[mikem170]

So does that mean our social/political/economic system (culture) is a failure - having created the conditions for population decline (including industrialization and urbanization), but unable to survive the consequences (shrinking birthrates)?

Lots of the world gets by on a fraction of US per-capita GDP, and isn't as screwed up as Haiti. Countries like Japan, Korea, Italy and others in Europe are blazing trails with this problem, a generation of aging (no millenials) ahead of the US (assuming no more immigration). We'll see how that works out.

Scary to back-slide on standards of living, but it's happened before in history. Best not to get too comfortable with the idea of the American Dream. Stay flexible. Stay healthy. Good luck!

[bluefirebrand]

> So does that mean our social/political/economic system (culture) is a failure

American culture is absolutely a failure, yes

[xp84]

> So does that mean our social/political/economic system (culture) is a failure

Post-2005 or so culture? I'd say probably... yes? Though it's far from an American thing, most of the issues I'm concerned with are worse in Europe.

The failures are:

1. Nihilism and hedonism as a substitute for moral values

- This is what signals to young people (even including many millennials) that life has no particular meaning so do whatever feels good, rather than seeing yourself as having a responsibility to raise the next generation of people, to do good things and to live good lives. Note that we're equally a failure here in a Star Trek Humanist lens or a religious moral lens.

2. Militarized gender war

- Driven by visual social media and as an immune overreaction to the real sins of past generations, men and women have normalized hating the opposite sex. For women the "Man or the bear" meme really sums it up. For men, it's exemplified by many men having zero interest in even being with women. This is mainly driven by this graph [1] - the "bottom 80%" of men in 'attractiveness,' when they realize that women judge them as a "4" or under, feel the game is unwinnable so they simply drop out. Women compete for the tiny population of "high value men," who don't value them (and won't even settle down) because they have too many options, and grow more and more frustrated.

3. Economic disorder

- In the pursuit of a virtuous cause -- allowing women to have career ambitions -- we've accidentally built a world where both parents have to work to compete with other families for scarce necessities like housing, but even having two working adults doesn't magically give most families enough resources to pay for proper childcare. Women are put in an impossible situation: Staying home to care for kids is seen as basically degrading among other women and it puts the family in a financial disadvantage, but working means both parents are stretched to find enough time to care for children, and that the children will probably suffer from the lack of your time and attention. You can't win.

4. Militarized culture war

- In every Western country we have elites who identify as "left" with a set of values that sees their political "enemies" as despicable scum, and an opposite group of mostly less educated and less wealthy people that identifies as "right" that feels the same way about the left. (Amusingly the "Left" usually claims to be For The Common Man, but that's fair-ish since all the less famous billionaires are indeed card-carrying conservatives.) They've both polarized so much that it's impossible to see how we can have a government run by either faction that isn't considered evil and fascist, or even outright illegitimate, by the other side.

5. Everything to do with social media, of course, and the worst uses of AI. (Needs no explanation I assume)

So yes, Western culture has dramatically failed. I'm trying to advocate that we improve it rather than commit cultural suicide, which is the current plan we're on.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1alibge/oc...

[mikem170]

I'm not sure about some of the things you mentioned. Stuff like this is food for social media algorithms - "the world is ending!" But they are interesting points to think about.

How much of what you said holds true in other cultures with plumetting birth rates? Japan, Mexico and India for example? Russia? Seems to be quite a few exceptions.

Quick comments on your post: 1) I'm impressed by the young, they're trying, maybe more so than gen-x and boomers, who went from lazy-as-anybody to mucho reactionary, 2) That graph doesn't say that 80% of men drop out of the dating pool, 3) I agree that affordibility is a problem, but I'd question both sides of the supply/demand curve, and (in the U.S.) Reaganomics, 4) how does partisanship relate to birth rates? For example, Congo is divided, but birth rate is high, 5) I agree that algorithmic profit seeking social media is a huge problem, but those who rule us like to push their propaganda, and they are doing a good job.

I've always heard that lower birth rates were correlated with urbanization and educating women. Always and everywhere. That having kids in the city costs too much, compared to on farms, and that women want to avoid a bad situation if they can.

How to make things better?

I think that there is a lot we can do to make life more social and affordable, for example imagine a world with more cheaper housing options, no need for a car, no need to wage-slave full time, less mercenarial, less scams, less manipulating people to buy things they don't need, etc. Better living for less money. Easier to have kids. In aggregate we are plenty productive enough. It'll take time to unwind so many decades going in the other direction. And we haven't even started. Because the people capturing all that wealth don't want to make those changes.

I assume that kids will figure it out eventually. This is self correcting. The world will go on :-)