literally cooking there
but it’s true. what do we care about other people’s decisions as long as they don’t affect us
old societies have old voters, too little work force to for example keep up infrastructure, slow innovation/progress, and a dyeing countryside,
these are all downward spirals
So are climate change, limited resources, and dependence on synthetic ammonia to feed half the world.
If we massage the issue of a bad ratio of young to old then we face other arguably worse problems in different areas. IMO, just rip the bandaid off. It’s the previous generations’ fault for putting us in this situation to start with, they can suffer for it.
Also, miss me with that infrastructure bullshit. Industrialization allows 1 person to do the work of ten or even a hundred. It’s not like having more kids will increase the number of doctors, electricians, or forklift certified individuals: the numbers of each are strictly controlled by governments and organizations.
But they outnumber us and they vote for themselves.
We will outnumber those younger than us too when we get there. Will we continue the increasingly unsustainable pensions for ourselves that we had to pay for our entire working lives for those before us?
Fuck me it looks bleak, no wonder people ain’t having kids. Fuck all support because it’s all going on the elderly.
Fuck em, they can’t vote more kids into existence no matter how much they try.
They can vote to make us pay for them to have higher pensions than ever, and make it difficult for us to ever own a home.
Look around, pal. That’s not a threat it’s just an observation. At this point any vote to tax the lower brackets is a vote to squeeze blood from stones. Clearly there is a lot more blood at the top to start skimming, Elon Musk is on track to become the first official Trillionaire.
There’s no ‘They’ You’re part of the game too. Now worker, in few decades retiree
And when the time comes for me to retire I will promote a lower population for the many ethical and responsible reasons to do so. When the time comes for me to claim pensions, social security, IRA withdrawals, etc I will be advocating redistributing the wealth of the nations top earners. I will never, ever, be stupid enough to blame salary workers for not having the capability of sharing their meager earnings with me on their own.
The problem is money (always money!), who is paying for the pensions of the old people? Workers, hospitals? Workers etc etc, if the ratio of workers and non-workers isn’t 1:1 or higher then there is an escalation of problems
Maybe it’s not a problems in countries like USA were the goverment is more than happy to let people die on the streets and there isn’t taxes for public sanity and pensions
I told everyone to miss me with that infrastructure bullshit. 1:1? More like 1:100.
Did you know that if SpaceX receives a pending government contract he could be on track to become the world’s first official Trillionaire? We got money for that but not meals on wheels? USA was at one point one of the better examples of welfare, actually. Very few nations on earth have the same track record of citizens being fed consistently and be guaranteed social security and medical coverage, though lately they’re falling behind Europe.
Not everyone talks about USA.
Also USA fucking sucks, there aren’t even public hospitals, i have a bunch of friends from USA and not a single one of them lives well in there.
Or even just take care of the old people. Medical professionals and people to run nursing homes, etc
The Boomers taught us to pull up the ladder once we got ours so reap what you sow
Sounds like a problem for those who rely on stealing the labour value of others to maintain their wealth and power.
Brother it’s a problem for the pension system
Yeah isn’t that what they said?
The pension system in its current scheme is an unsustainable pyramid scheme that is gonna collapse sooner or later anyways. Our population can’t grow forever.
If wealth was distributed more fairly (doesn’t even have to be close to equal) we could halve our employment numbers and still have a workforce big enough to sustain our standard of living. Covid lock downs have shown how many people actually have jobs that matter for society, and how many have bullshit jobs
Brother im gonna live in my car and kill myself when i get too old and sick. Fuck the pension system.
Young people are needed because they are the only ones creating any value worth taxing or stealing.
BUT! There are more old people than young people, so democratically we skew policy towards “fuck young people”.
This means young people emigrate and not reproduce, so the country starts spiraling into economic oblivion.
So… we blame young people and move policy even further towards “fuck young people” while hoping that immigrants will emigrate away after they are done adding value we can steal. Spoiler - they will not emigrate.
It’s almost as if you neglect young people’s needs, you get fewer. Who could’ve known.
A situation that is avoidable turned into a hell scape for young people. And as fascism engulfs us, all the blame gets put on the youngest who speak out.
This neglect is what fundamentally will lead us into fascism. Laws are already there, the young in Australia & UK already feel the effects of suppression of speech. And the hatered towards this lack of trust is growing within all impacted age groups.
I don’t think this situation has been avoidable.
According to the rules of democracy country should pivot towards the interests of majority. As majority ages, this means that country policy should start favoring old people… because if it doesn’t they will just vote in someone who will.
I read this as “bitch rates” lmao
Good news, those are going waaaay up!
OPs Mom is back in town?
No, I am.
Unironically yeah, tho.
Damn it, missed out on something else!
Declining birthrates are a good thing for sustainability. But it’s a generally a bad thing for the older generation as they need the economic and societal support of the younger generation.
Can’t be a pyramid scheme unless the base keeps growing.
The decline in birthrate is also catastrophic for the “infinite growth theory” adhered to by the “line go up” crowd. I fear that unless drastic things are done to compensate, it will lead to outcomes that translate to terrible living conditions and compounding population decline.
I think the rich and the policy makers have this fantasy that if things get bad enough, it will trigger increased procreation, but just the opposite, actually.
I guess they’ll learn whether they can eat money.
We are so much more productive nowadays and so much more could be automated. With a fair wealth distribution, we could easily retain our standard of living despite our declining population. Could.
I would argue yes, but to a point. Should the population continue to be below replacement, that would still fail, unless we get the “best case AI situation” where it acts as a benevolent godlike intelligence that makes robots for us and runs off of renewable energy and sodium ion batteries or something.
That’s actually the way
Edit: okay, I will explain for those unaware: an economy that needs more and more people/resources to function is a disaster in making. So instead of multiplying like idiots we should re-make how we live on this planet
I don’t care because I want the human race to go away. We are not the same.
Used to be we needed the youth for service jobs and manual labor, but with AI and robotics, it’s not really a problem,
But robots don’t have babies, silly 🤭.
And a human kid would never let me order 10,000 cups of water!
AI hit a dead end in the 1970s but the robotics is neat. I really like the ones that run on rails to pick products out of bins, I saw an automated grocery store like that once and it was amazing.
Someone can have mine if they want.
Read an article about Sweden the other day which is considered one of the best places to have kids in the world and is still struggling with low birthrate. People are not having kids because they have better things to do. That’s it.
There’s only one solution for this: kid farms. Governments need to pay women to have babies that will grow up in state run institutions. The only problem is that’s a terrible idea.
Elon musk already tried that.
He put himself out to stud at least
I didn’t know Elon tried creating kid farms. Do you have more info about it?
Well… there should be a “right now” included in all discussions about birth rates. Case in point: Sweden. There is birth data from 1749 and examining that data show 2 distinct time periods, roughly before and after ww1. Before ww1, fairly even birthrates, after early 1800 increasing (to rather high level). Swedens last war ended 1812. After ww1 decline in birth rates, but an obvious 25 year long cycle instead. Last time there were black headlines about birth rates was 1999-2000. Sure enough 25 years ago and nothing to suggest that the long time trend has been broken. When the most recent slump in birth rates began all preschools and schools were full to the brim.
You need somone to be born to have your retirement. But that’s unimportant right?
Retirement? In this economy? You and I live in different worlds.
I don’t need one? Pensions should be abolished
And who’s going to produce the stuff you need once you won’t work anymore?
