You are vastly overestimating how many children people have.
equality
The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
I read this, and I think of my wife. She does not earn a wage outside the home - and yet, she controls much more than 50% of the household income.
What is that, if not compensation? The fact that my name is the one on the check does not mean that the money is "mine". We've voluntarily agreed to combine our resources in order to raise a family.
While I don't agree with much of what you say, you're presenting your ideas in a thoughtful and respectful manner, so I don't personally feel they should be killed.
Those comments were flagged for good reasons, in the most positive from it is detestable that someone would try to use HN as a platform to advocate the exact opposite of what HN should attempt to stand for, in a more negative form this is simply trolling. As a result of not flagging comments like these I'd expect HN female participation to drop and eventually you'd see fewer female YC founders.
Which is exactly what the GP seems to desire since that increases the chances of them to fulfill their reproductive duty to mankind or whatever he feels it is they should be doing instead.
Novelty accounts spouting non-sensical flame-bait viewpoints relegating 50% of the population to bearing a minimum of 4 to 5 children (see other comments by the same user) are rightly flagged, they're not the kind of thing we should either tolerate or encourage.
That people trying to advocate such viewpoints play 'by the rules' to couch their trash in 'a thoughtful and respectful wrapper' goes past the fact that the 'flag' option is there for more reasons than just the tone of a comment (for instance, to flag flame-bait content), besides that comments that solely complaint about downvotes or flags are off-topic.
So here we are.
Fewer YC female founders as a result of this thread? Seriously????
And maybe it should.
As for your edit: yes, exactly. That's the sort of thing that will eventually result if you condone this sort of trash, it won't happen overnight but it definitely will happen.
"Nonsense" "Trash" "Drivel"
You're not OK with opinions that vary from your own. You language is pretty clear on that point.
(source she-conomy.com)
In single income families, the income is shared, the household or domestic partners work in not uncompensated. And as to expenditures, the domestic partner, primarily the female childrearer is in charge of a huge percentage of that income, for everything from vehicle purchases, vacations, furniture, clothes, etc.
If I'm wrong, show proof.
Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contrast, I supposed an idealized situation where our fertility rates are comfortably above mere replacement, say 3 to 4 per woman. In such case, a woman with 4 children, each having 4 children, each having 4 children, will indeed have >100 descendants.
> The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
Over the past 10,000 years, we've determined a set of social constructs that solve this problem really well in the context of agrarian society: marriage (monogamous, enduring partnership between provider and carer), and religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail).
Anyway, note my quotes on "equality": try as we might, women are not men, and nobody wins by getting women to be more like men. The ideal of equality is like communism: inspiring, misleading, and impossible. No one is equal, nor should they be.
For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything.
We're not in an agrarian society, and in case you haven't noticed almost everyone gets the hell out of that situation as soon as they can when other opportunities present themselves.
a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
You say this, implying the inevitable failure of capitalism; then you oppose communism; do you really want to go straight back to feudalism?
I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential.
> a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check.
Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.
It is objective untrue that people without a religion only pursue their own interests.
FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.
Anyway, I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda with - guess what - the women only being good enough to raise kids, equality is a good thing, and the birthrate is not the problem, that's a totally separate issue.
The article, as all mainstream media on the topic too often does, has an evident bias toward the working woman in contrary to the mother. When you realize this bias in our media, you see it everywhere. This article has language like: "motherhood drags female earnings down", "they could face positive discrimination, if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children", "it could be that in same-sex couples women do not feel obliged to do as much childcare or housework, giving them more freedom to fulfil their potential in the workplace".
The message is clear (and again; it's the message delivered by our entire media): being a mother is bad, girls. Devote your life to your career -- that will give you purpose and legacy.
> I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda
The word "agenda" implies you feel a need to discredit my ideas that we as a society should have an above-replacement fertility rate. Why?
For what it's worth, I believe our dying population is a result of a much wider cultural shift; sub-replacement fertility rates are just a symptom. My 'agenda' -- I'm happy to call it that because I believe it is the defining issue of our age, and everything humanity has worked for hangs on us getting this right -- is on much baser elements.
> the women only being good enough to raise kids
Psychological and sociological research over the past 50 years has managed to confirm what humans universally knew for millennia: women have a predilection towards caring, and men have a predilection towards providing. I agree that we should avoid pigeonholing people, but you would have to have quite the cognitive dissonance to avoid recognizing this pattern among the two sexes.
With such strong predilections, it makes sense then to encourage boys and girls to aspire to different things based on their tendencies and abilities to contribute the most back to their society. Men work on the world as it is and push it forward a bit, and women ensure there is a better generation to follow -- in general. Note that recognizing and celebrating tendencies among the sexes does not require that we dictate someone's path: if a girl becomes a successful author then her husband could become the predominant carer. Whatever!
My point is that we need to ensure there are capable generations to follow. If we don't, we lose everything.
If you would like to make the case for why equality is inherently good, is worth striving for, and is achievable, I'm all ears. I'm also curious to see you support your claim that our birth rates are not problematic (or are you agreeing with me here that there are deeper issues at play?).