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Outdoorhans OP t1_j721a4z wrote

Reply to comment by Thatingles in Will humanity reach its peak in this century? by Outdoorhans

>if we end scarcity lots of people will have kids

That is not right. Data from all over the world shows: the higher the education + income, the fewer children.

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Thatingles t1_j72j9jh wrote

Data from all over the world shows that people are putting off having children in order to cope with the cost of living, particularly the cost of obtaining a house. In the good outcome AI massively reduces these costs and the decision changes hugely.

People aren't educated out of having children. This is a misreading of the data.

Secondly, you have to consider the effects of longevity. We have already started researching aging as a disease and this will only accelerate. Once people have healthy lifespans of 100+ years they will inevitably ask for healthy fertility lifespans to be increased, to give them more options. No reason to think that is impossible.

So in the good outcome you have people living over 100+ years, healthy lives, able to have children for a longer period of their lives (or have multiple families) and are not put off having children due to scarcity concerns.

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GrinchPress t1_j75odx0 wrote

The “cost of living” argument, which is extremely common online, is a cope. It’s education and technology. There is social science backing the claim that educating women reduces birth rates and this is happening across the globe at different rates. The world is increasingly urbanizing. Children are more of a burden in a city than in an agricultural setting where they can help out.

People in poorer countries almost always have more kids than those in wealthier countries and the birth rate for the poor in America is higher than the middle class. If you really want a child, you’ll make it work as people did for thousands of years. It’s okay if people don’t, but they shouldn’t hide behind “cost of living”.

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