' Pope warns of "demographic winter," urges action to boost birth rates '

[Stress_Test]

Yep, you read that right. Get busy, ya'll. Pope's orders. 🔨

No joke, that's an actual headline for an article on the CBS website right now.

Ok, yes, he's talking about more financial / logistical support to help people start families, but dang I LOL'd at the wording of that headline!

Not sure if linking that page is allowed but if you want to read the article, just copy-paste the thread title into Google and it'll pop up.

 

[jtr1962]

I keep hearing the same gloom and doom from others, including Elon Musk. The Pope just wants to grow his flock. The message of religious leaders has always been "be fruitful and multiply" for that reason.

One thing everyone seems to be ignoring is the very real possibility we'll conquer aging and death within a generation. That'll neatly fix any demographic issues. No shortage of workers to care for old people because there won't be any more old people (physically anyway). No pressure to have babies either to keep the population from falling.

The Pope, and for that matter everyone else, who's calling for more children ignores several things. One, you need to first hook up with someone you want to have children with. This alone is no easy task. Two, you have to actually want the hassle of raising children. That's a lifetime commitment. With more and more other stuff people can choose to do, the idea of devoting your best years to child rearing seems less and less attractive. Third, you need to have the means to raise children. Considering a lot of people can barely support themselves, I'm not seeing that happening. Fourth, you both have to be good parents. Based on what I've seen in my life, I'd say upwards of 50% of people are lousy parents. Of the remaining 50% who have the temperament to be good parents, 90% simply lack the means to raise children well. So that leaves what, about 5%, who are fully capable of raising children well.

Honestly, the planet would be better off if the human race decreased in numbers, then eventually went extinct. We should have been guardians of the planet. Instead, we're destroyers of it.

 

[bykfixer]

Conquer death and aging in a generation?


Nope, probably not. And this whole notion of people "getting busy" stems from a western culture bent on self destruction. Yet the pope himself seems to condone some of the newest versions of "if it feels good do it".

Recent polling suggests an entire generation of youngsters now prefers wealth and fame over family. Used to be raising a family was in the minds of young people. Kids now see preparing a bowl of cereal as too complicated, much less raise a kid.

Sad state of affairs this western "civilization" has become. Not only that but the midern culture has been led to believe the planet is going to die in 12.... 10, no wait 9 years, so what's the point of comittment.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Same ole same ole.
"Them youngens won't ever amount to nuthin"

Consider that Christianity is borne of the desert.

 

[jtr1962]

And here's the younger crowd fighting back against the old crowd:

MSN

As far as raising a family, I think it's more like people used to do it out of societal pressure because getting married and having kids was "what you're supposed to do", not because they really wanted to. Seeing the sheer number of lousy parents, even when I was a kid, tells me a lot of these people really didn't want children. At least the younger crowd knows how to say no to doing something simply out of tradition, be it having children, or following their parent's religion. I remember saying I never want kids even back in grade school. I stuck to it. I might have wanted to get married, but even that hinged on finding the right person. Sadly, a lot of people got married by a certain age, again because of societal pressure, settling for something that was less than what they truly wanted. I'd rather stay single than be with someone I'm less than thrilled to be with.

I don't think we're going to conquer aging and death in one fell swoop. What I think will happen is we'll first find ways to at least slow aging, and relatively soon. In the absence of any new developments, that might give us 20 or 30 years more to live. However, those who are now living longer have a greater likelihood of being around when the new breakthroughs come, like being able to stop aging altogether, and eventually reverse it. But even adding 10 or 20 or 30 years to average lifespans will make the so-called demographic winter a lot less urgent.

 

[idleprocess]

Same ole same ole.
"Them youngens won't ever amount to nuthin"

A notion that goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks - who may have simply been the first to write it down.

 

[turbodog]

Yet humanity marches onward, delivering increases in quality of life for all.

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Same ole same ole.
"Them youngens won't ever amount to nuthin"

Consider that Christianity is borne of the desert.

Please expound on the last sentence. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

 

[turbodog]

Yet humanity marches onward, delivering increases in quality of life for all.

So how do I get a 'thumbs up' on my post given what you've written? It's incongruent.

And the spoiled white girl posting crap... the boomers lived through stagflation, oil crisis, 1970's cars, and finding out Liberace was gay.

 

[bykfixer]

Liberace was gay?
So it aint so.

 

[Stress_Test]

.....who is Liberace??

Anyway, I find it amusing now that the population panic pendulum (I ought to trademark that; the PPP!) has swung the other way.

Remember when all the "experts" were wringing their hands about overpopulation? A few weeks back, I was looking through my college freshman history book (from ~20 years ago) and the chapters on modern history repeatedly stated that overpopulation was the biggest threat to world stability in the future.

Now apparently it's the other way around. All the old folks are panicking because there won't be enough young folks to take care of them (both directly, and through taxes).

So apparently, living too long is a problem too. Huge chunks of the populace too old to work, but still have to be taken care of. Unless we go the Soylent Green approach, that is!!

Also, with all the insanity flooding the USA the last couple of years, I'm really really glad now that I never had kids. I for one would sure hate to be school-kid age right now!

 

[jtr1962]

So how do I get a 'thumbs up' on my post given what you've written? It's incongruent.

I assumed you were talking about humanity continually improving their situation despite the older generation saying the younger generation is no good from time immemorial.

And the spoiled white girl posting crap... the boomers lived through stagflation, oil crisis, 1970's cars, and finding out Liberace was gay.

The girl has some valid points, like the fact housing didn't cost a huge fraction of an average paycheck when boomers were starting out. My parents lived through all those things. Yet they were still able to buy a house with just my father working for most of my childhood (mom went back to work when I was about 10 but she went out on disability about ten years later). Both of my parents had pensions also. Common for older baby boomers and my parent's generation, almost unheard of these days except for government jobs.

Most of the criticism from her generation though is that the boomers are the greediest generation in history. Everything they did which advantaged them they got rid of for the next generations. Some examples:

1) They spent their youth getting high but once they got in power they passed draconian drug laws, even for small amounts of pot.
2) Many didn't bother repaying their student loans but they made it virtually impossible for the following generations to get out of that.
3) As youths they fought for a social safety net. Once they started making lots of money they resented paying the taxes these programs cost. Enter trickle down economics, which is really just a way to convince average working stiffs to support lower tax rates on the wealthy.
4) When they got in charge of businesses, they systematically got rid of pensions, let compensation grow slower than inflation, etc.
5) They killed many viable companies by cutting to the bone in exchange for short-term profits which made them look good to Wall Street. By the time these companies went under, they moved on to the next victim.
6) They cut funding for public transit, forcing people to own cars even in places where one wasn't needed at one time. Their formative years may have been spent on the open road with little traffic. Once everyone started driving, it became a lot slower and less pleasant.

There's a lot more than that actually:

Wonder why everything is so expensive these days? It's because boomers got greedy.

Boomers' greed is to blame for high prices and crippling shortages — and now millennials and Gen Z are forced to deal with the mess they left behind.

www.businessinsider.com

In sector after sector, as boomers took ownership of the economy's assets, they essentially pulled up the ladder of investment in favor of maximizing short-term personal gains.

So yeah, while some of what this girl is saying is BS, she does have a point. The boomers even ruined things for the tail end of their own generation, namely those born from 1960 to 1964.

The recent gains workers have made are good news. The reason most likely is the fact boomers are slowly but surely losing their grip on power as they age out.

 

[jtr1962]

Anyway, I find it amusing now that the population panic pendulum (I ought to trademark that; the PPP!) has swung the other way.

Remember when all the "experts" were wringing their hands about overpopulation? A few weeks back, I was looking through my college freshman history book (from ~20 years ago) and the chapters on modern history repeatedly stated that overpopulation was the biggest threat to world stability in the future.

It still is. There were 3 or 4 billion people when we were screaming about overpopulation. Now we're over 8 billion. I'm not seeing how an overpopulation problem suddenly goes away when you more than double the population.

If what this guy thinks comes to pass, there may be no demographic issues despite declining birth rates:

AI may replace 80% of human jobs in 'next few years', says expert

Artificial intelligence or AI could replace almost 80 percent of human jobs in the coming years, so said US-Brazilian researcher Ben Goertzel. 56-year-old cognitive scientist and famed robot-creator Goertzel is founder and chief executive of SingularityNET, a research group he launched to create...

www.gadgetsnow.com

Talking about the threat to jobs from AI, he said that you could probably obsolete 80 percent of jobs that people do, without having an AGI (artificial general intelligence, or AI with human cognitive abilities) by my guess. Not with ChatGPT exactly as a product. But with systems of that nature, which are going to follow in the next few years.

.......

"If we want machines to really be as smart as people and to be as agile in dealing with the unknown, then they need to be able to take big leaps beyond their training and programming. And we're not there yet. But I think there's reason to believe we're years rather than decades from getting there," he told AFP when asked if AI is as smart as humans.

Now apparently it's the other way around. All the old folks are panicking because there won't be enough young folks to take care of them (both directly, and through taxes).

Bingo, that's exactly it. The boomers are worried when they get to a nursing home there won't be enough staff to give them the luxurious care they think they deserve. The way many of them raised their children, they can't count on their kids taking care of them, either.

So apparently, living too long is a problem too. Huge chunks of the populace too old to work, but still have to be taken care of. Unless we go the Soylent Green approach, that is!!

No, the problem is living long and not taking care of yourself. The American lifestyle is very unhealthy. Lots of older people need care because they're fat, never exercised, and ate junk food their entire lives. My late father was a perfect example. At least he didn't need long term care because his second heart attack killed him at 71½. If he had survived, no way he could have lived at home again.

That said, with the attitudes I see from some of the older boomers, I wouldn't shed any tears if we went Soylent Green on them.

Also, with all the insanity flooding the USA the last couple of years, I'm really really glad now that I never had kids. I for one would sure hate to be school-kid age right now!

Same here. I never liked or wanted kids, but the state of the world, even when I was in my 20s or 30s, was bad enough that I couldn't see bringing more people into it. Remember back then we had the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, along with the ozone hole, plus corporations were a lot less responsible about where they dumped their waste. And the economy was sh*t from the time I graduated college until at least the mid 1990s. Short of marrying a rich girl, there's no way I could have afforded kids.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Chance, as you know, we need to be careful with the religion stuff here on CPF, and hoping you remember some of the posts I have made appreciating, respecting and attempting to live the religion we speak about.

Back when we had the privilege and opportunity to talk about COVID issues, a valued member here linked to the Worldometer website.

At the worst time of tragic deaths resulting from that scourge, world population continued to climb. Death from starvation/malnutrition continues to take a heavy toll. So many poor people we do not think about.

Look at some of the foundational beliefs of religions that emerged from river deltas.

What about island and jungle religions? How did they deal with over population?

 

[M@elstrom]

Short of marrying a rich girl, there's no way I could have afforded kids.

Children/Families are about sacrifice to a degree, many people choose instead to maintain their standard of living (lifestyle), personally never owning a new car, new house or ever holidaying overseas is a bargain compared to the enrichment Children bring to our lives YMMV.

 

[idleprocess]

Children/Families are about sacrifice to a degree, many people choose instead to maintain their standard of living (lifestyle), personally never owning a new car, new house or ever holidaying overseas is a bargain compared to the enrichment Children bring to our lives YMMV.

Fertility rates are declining in the developed world, presumably because the upfront costs are perceived to be escalating while the rewards you speak of are realized years down the road, to some degree in hindsight.

 

[jtr1962]

Children/Families are about sacrifice to a degree, many people choose instead to maintain their standard of living (lifestyle), personally never owning a new car, new house or ever holidaying overseas is a bargain compared to the enrichment Children bring to our lives YMMV.

It's not even about sacrifice. It's about the fact with the cost of living, I couldn't have afforded them even sacrificing. I never owned a car, period, live in a 71 year old house, and never traveled overseas. Why? I couldn't afford these things even being single, although in truth living in NYC I wouldn't have a car even if I was rich. You don't really need one here.

To raise children well costs a lot of money. I'm not even talking about giving them lots of expensive stuff. Just education through graduate school, possibly a doctorate, costs a ton of money. There's only a small set of conditions where I would have even considered having children:

1) I was wealthy so having them wouldn't entail working until I'm an old man.
2) I could afford to pay someone to do the unpleasant parts of child care, leaving me free to enjoy my children.
3) I could afford to pay a surrogate mother. Child-bearing is hell on a woman's body. I've seen women go from gorgeous to dumpy looking after having a few kids. No thanks. I know we all age, but not putting a wife through child bearing makes it much more likely they'll continue to look like the person you originally married, instead of a cave troll.

Even with those conditions, I'm not so sure I'd have wanted children. There's a world of other ways one can spend their life. Also, the enrichment you mention may never come. A fair number of people I've known are estranged from their children.

 

[idleprocess]

To raise children well costs a lot of money. I'm not even talking about giving them lots of expensive stuff. Just education through graduate school, possibly a doctorate, costs a ton of money.

Maybe it's my fortunate trajectory through life that allows me to say this, but having attended graduate school I don't consider that degree one of life's necessities. I do not regret it - I ran up no debt in the process and the opportunity cost was largely spare time - and feel I learned many valuable lessons in the process, but I cannot credit it with my career progression either.

 

[bykfixer]

One day at my job a superintendent heard about his loader operator going to night school. He asked if the guy would continue running a loader. The guy said probably for a while. The super said "really?why would you go to college but not do that for a living?" His foreman said "I'm a computer programmer. The super looked at me puzzled. I said "I'm an architect". His backhoe operator said "I have my bachelors is business".

Needless to say none of us required a college education to earn a decent living. You just start out small. Used refrigerator, washing machine, automobile, furniture etc and as life moves forward you buy better until one day you buy new stuff. My kids drive better cars than I do. Neither makes a living doing what they went to college for.

Oh, and then there's that novel approach 'pay as you go'. I worked 40 hours a week and went to college after work as I could afford it while raising kids and buying a house.

 

[jtr1962]

Maybe it's my fortunate trajectory through life that allows me to say this, but having attended graduate school I don't consider that degree one of life's necessities. I do not regret it - I ran up no debt in the process and the opportunity cost was largely spare time - and feel I learned many valuable lessons in the process, but I cannot credit it with my career progression either.

Yeah, in lots of fields other than science, medicine, and some types of engineering, a graduate degree isn't a big help. That said, if I could have gotten a graduate degree without running up more debt I probably would have. As it was though, I already had over $13K in loans just getting my BSE. This was 1/4 of what my parents paid for their house. The thought of adding to this debt was frightening, so I never went to graduate school.

One day at my job a superintendent heard about his loader operator going to night school. He asked if the guy would continue running a loader. The guy said probably for a while. The super said "really?why would you go to college but not do that for a living?" His foreman said "I'm a computer programmer. The super looked at me puzzled. I said "I'm an architect". His backhoe operator said "I have my bachelors is business".

Needless to say none of us required a college education to earn a decent living. You just start out small. Used refrigerator, washing machine, automobile, furniture etc and as life moves forward you buy better until one day you buy new stuff. My kids drive better cars than I do. Neither makes a living doing what they went to college for.

Oh, and then there's that novel approach 'pay as you go'. I worked 40 hours a week and went to college after work as I could afford it while raising kids and buying a house.

Granted, there are other paths besides college to earn a decent living. A lot depends upon how willing you are to do physical work. I'll say this. What you do for a living sounds way more interesting than a typical office job. And unlike a lot of make-work office jobs, it's something that needs to be done.

I actually did what I went to college for, namely worked as an electronics engineer. I had to become self-employed to do it as I wasn't able to get a job out of college in the field. Probably not having a graduate degree had something to do with it. If I wasn't an engineer, I would have wanted to be a research scientist. For that you definitely need at least a graduate degree, more likely a doctorate.