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Comment by goethes_kind | Hacker News Reader

Complete nonsense. People naturally do want to have kids. It is just very expensive to have them both in terms of time and energy. I do not know a single person my age (30) who thinks of kids as retirement insurance.

Frankly speaking, if I never get to have kids, I couldn't care less what happens to me when I'm an old fart, ideally I would never reach that age at all.

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But if they are deciding not to have kids because they are expensive, doesnt that ultimately mean they dont want to have kids?

Let's take the semantics out of it. People are deciding to have kids less frequently. Obviously there are reasons for it.

Having kids you cannot afford is immoral.

Is going into a career that doesn’t pay enough to survive without public assistance immoral? What about not moving to a lower cost of living area?

One can make such arguments, but that having kids that one cannot afford is immoral is much more immediately evident. I mean it here, primarily in the sense that it will harm the kids themselves, and not in the sense that it will burden the wider society.

In most developed countries, there wouldn’t be any direct harm. The state would step in and make up the difference for necessities.

> I do not know a single person my age (30) who thinks of kids as retirement insurance.

Well of course, because they don't need it due to the fact that it's already there in the form of socialized retirement.

Remove socialized retirement , pension funds etc. and people will start having more kids as they'd start seeing them as a retirement insurance yet again. As they were seen for the whole history of mankind (and still are in high fertility countries).

It's time we face the fact that people don't make kids out of love but out of need. If you remove the need and you'd remove the kids, which is what is happening.

There is still need for kids for socialized retirement. They are required to fund it. But now it's a social need instead of an individual need. Not having kids is the entire society's problem. Let's see what people have to say about you not having kids. Are they OK with it? Do they think you should be having kids? How many?

> Not having kids is the entire society's problem

So is tax evasion, CO2 emissions etc. What are the odds of being audited by the IRS ? What are the odds of being punished for illegally burning weeds? What are the odds of being punished for modifying your semi diesel engine so that you can do the "rolling coal" thing?

When you move from the level of the individual up to the level of society at large, solving problems (or in this case situations that certain people deem as problems) becomes harder not easier.

Good luck trying to force people to have kids and police people's penises and vaginas. Besides it's not even necessary...Nigeria and sub-saharan Africa will take care of that "problem" much like China takes care of the iPhone production problem now.

That's why categories exist. The first world can't do the job of the third world and vice versa, each should do their own job.

You are talking complete nonsense. If you care so much about your retirement (I don't and don't know anyone my age who does, beyond putting some $ in savings), you would still need kids, because there is nothing more sad and lonesome than a poor old fart stuck in an old people's home who never gets visitors. I wouldn't wish that fate on my worst enemies.

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