Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft

>Society is really fine!

Any healthy, long-term viable society has to prioritize one task above all others... making the replacement people that will be society once the current people die. Your society (if you choose to claim it) doesn't do this. Sub-replacement fertility. It's dying because of this. If you think that's fine, go for it.

>I live among millions of people every day

Sure. And each generation is about half the size of the previous. It will look fine, even crowded for awhile yet.

>I understand you're coming from a very American-specific point of view,

This is global. China has sub-replacement fertility. Korea and Japan have sub-replacement fertility. Europe has it, South America has it, India may have finally crept below replacement, but if it hasn't yet it will next year or the year after. This is everywhere. There's not a hidden corner of the world where it's not happening.

tokioyoyo 3 days ago

You judge people by the amount of kids they have? So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around?

Interesting take, if that’s the only way you look at people, and whether you want to be around them or not.

I agree we have fertility problems, but if people don’t have kids, well, that’s so not my business. Every person is different and has their priorities. If a person wants to have 0 or 10 kids, god speed to them.

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jacobgkau 3 days ago

> So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around?
Wow, what a strawman. No, that's not what he said.
What I will say, though, is if a "couple" has no kids (and does not plan to), they aren't contributing to continuing society and should not receive tax or other marriage benefits.
That's not a punishment, it's treating them the same as everyone else because they have the same burdens as anyone else (and can already take advantage of pooling resources for their earthly pleasure without society bankrolling it). Tax and other financial structure benefits for married couples were meant to encourage and support the raising of families (continuing society), and between several different (and individually well-meaning) social movements, we've lost the plot over the last half-century. Marriage has turned into "best friends with benefits +," which, again, is fine for people to choose if they want to see it that way, but does not deserve any subsidies.

Reply View | 4 replies
- tokioyoyo 3 days ago
  
  You understand that majority of people still want to get married, and have a kid? And eventually most do. The problem with fertility is, nobody wants to have >=3 kids because of multiple reasons. So, society, by large, is fine, and people are decent even by weird standards that have been mentioned in this thread.
  Anyways, I have no idea how this conversation eventually became a "everyone should have a ton of kids because otherwise society is doomed!", because my entire point was "by large, people are nice, we should strive to be around them, and learn from each other, instead of trying to actively exclude ourselves because we are better than them".
  
  Reply View | 3 replies
  
  jacobgkau 3 days ago
  
  You simply don't understand math if you think that every couple (or even most couples, in practice) having only a single child is sustainable to infinity. You are the only person here who brought up the 3 number; 2 on average is (very obviously) all that's needed to sustain a population, and you chose a higher number (and applied it to the individual instead of as an average) to make the argument look unreasonable.
  Also, your assertion that "eventually most do" have at least one kid is already close to statistically false in the US, and if current trends continue, will be false very soon (with the story being the same, or much worse, in all other first-world countries). Go check out /r/ChildFree on Reddit if you want to see just one of the many social movements surrounding this.
  
  Reply View | 2 replies