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Comment by was_boring | Hacker News Reader

Arguably, decreasing human kind's birthrate is a net positive. Even in the absence of that, being a dad, and knowing many dads, we've already made the choice to "disadvantage" ourselves -- and wish we could do it more. What stops us is the fact that we would lose our jobs which disadvantages our kids.

So I say bring on mandatory leave! The vast majority will be much happier.

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One important tangent. There's a very significant nuance to birthrates you're not considering when it comes to reducing birthrates. Most of everybody knows birth rates in the developed world are decreasing, compared to the developing world. But what many do not know is that this sort of pattern holds true even within developed nations themselves. For instance in the US people who earn < $10,000 per year have 50% more children than those who earn $200k per year. [1] The slope of the inverse relationship between income and fertility is surprisingly and disconcertingly smooth.

Think about what this means. The things that correlate strongly with fertility are: low income, low education, high religiosity. If you look at the pool of all children being born they're going to end up ever more disproportionately in low income, low education, highly religious households over higher income secular households in developed nations. I used to feel similarly to you, but in considering this the very people 'responsibly' choosing not to have children are the exact people that should be reproducing to no end if we want a better tomorrow for everybody. And this is without even considering genetic factors. Responsible fertility is, paradoxically, anything but responsible for those who would have the wherewithal to consider such things in the first place.

[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

I don’t see how increasing the birth rate of people making over $200k per year leads to a better tomorrow (not that such an idealistic notion even exists). You’d be increasing the number of mega consumers, international flights, mc mansions...

What you really seem to be saying is you’d like people who aren’t like you to stop reproducing and people who are like you to reproduce more.

Watching the beginning of Idiocracy might make the problem clear.

https://youtu.be/YwZ0ZUy7P3E

That’s a fictional movie.

That doesn't mean it can't be a legitimate commentary on a non fictional problem.

It's not really surprising at all (at least anymore). See for example Hans Rosling's research.

The richer you are, the higher chance of success of your offspring, so you don't need to roll the dice as much.

This hypothesis made a lot of sense in the past. It was logical and mapped to the data reasonably well. But I'm not sure it does anymore. Part of the reason that I mentioned the developed world is that people earning < $10k are not pumping out children in some sort of attempt to create a family that can provide sustenance and a strong lineage. Far from it - in today's urban societies, children are often more of an indefinite burden than a future tool for wealth creation. Maybe even more clear is considering the sharp decline in the middle class fertility over the past decades. Again it's not like those born in e.g. the 70s were that much less likely to survive to coming of age driving their parents to have that many more children. And again, the urbanization problem was also present then as well in any case.

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