8 Comments

It's not a technology problem. It's the western attitude that human life isn't just worthless, but a negative. Hence the acceptance of abortion and the killing of 17-25% of the children in the womb. Because if born, they'll be a dreadful burden on those women.

As well as, feminism (we're all feminists now) and the mass entry of women into the workforce and making their own money combined with placing them in sole control of reproduction. The vast majority of women want to get together with men they view as higher status ( by looks and/or status and/or resources) they find 80% of men unattractive, and only the top 5% attractive enough to pursue. They don't need a guy to support them, and will continue to only want to have kids with those men. They don't see family as a goal-- only a part of getting into a relationship with the right man.

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In the long run I'm imagining people's health spans being longer. As in they have the health of a 30 something uptill their 70s. This might cause people to have two sets of kids. Two when they are in their 30s and another set when they are in their 60s.

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Do you really have 7 children? How do you manage to write as much?

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We could probably have higher fertility in the U.S. and much of Europe just through liberalizing the land-use regimes: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21154/w21154.pdf. Lower the cost of housing and thus lower the cost of additional children.

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I'd still rather focus on things that will reduce or eliminate the downdraft of falling fertility on per capital growth [https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/population-fear-of-falling]

If there is a feedback from growth to fertility, so much the better.

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I find it absurd that people want a smaller population size. This is why I describe myself as an eco modernist and not a conservationist. The ideal fertility rate would be at least 2.5-3.5. Good on you for having 7 kids BTW.

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A cultural change might be useful would be men doing a larger share of child rearing activities. There seems be a strong correlation in OCED countries that this leads to a higher fertility rate.

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