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SomeoneSomewhere1984 t1_jadr3gk wrote

Reply to comment by mhornberger in Either we're past the great filter, or ASI IS the great filter by Shoddy-Motor

It's likely that the birth rate will stabilize in the future as we figure out how to create a society that supports families.

Do you have any clue how much kids cost? There are massive economic incentives to stay child free and have very few children, yet the birth rate is still 1.5 in wealthy countries.

A big part of the reason the birth rate is so low is that affordable family housing doesn't exist in many places. Effectively people are rationally responding to resource constraints. If the next generation is much smaller, that will free up a lot of housing and other resources that will make it easier for them to have more kids.

Population change may look exponential, either up or down, but it really isn't. There are a lot of constraints people respond to that affect population growth, like availability of resources, pathogens, and biological desires that we affect this.

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mhornberger t1_jadv3nt wrote

> Do you have any clue how much kids cost?

I wasn't going off my own assessment or gut feeling. I'm just pointing out what demographers trace the decline in birthrates to.

> affordable family housing doesn't exist in many places.

Yes, our standards have gone up with our wealth, but faster than our wealth. In the US, new houses are much larger than houses built in previous generations. Plus construction safety code (wiring, etc) have gone up. Plus we've allowed homeowners to restrict the building of density to protect their equity value. We could throw up shacks, but people want proper housing. But our view of what constitutes proper housing has gotten a lot more expensive. That goes with being in a wealthier society.

> If the next generation is much smaller, that will free up a lot of housing

Unless people continue to migrate. The cities have been gaining population, and the losses in population have been in rural areas. Even for moves between countries, it's usually the poorer rural areas where people are fleeing to find better economic opportunity. That there are empty houses in Appalachia, or somewhere in rural Guatemala, doesn't help people who are moving to Houston.

>Population change may look exponential, either up or down, but it really isn't.

Fertility rates do have a cumulatively exponential impact on population size. You are assuming they'll bounce back, but demographers have seen no indication of this. I'm not dropping my own intuitions on you, just deferring to what people who study this professionally have found. Some countries have increased from their nadir, but still stabilized at around 1.4-1.7, i.e. still below the replacement rate.

>There are a lot of constraints people respond to that affect population growth, like availability of resources, pathogens, and biological desires that we affect this.

A lot of things do go into birthrates. The things demographers have found most track with birthrate declines are here:

Poverty correlates with higher birthrates, not lower. Universal healthcare or lower income inequality also don't correlate with higher birthrates. Even the Scandinavian countries have low birthrates.

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SomeoneSomewhere1984 t1_jaefv24 wrote

>In the US, new houses are much larger than houses built in previous generations

If they sold those house to people of childbearing age, preferably earlier childbearing age, they would drastically increase the birth rate, but they don't. They only sell such house to people later in their careers who are out of, or at the very end of their child bearing years.

Of the people I know who have kids many of them are raising them in one-bedroom apartments the way our grandparents grew up. Talk about ways to ensure one and done.

>Plus we've allowed homeowners to restrict the building of density to protect their equity value.

This is highly effective way to suppress the birth rate. Don't create new living space, and people won't reproduce.

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