We Need More Kids

[TV and credit cards]

But if we want people to have more babies, maybe it’s the men who need to change.

I think I missed the part where it was explained why we need more babies.

To keep Social Security solvent. And someone is going to have to change out bedpans.

I'll break the news to my seven year old granddaughter because right now she's thinking astronaut.

The reason I'm most familiar with is not men blaming women or women blaming men or women blaming other women. No. The reason I'm most familiar with is people not wanting to "bring children into this world". Anyone else familiar with that statement? So, I blame the government and largely the US government as they are best suited to create a more peaceful world. Beyond that, government can create conditions conducive to family life. How do we do that you ask? Well, create conditions where a family only needs and wants a single bread winner. Push a narrative (and rightfully so) of the importance of raising children. That raising children is one of the most rewarding things a person can do. And along these same lines, convince our supreme court that a parents' right to raise their children as they see fit is the stupidest statements they've ever made. How two idiots figuring out how to fuck makes them omniscient and omnipotent for such an important task is beyond me.

I agree completely with everything you say except the bold. Parents have to be given both authority with responsibility or they will not become parents. No reasonable person wants responsibility without having authority especially raising their own progeny.

I'm not talking about anything absolute or extreme here. Educators not parents and politicians should direct the education of children. Courts should be quick to remove a child from a home when needed and cautious about returning that child. Children need protection and if it's the parents they need protection from, so be it.

 

[laughing dog]

But if we want people to have more babies, maybe it’s the men who need to change.

I think I missed the part where it was explained why we need more babies.

To keep Social Security solvent. And someone is going to have to change out bedpans.

I'll break the news to my seven year old granddaughter because right now she's thinking astronaut.

The reason I'm most familiar with is not men blaming women or women blaming men or women blaming other women. No. The reason I'm most familiar with is people not wanting to "bring children into this world". Anyone else familiar with that statement? So, I blame the government and largely the US government as they are best suited to create a more peaceful world. Beyond that, government can create conditions conducive to family life. How do we do that you ask? Well, create conditions where a family only needs and wants a single bread winner. Push a narrative (and rightfully so) of the importance of raising children. That raising children is one of the most rewarding things a person can do. And along these same lines, convince our supreme court that a parents' right to raise their children as they see fit is the stupidest statements they've ever made. How two idiots figuring out how to fuck makes them omniscient and omnipotent for such an important task is beyond me.

I agree completely with everything you say except the bold. Parents have to be given both authority with responsibility or they will not become parents. No reasonable person wants responsibility without having authority especially raising their own progeny.

People become unintended parents all the time.

Having responsibility is different than having authority. We had 4 lovely children, most of whom were not planned. We gladly accepted the mantle of responsibility for each’s well-being. But I never felt nor wanted uncontestable authority over my child-rearing decisions.

Frankly, IMO, anyone who thinks they should have absolute authority over their children shouldn’t have any at all.

 

[Toni]

But if we want people to have more babies, maybe it’s the men who need to change.

I think I missed the part where it was explained why we need more babies.

To keep Social Security solvent. And someone is going to have to change out bedpans.

I'll break the news to my seven year old granddaughter because right now she's thinking astronaut.

The reason I'm most familiar with is not men blaming women or women blaming men or women blaming other women. No. The reason I'm most familiar with is people not wanting to "bring children into this world". Anyone else familiar with that statement? So, I blame the government and largely the US government as they are best suited to create a more peaceful world. Beyond that, government can create conditions conducive to family life. How do we do that you ask? Well, create conditions where a family only needs and wants a single bread winner. Push a narrative (and rightfully so) of the importance of raising children. That raising children is one of the most rewarding things a person can do. And along these same lines, convince our supreme court that a parents' right to raise their children as they see fit is the stupidest statements they've ever made. How two idiots figuring out how to fuck makes them omniscient and omnipotent for such an important task is beyond me.

I agree completely with everything you say except the bold. Parents have to be given both authority with responsibility or they will not become parents. No reasonable person wants responsibility without having authority especially raising their own progeny.

I'm not talking about anything absolute or extreme here. Educators not parents and politicians should direct the education of children. Courts should be quick to remove a child from a home when needed and cautious about returning that child. Children need protection and if it's the parents they need protection from, so be it.

I have slightly mixed feelings about that because removing kids from families where there is abuse or serious neglect very much hinges upon the availability of good, high quality, foster homes for those children. Some of whom will be teens. And most of the time, kids want to reunite with their parents, even if their parents have been abusive. Bouncing kids from home to home does not do any of them much good,

 

[bilby]

Your belief that economic activity requires the use of natural resources is simply false.

I believe an economic system using NO natural resources is not possable.

I agree. That doesn't change my position one iota.

 

[steve_bank]

I love kids, as long as they are somebody else's....

Adding to the issue is the cultural shift promoting wome;'s full participation in the work force.

And men failing to pick up the slack.

And video games/screens in general.

I am not making a value judgment or starting a battle of the sexes.

Starting in the 60s as sex norms were changed on sex outside of marriage STDs went up.

The idea of the nuclear family was taken apart.

'Social Justice' with good intentions can have negative side effects. One of them is kids.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

If governments were serious about helping people have kids, then they would introduce measures such as having big corporations have in-house creches for their employees' very young children. Also non-profit communal childcare for very young children.

 

[DBT]

Stop building houses

That would be stupid.

We'd end up with no houses.

You miss the point in an attempt to make a point, which makes it a pointless effort.

 

[DBT]

Our 'economy' represents our activity in life, our need for housing, food, transport, mining, logging, fishing, farming, making money, etc, etc.

Yes, and economic growth is growth in GDP, measured in dollars.

And as the planet and its resources, arable land, etc, is finite, perpetual growth is not possible.

That follows ONLY if you cannot increase GDP without increasing resource use. Can you demonstrate that this is true?

(Hint: You cannot, because it's not true).

Buying and downloading new software for your computer is one example of an economic activity which increases GDP, but which requires no additional resource use to achieve. High speed share trading is another example. Thinking is an economic activity (if you can find someone to pay you to do it). Most jobs, and all really high-paid jobs, in the developed world are mostly thinking.

A person needs the exact same resources to live, whether he thinks or not.

Given that there are ways to increase GDP with no increase in resource use, your claim "perpetual growth is not possible" is demonstrably untrue of economic growth.

It doesn't matter that it is true of population growth or of resource use growth. Those things can only be relevant if they are always and unavoidably required for GDP growth, and at least since the Industrial Revolution, they have not been.

Economic growth has massively outstripped both population and resource use growth for at least two centuries now, and the gap between them is rapidly widening as we move to an information economy.

Your belief that economic activity requires the use of natural resources is simply false.

Thinking doesn't provide food, shelter or money in the bank.

That takes converting thought into action, and it is the action that requires physical resources.

Which may entail a steady state economy which provides for our needs and is sustainable in the long terms....or following the unsustainable notion of perpetual growth and risking either boom and bust cycles or eventually, a catastrophic ecological collapse.

 

[Tigers!]

Less useless posts on IIDB?

FEWER.

I saved one (1) letter/character.

And you knew exactly what I meant.

 

[Tigers!]

Reporting from China and Japan shows the same problem with birth rate. In China and Japan young people are choosing career over kids.

Not enough young workers to support older generations.

China has tried offering cash rewards and promoting single women to have kids, with little effect.

Russia as well.

Yes but Russia needs cannon fodder

 

[Swammerdami]

I'd need to seem some links supporting this. Seems to me that high birth rate areas (Africa, mid-east) are very poor with poor economic growth; lower population growth areas are doing well (Japan, South Korea, Europe) and etc.

I will NOT comment (in this post) on prosperity or public policy, etc. I just raise a nitpick about the arithmetic of "economic growth" and a reminder to be careful about terminology. From  List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate we find the following economic growth rates:

• Senegal 8.4%
• Rwanda 6.5%
• Papua New Guinea 4.6%
• Thailand 1.8%
• United States 1.8%
• Switzerland 0.9%
• Japan 0.6%
• Germany 0.0%
• Austria -0.3%

 List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_per_capita_growth gives a different picture, but still much different than I'd have expected:

• Libya 8.9%
• Rwanda 5.9%
• Turkey 4.7%
• Eswatini 4.0%
• Russia 3.9%
• United States 2.4%
• Uganda 2.4%
• Japan 2.2%
• Thailand 1.9%
• Denmark 1.7%
• South Korea 1.3%
• Germany 0.4%
• Switzerland -0.5%
• Austria -1.9%
• East Timor -19.0%

 

[bigfield]

Thinking doesn't provide food, shelter or money in the bank.

Does for me.

And as I get better at thinking, my productivity grows, and I get paid more money. Meanwhile, I don't consume any more food or shelter, although I would like to get double glazed windows.

 

[DBT]

Thinking doesn't provide food, shelter or money in the bank.

Does for me.

And as I get better at thinking, my productivity grows, and I get paid more money. Meanwhile, I don't consume any more food or shelter, although I would like to get double glazed windows.

You are saying that there is no need to put thought to action? You merely think and the money appears? I'd say that thought without action produces nothing, that it is the productivity that results from thought that is putting money into your pocket.

 

[bigfield]

Thinking doesn't provide food, shelter or money in the bank.

Does for me.

And as I get better at thinking, my productivity grows, and I get paid more money. Meanwhile, I don't consume any more food or shelter, although I would like to get double glazed windows.

You are saying that there is no need to put thought to action? You merely think and the money appears? I'd say that thought without action produces nothing, that it is the productivity that results from thought that is putting money into your pocket.

It's the ones and zeroes I produce that people pay me for, because those artefacts express my solutions to problems.

That's basically just thinking for money. Same goes for any number of knowledge workers whose job is Goes on the Computer.

 

[unapologetic]

It's the ones and zeroes I produce that people pay me for, because those artefacts express my solutions to problems.

That's basically just thinking for money. Same goes for any number of knowledge workers whose job is Goes on the Computer.

Wern't we talking global GDP? Your personal finances are irrelevant. SOMBODY needs to do tangable work.

 

[pood]

It's the ones and zeroes I produce that people pay me for, because those artefacts express my solutions to problems.

That's basically just thinking for money. Same goes for any number of knowledge workers whose job is Goes on the Computer.

Wern't we talking global GDP? Your personal finances are irrelevant. SOMBODY needs to do tangable work.

Global GDP can be decoupled from constantly rising resource use or constantly rising population.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I love kids, as long as they are somebody else's....

Adding to the issue is the cultural shift promoting wome;'s full participation in the work force.

And men failing to pick up the slack.

And video games/screens in general.

I am not making a value judgment or starting a battle of the sexes.

Starting in the 60s as sex norms were changed on sex outside of marriage STDs went up.

The idea of the nuclear family was taken apart.

Some would argue that this was what happened in the late 19th century when divorce became more common. People like to point to particular points where the social fabric unraveled. Like in the 80s and 90s when judicial force was used more on black males, leading to a serious increase in black male incarceration. The nuclear family didn't dissolve. That women might not need to "settle" so early isn't the end of the social fabric of our society.

'Social Justice' with good intentions can have negative side effects. One of them is kids.

What negative side effects? I think the largest issue facing children today is the proliferation of mass shootings in school, requiring all kids to have to 'duck and cover' in drills.

 

[bigfield]

It's the ones and zeroes I produce that people pay me for, because those artefacts express my solutions to problems.

That's basically just thinking for money. Same goes for any number of knowledge workers whose job is Goes on the Computer.

Wern't we talking global GDP? Your personal finances are irrelevant. SOMBODY needs to do tangable work.

Knowledge work is a service that people buy. It grows GDP just by generating an increasing amount of information that people demand, and getting better at making that information.

Those services doesn't need to be used to make more material stuff or consume more resources. They just have to become increasingly valuable to their customers. One way to do that is to continually get better at providing the service.

 

[bigfield]

The idea of the nuclear family was taken apart.

It wasn't a great idea in the first place.

"It takes a village to raise a child."

 

[unapologetic]

It wasn't a great idea in the first place.

The 'nuclear family' was promited by the cults to keep offspring within the cult. Partialy isolate and indoctranate within small 'family' units.
More recent cults isolate members from family as well.
Note, I am not saying cults invented the idea. Just made larger, diverse units 'sinful'.