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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

People can’t compete with the infinite entertainment quality of the phone.

These trends aren’t surprising.

“Quality” is a strong word but you’re onto something. If there’s nothing to do at home, you have to go… somewhere. If there’s endless amusement at home, even if it makes you feel dead inside, you can put off the hard work of going out in the real world and meeting new people.

So the Internet/streaming becomes a crutch.

This and internet addiction are definitely more responsible than people are letting on. Also the unwillingness a lot of people have to commit and/or start families. And especially the negative marketing done towards women with respect to having children.

What exactly is the "negative marketing" that you think is manipulating women into having fewer children?

How it's expensive, how it will ruin your career, how it will destroy your body, etc. Talk to gen-Z women, many of them are inundated with this kind of thinking.

It is expensive and it is true that building most careers becomes more difficult if you take extended time off. And some women do experience extreme changes to their body. That "kind of thinking" sounds entirely fact-based, not "negative".

Seems a bit one-sided, no?

I think most people grow up with intense, sometimes overwhelming pressure to marry and start a family. Having some facts discussed on the other side of that argument seems useful and long overdue.

I mean, it's a wonder women still choose to have children. I see it is a triumph of the human spirit, because through a purely capitalist and individualist lenses having children doesn't make much sense.

Does not make much sense for a woman. Until recently, with the advent of a relatively safe society and without birth control options, they basically had no say in having children.

Now, we get to find out the market price (excluding long term externalities) of birthing a child (and child #2, 3, 4, 5, etc) without the fact of being physically weaker tilting the scales.

The day there's a large enough internet outage will feel like awaking from the Matrix.

Not for /r/DataHoarder/s. All entertainment cached locally bb. B)

Hmmm... not sure I would agree.

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