I'd propose that if you can't give your children a good life you shouldn't have them. It seems a comfortingly large chunk of the world agrees to some degree.

>if you can't give your children a good life you shouldn't have them

Which brings us neatly back to dropping fertility is driven by the divergence between salary and cost of housing. Bunch of young people looking at their budget and concluding society has made it impossible for them to provide said good life to a potential offspring

If you want the thread to do a couple of laps I'm game - this is the point where I point out homelessness was the normal standard of living for most of humanities evolutionary history. People are demanding a standard for their children that only the tinyest of slivers of prior generation has been capable of providing. If any were at all, after accounting for standards of medical care.

Being unable to afford a home isn't the major factor here, that has pretty much always been a factor. It is standards, priorities and options changing.

You seem dense and fairly committed to not seeing the fact that we've pretty much tapped the developable wilds, and set bars so high in terms of barriers of economic entry you can't just plop out a kid and rely on opportunity existing anymore. My grandmother was one of 13 children reared on a farm. Each of them could meaningfully contribute to the operation of the farm back then in ways that would be non-starters today, and for a myriad of good reasons. There was a smaller population to carry, higher attrition rates, more and deadlier wars, and many other factors.

Also, ffs, it's called resource crunch and wealth centralization, and I'm not entirely convinced we aren't staring down the smoldering barrel of some serious shit Stateside over the next decade.

Be the change you want to see.

Have 12 children in homelessness and prove to us that it is a better way to live life.

If you want it for others but not for yourself, you are just being hypocritical.

Well, you might think that is an acceptable standard of living. I don't.

Great counter argument to GP:

> this is the point where I point out homelessness was the normal standard of living for most of humanities evolutionary history.

Oh wait, that was you.

Yeah. I can repeat the same point a 3rd time if you think that will help? I haven't changed my mind.

I can repeat myself ad eternum too.

If you think it is acceptable to be homeless with plenty of children because evolution, you should do it yourself. Be the change you want to see.

Since I have little interest in keeping up this cycle with someone that is incidentally (or worse, purposefully) too dense to understand basic contradictions, I'll leave you to have the last word.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Gotta say, I can understand one or two levels of commenting persisting in misreading something but this level of commitment to it has me confused.

1) I never said that it was acceptable to be homeless with lots of children. (1a) You've tried and failed to find a quote where I did, so I know you've read what I wrote and can't source that belief to anything I actually said; even stripped of context.

2) Misreading a comment is something that happens, so y'know, ok no worries maybe I wrote an unclear one. But I've explicitly told you I don't believe that. And it is a crazy belief that nobody holds so I don't know why it would be a hard thing to accept after a few clarifying words.

3) Third time a charm. In the article we've got a 100-word abstract that lays the position out nice and clearly. The major factor here is not house prices, it is changing - shifting if you will - priorities. We've had situations where house prices were absurdly high in the past - for most of our evolutionary history a house has been an unattainable luxury and fertility was off the charts by modern standards. High house prices are obviously not a root cause.

you two people are not speaking the same language. it's kinda hilarious.