[ExI] Birthrate falling worldwide - not just in the developed nations

[efc at disroot.org]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024, BillK via extropy-chat wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 at 15:29, efc--- via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> Based on what I have seen related to this problem in sweden, and very
>> subjectively thinking about acquaintances, old colleagues and others who
>> have 0 or 1 child, the reasons are:
>>
>> * Falling biological fertility rates, general difficulty to actually
>>    have children.
>>
>> * Too expensive and too much sacrifice of lifestyle. They prefer
>>    traveling enjoying life, not having to care for a child with all that
>>    means in terms of punishing your career at work.
>>
>> * The wife forced one child into the world, with or without the will of
>>    the father, and after discovering the amount of screaming, sleepless
>>    nights etc. they both decided to never again go through that
>>    experience.
>>
>> I think, those are the most common reasons when thinking back to people
>> I know with 0 or 1 child in a fairly rich country with social security
>> and day care services funded by the government.
>>
>> I wonder if evolution, after a pause, will adjust for and naturally make
>> sure that the ones who do survive have a stronger sense of caring and a
>> need to procreate?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Daniel
>> _______________________________________________
>
>
> As Adrian says, evolution is probably too slow to have a significant effect.
> While economies will have problems with not enough young workers to
> support an ageing population, there is also the problem that the
> military will not have enough younger people to fight extended land
> wars.
> The robots will have to fight our wars as well as run our factories.
> The aged humans will help to look after the few grandchildren around.
>

On the other hand, perhaps culture will determine it? If you grow up in a 
family with parents who actually enjoy having children, perhaps you are 
more likely to want to have children yourself?

As for lack of workers, and retirement pyramid schemes, this does not 
worry me at all. I am convinced that automation, robots, and a society 
where more people pay for their own needs will solve those problems.