[ClumsyPilot]

"property prices are completely unaffordable"

Oh, such a unique problem, there is no chance that it's being driven by some global factors and events, like avaliability of cheap credit, right?

"getting married is an ironclad social requirement"

Typical in traditional / conservatice societies

Fertility rate in Spain and Italy is below 1.3 and we have no clue how to address it.

[ajsnigrutin]

> Fertility rate in Spain and Italy is below 1.3 and we have no clue how to address it.

There are alredy too many people in this world... we don't live on farms anymore, so that we'd need many kids to help work on them... the only problem currently is, that our pension systems and some of the economic systems depend on more and more people producing and that we have yearly growth (instead of sustained business).

[dmm]

If your concern is sustainability then a fertility rate closer to 2.1 should be your goal. 1.3 is just collapse. Right now in the US we have 3 workers for every retired person. Imagine instead a world where every worker is supporting four retirees. It doesn't matter how you structure or fund your pensions, that just isn't going to work.

[lumost]

This is an interesting point, even if the retirees self-funded their retirement. There would need to be a nearly 4x increase in productivity per 30 years to avoid an inflation catastrophe as the workers products have increased demand relative to the maximum supply of workers/services/goods.

[lasagnaphil]

> 1.3 is just collapse

Concerned about the fertility rate being 1.3? That’s too mild, no match against the godly number of 0.84 from South Korea!

Ah, our country’s really fucked.

[extra88]

The U.S. (and Spain and Italy) are desirable places to be so immigration can make up for fertility rates being below what's needed to maintain the population. As a bonus, you don't need to wait ~18 years for an adult immigrant to be a productive, tax-paying member of society.

[dmm]

The US has a long tradition of immigration and it will certainly make the collapse less painful as compared to places like China and Russia but I'm skeptical that immigration can make up for a FR as low as 1.3.

I think

1. It's going to take a lot more immigration.

2. Significantly higher immigration is going to politically destabilizing for a variety of reasons.

Are we preparing for this? I really wish we had a functional government.

EDIT:

3. Pretty much everywhere except India, Afghanistan, and a few places in sub-sahara Africa have fertility rates below replacement. Immigration from anywhere but those places helps the destination country but makes the originating one worse. What effects is that going to have?

[lotsofpulp]

Maybe the fundamental assumption that society needs to provide help to keep people alive as long as possible has to be revisited.

I think it well may be that the tradition of supporting elders forever either worked when they were not living as long in such large numbers, and persisted due to the outsize political and economic power they have (or had).

Once the younger people have power, they might choose that the best use of their resources is not supporting those 70+ year olds.

[mapmap]

A more realistic and positive solution is to just give parents the societal support they need to be productive and also raise children.

[svieira]

And from here, it is a very small step (practically speaking) to The sixty of A Pebble in the Sky

https://archive.org/details/pebbleinsky00asim/ https://archive.org/details/podcast_dimension-x_dimension-x-...

For those who haven't heard or read it, the 60 is a law on the Earth of the future that requires that on your sixtieth birthday you report to a medical center for euthanization. Those who refuse are tracked down and forcibly euthanized.

[whiddershins]

There are not too many people. This is a horrible thing to say. Which ones are the extras?

[bostonsre]

We're just another animal on planet earth that consumes resources and takes up space. There is some saturation point where no more people can fit and/or no more people have the resources they need to survive. Ideally, the alarm is sounded before that saturation point. It may sound bad to say there are too many people, but it would be a lot worse if we got to the saturation point and billions of people suffered.

[mediocregopher]

Why would there being too many of something imply that there are specific members which should be removed?

If we allow the population to stop increasing we can _maybe_ find a way to live sustainably on this earth. No one existing person is "extra".

[Guthur]

This is such a moronic statement. If you really really want to limit population then limiting the number of children is a absolutely terrible and potentially catastrophic way of doing it.

Who is going to replace and look after that rapidly aging population? Or is complete collapse your goal?

[xyzzy123]

Do you have a modest proposal for limiting population - that isn't contraception? Are you thinking soylent green, or more like logan's run?

[Tade0]

Education of women is a strong predictor of low fertility rates.

Send the girls to school and they won't have to rely on a future husband to sustain themselves later on.

[xyzzy123]

Fair, but how do educated women achieve those low fertility rates?

It's not abstention...

[ClumsyPilot]

They get pressed into careers with the rest if us and have no time for kids

[janeroe]

> there is no chance that it's being driven by some global factors and events, like avaliability of cheap credit

There is no chance indeed.