[HN Gopher] There Are Many Threats to Humanity. A Low Birth Rate...
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There Are Many Threats to Humanity. A Low Birth Rate Isn't One of
Them
Author : cwwc
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-04-20 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.currentaffairs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.currentaffairs.org)
| like_any_other wrote:
| Correct for humanity as a whole, but incorrect for
| subpopulations. E.g. South Koreans probably want to continue to
| exist, and this is not equivalent to the landmass of South Korea
| being populated.
| croes wrote:
| There are 51 million people in South Korea, #29 in a list of
| 233 countries and there population.
|
| I wonder how Island, Greenland, Norway etc. live with a
| population count far lower without the fear of extinction.
|
| Maybe it's a bad idea to to look at the current birth rate anf
| extrapolate it in the future like it's a constant number.
|
| And even if, what exactly goes extinct?
|
| The people living in a country?
|
| Unlikely, others will occupy the space.
|
| The culture?
|
| That already dies through changes in time. The South Koreas now
| has few in common with the South Koreans from 100, 200, 500 etc
| years ago.
|
| The South Korean gen?
|
| Humans are pretty similar regarding their genes. There isn't
| really a loss or you could say the same about the gene pool of
| every village or city.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > I wonder how Island, Greenland, Norway etc. live with a
| population count far lower without the fear of extinction.
| Maybe it's a bad idea to to look at the current birth rate
| anf extrapolate it in the future like it's a constant number.
|
| A good point. But one could also look at an ailing elephant,
| and say it need not worry about dying, because look, it is so
| much larger than a healthy kitten. Yet in a year, the
| elephant will be a skeleton, and the kitten will be a healthy
| cat. It all depends how they will handle the population drop
| - in a controlled way, gently reducing their numbers, or will
| it trigger a crisis, they let 52 million Chinese into their
| country, and slowly disappear as a distinct people.
|
| > The culture? That already dies through changes in time.
|
| By this logic a child dying or growing up is no different -
| both are "deaths through change". Of course the culture that
| Korea's culture will evolve into is much different than how
| Hungarian or Nigerian culture will evolve.
|
| > The South Korean gen? Humans are pretty similar regarding
| their genes.
|
| Even in a place as small and inter-connected as Europe,
| people have differentiated genes [1]. Globally, especially
| with geographic barriers, the diversity is even greater [2].
| I find it extremely callous to so casually say Korean genetic
| distinctions aren't worth preserving, or that Koreans are
| interchangeable with any other people.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2735096/
|
| [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_com
| pon...
| metalman wrote:
| humanity is almost certainly immune to extinction, there are too
| many of us, spread out over the whole globe for anything less
| than a planet killing asteroid to take us all out.Even the most
| horribly infectious and deadly diseases are never 100% fatal to
| those who get it. a low birth rate in any given culture is
| definitly a threat to that culture, and almost all cultures have
| a deep identity with they bieng "the people", so it is easy to
| understand how a lot of cultural groups are feeling threatend,
| and certainly genocide is real.We have very clear evidence of
| missing y chromosone groups, and the fact of all previous hominid
| species going extinct so it's not for nothing that people worry.
| os2warpman wrote:
| The people shouting about low birth rates don't actually care
| about low birth rates.
|
| They are using concern about low birth rates to get people riled
| up and trojan horse bigotry into a mainstream message to gain a
| base of people who will support their efforts to enforce their
| values on others.
|
| IF there's a low birth rate crisis leading to a lack of workers
| THEN you can justify child labor
|
| IF there's a low birth rate crisis it's because of women and THEN
| you can justify restricting women's rights
|
| IF there's a low birth rate crisis "we all know what that means"
| THEN you can talk about replacement theory without talking about
| it
|
| IF there's a low birth rate crisis THEN you can propose all
| manner of ludicrous things that are otherwise socially
| unacceptable
|
| IF there's a low birth rate crisis THEN you can distract people
| from the other shit you're doing
|
| The easiest way to prove that the people shouting about a low
| birth rate crisis don't actually care about birth rates is to
| compile a list of their solutions to the "crisis".
|
| Are the solutions the subsidizing of childcare and healthcare or
| lower taxes?
|
| Are the solutions supporting young families or punishing and
| demonizing women who choose not to be mothers?
|
| The only thing the people shouting about low birth rates care
| about is money.
|
| That's it. That's all.
|
| Money.
|
| "Civilization is going to collapse unless you elect someone who
| will fix the low birthrate crisis and the best solution is
| eliminating the capital gains tax so while you're angry and
| panicking please vote for this guy over here."
|
| There is indeed some plain old bigotry and sexism at the margins
| but on the whole it's about money.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Are the solutions the subsidizing of childcare and healthcare
| or lower taxes?
|
| Hungary subsidizes young families via tax breaks (on those
| families, not in general) and loan forgiveness, yes:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612
| milesrout wrote:
| What a stupid conspiracy theory.
|
| People do genuinely care about low birth rates. Nobody wants to
| use child labour, where do you even come up with this rubbish?
| Bigotry? What does it have to do with bigotry?
|
| This one is particularly funny:
|
| >IF there's a low birth rate crisis "we all know what that
| means" THEN you can talk about replacement theory without
| talking about it
|
| For those that don't know, "replacement theory" is what the far
| left calls the idea that as the native population falls below
| replacement rate, immigration will be used to replace natives
| to keep up a sufficiently large workforce.
|
| The far left assures us that this is a racist conspiracy theory
| and no such thing is going to happen.
|
| At exactly the same time they say "we can't reduce migration,
| we have an aging population". That is _not_ replacement theory
| because......? Uh?? It is different?!
|
| >Are the solutions the subsidizing of childcare and healthcare
| or lower taxes?
|
| I personally do not see how encouraging people to separate from
| their children at an early age so they can work would be a good
| idea. I'm not proposing mothers should necessarily stay home
| until their kids go to school but they should probably stay
| home for the first couple of years. There is a lot of evidence
| that that is beneficial for the child.
|
| I would rather see tax credits for families with children, and
| much better quality institutions.
|
| Currently, schools are just bad. They are full of ideological
| teachers more concerned about their unions than their pupils.
| They are all of a single ideological view on every issue. The
| results they produce year after year are getting _worse_. In
| the same time period that every other product and service
| available has improved by leaps and bounds, education has got
| worse.
|
| So I say replace the schools and the teachers, and people will
| be more willing to have kids, knowing they won't be sending
| them off to be bullied and taught fuck all.
| thrance wrote:
| Article starts with "Commentators across the political spectrum"
| then cites many well known far-right pundits and one liberal
| writer you never heard of. Why this weird bothsideism? I heard
| one guy on the right say "we must make this the climate change of
| the right". This weird craze is purely a right-wing one, why feel
| the need to equate "both sides" on every issues?
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(page generated 2025-04-20 23:01 UTC)