> The obsession with their birth rates is one of the creepy reasons why young people don't want to go out.

I'm a bit confused here, as someone who doesn't go out and never did. Do young people get accosted about generational birth rates if they go out?

I think public discussion of whether you are having "enough" sex and "enough" babies to satisfy some oligarch or technocrat's vision of how the world should be, while not specifically deterring people going out, contributes to a general gross vibe which I could imagine doesn't help people want to get out there and mingle.

But I do think this is overstated. I have a small number of children and the main reason that we don't have more is that its incredibly expensive over the course of a lifetime to raise a child who isn't going to be some wage slave somewhere or worse, end up in poverty and treated like shit by the world. If our society was genuinely dedicated to allowing a slower pace of life and ensuring the unconditional dignity of human beings, we'd probably have more kids, but having more now feels like pitching them into the meat grinder.

The main discussion is on replacement rates. If this get too low, civilization eventually collapses.

It's not really a 'vision' and more like the end of humanity.

no, it doesn't. With the labor productivity and automation, it is not obvious we need to maintain the current population, especially because the current social contract seems to be working class being exploited by oligarchs, while their taxes go fund boomers' retirement and overseas wars

And don't forget that the constant growth mentality is causing widespread ecocide which will almost certainly bring an end to society anyway.

How is it supposed to work when every working age person has two retirees to support?

Probably like: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kaelon

Just need to re-evaluate things once we hit post-scarcity.

I think I would not like to perform the ättestupa.

the Boomers need to pull themselves by their bootstraps (c)

This seems like a self correcting problem.

In the past, women who didn't really want children didn't have a great deal of choice, particularly if they wanted to follow any kind of socially acceptable life. It was considered a failure to many if they didn't get a husband and children.

Therefore there was no particular evolutionary pressure to select for women who actually had a strong biological urge to have children.

But there is now, so after a few generations you end up with mostly those women having children, that genetically passed on desire becomes more prominent, and birth rates increase again. Until overpopulation becomes a new version of the problem people thought it would be previously.

That is not how evolution and natural selection works.

>Therefore there was no particular evolutionary pressure to select for women who actually had a strong biological urge to have children.

It is possible to that a biological disposition to have children sufficient to outweigh other factors do not emerge in a sufficient timespan.

This is as absurdly linear a vision of history as any traditional Marxist might conjure up.

Society has a lot of feedback systems in place which make a total collapse sort of unusual. A slow down of technological progress while society re-allocates labor towards other ends seems like a much more reasonable outcome.

I assure you, as a young person, nobody has ever commented on my birth rate when I went out.

No one implied they would, but the thread you're commenting on literally begins with an abstract discussion about using the law to coerce you into having a more "positive" birth rate.

So what is it that you’re saying is keeping younger people from getting out? Just the knowledge that there may be people out in the world with them who are creepily obsessing over their birth rate?

Already getting dopamine in other ways.

Apathy resulting from being treated and talked about like cattle, raised and bred to feed the machine of capitalism while they watch it destroy the world around them.

But it doesn't, does it?

For one, the question was merely whether we'd observe an increased birth rate, not whether that is a reason to pass such a law.

Secondly, you're the one who's bringing up coercion. You can both not be on social media and not have kids. It's still your decision.

The comment I responded to was specifically talking about "banning social media" and their confidence this would have a "positive" impact on birth rates, despite the clear preferences of younger people. I'm "bringing up" coercion because I'm not sure how to describe such policies and intentions otherwise?

> despite the clear preferences of younger people

But the assertion was not that young people have a 'clear preference' not to have children, it was that they just have a clear preference to engage in a behaviour that, as a side-effect, lowers birth rates.

> we both understand

I'm assuming that you're not doing this intentionally, but by asserting that I "understand" the commenter is trying to 'coerce [me] into having a more positive "positive" birth rate', a notion that I still disagree with, you're suggesting that I'm being intentionally obtuse. Please don't do that.

> the assertion was not that young people have a 'clear preference' not to have children,

No, and the comment indeed ignored the very visibly growing "child free" movement popular with the younger generations in a way that framed it as unintentional.

> it was that they just have a clear preference to engage in a behaviour that, as a side-effect, lowers birth rates.

I understood this as well but if we're going to be picky about what was actually said then your use of "just" is unfair here. They actually didn't go one way or the other in it being coincidental or intentional.

> by asserting that I "understand" the commenter is trying to 'coerce [me] ...

I haven't implied this. I asserted that you understood that singling out the effect on birth rates over the effect on chocolate sales wasn't done arbitrarily. Did you understand that? Framing it as "just asking questions" obscures the obvious socio-political undertones and feels dishonest.

> No, and the comment indeed ignored the very visibly growing "child free" movement popular with the younger generations in a way that framed it as unintentional.

Not really. There are still young people who don't intentionally choose not to have children. Their birth rates might or might not increase without social media.

> your use of "just" is unfair here.

Fair enough, I'll concede that.

> I asserted that you understood that singling out the effect on birth rates over the effect on chocolate sales wasn't done arbitrarily.

Because birth rates are much more relevant to the topic at hand than chocolate sales, no? More loneliness almost necessarily translates into lower birth rates while you can eat chocolate alone or with others.

Ok then use an example of tandem bicycles. Lonelier people are less likely to buy those. Why aren't we talking about that? Why aren't we asking the question of whether or not banning social media could have a positive impact on the tandem industry?

Mostly because cedws is apparently more interested in birth rates than in tandem sales. Personally, I can't say I fault them for that and don't understand why that's a problem because, going back to my original point, they're not suggesting that people who don't want children should be forced to have children.

They're suggesting using the law the limit people's alternatives. You might not call it coercive but it's paternalistic at best. It's using the state apparatus and the monopoly of violence to limit people's choices in such a way that they're encouraged to choose to breed. I'll stand by what I said: it's creepy.

It’s my perception that’s there’s been a negative reaction to pressure on younger people to have kids for a while now.

As a mid 30s millennial, it sure did feel weird back in my early 20s when older people from my rural hometown asked why I hadn’t found someone to marry and started a family yet. I had yet to even figure out who I was and how to be responsible, upstanding adult but somehow I’m supposed to take on a partner and N children too?! How does that make any sense? The chances of it ending in disaster of one sort or another are just too high, and that was obvious to me even in the midst of the naivety of a freshly minted adult.

Flash forward to today, and yes I’d like to do those things but I’m now in so much better of a position to do so that it’s difficult to even express. I’m glad I didn’t succumb to the pressure.

Because early 20s is biologically the best age to have kids. You are at your most fertile, best chance for no complications and having healthy offspring, you still have pretty boundless energy to take care of them.

Sure, but that’s one of many factors to consider. Are the improved chances of healthy kids really worth it if it comes at greatly elevated risk of financial duress, where all that extra energy is spent working multiple jobs to keep a roof over everybody’s heads? Is it worth the risk of divorce when you or your spouse get a better feel for yourselves in your late 20s and figure out you’re not actually that well suited for each other?

I’m sure that there are individuals who have all that sorted before their mid-20s, but that’s anything but a rule and nobody should feel pressured to make the leap at that age.

Yeah but the people who have kids in their early 20s are largely not people who worry about having life all figured out. They are more go with the flow types. There's something to be said for it. The best intended plans do not survive first contact with reality.

I agree that plans rarely work out, but this isn’t about planning nearly as much as it is about avoiding worst case outcomes and unnecessary struggle, which getting started later is generally conducive to (divorce rates in couples married in their late 20s/early 30s are lower than those who were wed in their early to mid 20s, as an example).

As someone in their mid 20s, I agree with you. I think we're mostly more worried about our material conditions, having a future and a roof over our heads and surviving in the long term. I'm not even going to think about potentially having kids before I feel that those concerns are somewhat addressed.

ditto. I have talked about it before with someone who shared the opinion that falling birth rates is the end of the world, but to single that out is creepy indeed. I do understand that it can be seen as a symptom of decay, but when I them people on why exactly birth rates are so important, it does seem like they implied a sort of existential thesis where procreation is supposedly the end goal.