became recognized as an agitator for social and economic progress. Of course, we now know that Western Europe went on to achieve many scientific discoveries and colonize other populations around the world.
Nevertheless, like billions of species before, extinction is inevitable, whether it's 300 years from now or 3 million. The earth won't be around forever, so ultimately, this isn't my problem. It's a problem for natalists and optimists because they want this evolutionary experiment to continue, they want to see their lineage or 'legacy' go on.
Indeed the point is, you are here now – and you are continually, every second relying on others for your safety and comfort. When you age, you become reliant in a very direct way that will be experienced every second of your waking life.
The historical events you mention are fundamentally different, as births were well above replacement.Black Death was fortuitous to those born after – because they were born. It was a in inhumanely cruel but efficient culling of the herd – not a dwindling.
Also, ”faith” is not a plan.
There were literally just pockets of humans in the thousands left after the Toba eruption. Pretty sure the human species will be okay sitting at 8 billion, but hey, don't let that get you down. If you have no faith the human species will survive, I suppose you'll need to draw up the plan yourself then, given your concern for human extinction is so urgent.
I’m cool with immigration.
The plan is to work until we decide it’s time for suicide bc euthanasia will still be illegal in our backwards ass country.
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Not good for the Billionaires 😂😂 they need more slaves to keep their status quo
Why would we create more wage slaves
west4B ✨✨✨
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1mo
You think things will improve?
Bounce back? To what exactly? My portfolio is looking great right now.
that's still an improvement over making kids in poverty
No it won’t. It’s been shown that the later individuals marry, and also the fact that more women are in college with higher education attainment, and that women are very career oriented all lower fertility. So it’s not a money issue at all.
Wow. It’s amazing what making life completely too expensive and setting the planet on fire does to birth rates… then the straight up pollution too. Thanks Capitalism.
Wow, it’s almost like if you saddle people with crippling debt that they won’t be able to pay off for decades and prevents their ability to afford the basics like groceries and rent plus reduce their ability to get healthcare in the event of a fetus that won’t be born healthy and safely women will take measures to not worsen their situation.
When the numbers come out later, it might have more to do with abortion bans & how people aren’t getting healthcare to help their pregnancy.
First, as I argued on here, ever-rising levels of technology makes actual AN increasingly feasible (though we're not yet to that point but we're getting close). That means you need fewer brains to help you develop new ideas. Still, I'd be remiss to not say this much - AI is only a tool. An amazingly capable tool that can do a lot of skull work, but at the end of the day, it's just a glorified research assistant.
Saying that, I can see AI-Robots taking over some of the more repetitive physical and mental tasks, particularly the more repetitive, highly dangerous, physically demanding, and tedious ones. Thus, at least in theory, we can have more resources per person even with a declining population.
Second, even a natalist should see the absurdity of billionaires calling for increasing birth rates so they can have more cheap labor for yet more generations. All those people will generate more pollution, more demand on resources, more demand on wilderness for agricultural land (especially in less developed countries), and all around make the Earth a less habitable place to live on. What good is $100 billion if you or your descendants can't enjoy it?
Even the above assumes that money will still be worth a little something when things get even more distressed.
Lovely
This makes me smile, less and less suffering. Keep it coming
They are going to sell defective condoms and fake birth control pills. Watch.
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A lot of young people (including me) that I know don’t want kids, they are busy enjoying not having to go through college and get to relax. After fighting during a pandemic and a full time college and work career you expect them to have kids after that, these people be crazy lol.
Maybe capitalists should stop raping the planet and our collective psyches for profit. Maybe then more of us will consider children. I’m not bringing someone into this world and if my options are taken away, I will still refuse becoming a mother by any means necessary.
A century ago women rarely had access to birth control, abortions, or even a choice in the matter of birthing children. Of course birth rates are lower now. Women have rights, resources, and the ability to choose.
Multitudes of babies are still being born per day. The alarmists just want to dial back women’s rights because they’re capitalist misogynists.
I can't wait to watch all the grifter "leaders" piss their pants over this.
Maybe they shouldn't have made society a completely unaffordable nightmare hellscape while they stuffed their pockets and turned blind eyes and deaf ears.
You reap what you sew you greedy fascists.
So such amazing news dear friends:)
I guess those chem trails are finally working.
🎉🎉🎉
This is nice news, but I doubt what’s driving it is AN. If the US gets its shit together and makes it more accessible to have families, this will bounce back up.
this is finally, finally progress for us. The best news I have heard all month. Thank goodness we are all waking up. I can only pray this trend continues.
It's not surprising. I rarely ever see a pregnant woman when I'm out, or in the workplace. It's sort of eerie, in a way. Even if they're not antinatalists, people are just not having kids.
Good. FUCK THEM KIDS.
Hooray!!!! but lets just hope that it doesnt bounce back.
This makes me all giddy, but at the same time, the billionaire class sees this as an existential threat and will use every tool in their power to paint every childfree and antinatalist person as the 'bad guys'. Brace yourselves.