Watch BOOMERS, exclusively on Nebula, right now: go.nebula.tv/boomers?ref=tomnicholas Everyone on the production team (and there's a lot of them!) worked so hard on BOOMERS. It's packed with incisive interviews and investigation into intergenerational inequality, housing, pensions, and much more. All told through a globe-trotting journey to uncover the lives and legacy of the Baby Boomer generation. It also features my mum! Thanks so much to everyone who's signed up to Nebula and watched it already!
Ngl mate this wasn't a very good video. You spent most of the time talking about the conservative figureheads and airing their opinions than the time you did actually addressing the root cause. This felt more like 50min ad for your nebula than it did an in depth look into this issue and also starkly not speaking on the threats to women's rights that were made. I just didn't see a lot of testimony from the mouthpiece of those who aren't chronically super glued to a mannosphere yeti mic
WHY is there that flicker in the background constantly? I can't look at the graphs without starting to feel a migraine coming on. I'm having to listen to this as a podcast in a minimised tab. I dread to think what this would be like with photosensitive epilepsy.
Seems like your video hasn't reached it's goal. you focused too much on the dumb conservative POV and people are appalled by the issue as a whole instead of admitting it exists, and the fact that even if they prefer population decline when it's too rapid it's gonna cause issues.
Its not about the population it’s about living sustainably, conservatives in the old days used to accuse poorer people of having too many children for their own good , even though the people in poorer countries produce much less waste and emissions e.g chad produces less than 0.1 tons of co2 per capita but canada and the us produce 14 tons per person
@RussOlson-pl3kfJapan is a terrible case study as nothing about their economic nor social systems are replicated elsewhere. The phrase "except for Japan" is a meme in economics.
Every "crisis" is just milked for money. That's why our solution to climate change isn't to reduce oil subsidies, but to pay for EVs. That's why the EPA made regulations that just caused Americans to buy bigger cars instead of smaller cars, because bigger cars are more profitable even if worse for the environment. This is what makes me sick of politicians.
@@WesSmith-v1n no, normal people don’t exploit domestic and foreign workers just to hoard a mcduck ass fortune. Normal people work for money to survive, live, and thrive. The last two are becoming harder and harder with the greedy people making it easier for them to hoard even more obscene amount of money
As an American woman who raised 3 children the answer is simple: everything is too fucking expensive. Kids cost in every conceivable way, and you will be directly criticized and humiliated publicly for being poor and having children. I WOULD KNOW. Incentivize raising children and people will.
No problem, they'll just ban contraceptives and abortion - people will be forcibly poor and with few kids cause millionaires need cheap labor. Still don't want to reproduce? Well, here's a childlessness tax and fines from the state. Send people back to the early 20th century and (rich people's) problems will solve themselves... Or so they think.
Nah dirt farmers 50 years ago had 5 kids 6 kids. The difference is our generation doesn't want to sacrifice our lifestyle to raise the next generation so it's all about having the resources for the current lifestyle PLUS enough for kids.
Ironic that the ultra-rich oligarchs that feel so threatened by a shrinking population have also contributed the most to the circumstances that cause the population to shrink faster.
Real talk. These idiots have made life at the bottom hell through their own greed but oh no they aren't going to have enough wage slaves to make them more money!!!!
Why should they when they can just hire poor people to raise their kids for them? That's why they want new poor people. Who else is going to clean their toilets 20 years from now?
@@reubenmorris487??? What do you mean ? People send their children to school for education. You HAVE to raise your kid even if they are attending school. I think the original comment is referring to how rich people have dozens of nannies for their kid and don't do any actual raising themselves. Excuse my english ; it's not my first language.
@@reubenmorris487 the lie detector test determined that was a lie. Truancy rates are at an all time high. I'm convinced working parents are not even caring enough to send their kids to school.
People with 9+ kids don't raise their kids either. The Duggars matriarch spends time with the babies(till the next one comes) while her older daughters take care of the rest. Parentification is necessary for that many kids. My family only had 6 kids(4 then 2 more a decade later), and us older kids were still hit with that unintentionally.
@@Mailthe It really is that easy though. You have 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of free time. If you invest some amount of time into improving and diversifying your skillset you can make money on the side.
@FifinatorKlon In the ghost job economy? With the stagnated salaries despite rampant inflation? Having 0 benefits because everything is a "gig" now? Please, have some empathy for those who don't have industry connections and fast-track schooling...
@@FifinatorKlon def possible to improve one's situation but unfortunately there's not that many jobs out there that will pay you enough to sustain a family of 9. The key issue is housing costs, as long as property is used as an investment vehicle instead of a basic necessity there's no way that having a family will become affordable for most people
Not being "filty rich" is not the problem. generally poorer people have more kids except for the very wealthy (which is a very tiny part of the population so tiny as not to really count). If the economy was the causal factor for not having children it would be the other way around.
When I had my son in 1999, I could still find a large 2-bedroom apartment for $700/mo in California, gas was $1.85/gal, my medical deduction was $80 per paycheck and I was making about $45K a year. It was still a big challenge with a car note, daycare costs and other bills, but we sustained. Now they want people to do the SAME thing with barely any national wage increase in 25 years, average $2K rent, $4/gal gas, a $700 car note and $300 per check being taken out for company medical insurance. They are mad. Thankfully, my career progression allowed me to put my son through college and we've already paid off his debt, but that was ONE child. I can't imagine doing that now. I would not have a child today. Even with the money I make now, the struggle would be insanity. The audacity of these pronatalists to demand more breeding.
The audacity of them to demand that people breed more, for their future comfort, when they're not gonna pay for a single penny of it! Oh, and since rich people the only ones who can have kids, whose gonna do all this work they need done in the future. They gonna start enslaving their family members again.
If a country wants more kids, building a society that deserves more kids should probably be the first step. Policies that support businesses over having kids will get you more businesses and less kids.
Agreed. Unfortunately, Adam Jenson said it best "If you want to make enemies, try to change something". Trying to enact a change to that degree would make the most powerful people in the world your enemies overnight.
You're leaving out a lot of context as to why people aren't having kids. The real reason why nobody is having children is because the cost of goods rising, as well as societal flaws. The real reason why housing is so expensive is merely the lack of supply. Major cities implement zoning laws, making building houses exceedingly difficult, so that's why there is a shortage of housing in major cities, not because of price gouging. These housing projects sometimes also pour in too many resources in building higher quality housing, much higher than some people can purchase, making people less eligible for purchasing the houses. Kind of like how someone who sells sticks for a living can't purchase a gold plated mansion. The same holds true for other areas in the economy as well as marriage. There is no loss in the thirst and desire for sex amongst the male and female populations, but existing marriage laws make marriage unfair for men to get married. That's why there is such a decrease in marriage rates. I can go on and on there are a bunch or reasons why people aren't getting married and they are worrying.
Exactly. It’s all about balance. Yes we need business to employ us, drive the economy and provide services the state can’t… but that shouldn’t be at the expense of literally everything else!
This argument does however (have to) ignore the birthrate trend in countries that have among the family and child friendliest policies. Scandinavian countries for example where you get money for having kids and education and healthcare is free up to and including higher education, Parental leave up to a year and a half (paid) still have abysmal birth rate only about 0.2-0.6 point above countries everyone shout "low birth rate" about (Japan, South Korea).. Finland & Japans birthrate only differ by 0.06 (2022) A lot of the reason people usually tout like "iTs sO exPenSive!" is definitely a reason that a lot of us can FEEL like its true but there's really no statistics (or historical trend) to prove that, and a little bit of critical thinking can shed light to why this is. (People have had children even though it made zero financial sense since dawn of time and even after contraception) A more likely reason is that we're really busy, have non-paternal aspiration in life that makes us have children later in life, Which often means that you have less children. And also pension system. Most people believe they're going to be fine when they turn 70+ since government will take care of them, so all financial aspirations in life can take precedence over family making.
Billionaires: "Oh no, the birthrates! We need more babies for the economy!" Normal people: "Are you going to use your wealth and political influence to improve the quality of life, pay your share to raise wages and social spending and fight climate change so that there's some actual hope for the future again?" Billionaires: "We're building bunkers in New Zealand to prepare for the collapse."
Basically. I think this collapse in birth rate is paramount to humanity's survival. It is NECESSARY. Nevermind the economical impacts, it is exactly what we need. We'll be fine, we can already do without. The billionaires gonna be who get ripped apart. Of course they're panicking.
@@ashamane honestly the entire discussion of this as a doomsday scenario is severely overestimating how it will eventually shake out. It will be such a long period of time that the entire economy and systems around it will adapt as the population decreases.
On the other side, kids are not as expensive as they claim. At least not in Europe. Like literally everything is free here, especially for children. It is subsidy upon subsidy for children. Birth subsidy, maternity leave, school subsidies, free university and college, free scholarships. And if you dont go crazy with clothes and toys, what exactly makes a child expensive? Take them into nature and teach them a trade and they will be so happy.
@@aurorerichIsn't it the US creator? It's a different situation there, starting right from that hefty bill for your labor. And even in Europe it depends on the country. Kindergarten in the Netherlands is expensive. Aaaand u still need more living space and food. Take Germany for example, it has a lot of such benefits, but the total majority don't own houses. And it's expensive to rent a big flat. Food prices are rising too.
@@aurorerich you have to pay for childcare, your career takes a hit and you might just get fired for being pregnant. Hospital bills for pregnancy are expensive as all get out, then when both parents have to go back to work (because there is no mandatory paternity leave) in six months you have to pay for a baby sitter, hope to god you have some sort of family that's willing to help out (not very likely), or have to pay for daycare which can be 1-2k a month. You have to pay to send your child to public school, and on top of that pay for their meals (they will let you go hungry if your parents can't pay, or you get a 'cold' meal which is just a peanut butter jelly sandwich if they have any leftover). Then you have to pay for college/university, which is horrifically expensive, then you have the rest of your life to pay off your debts. Everything costs something in America.
If it’s such a major concern, will this country provide adequate housing, food, and other resources to support an increasing population? No? Alright, I’ll stay childless then.
they are upset that even when the country does provide those things, the population doesn't magically jump to 5 or 6 like it did in medieval times, and instead is at like 2.3-2.6 in developed countries, where women were generally discouraged from working or risked being labelled a witch, or they worked the fields and big families helped.
@@forwadnothing8212thank you!! These two comments are the best ones I’ve read! We are NEVER going back to that level of children due to how advanced our society has become. And that is a GOOD thing. We already millions of children in foster care programs who likely will never be picked up! We don’t need more children in a population that is on-course to hit 10 billion! And then you take in these large corporations across the globe screwing everyone over, and you get 2 very legitimate reasons of why people do not want kids!
The quality of life actually increased in the last century. Globaly, not just in America. While money can be a factor, we are currently living in a period of relative wealth (with less global poverty overall) and stability (even though wars are reemerging today, they are nowhere near the scale of those in the 20th century). The average income of Americans alone is more than enough to sustain two or three children. For me, it seems that contraception, the fact that women have increasingly entered the workforce (as seen in wealthy Arab countries becoming more open to women working), and the unwillingness of people to slightly reduce their standard of living (which doesn’t mean becoming poor, but might involve giving up certain things or desires) are probably the strongest factors. However, these are also the hardest to act upon due to reasonable ethical concerns. It's more complicated than just saying, 'It’s the culture, bro,' but there are factors beyond economic ones that seem to be stronger predictors of this phenomenon.
They prioritize potential lives over the already established ones, it’s fucking sickening. I hope we can fight these corrupt politicians, I’m scared for our future
Most conservatives support free lunches they just think there should be a household income cap. Aka your parents make like 75,000 or more a year they can pay for your lunch while the other kids get help.
The video frames this issue like it’s not a really bad top issue when it very much is a really bad top issue. It’s true that conservatives don’t have good answers to fix it but it’s still a really bad top issue
It does not matter what the billionaires say or think. What matters is that taxes will increase when there is a higher percentage of people retired vs. working
...naah, there will be more A.I or machines doing these jobs in the future...they won't need PPL, ...but they'll need PPL to spend money to buy their products and make them more rich 😅
Not just wage workers. Customers. They need more customers to buy more stuff to grow their companies because corporate growth is the only measure of success they know.
Japan: Your job is your life. Six days a week, 12-14 hours a day. WE are your family! Also Japan: You have to have babies, 2 or 3 at least, regardless of the cost of living. Young Japanese people: No.
can't really have kids and work 6 days a week, especially without daycares. even if they were having kids it'd literally be a recipe for disaster. severe mental health issues galore due to the extreme lack of support for anyone who isn't already filthy rich.
Fortunately it seems like Japan finally realized it's a bad idea. They're letting the people have Fridays off work for recreation. Now if America would do the same instead of doubling down on everything...
The Russian Government are trying to promote something similar there. They have awful demographics and the Government attempts to improve fertility rates with the carrot method haven't succeeded so now they're starting to look at options for punishing families that do not have enough children.
We have children for cultural longevity as well as for the sake of making people better then us. Its better if their is something higher than yourself to motivate you. But unfortunately long ago America lost interest in making good people and instead want to make good money, which hurts the people of the future.
@@MrPlaylistMan I would gladly have kids for the sake of teaching them to live great lives, contribute to the world and further science/art/culture... I can't do that in this society, I don't want to give life to a kid and then send them off to a factory, I'd rather let society collapse if that's the vision those in power have for it. sure we'll all suffer, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.
@@TheInfectous I understand you're fear but again you have to have something you believe in that is higher then yourself in order to sacrifice for those future people. If you are waiting for our society to collapse before you start a family then you will be too late. Those who already have a bunch of children and live outside of our society are mostly Amish, they will most likely inherit the ashes because they are self sustainable and seemingly double themselves. I know it's a future issue my people will have to deal with, but I'm optimistic in general.
There has been a rhetoric over the decades, "don't have children if you can't afford them." The population listened, now everyone is complaining that no one is having children. Similar story with teen pregnancy and single mums.
Which is typically in response to someone saying why they want an abortion. A bit off that you dipped into taking that out of context. One is more direct (the one you are referencing) to the individual and the other statement (we need more babies) is a macro statement.
Trying to convince people to produce more children without offering literally any support to make children even feasible for many/most is wild. Not offering maternity leave, accepting gaps in resumes, making healthcare affordable (even if creating and birthing a whole human isn’t an adequate reason to take any time off, either to heal or give the child a chance at a fulfilling childhood/life), etc etc. I just. Can’t.
Having children is a DEATH SENTANCE in most jobs, even if legally forced to make time, they'll still find a way to cut you out, hire anyone who isn't birthing kids, and then blame you!
I am sorry, but that is just plain silly. The population is filled with people who are here, not because of an "act of love', but from an act of physical sex. There is so much at play in what makes a mentally well person, genetics is the big one, followed by childhood experience, and environment. Nature, nurture. It would be amazing to know how many pregnancies per year are unexpected or accidents. Bit I wager the number is very high.
Yes! Children need to know they are loved every day. They can not develop normally otherwise. 12 kids was alright in the patriarchal societies when parents loved their children equally. Being poor is not the worst thing. Not being wanted is. Of course today many children are autistic or have some other condition. Unfortunately these do suffer even when they are loved.
Than regardless of all of the above and previously mentioned can you explain why the amish having kids left right and centre. Like any sort of socially disconnected culture that doesn't focus on these things is legit growing at replacement levels.
it’s always a mystery to me why the same men who want us to have children are also hell bent on making having children as difficult, painful, expensive, and inaccessible as possible
They want the wage workers, AND they want to profit from your offspring all through their childhood via expensive food, toys almost no subsidies so you’re forced to buy and produce corporate profits.
People using "mating" when referring to humans gives me the ick. I like to think that there's something more to sex than merely fulfilling an instinctual function.
The most frustrating thing I hear about population rates is that there is a lot of focus on the number of children but not the quality of their lives and outcomes. Edit: Since this comment blew up, I think it's worth bringing up some things that I meant like Montessori parenting and gentle parenting.
Well, when fewer children are born, the fewer people are able to take care of the already large population of elderly people - so the countries have to have higher taxes - which can then result in fewer younger people not wanting to have children - a wonderful spiral
Exactly, and then those same people often have certain opinions on how many kids people in central America or what have you should have, then they focus on the quality. Totally not racially motivated or anything.
@@johnstamos1542 As someone who listens to the fertility decline 'alarmists' i've never once heard them say the fertility rate is too high in other countries. THey actually point out that it is not just a western problem but a global problem
You would have been able to afford them. You'd just have to give up other stuff you want instead (a bigger house, faster promotions, etc.) Also, not having kids out of spite just makes it more likely the government cannot subsidize you in your old age (e.g. medicare, social security, etc.)
The city in a 2nd world Balkan country that me and my brother grew up in. Has the average apartment price per meter² at a value 4 times the average monthly wage. When my brother told me that since he had dug into it out of curiosity, we looked eachother in the eyes with understanding agreed "we're never going to own a home" I feel you and believe me I absolutely agree.
Nothing says "we're going to be good parents" like being motivated to have children because of declining birth rates and not, you know, wanting or liking children.
@@themountain3461 that has literally happened throughout history. One of the main purposes of religion was to shame people into continuing to have kids while in poverty.
Female, single, 24 year old here. I got my uterus removed five months ago due to an illness. It was so difficult for me to get this surgery, although having health care reasons for it because of my age. I never wanted kids but was told that I would definitely change my mind and regret it later. My ability to have kids was considered more important than my physical and mental health. People told me that I'm selfish and that I will never know true love because of this decision. But wanting to live a free life without pain is worth it all. It might be selfish. But I don't care.
@phenomenal821 thank you. I am just so used to having to justify my choice because I had to do so for so many years with most people not even listening.
Don't listen to them. It's your life, your choice. Besides, children should only be born under ideal conditions like loving and capable parents, decent community, good environment, plentiful resources, etc. If you're uncertain, don't bring a life here (as one who personally believes in some form of reincarnation (my spiritual beliefs are complicated), their consciousness will go elsewhere. They'll be fine).
I knew someone where the doctors kept asking her about having children with her current or a future hypothetical husband when she'd say they didn't want kids. The doctors in the area gave her the run around for years and for YEARS she lived in pain most of the time. She just hit her mid 40s and they were like, ah yea you probably won't have kids, we'll just do a hysterotomy. The fact that so many doctors in our area gave her the run around for so many years is truly terrible. They didn't have the money to go further for other opinions/care. I am glad you were able to get the care you needed without going through years of pain.
I don't understand why people call it fertility decline, when it isn't people's fertility but the fact it's too expensive to have one. Or that people don't want them.
And ppl not viewing it as a requirement anymore since they have more options of what to do with themselves esp for women as they progressed. It used to b that for a lot of ppl that was THE if not the ONLY path
Low hanging fruit here, but there are two things that really grinds my gears about the pronatalist (and maybe more specifically the manosphere) arguments that we are presented with in this video. 1: «People don't have kids because they are too self centred or narcissistic» - It is wild to me to propose that people should have babies, in spite of not wanting them, out of some self sacrificing obligation to society. "I didn't really want you, but Jordan Peterson thought I ought to, so here you are, I guess." Thanks, dad, here's my therapy bill. 2: «Women's have become too picky (the whole hypergamy argument)» - I double dare Chris Williamson and anyone else touting this point to present me with a solution that doesn't involve forcing women to marry less desirable men out of some, again, self sacrificing obligation to society. I'll fucking wait.
2. Maybe a solution could be to have better 3 places to meet instead of apps. Irl there is so many factors that could grab a woman's attention that is not present on apps. A nice smell, the way he moves etc. If we ask her in a study what she wants or on an app we will probably get a more logical/ cold answer.
My "favourite" part is that they are opining on things they will take very little part in. Let's be honest, so many men's contribution starts and ends with an orgasm. So like, 1h of work (I'm being generous here) vs the woman being pregnant for 9 months and dealing with all thay comes with it, then giving birth, then being the primary carer for at least the first few years.. But the dudes are the ones pushing for more children! Like, great, you're volunteering others to do all the hard work and all you have to contribute is orgasms? I'd be advocating for that too! 🤣
I love how when that one podcaster is asked directly, if maybe womans standards aren't too high, maybe men's expectations of themselves are too low. His answer is to say, nope, nope it can't be that, why would men want to work on themselves. Literally ask a woman, the bar is generally so low that one would have to dig to get under it. What do woman really want; someone to treat them with dignity and kindness, some who values their safety and security. Someone who treats them as equals. Someone who wants to be a 50% partner in a relationship. What woman don't want; to be belittled, to be harassed, to be pressured to have sex when they don't want to, to be expected to be a full time parent to an adult. Show up, show you care and can think about your partners wishes and desires. Remember your what your partner likes/dislikes, respect them and their boundaries. Do your fair share of the chores. In short, treat them like you want to be treated. It's not hard.
Imagine being born and then finding out later in life that the only reason you exist was because the "economy" needed you, not your mom, not your dad, not your siblings. You weren't wanted out of love, you were necessary for the rest of society to feed off of your labour until YOU procreate and repeat the process by feeding off your own kid's labours. Why in the hell would anyone even WANT to EXIST at that point? If society literally became some rigid corporate result based system where you lived according to how beneficial you might be to somebody else (aka the society that doesnt fook all for us in return) how would we be any diffferent than mindless drones?
Well you know what they say about accusations and confessions, the "breed for economy" people are also the "left wants you to live in a pod, own nothing, and eat bugs" people
"Why aren't people having more kids?" People give reasons. Conservatives "No, it's none of those reasons you keep telling us, it's culture woke stuff."
They also refuse to accept that not having kids is just a valid choice too. They never ask people 'why do you want to have kids' because they don't question people doing what the see as 'normal' or 'traditional.' I just feel zero interest in having a kid, the way I am also not that interested in having a horse. Horses are cool. I once rode a horse, it was an experience. But having one? No interest. No matter how much money I have, 'get a horse' would never be on my list. It's just a ton of work, or a ton of expense. Like on a daily basis I'm not 'wow, I wish I had a pony.' Given my schedule, I feel I wouldn't be able to provide adequate attention to a dog. Dogs are nice, but between lack of space where I live and how many times a day the dog would need walking, it wouldn't work.
Because it is a cultural thing rather than a money thing. People are more educated (and education directly correlates to lower birthrates) + we have a more individualist culture than ever (more people might decide raising a kid is just too much effort and responsibility). Too many people make it sound like we are living through literal hell. People have lived through far worse conditions than today and bred far more. Even now, there are people who breed a lot in western countries, but it's migrants who come from systems with different values. The fact the fertility of 2nd generation migrants falls to be nearly as low as that of native inhabitants just goes to show it's a culture thing. Of course economic factors do play a role and there's also things like contraception and the new mating behaviours with things like online dating so the decline in birthrates is a 'death by a thousand cuts' type of thing.
To be fair the MSM controlled by globalists does want you not having kids. “Why having kids is-“ if an article looks like that then you know who’s behind it
@@weall1208The fact that child labor is illegal and therefore kids are an economic burden rather than an economic investment, is a cultural thing? Get outta here lmao
You know one thing that I barely hear people talking about regarding this topic? How maternal care is getting worse in a lot of countries, and how there have been so few advances in women's healthcare when it comes to pregnancy and birth. I'm at the time in my life now where some of my friends are having kids, and the amount of chronic health conditions that can come alongside high risk pregnancies or traumatic births is frankly terrifying. I have a friend who's wife is now living with a chronic nerve pain condition since giving birth to their first child two years ago. She might have to live with that condition for the rest of her life - so now her quality of life is permanently made worse, just because she decided to have a child. And that's obviously just one example, but you don't have to look far to learn about women who have been left with permanent gastrointestinal damage, permanent pelvic pain, brittle bone disease caused by pregnancy etc. And yet folks who give birth are just expected to...live with these risks? Really?? I can't for the life of me understand why more work isn't being done into how we can make pregnancy and birth safer and less potentially disabling.
Primitive excuse. At birth and child mortality is the lowest in human history now. If childbirth is delayed into late 30s, sure then chronic problems are more likely.
And on top of the damage pregnancy and childbirth does to physical health, there's also the fact that childbirth is the leading cause of PTSD, meanwhile the NHS budgets a paltry £125 for post-partum care for the mother (not to mention poor training that leads to doctors being unable to properly diagnosed common complications like tearing of any degree since they - at most - only read about it) and it's little wonder that suicide is now the main cause of maternal mortality in the UK.
I mean, it's the risk, it's not like you can literally give someone life without the possibility of ending up completely screwed. Even with medical help, I don't think it would reduce that, it would just make it a little more tolerable.
Maternal mortality rates are getting worse, but pregnancy has always been risky to one's health. For every one woman who dies in pregnancy or childbirth, there are 70 women who require life-saving medical intervention just to live.
I just suffered a miscarriage, hemorrhaged, spent Christmas + 3 days in the hospital. Besides physically recovering, my husband and I will need to financially recover before we try again to have a baby.
I’m so sorry for your loss, and hope you are able to recover (including physically and mentally) I can’t imagine going through that and wish I could give you a hug
My response to anyone saying that something “historically” used to be a certain way is to remind them that, historically, people used to die all the time from tooth infections. Just because things used to be a certain way, does not inherently mean that the prior way was better.
Historically high death rates for infants and children and high maternal mortality were common. Low birth rates are kind of the tradeoff we got in fixing those problems. And a lot of 'historical' practices we rightly now denounce as bad. Like it was historical to burn witches. Though I worry some reactionaries want to take us back there...
I agree, but it seems people are just grasping for solutions to this problem and aren't finding any modern ones, so they start desperately looking at history to find some
Also people forget historically women’s bodies were a little larger in the area. And not to mention people didn’t pop out kids for love but for free workers.
Idiotic take. You're confusing something that existed for a reason which was functional (e.g., society can't perpetuate itself if people don't have children and raise them; this is best done within the context of a stable family, and families are stable when the parents are married---hence why literally every human society developed the institution of marriage---and marriage requires a bunch of privileges and responsibilities to be a useful institution which entails a bunch of social implications) versus a reason that is accidental (e.g., our teeth didn't evolve to handle our modern diet and dentistry didn't catch up to deal with that satisfactorily for some time). That said, the prior mode of marriage, family, sexual relations preserved societies for millennia---what has modern social """liberation""" given us?
Hi, Japanese fan of the channel here. The population crisis has been our country and government’s number one issue for as long as I’ve been alive. From a Japanese perspective, it’s alarming that in the west it’s apparently turning into a left/right thing. When people start taking sides based on their political teams, it is never conducive to productive debate and effective solutions. Don’t the Collins and the manosphere pronatalists realize that their aggressive campaigning actually turns most people off? Normal everyday people, especially women, aren’t going to get “enlightened” by their rants and start popping out babies. The single biggest way our country has failed in my opinion, and it looks like maybe other countries are too, is framing this as a women’s issue. Policies that emphasize increased maternity leave ultimately reflect the different societal expectations between mothers and fathers. (And can I just say, mothers being able to take maternal leave and having a job to come back to is the bare minimum, even if there were no population crisis to combat.) What policy should’ve done was to enforce paternity leave. No woman who’s serious about her career and financial independence is going to take five years off to have and raise kids, when her male colleagues are using those same five years getting ahead in their careers, building five years worth of professional experience. Equal duration parental leave between mom and dad absolutely needs to be the norm. Moreover, for the first few months of a child’s life, the mom’s body will still be recovering from pregnancy and birth. If she takes that time off from work, dads shouldn't go “perfect, she can use the time to take care of the baby and I'll keep working like nothing's changed.” No, the only thing she should be doing is maybe nursing. Otherwise, the parent that didn’t carry and birth the baby can take care of everything. And don't forget to share childcare responsibilities after parental leave too! I know too many dads who think they can get away with doing only the "fun" parts of parenting. Anyway, don’t let them blame this on women! There are too many factors that go into these decisions to dismiss it with a lazy “modern woman selfish” argument. Edit: I want to clarify that the Japanese laws regarding parental leave rights are the same for all genders. I think this is the case in most (if not all) developed countries, lest there be significant legislative sexism. Dads have the same legal entitlement to parental leave as moms, and employers cannot deny their leave requests. However, in practice, dads often underutilize these rights. If anyone is curious, parental leave is up to a year (or more, if daycare placement is unavailable) for each parent, and you're entitled to 80% of your salary prior to leave.
100%!!! I don't want to be economically punished for having kids. Also, Korea does these new baby nurses that are supposed to care for Mom and Baby for the first few weeks to help them both.
100%. One of the main reasons I don’t want children is because it will tie me forever (in the mind of society) to being nothing but a mother. Having my own wants and dreams is not selfish.
But this is the other side of the progressive argument about why birth rates fall: they attribute it to women’s rational behavior, an individualist, capitalist answer. That’s why reactionaries blame women!: they’re told by the progressive talkers that it’s a woman’s wealth/choice issue. How are they supposed to respond?
It’s not an existential threat to humanity. It’s an existential threat to the current institutions, industries and companies who want the status quo of power, wealth, to remain and grow.
Conservatives casually forget there over **8 billion people** currently on the planet. Plus plenty of countries that aren't as industrialized have high birthrates. It's almost like they want people to exploit.
Disagree, that’s likely a super minor factor, especially with the advent of A.I on the horizon where company’s are hungry to replace as many non-critical roles as possible. There are ALOT of issues that come with a severe dip in population. Japan 🇯🇵 and South Korea are Grade-A examples. If nothing is done both will collapse economically then experience cultural and ethnic erasure. This is how societies magically ‘disappeared’ in ancient times.
Romania encouraged it's people to have as many babies as possible. Abortion was illegal and so was contraception. They ended up with thousands of children in orphanages. The orphanages had poor conditions and many of these children did not thrive.
So its rugged individualism when providing welfare/services but we're all in this together to make more kids? Its so strange how pregnant women and babies get treated like public property. Messes with my head.
@Redactedlllllllllllll excellent point! That is super important during the Manosphere and Misogyny bit. Its almost as if turning dating into a market leads to market falures. Who knew?!?
@@isodoubIetdude this is just, excellent bait, I mean it could use some work, opening a better line of easy dunk would help, but overall solid, 6/10 bait
@@isodoubIetIm glad you brought that up! The difference is vaccines are like building codes that keep everyone safer but being pro-choice is like supporting the castle doctrine that allows people refuge. You cannot be free if someone can force you to be pregnant just like you cannot be free if you cannot defend your home.
@@asmodonit's incredible how Musk named one of his kids after the bullshit fake latin of the Warhammer franchise. The richest man in Earth cares so little about his kids that he can't even name them using actual words from an actual language.
The total cost to a woman isn’t just her health, her time, and her child-related expenses. It’s her future earning potential. Having kids is a money-losing proposition.
You know, there's more to life than just earning money. There's value in having children and raising them, but if you can't see that, then by all means join the 4B movement. False hope is worse by far than the hard truth.
@ Lol, you must exercise by jumping to conclusions. I have 2 kids with my spouse, and both of us are full time employed with good jobs. We can barely afford them and would have to significantly downsize if we wanted a 3rd. We pay more for daycare than for our mortgage. Work early while you can. Interest compounds over years, and you can’t get that time back.
@dl2839 you can't safely survive in a capitalist society without earning money. you can't safely give your children good lives without earning money. please, go ahead and try.
The only reason a "population collapse" is a problem is because world economies are currently built on capital hoarding. As we extract value year-after-year, the primary economic value comes from services rather than resource efficiency, and a drop in customers becomes a drop in resources.
This is not the only reason. Subsidies to the elderly, combined with a shrinking tax base of working age adults means heavier tax on workers and more wage contraction to afford the same level of care and infrastructure we have right now in the future
@@BOSSDONMANand yet they refuse to change it willingly, kicking the ball further down the road and often putting our society quite literally in debt to the future collapse in so many depressing ways. Its so infuriating that it wraps around to just being terribly sad.
This is the only comment or video who i have seen nail it. You get what you create. They wanted money and cheap labor, and so they got money and cheap labor. This whole society is built to harvest money and get maximum results. And that is truly what they have been getting (the rich). Our whole society is designed to do that. So even when women stepped into the work force, our society is still asking the same thing. And so women will deliver that what is asked. If they want stable families and population, they should create a society that supports that to happen. Them complaining about not enough children is crazy, because they have not been asking and pushing us to have kids, but to generate money. We delivered what they asked. If they want children, they should redesign society. Its like baking an apple pie, and complaining it doesnt have any chocolate. They planted an Apple Tree, not an cacao tree. And so they cannot complain about their apples.
33:42 “One reason [to not have children] is an overwhelming, self-centered narcissism.” I often hear this criticism of the childfree. Yet the main reasons parents give for having children are no less selfish: • passing on their legacy or family name • having someone to care for them in old age • saving a failing relationship (or solidifying a promising relationship) • being unconditionally loved • creating a miniature version of themselves • giving purpose to life • alleviating boredom • reliving childhood • fitting in with others who have kids
It's crazy to me because I'm choosing not to have children precisely because I don't want them to live the kind of shitty life I've lived. I feel like the reluctance to bring children into this is primarily motivated by concern for their quality of life. How is that considered narcissistic instead of considerate and thoughtful?
@@Sundji having a kid doesnt guarantee that theyll live the same life you did. If you provide for them and nurture them as you should then they can live a better life
@@mallow_i think the point is that if people know they can’t provide those things, why “fake it till you make it”? Secure those things first, and then bring another life into this world. They very much will live the same life if I’m in the same position.
I don’t see how “giving purpose to life” is wrong at all. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live for something more than yourself and wanting to find fulfillment in starting a family as long as you’re ready for the responsibility. I mean hell, I want to have kids and start a family cause I want to have a close, long lasting and fulfilling relationship with both my future wife and however many kids we have because I value family n all that. I obviously live for myself and do things that I enjoy and want to do, but at the end of the day I feel like living for yourself ends up being empty and meaningless in the end when you’re dying and you have nobody to hold you when you meet your end. Idk I’m just shitting out my ass rn but yeah it ain’t selfish I guess.
Not once did any of the pronatalists say that they liked children. They advocate for having as many as possible but not once did they talk about raising those kids well or about enjoying spending time with them. I think that is extremely telling and shows just how empty their position really is.
I mean most of what we saw were 10 second clips from 30 or 60 minute interviews that he used to support his points, so I don't think we can draw conclusions from that.
@elmateo77 Sure, but this didn't come off as an overly biased position. What's more I don't think I've ever seen a pronatalists ever talk about what's good for children. They would say they love children but it seems like they love the idea of children over the actual children. When you have 6,7,8 or more kids you can't be fully involved in their lives.
They don’t like children. The amount of parents I’ve seen who have said these exact words: “my children make my life more difficult” is astounding. Also, if one truly loves their (potential) child, they would not bring them into a world where they will most likely be exploited.
I don't know if you've ever done the math But even if you confiscated all of the net worth of every billionaire in America you could only run just the federal government for 6 months for that money. Billionaires don't have much of the wealth, most of the wealth is in middle class home equity, small business and people retirement funds and pensions and they would all go down significantly if all the large companies where not profitable because they all get their valuation on forward looking earnings multiples and with no earning or growth they cease being an asset and they actually become a liability meaning the valuations go to zero...The only way you fund large welfare state is like Denmark does with 50-60% tax's on everyone especially the middle class and that's never going to fly in America.
@Ryanrobi > every billionaire in America "Billionaire" is really just shorthand for the entire class of absurdly wealthy people, and depending on who you ask often includes taxing the largest corporations as well. Companies like Amazon pay a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent of their revenue in tax - far lower than the already historically low 21% they're "supposed" to be paying (as of Trump's 2017 tax cuts). A lot of it is obfuscated of course. On paper they "pay" the 21% but the vast, vast majority of that is "paid" in terms of write-offs and other loopholes that allow them to discount their taxes to near nothing. Sometimes below nothing (that is, they occasionally get a tax _refund_ while simultaneously filing record profits with the SEC). That's corporations of course, but ultra wealthy individuals have similar trickery to avoid paying the already near-historically-low amount that the government has deemed to be their "fair share". The most well-known one is CEOs taking a tiny "salary" and getting paid with stock or other non-monetary assets that they can liquidate as-needed and avoid paying the top tax rate. Another trick they use is to take out large loans to buy things, despite having more than enough money available. Using their own money would be treated as income (the taxation is realized when they do that liquidation step noted in the prior paragraph). As long as the interest is less than the top tax rate, they're saving money by using the loan (and they typically pay a much lower interest rate than you or I could even dream of getting). Oh, and those loans are considered a liability so paying them off can not only avoid the top tax rate, but even turn into a tax write-off. There's plenty of other trickery as well that they can pull. Likely far more than I'm even aware of. It's how Trump infamously paid only $750 that one year during his first presidency. Not $750,000 - just $750, lower than most middle class workers in the country. The real problem is, and has been since Reagan gave us "trickle-down" economics, that while GDP has continued to grow through the roof, almost none of that growth has made it down to the workers - it's mostly being hoarded by the wealthy, both individuals and corporate entities. Refusing to tax exactly those same people and entities means the country is forced to demand more and more of its working class (either through raising taxes, or through reducing services and making them pay out of pocket) while the working class have (proportionally) less and less wealth available to fulfill those demands. At some point that is going to break. There's only so many services you can cut and only so much wealth you can extract from those who are already struggling financially before everything just stops working entirely. Then all hell breaks loose, and that's rarely good for anyone - including the wealthy (French revolution, anyone?)
As a single, childless, 34 year old woman- i dont want to participate in this "game" anymore. It's really ironic to see all of the yt ppl, mostly men lecturing us all about having babies and to stop being narcissistic.. these males do not care about my black life and my non-existent black children anymore than how far our lives benefit them.
It is crazy because there have never been more people. People having less children when they are worried about sustainability and quality of life is logical in a world where we have a choice. Also, babies die a whole lot less than 50-100 years ago.
The rich are just going to replace you with an economic migrant underclass. The rich realized that the middle class doesn't benefit them as much as a permanently stratified two-layer society.
North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and Vietnam all have below replacement fertility, actually worse than in the West. So do Scandinavia and those so-called socialist countries in Europe. So no it's not capitalism.
Your comment would make sense if you could actually point to a single non-capitalist country that got wealthy while maintaining high birth rates. You people just say things.
I love how conservatives will entertain every possible reason for a falling birth rate, except two: 1. Maybe people don't want kids. 2. Maybe people don't think they can afford to have kids.
Then why in socialistic country birth rate kept going down during socialism, where there were a wide range of support (much wider than in capitalistic countries, that ever implemented that aid) to parents, including facilities for children, like crèches, kindergartens, schools, afterschool clubs, sanatoriums, etc, subsidies, provision with accomodation, that got bigger if parents had more children, etc? People mostly could afford children, mothers were not fired if they got pregnant, there were some mothers who were in decretive holiday for several years.
I hate how you guys generalize all conservatives, as if we all think alike instead of being individuals. I feel that some people shouldn't have children, but that is what pretection is for, not killing babies, and there is surgery.
@@studijasymrov7630 See number 1. According to recent surveys, about 25% of the adult population doesn't want kids. That number is probably higher, but we've only recently begun to destigmatize not wanting kids, so currently, that number reflects the percentage of adults who are willing to admit they don't want kids.
havent finished the video but i am already familiar with these people in the thumbnail and intro. they care about white babies, not general population. this is a reaction to the great replacement conspiracy theory.
It's funny though, my step sister has 3 kids and was originally going to quit her job to be a stay at home mom. Then, her husband expected her to fo everything in the house and she decided to go back so she wouldn't go through the crap her husband was putting her through. My dad even admitted that early in his marriage to my mom, he purposely messed up things so he'd never have to do it, forcing my mom to do it if she wanted it done right. It's a story as old as time of men expecting women to do everything for the house. Now women are starting to have more standards and not want the lazy guy who only sees women as chattel and someone who will value and recognize them as an individual rather than the old norm of finding a man who will "provide" for you, especially in the current circumstances. It's also funny how at odds Republicans and Giant Corporations are when it comes to this. The Federal Minimum Wage hasn't been raised and is currently not a liveable wage, so companies will take advantage of that to low-ball employees, causing a single income to not be as feasible. While Republicans complain about women no longer being in the kitchen and the caregiver of the kids, they can't afford not to be at the workplace. The problem is the blame is shifted to the woman as they become viewed as lazy and selfish, not the exploitive nature of industry needing more people in the machine to get them more money.
Here's a crazy idea: what if the wealthy people contribute a bit of their wealth each year and give it to the people who want to have more kids? I would call it a "tax"
@@batmanrobin6848 because having children is hard in wealthy countries. Children are a huge money sink and can’t contribute in the way they do in more agrarian countries. And the village is gone too, so it’s all on two or even one parent. Our entire way of life isn’t geared towards having children anymore, just towards working and generating profit.
@ElliBeenie I'm imagining a society where there's loads of small, completely free daycare facilities that act as sort of community parenting. You can drop your kid off whenever you want (though not overnight) and there's simple meals provided. There could be regularly employed staff funded like schools, and community members could volunteer time in exchange for tax credits etc.
@@smvsspould I mean, extremely young children should get to spend the first one or two or so years around a parent or a very small and consistent circle of caregivers. I’m no expert, but I’ve heard that one on one bonding is extremely important for children to develop a healthy sense of safety and emotional wellbeing. But after that, I’m in favor of finding a way to mimic the village in some sense. And free community day cares and the like sounds amazing for that purpose. Anything to lessen the burden on the parents. And focusing a bit less on profit and a bit more on (children’s) happiness would be nice.
I wonder how people don't see the contradiction between what Musk says (make more children) and what he does by working his employees like robots, fighting against employee' rights, etc. How should those people make, take care of and educate a bunch of children?
By pursuing one of the most important objectives of right-wingers: roll civil rights back 100 years to when women weren’t allowed to work or vote and were basically property passed from a father to a husband.
you cant reason with anyone who seriously believes we can replace the infinitely complex coordination of human movement/labor with robots in any substantial numbers.... everything they believe is just "take from everyone not born rich and work them to death for ego and entertainment" because thats all its amounting to. no one is gaining value when the trillion dollars laundered into europe every year has the dollars value in a freefall..
@@Pårchmēntôs man just because well off people never mature out of toddlerhood doesnt mean that normal/real people dont. speaking on the last part of your comment. essentially legally confined to childhood in that case but only because well off people believe everyone else behaves like they do when its the complete opposite. that same problem well off people have (thinking everyone is like themselves) is why generational stereotypes are stupid af. they are only talking about behaviors that only well off people could have and thus less than 4% of any generation. aka a hyper minority, not the behavior of the majority. all we get to know about history is what well off people liked/did. not what normal average people were like..
People like Apartheid Clyde literally can't understand anything about how people live paycheck to paycheck. He was never in that situation or knows what that's like. Money to him has always been akin to having the highest score in a video game. People like him continuously have trouble understanding that they can't force anyone to involuntarily work for them for free and (expectedly) forever.
"not wanting to have children is because of overwhelming narcissism" is the type of take you always hear from people who view children as their property and try to mold into copies of themselves, punishing and disowning them when their progenies are not exact copies. 🤨
@ChaoticUniventhose people are the worst. Only being able to love a child if it is biologically yours ha to be own of the most narcissistic things ever. It’s also a sign someone shouldn’t be a parent in the first place.
And ironically I've heard some people make the opposite claim that having children is actually the narcissistic thing to do, because you're bringing new people into existence just to mold them into your own image and increase your own personal legacy.
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who has decided not to have children- for me personally hearing takes like this or anything suggesting "selfishness" only serves to embed me into my child-free way of thinking further.
If you want people to have kids, make it possible to survive financially WITHOUT them first. If I can barely afford rent and groceries now, how the hell would I afford a baby? They want to treat people terribly and pay them NOTHING but still expect people to have an army of children?? God I loathe them.
They don’t care about the quality of the life of others, conservatives in the west have often declined governmental responsibility for it. It’s your problem your life sucks. And in the US they built a world, where no matter how bad you’re doing, you’re about always forced (by violence if needed) to work for them.
I see this happen way to often. I have heard conservatives say you should have a fully developed brain before you have a child, but also completely oppose abortion and BC, it doesn't make sense.
same with people who have kids when the environment and circumstances dont support it! neglect is a form of abuse, even if its, unfortunately, outside of the parents control. i experienced pretty heavy neglect, including medical neglect, because the current healthcare system doesnt support a family with multiple disabled children. as an adult ive been playing medical catchup because there wasnt any time (thanks to being well below working class) to address my own problems as a child, and theyre only getting obstructively worse as i get older
I hate to say it but declining birth rates are directly related to the loss of the middle class, lack of available homes to own, and job insecurity. Corporate America has long penalized women for wanting kids, and decreasing income per worker has made single earner households unable to afford to procreate. Childcare costs more than fast food workers, and the current nuclear family can’t afford both babies and someone to watch and care for their offspring.
It's not just about money or reversing the impact of having kids on women. Corporate Scandinavia.has long incentivized having kids, had forced equivalent paternal and maternal leave, making having kids no longer a penalty for women, free government childcare, and baby subsidies. None of these interventions has reversed the declining birth rates
As a child I was told we were overpopulated. Now as at “child-bearing age” I’m being told if I don’t have kids I don’t care about the future survival of humanity. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS
Yep. I was told as a kid that the population explosion was a big problem. I had my 2.1 kids and my husband had a vasectomy 15 years ago. One of my two kids says they didn't want kids at all, I don't blame them. Parenthood sucks in the US and housing is really unaffordable.
I will never understand how not having kids is supposed to be a mark of selfishness. I had a kid for 100% selfish reasons--I wanted to have one. Spent thousands of dollars trying get pregnant not because I selflessly wanted to bring a new person into the world but because I wanted to experience motherhood for the rest of my life. Before my son existed, there was the idea of a child that was selfishly concocted in my mind as the end goal. Having kids is selfish; they never asked to be born, they were forced into existence on the desires of their progenitors. How the hell is not having kids supposed to be the more selfish option?!
you really made me think about it, i do agree as literally all of us are forced into the world and some of our parents only had us because they forgot to pull out, many parents just make more kids because they love making them and not actually raising them, many parents just don’t care for their children at all and think that they deserve to be treated with respect and love because they put in the effort of making life. i will never understand why not wanting a child is selfish in other people’s eye’s, it’s their own body and they have their own way of doing things. but apparently now in america those simple rights are being taken away.
Sometimes misery loves company... "I had to, you have to too" Sometimes revenge... "You'll know the pain I go through raising you when you have a kid just like you" And that's only a couple of reasons. Yep, there are valid reasons why it's important to allow people that don't want to be parents to not be parents.
From a non parent, THANK YOU! My mother said much the same, she wanted a child to have a loving relationship with and we did, until the end of her life. My best friend. I think of her all the time. Do this right and you too will be remembered an cherished in your lifetime. Good luck.
Alright let me share our thoughts from Germany here: We are both 34 years old, been together for 17 years. She is a PhD working at the local university, I run a brick and mortar games store and we live in a bigger university town. Let's say we want to have a kid. That kid needs to live in a one bedroom apartment because even with almost 5 grand of net income each month we could not afford anything bigger let alone own our own appropriately sized property. The kid will be born in a local hospital, but there are a lot of maternity wards closing down and less and less midwives around. The kid will need child healthcare but a lot of local pediatricians have closed their practices and are not being replaced. The kid needs a daycare space as soon as possible because we need that dual income and even though we should by law have a right for a spot, local daycares are full and chronically underfunded. The kid then needs to go to a local school which have been closing and the remaining schools have more and more massive class sizes. Only to end up in 2045 as an adult who needs to support a German retiree population that spent decades voting for policies that made their childhood existence an underfunded mess compared to all previous generations. Yeah no, why burden a consciousness with that existence.
@@SweBeach2023 Government is the organisation that we have devised to get together to make things work when large scale projects are required. If you pay taxes then that is your personal responsibility covered.
Why would I want to bring children into a world with depleting resources, biodiversity loss, rising global climate temperature and increasing divide between the upper class and everyone else? My partner and I both have degrees, full time jobs, side jobs and still couldn't afford one child.
my boomer father loved to bring up declining birth rates in arguments. when he'd ask me why i don't care about them, i'd give him the same answer he'd give me about climate change: "i'll be dead, so i don't care". we don't talk anymore.
Two things: 1) The human instinct for population equilibrium might be working better than human intellectuals' command of demography 2) Not all species breed well in captivity
@@youknowme1475 While it certainly isn't entirely on conservatives as centrist liberals do this as well, albeit not at the same rate, but the ever widening income inequality comes from squeezing the lower ends of the spectrum. The concept of the "middle class" is becoming rarer and rarer with children less likely to be more successful than their parents. Social mobility is at an extreme low. But it's likely easier to ask you how conservatives have made it easier? Like in the US the only major victories of the right have been cutting taxes for the wealthy and striking down abortion laws. Lol the latter of which has made people less likely to have kids, not more.
Horseshoe theory is real... That one reminded me of brainrot Soviet names. Abbreviated versions of "glory to the socialist revolution", "the era of communism" and the like.
It's been a long time since I've physically cringed from a sentence, and like. Wow. That is potentially the most objectifying name I've heard for a baby. That's disgusting, and I really feel bad for the poor kid
Japan: “no one wants kids and it’s not an easy thing to fix! Also there’s a housing crisis, worker protections are absurdly low, and if you don’t work at least 60 hours a week you are culturally looked down upon.” I love Japan but its work culture is even more insane than mine here in America
@@anythingbut... Yeah good luck convincing Japanese workers to follow it. Unless they're kicking people out of offices at 5pm and locking the doors behind them, they'll just continue working off the clock, because that's what's been ingrained into them.
@@anythingbut...thou that policy is only for government employees. I’m not sure if that group covers the a considerable part of the working population, and how many of them are of the typical child having age, so it effectiveness for birth rates in general might not be notable. Now for mental health, yeah good for them.
When people say things like "The childless don't contribute to the future and should pay more taxes" don't realize that the childless also pay taxes to make sure their kids have a school and free lunches. Also, calling people selfish for not having kids when millions of people pop out babies to save a relationship, feel important, receive tax credits so they can buy a brand new car or go on vacations seems selfish.
The childless (like all people) usually end up taking in a lot of subsidies in retirement, and if they didn't have kids, then the tax base is full of other people's kids who have to pay for them
Check that 13th amendment exception real quick, consider how states are currently putting laws on the books that criminalize homelessness, and spend like 3 brain cells putting 2 and 2 together.
The current system of government and economic needs endless supply of cheap labor to exploit and more consumers to buy the cr@p that they make, both of which are in placed to enrich the 1%, the politicians and the corporations. That’s why they’re freaking out that people are not having enough kids.
It is the simple law of supply and demand which applies to human labor like every other commodity. The more laborers there are that can be called upon, the lower the exchange value of labor will be. The bourgeoisie are so concerned about this because they are also faced with the effects of technological innovation on the value of their commodities. As technology made things that once took a few days, maybe more, to produce, now can be produced in exponential quantities within one day, the exchange value of the commodity continues to drop. This lowers the rate of profit, and so the capitalist must reduce the cost of production in order to keep up, by way of lowering the value of wages. Little does he know, and much less the social democratic parties of the world, that no matter how much the exchange value of labor declines, it will not save the profit rate. Technology ended feudalism and now it is ending capitalism.
no one should have 9 kids unless they have a team of full time nannies, imo. The oldest ones are going to be parentified and robbed of an important element of their childhoods. The youngest ones are not going to get the full amount of attention and care that every child deserves. And I say this as someone whose extended family had 10, and they very certainly weren't and aren't rich
My father had 8 siblings and they all carry negative mental and emotional trauma from having parents who just couldn't humanely care emotionaly for each one of them because they lived with etreme burnout from being parents. No one should have 9 kids, it's child abuse.
If Elon musk is concerned about birth rates, maybe he shouldn't champion policies that will make people poorer. He might not be aware that the average person isn't a billionaire
@@Justme-rt4gj And what was your conclusion from that? Musks message is directed at the western world where the environment requires more money to raise a child. He also wants a smaller state so you tell me how ow non rich people, who get no financial support, are meant to deal with the expensive costs of having children. He even states the rich should be incentivised more to have children. So if rich people have more children and poorer people in the western world don’t, which of those silver spoon children are going to do those low paid jobs required for society to function? You think Elon musks kids are going to be cleaners? Yes poorer people in poorer counties have more kids but did you ignore/not understand the reason why? In those environments, families do very low skilled jobs and their income can be boosted by having children and getting them to help out from a young age. How is that anywhere near comparable to having children in the western world where child costs are significantly more expensive? It’s fairly simple to understand if you consider financial and environmental aspects. In the western world, if you want to raise kids you either need to make it cheaper to do so by either paying people more or getting help from the state. If people in power don’t want to do that than this is what happens. Declining birth rates in western economies
Old people haven't held up their end of the bargin, they havent given up the wealth or the government why would we create more of ourselves to be abused?
Insult to wolves. They are wonderful animals just trying to survive. Politicians and businesses just want to thrive at the unnecessarily evil expense of others.
Conservatives might want to ask themselves why they are determined to make it so hard to safely start a family before asking people why they don’t want kids.
that still relies on the assumption that people want kids when they are more often just biologically tricked into having them. if you actually have the ability to choose to not have kids then congratulations on your privilege. poverty hasn't gotten in the way of high birthrates in the past. it's good that people have that freedom, less kids are the natural outcome of that, get over it
You know how expensive it is to keep a child alive and thriving?? Especially in the US they do not care about the child’s wellbeing at all after birth.
Extremely tickled by the irony of suggesting that rich people should have more kids because they’ll pay more taxes when finding tax loopholes is a hobby for rich people.
Yes, an easier solution to the lack of tax money for infrastructure is to raise the taxes for the very rich, not raise the amount of "high tax paying people. These kids are not going to have a blue collar job, they have a trust fund, another way they don't pay taxes
This topic and the discussions around it are so frustrating. 1. For decades Conservatives valued individualism over collectivism. Now they're saying that individualism is the enemy. 2. They also valued less government interference, but now they want to use the government to push their world views on others. 3. Conservatives have also told poor folks that they should not make kids if they can't take care of them. Now they're complaining about the low birth rates. 4. Conservatives have (more than their liberal counterparts) advocated for the rights of corporations, which formalized the singular focus on profit creation for shareholders, that super-charged the wage/wealth gap. Now that folks aren't making kids because they just can't afford to live the childless lives they have right now, conservatives are in a tizzy. None of this makes sense. These rich folks have realized that lower birth rates will greatly affect their ability to enjoy the type of lives they currently have. This low birth rate scenario is an existential threat to THEIR lifestyle, not to the planet or society as a whole. And for many of them, they only want "certain people" to have more babies. Because if we're being brutally honest, there isn't a birth rate problem in sub-Saharan African countries, or in India. And there's only an issue in China because of the one-child policy that dominated for decades. There's isn't birth rate problem of the same magnitude among immigrants in the US or Canada. But that's not who they want making more children. Bottom line: these people are using the "birth rate problem" as a euphemism for The Great Replacement Theory.
Don't forget they're also undermining public health and discouraging child vaccinations which will lead to an increase in child deaths. Or do they think this will mostly only affect the poors? It really makes no sense.
Yes! Yes! YES!!!! I can't believe it took so long to find THIS COMMENT!!! The "lords" need more "peasants" to tend THEIR fields to keep the money flowing into THEIR pockets. They don't care about us peasants.
Just to play devils advocate here: 1. Individualism espoused by conservatives is about being able to take care of oneself and being self sufficient. They only were trying to tell people who were not self sufficient to have less kids and become self sufficient first. That’s why conservatives told teenagers not to get pregnant because if you are not self sufficient then bring a child into the world at 16 will make the goal of self sufficiency less likely. 2. They value less govt interference because it can limit individual progression. If a government places in regulations that small businesses cannot afford to pay, then the small businesses owner loses his or her self sufficiency, because his business could not pay for a new tax or regulation that his bigger competition was able to pay for. 3. If poor people need government help, then higher taxes on those who are self sufficient such as the small business owner in point number two become necessary. The point for conservatives has always been to reach self sufficiency and then have children. And a lot of what you see conservatives complaining about are educated households that have two incomes raking in $150k as a household deciding to remain childless. 4. Businesses both large and small are necessities for an economy to thrive. Conservatives know the nature of businesses and operate not expecting them to change their nature but use the carrot in order to incentivize them towards American job creation. Case in point NAFTA which sent a ton of jobs overseas was signed by Bill Clinton. And now you see a consecutive such as Trump criticizing NAFTA and similar trade agreements because they got rid of a lot of blue collar manufacturing jobs, which left a lot of blue collar families in a position where they were no longer self sufficient. The conservative ethos has been that people should be self sufficient. And that after becoming self sufficient, there are expectations, in this case having children. Now there are flaws in that whole ethos in that it may not be realistic to expect everyone to be self sufficient all the time. But the good thing about a self sufficient population, or one that does not need the government to support them, is that if the government provides its citizens very heavy support, its citizens are not in a position to be critical of their government because if you bite the hand that feeds you, that hand can just decide to stop feeding you altogether. I write this because I genuinely believe that at most people’s core, we are good albeit flawed people. But our intent is good; we just see the path towards bringing about what’s right will just look differently based on internal assumptions that we were either born or raised with. I think it’s best to give each other the benefit of the doubt rather than resort to name calling and antagonism.
That's a prejudiced thing to say, honestly. Men have a huge stake in whether or not women get married and have kids or not. Their voice deserves to be heard.
Politicians talk about the declining birthrate, but none of them are talking about the elephant in the room: the cost of living. If food, utilities, and Healthcare was cheaper many would certainly welcome the idea of having a family, even a big one.
"make it easier to have 9 kids if they want" Yeah this is a wealth gap problem lol. You used to be able to do this as a couple in our fabled middle classes
A family with 9 kids was very likely always poor, and let's not forget that having so many kids will very likely come at the cost of the mother's health or even her life.
the people who did this did it from 1 bedroom apartments. Our standards have raised, its not a money issue its a trying to live in the luxury the baby boomers had issue. The baby boomers in the west were the most affluent generation in all of human history. if you expect to have their life you don't understand how shafted most of humanity was. We have it better than medieval kings.
I'm 1 of 9 from a poor family even if my parents were rich you cannot equally raise thst many kids without parentification which is abuse. It was fucking awful growing up like that especially when you realise their was always a favourite child. I will always be against large families no one gets on in my family no more. Yay
Even if you have sufficient wealth to provide for nine children, reasonably speaking you won't have sufficient time to properly parent all of them. Either you'd need to employ someone to assist in their care or, more likely, you'd have older children (mostly girls) raising the younger ones. That's a form of child abuse, by the way. The reason the wealthy want us (or specific groups of us, which hints at further motives) to have so many children is because they need more cogs in their money-printing machines. They do not care about the standards of living those children will have, or whether those children will starve--only that they exist and will eventually become workers under the thumbs of the oligarchs. Society will not end if there is a population crash--which I am not convinced will happen in any case. I suspect this will be a temporary dip. But even if it does crash, we currently have 8 billion people; humanity is hardly going to go extinct even if we get all the way down to 1 billion. Which we won't, because there are still plenty of groups that have a positive birthrate, and some of those groups are entire, high-population nations. As for the nations more affected, they'll adapt. They'll accept more immigrants, or they'll adjust their economic models. The billionaires may lose their billions, though, which is what they are actually afraid of. Fewer people means fewer workers to exploit for low wages while fending off unions.
2 kids in childcare is double my mortgage, I can’t afford a bigger house, education and healthcare systems are broken, the earth is on fire, clean air and water is a luxury… why would I want to bring any more kids into this world
Read history and you will find that the population collapse in Europe in 1347 due to the Black Death brought about an improvement in living standards and rights for peasants due to a scarcity of labour. This led to a fall in the power of the landlord class and feudalism. Similar mechanism at work here. The elites want a plentiful supply of cheap compliant and cowed labour desperate for any form of work and willing to put up with dreadful conditions as a result of weak bargaining power inherent in high rates of growth. As a milkman on leaving school at the age of 17 I had a practical object lesson in the fallacy and tragedy of large families on scant resources. People with 4 or more children had to watch every penny, rows and deprivation were common and such families were always on the edge regarding material comforts and way of life. The families with 2 or 3 children and modest lifestyles were best off. Those with 8 or more children were always in a parlous state, depending on charity and outside help at a time when this was a source of great shame. You need a sizeable number of 2 children families but the society does not support this to any great extent.
I’m putting my child in childcare in a few months and it’s free for 3 half days a week going to 5 half days soon. The UK figured out how to get us to have more kids 😅
That may apply to you if you earn below average income in a rich country, but worldwide The quality of life actually increased in the last century. Globaly, not just in America. While money can be a factor, we are currently living in a period of relative wealth (with less global poverty overall) and stability (even though wars are reemerging today, they are nowhere near the scale of those in the 20th century). The average income of Americans alone is more than enough to sustain two or three children. For me, it seems that contraception, the fact that women have increasingly entered the workforce (as seen in wealthy Arab countries becoming more open to women working), and the unwillingness of people to slightly reduce their standard of living (which doesn’t mean becoming poor, but might involve giving up certain things or desires) are probably the strongest factors. However, these are also the hardest to act upon due to reasonable ethical concerns. It's more complicated than just saying, 'It’s the culture, bro,' but there are factors beyond economic ones that seem to be stronger predictors of this phenomenon.
The irony is that birthrates will probably drop during Trumps term, due to fear of the consequences of botched pregnancies and miscarriages not getting medical treatment. And women who want children rendered infertile (or deceased) due to that as well. Sterilisation rates are significantly increasing because of this. And so is long term contraceptives like IUDs and implants. Pregnancy is currently seen as too great a risk. And there will still be 'abortshuns', just not safe ones.
You say "pregnancy is seen as too great a risk" but then also "there will still be meatball surgery abortions" .... I mean, if women are concerned with safety shouldn't they take more steps towards not having accidental pregnancies instead?
@@mrkikythere’s complications with pregnancies whether they are wanted or not. Even if people are ready to have a baby , and want to have a baby they still might lose the baby due to medical complications. And the mothers life can also be put at risk
I want my kids to have a good childhood, If I keep having kids, I will be homeless or have terrible children who are living in squalor. I guess that is ok, as long as the rich get their workforce right??? Who needs quality of life....
31:04 "The point of why governments need to encourage pronatalism is because they need to produce more taxpayers. If governments only produce more non tax-paying, very low-earning citizens, their infrastructure is still going to crumble, they're still going to be politically unstable, they're still going to have pension-fund nightmares. What you need is high tax-payers." Hrmm, it sounds almost like having a large amount of our society's capital controlled by a very small segment of the population who regularly avoid paying taxes and who use their disproportionate control of resources to lobby for lower taxes is actually bad? Almost like a more effective solution would be reducing income inequality by redistributing the resources hoarded by ultra-wealthy people such as yourself to the general public...
They'll have no choice when they can't use unemployment and homelessness as a cudgel. Its why they keep both at "managable" levels. Not possible when depopulation is significant enough, and what few of us remain can demand much better living standards in exchange for working for them.
My understanding is that all the wealth of all the billionaires in the US would fund the US government for 9 months, and you can only seize their wealth one time. If you make 100 on a test, and someone else gets a 50, let's take 25 points from you and give it to the other person in order to make things equal. Neither person would bother to do any work in class after that. The problem with redistribution of wealth is that it contains no incentive. The outcome is predetermined, so why bother.
@@arpadzigisfari5819 "all the wealth of all the billionaires in the US would fund the US government for 9 months, and you can only seize their wealth one time." Sure, but this makes some rather ridiculous assumptions that only make sense if you're explicitly pro-billionaire. Like the fact that seizing a productive asset like a company doesn't cause it to liquidate? The money-making firm still exists. If an investor transferring his shares wouldn't implode the firm, then why would transferring those shares to the government immediately wipe out all of the value?
@@flyerton9958Also, the idea that the tax on income above, say, $100k a year would be 100%. I’d say 50% is fair, if the rich actually PAY it. Trouble is, they have plenty of money and leisure to avoid paying as much taxes ax as possible! 😑
they do, reasonably often. especially the hyper-religious wackos. they just also often treat them pretty horribly. neglect, abuse, and indoctrination into their doomsday cult. so I guess they get homes? growing up healthy... less so. educated? lol, no chance.
My husband and I wanted to have children but then roe v wade was overturned. Pregnant women are having miscarriages and dying of sepsis because doctors aren't allowed to treat them. That's not a risk I want to take
@dl2839 friend of mine had this happen, they waited too long to treat he because if they treated her too soon it wouldn't be considered medically necessary YET even though they knew she'd need an abortion eventually. She nearly bled out and has had chronic illness ever since
I’m from the UK and really struggling to understand this comment. No Roe v Wade means the state decides abortion laws, can someone explain how this is a cause of miscarriages and sepsis?
I'm an only child of a single parent. I'm also gay. One of my biggest regrets and the thing that kept me from coming out for years was the fact that I couldn't give my mother any grandchildren. I'd love to adopt, or better yet to have a surrogate child, but I have over $80k in student loans, I have to pay nearly $600 per month for health insurance just for myself, and I have to pay all the normal monthly expenses like rent, food, and utility bills. Despite making about $70k every year, I'm stuck living in a ratty 2br apartment with my partner and a roommate. Our total household income is over $100k, yet we can't even afford to rent a house, and we're quite a bit better off than most people. In the United States, it costs about $50k just to adopt a child, not including any of the expenses of actually having the child. It's impossible. Even if I had a really good female friend who was willing to let me approach them with a gas mask and a turkey baster, I still couldn't afford to raise a kid even if the act of getting said kid was free. The economic side of this equation can't be ignored, and I find it ironic that many of the loudest "natalists" are also extremely rich and largely responsible for the massive concentration of wealth that prevents many normal people from being able to afford children in the first place. They are the cause of the problem they're so concerned about.
they want to have their cake and eat it too. they could have two cakes, if they put some money towards it. its a transactional world, and they expect us to pay them for giving them what they want. its very over.
"he fact that I couldn't give my mother any grandchildren. I'd love to adopt, or better yet to have a surrogate chil" guilt your straight friends to have more kids. Help them raise their kids. Ain't your fault your mom never bothered with a back up.
@@dixonhill1108 My mother never bothered with a backup because she had a very difficult, complicated pregnancy and she was told that it would be a serious risk to her life to have another kid. It was even recommended that she have an abortion with her first pregnancy, but she opted not to, luckily for me. It's absolutely not her fault for having only one child.
I remember watching some economist years ago theorizing that the population will likely stabilize after a few generations of decline. We have this issue of thinking environments, people, and mentalities will stay the same forever and it's never been true. Human population spent 100 year exploding, of course it would slow down eventually. We have also faced massive population declines in the past thanks to disease and famine, so this is also hardly a new issue.
THIS! nothing is linear, our behaviors are conditioned by our environment. Having kids a hundred years back was and advantage and an asset. Now it’s a burden and it sucks. But if anything, history has taught us that this will likely change again in the future once circumstances change again.
True. But unfortunately economists won't stop panicking about lack of growth and will happily advocate for tech or importing people to solve the problems of an economy reaching equilibrium.
But also they are not concerned with the world population declining (which it is not). They just don’t like that “their people” are not reproducing enough.
@jessip8654 While throughout history this was true, in cases like the aftermath of the Black Death, the Little Ice Age and other disasters, you forgot one crucial thing that is essential to our modern society. The Line Must Go Up This is the greatest truth of the modern age, constant, continous growth in market value. Apple and others MUST increase in value, year after year, month after month. It is not enough to have a prosperous, self-sustaining profitable business, companies like that are relics and oddities of an older time and economic model. Nowdays the line must climb for success, nothing else, like actually selling stuff matters. Vivek Ramaswamy runs a pharma company that dosen't actually make any drugs; but it's valued at over a billion, The Line Must Go Up. This means that unlike in previous eras; where function and actual production was valued so everyone wouldn't starve, almost all things of great value in the modern era are valued because the Line Goes Up. You can gamble with them, trade them, maybe they even make stuff like cars, but their value is now seen as inherent, rather than representative. All this to say, if the circumstances that prop this all up go away, the entire system falls down in a way no other system has since maybe the Bronze Age Collapse. We can either have change now, or get hell later.
Are you ignoring something, like the dumb way the economy is set up, that requires population growth to work? Will the population stabilize? Probably. But once countries start collapsing it will not matter. The new sea people will eat the world. If you don't get the reference, read a book.
@deargatekeeper no they live in a world like the post war were kids die so often that they just keep having more mpst developed countrys dont have that problem to the extent so theres higher focus on the well being of the children you bring
This statistically isn't true though. Countries who have tried giving subsidies to people who have kids found it did not increase births, even when the subsidy outweighed the increase in costs vs. wages
@@deargatekeeper No. It's because the children die faster at a younger because of lack of healthcare. Also, the need for labor is a motivation to have children. And lastly, a lot of these countries don't have access to good and informative sex education & birth control. A lot of western countries were in the same predicaments 60 (+) years ago. In those poor countries, people are having more children not because they want to, but because they have too. Lastly, people are going to have sex regardless, it's a natural thing. And with that comes children (most likely unwanted), whom they will still take care of. I was born and raised in Haiti and move to the states 10+ years ago. I am talking from experience, the high birth rate in poorer countries is rooted in lack of healthcare, need for labor, gender roles and religious believes.
women who do not have children and remain unmarried are NOT typically dependent on the state. It is the women who - and I include myself in this, having had a 'traditional' life as a stay at home mother with three children - have had children and worked less who depend on e.g. welfare for when the partner 'breadwinner' takes off and refuses to pay childcare, and on state pensions for old age having not had the ability to work long enough and for a sufficient salary, that are dependent on the state. My three children, none of whom have children of their own, are all working and paying taxes that will allow women who did NOT have children, to get full pensions while I am dependent on the state for a pittance.
I probably fit this. I'm a higher earner, with extra disposable income, because aside from cats I have no dependents. Plus, I have to figure that, compared to people I know who had kids, I'll probably enjoy better health for a longer time, with way less wear and tear on my body.
Right? I don't make enough to build a house yet, but I earn more than about 3/4 of American households. It's hard but it is so much better than being a house slave completely dependant on whatever mediocre man I got saddled with. I'lltake this struggle every day over that one.
I don’t understand, wouldn’t your kids paying taxes also contribute to your stability since you’re relying on public services? Just as the women who had no children were paying taxes that went to public schools and services meant for children?
I live in America. Am childless. Married, Just turned 36. My husband and I have both worked 50-70 hours per week our whole lives just to stay A LITTLE comfortable. I would love to have children and be a mother but it's just way too expensive. Not enough support. It's just that fucking simple.
No, it isn't. If you really wanted them, you could have them. You just don't want them, and make excuses to yourself about it. That's ok, but you are missing out.
Peterson calling people who don't want kids "selfish" is ironic because he considers collectivism to be a Commie idea that will destroy the world or whatever.
Well not having kids is putting the human species in existential danger and colletivism killed tens of millions of people the last century so both things seem really great ideas to me.
Insane insane to Me that people like him after deciding someone is extremely pathologically Selfish will and then demand they have children. My guy why would you want to put a kid through that????? Its good when selfish people realize they aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to give a child a good life, it means they don't end up hurting any children! I ~almost~ understand the mindset conceptually but also no I don't what the fuck?
Exactly. Sacrifice? OK, but...for whose benefit? The child that otherwise would not exist in this world that youre convinced is declining? Yours??? Fo here.
Wow. As a woman with five children (and might have had more if my last 4650g baby during a pandemic wasn't so difficult), those pro-natalist arguments are just so insulting and infuriating. The irony of their arguments so often being self-centered, self-serving and self-aggrandizing while they blame the selfishness of those "other" women for fertility is also not lost on me.
Not once have I heard one of them claim that it's women being selfish or whatever you're talking about. I've watched a bunch of these pro natalists. Women in the workforce, for example, they always say that it is NOT women's fault. Rather it's the governments fault for creating an economy where both the father & mother NEED to work in order to survive. They argue that it should be only one parent while the other stays home. I suggest doing research before allowing emotions to take over & assuming the worst next time.
@@elpidalastname9834 you seriously fault the government for an economy where both parents have to work to survive, rather than employers and business owners for not paying enough?
@@mortarien I mean it's definitely both--that's been a two-way relationship for a long time. But yeah, the employers and shareholders seem to be gaining disproportionate amounts of power here
@mortarien given the fact that lots of these issues stem from governments appeasing to businesses, a large chunk of politicians who are literally business owners themselves, majority of politicians get campaign donations (bribed), majority of politicians do insider trading, and so much more, yeah... I would say so, given that it's so blatant and blasted all over news channels 24/7... Are you seriously saying that you don't believe this?
Watch BOOMERS, exclusively on Nebula, right now: go.nebula.tv/boomers?ref=tomnicholas
Everyone on the production team (and there's a lot of them!) worked so hard on BOOMERS. It's packed with incisive interviews and investigation into intergenerational inequality, housing, pensions, and much more. All told through a globe-trotting journey to uncover the lives and legacy of the Baby Boomer generation.
It also features my mum!
Thanks so much to everyone who's signed up to Nebula and watched it already!
Ngl mate this wasn't a very good video. You spent most of the time talking about the conservative figureheads and airing their opinions than the time you did actually addressing the root cause. This felt more like 50min ad for your nebula than it did an in depth look into this issue and also starkly not speaking on the threats to women's rights that were made. I just didn't see a lot of testimony from the mouthpiece of those who aren't chronically super glued to a mannosphere yeti mic
WHY is there that flicker in the background constantly? I can't look at the graphs without starting to feel a migraine coming on. I'm having to listen to this as a podcast in a minimised tab. I dread to think what this would be like with photosensitive epilepsy.
32:40 The last label on X-axis should be 2019?
Seems like your video hasn't reached it's goal. you focused too much on the dumb conservative POV and people are appalled by the issue as a whole instead of admitting it exists, and the fact that even if they prefer population decline when it's too rapid it's gonna cause issues.
Its not about the population it’s about living sustainably, conservatives in the old days used to accuse poorer people of having too many children for their own good , even though the people in poorer countries produce much less waste and emissions e.g chad produces less than 0.1 tons of co2 per capita but canada and the us produce 14 tons per person
Why would I want kids? My employer already said we're a family.
This is hilarious
🤦
This reminds me of my aversion to any company that touts out any form of that 'family line'. No one will screw you over faster than family.
😂😂😂😂
👏🏼😆👏🏼
Japan shows that you can't work people to death and also expect them to have the time and energy to raise multiple kids.
@RussOlson-pl3kf yuuuup for real...recession included
@RussOlson-pl3kfJapan is a terrible case study as nothing about their economic nor social systems are replicated elsewhere.
The phrase "except for Japan" is a meme in economics.
@@SurmaSampotheir circumstances are very visible in other East Asian countries
@@SurmaSampo No. But nice try.
And this is why Japan also has the Hikikomori.
"It's not about the money" - Somebody whos entire existence has been about the money.
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯👍
Every "crisis" is just milked for money. That's why our solution to climate change isn't to reduce oil subsidies, but to pay for EVs. That's why the EPA made regulations that just caused Americans to buy bigger cars instead of smaller cars, because bigger cars are more profitable even if worse for the environment. This is what makes me sick of politicians.
@@WesSmith-v1n no, normal people don’t exploit domestic and foreign workers just to hoard a mcduck ass fortune. Normal people work for money to survive, live, and thrive. The last two are becoming harder and harder with the greedy people making it easier for them to hoard even more obscene amount of money
Who would have guessed capitalism wasn't sustainable?
Money is our religion 🤑🫠😶🌫️🫥
As an American woman who raised 3 children the answer is simple: everything is too fucking expensive. Kids cost in every conceivable way, and you will be directly criticized and humiliated publicly for being poor and having children. I WOULD KNOW. Incentivize raising children and people will.
Yup.
In the U.K. there’s obvious data on this. Birth rates fell when additional benefits were declined for parents with 3 or more kids.
No problem, they'll just ban contraceptives and abortion - people will be forcibly poor and with few kids cause millionaires need cheap labor. Still don't want to reproduce? Well, here's a childlessness tax and fines from the state. Send people back to the early 20th century and (rich people's) problems will solve themselves... Or so they think.
I'm reaching a place where it's hard to afford my cat sometimes, where am I gonna get baby money?
@@PrincessNinja007 felt, especially since my cat has diabetes and needs insulin regularly 2 times a day
Nah dirt farmers 50 years ago had 5 kids 6 kids.
The difference is our generation doesn't want to sacrifice our lifestyle to raise the next generation so it's all about having the resources for the current lifestyle PLUS enough for kids.
Ironic that the ultra-rich oligarchs that feel so threatened by a shrinking population have also contributed the most to the circumstances that cause the population to shrink faster.
They are at the top of the pyramid scheme and are determined to stay there
Preach 👏👏👏
Real talk. These idiots have made life at the bottom hell through their own greed but oh no they aren't going to have enough wage slaves to make them more money!!!!
They don't, the ultra rich want to bring the world population down to 500 million.
@@scarlthesnarl5581 And yet every election people like you vote for the system to reinforce itself.
Can we also remember that rich people don’t even RAISE their own children. It’s easy to have 5+ kids when you don’t actually raise them
Why should they when they can just hire poor people to raise their kids for them? That's why they want new poor people. Who else is going to clean their toilets 20 years from now?
Most people don't "raise" their kids; they send them to school every day.
@@reubenmorris487??? What do you mean ? People send their children to school for education. You HAVE to raise your kid even if they are attending school. I think the original comment is referring to how rich people have dozens of nannies for their kid and don't do any actual raising themselves.
Excuse my english ; it's not my first language.
@@reubenmorris487 the lie detector test determined that was a lie. Truancy rates are at an all time high. I'm convinced working parents are not even caring enough to send their kids to school.
People with 9+ kids don't raise their kids either. The Duggars matriarch spends time with the babies(till the next one comes) while her older daughters take care of the rest.
Parentification is necessary for that many kids. My family only had 6 kids(4 then 2 more a decade later), and us older kids were still hit with that unintentionally.
Of course is easy to have 9-12 kids when you are filthy rich. Most people can barely afford rent
And when you ask them to make the economy better, they say find another job. The amount of vulgarity.
@@Mailthe It really is that easy though. You have 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of free time. If you invest some amount of time into improving and diversifying your skillset you can make money on the side.
@FifinatorKlon In the ghost job economy? With the stagnated salaries despite rampant inflation? Having 0 benefits because everything is a "gig" now? Please, have some empathy for those who don't have industry connections and fast-track schooling...
@@FifinatorKlon def possible to improve one's situation but unfortunately there's not that many jobs out there that will pay you enough to sustain a family of 9. The key issue is housing costs, as long as property is used as an investment vehicle instead of a basic necessity there's no way that having a family will become affordable for most people
Not being "filty rich" is not the problem. generally poorer people have more kids except for the very wealthy (which is a very tiny part of the population so tiny as not to really count).
If the economy was the causal factor for not having children it would be the other way around.
When I had my son in 1999, I could still find a large 2-bedroom apartment for $700/mo in California, gas was $1.85/gal, my medical deduction was $80 per paycheck and I was making about $45K a year. It was still a big challenge with a car note, daycare costs and other bills, but we sustained. Now they want people to do the SAME thing with barely any national wage increase in 25 years, average $2K rent, $4/gal gas, a $700 car note and $300 per check being taken out for company medical insurance. They are mad. Thankfully, my career progression allowed me to put my son through college and we've already paid off his debt, but that was ONE child. I can't imagine doing that now. I would not have a child today. Even with the money I make now, the struggle would be insanity. The audacity of these pronatalists to demand more breeding.
700 for a CAR NOTE is INSANE. Im grateful that my grandpa gave his car to my dad, who gave it to me when I got my license.
The audacity of them to demand that people breed more, for their future comfort, when they're not gonna pay for a single penny of it! Oh, and since rich people the only ones who can have kids, whose gonna do all this work they need done in the future. They gonna start enslaving their family members again.
So you can safely lump pronatalists in with deflationists. As the overlap is very real.
@@Weed_Gato 700 is like tip of the iceberg i ve seen trucks signed at 2k a month
This. 100% of this.
If a country wants more kids, building a society that deserves more kids should probably be the first step. Policies that support businesses over having kids will get you more businesses and less kids.
Agreed. Unfortunately, Adam Jenson said it best "If you want to make enemies, try to change something".
Trying to enact a change to that degree would make the most powerful people in the world your enemies overnight.
You're leaving out a lot of context as to why people aren't having kids.
The real reason why nobody is having children is because the cost of goods rising, as well as societal flaws.
The real reason why housing is so expensive is merely the lack of supply. Major cities implement zoning laws, making building houses exceedingly difficult, so that's why there is a shortage of housing in major cities, not because of price gouging. These housing projects sometimes also pour in too many resources in building higher quality housing, much higher than some people can purchase, making people less eligible for purchasing the houses. Kind of like how someone who sells sticks for a living can't purchase a gold plated mansion.
The same holds true for other areas in the economy as well as marriage. There is no loss in the thirst and desire for sex amongst the male and female populations, but existing marriage laws make marriage unfair for men to get married. That's why there is such a decrease in marriage rates.
I can go on and on there are a bunch or reasons why people aren't getting married and they are worrying.
Exactly. It’s all about balance. Yes we need business to employ us, drive the economy and provide services the state can’t… but that shouldn’t be at the expense of literally everything else!
This argument does however (have to) ignore the birthrate trend in countries that have among the family and child friendliest policies. Scandinavian countries for example where you get money for having kids and education and healthcare is free up to and including higher education, Parental leave up to a year and a half (paid) still have abysmal birth rate only about 0.2-0.6 point above countries everyone shout "low birth rate" about (Japan, South Korea).. Finland & Japans birthrate only differ by 0.06 (2022)
A lot of the reason people usually tout like "iTs sO exPenSive!" is definitely a reason that a lot of us can FEEL like its true but there's really no statistics (or historical trend) to prove that, and a little bit of critical thinking can shed light to why this is. (People have had children even though it made zero financial sense since dawn of time and even after contraception)
A more likely reason is that we're really busy, have non-paternal aspiration in life that makes us have children later in life, Which often means that you have less children. And also pension system. Most people believe they're going to be fine when they turn 70+ since government will take care of them, so all financial aspirations in life can take precedence over family making.
@@Arc3752 They already are our enemies.
Billionaires: "Oh no, the birthrates! We need more babies for the economy!"
Normal people: "Are you going to use your wealth and political influence to improve the quality of life, pay your share to raise wages and social spending and fight climate change so that there's some actual hope for the future again?"
Billionaires: "We're building bunkers in New Zealand to prepare for the collapse."
Exactly! Asking people to have kids and building "doomsday bunkers" at the same time
Basically. I think this collapse in birth rate is paramount to humanity's survival. It is NECESSARY. Nevermind the economical impacts, it is exactly what we need. We'll be fine, we can already do without. The billionaires gonna be who get ripped apart. Of course they're panicking.
@@ashamane honestly the entire discussion of this as a doomsday scenario is severely overestimating how it will eventually shake out. It will be such a long period of time that the entire economy and systems around it will adapt as the population decreases.
but who's going to take care of you when you are old?
@@ashamaneI'd love to agree with you, buddy. Unfortunately, ignorance is deadly, and im all out of bubblegum.
A billionaire telling poor women they need to have kids so they have a workers might be the best argument for only having kids if you can afford them
the same men then complain women only want them for their money🤣
On the other side, kids are not as expensive as they claim. At least not in Europe. Like literally everything is free here, especially for children. It is subsidy upon subsidy for children. Birth subsidy, maternity leave, school subsidies, free university and college, free scholarships. And if you dont go crazy with clothes and toys, what exactly makes a child expensive? Take them into nature and teach them a trade and they will be so happy.
@@aurorerichIsn't it the US creator? It's a different situation there, starting right from that hefty bill for your labor.
And even in Europe it depends on the country. Kindergarten in the Netherlands is expensive.
Aaaand u still need more living space and food. Take Germany for example, it has a lot of such benefits, but the total majority don't own houses. And it's expensive to rent a big flat. Food prices are rising too.
@@aurorerich it's expensive as fuck here in the states, my guy
@@aurorerich you have to pay for childcare, your career takes a hit and you might just get fired for being pregnant. Hospital bills for pregnancy are expensive as all get out, then when both parents have to go back to work (because there is no mandatory paternity leave) in six months you have to pay for a baby sitter, hope to god you have some sort of family that's willing to help out (not very likely), or have to pay for daycare which can be 1-2k a month. You have to pay to send your child to public school, and on top of that pay for their meals (they will let you go hungry if your parents can't pay, or you get a 'cold' meal which is just a peanut butter jelly sandwich if they have any leftover). Then you have to pay for college/university, which is horrifically expensive, then you have the rest of your life to pay off your debts. Everything costs something in America.
If it’s such a major concern, will this country provide adequate housing, food, and other resources to support an increasing population? No? Alright, I’ll stay childless then.
they are upset that even when the country does provide those things, the population doesn't magically jump to 5 or 6 like it did in medieval times, and instead is at like 2.3-2.6 in developed countries, where women were generally discouraged from working or risked being labelled a witch, or they worked the fields and big families helped.
Japan has proven that paying people to have kids don't work
@@forwadnothing8212thank you!!
These two comments are the best ones I’ve read! We are NEVER going back to that level of children due to how advanced our society has become. And that is a GOOD thing. We already millions of children in foster care programs who likely will never be picked up! We don’t need more children in a population that is on-course to hit 10 billion!
And then you take in these large corporations across the globe screwing everyone over, and you get 2 very legitimate reasons of why people do not want kids!
The quality of life actually increased in the last century. Globaly, not just in America.
While money can be a factor, we are currently living in a period of relative wealth (with less global poverty overall) and stability (even though wars are reemerging today, they are nowhere near the scale of those in the 20th century). The average income of Americans alone is more than enough to sustain two or three children.
For me, it seems that contraception, the fact that women have increasingly entered the workforce (as seen in wealthy Arab countries becoming more open to women working), and the unwillingness of people to slightly reduce their standard of living (which doesn’t mean becoming poor, but might involve giving up certain things or desires) are probably the strongest factors. However, these are also the hardest to act upon due to reasonable ethical concerns.
It's more complicated than just saying, 'It’s the culture, bro,' but there are factors beyond economic ones that seem to be stronger predictors of this phenomenon.
So you don't want to have children because other people won't pay for them? Sad
“Birth control makes women sad”. Imagine what an unwanted pregnancy does to her mental state.
Exactly 😒
They prioritize potential lives over the already established ones, it’s fucking sickening. I hope we can fight these corrupt politicians, I’m scared for our future
Birth control makes this woman very happy! No unwanted pregnancy and no painful monthly periods!
@@richie3955 It's mind boggling to me how people can give a fetus more personhood than it's mother
Theres people who just want to skip steps, or not say the quiet part out loud
not super convinced that the same group of people who oppose free school lunches really care about actually making it easier to have children.
Defunding paediatric cancer research so the government can subsidise your rockets isn't very pro-life.
Tyvm. Such a good point.
Most conservatives support free lunches they just think there should be a household income cap. Aka your parents make like 75,000 or more a year they can pay for your lunch while the other kids get help.
The video frames this issue like it’s not a really bad top issue when it very much is a really bad top issue. It’s true that conservatives don’t have good answers to fix it but it’s still a really bad top issue
…and healthcare, and maternity leave, and education,…
I’m speaking of the US if it wasn’t obvious.
Billionaires crying that wage workers aren't making more wage workers. Cry me a river
It does not matter what the billionaires say or think. What matters is that taxes will increase when there is a higher percentage of people retired vs. working
@@Kevriyal5654 Pretty sure their solution to that problem is going to be to make it so fewer people can retire
...naah, there will be more A.I or machines doing these jobs in the future...they won't need PPL, ...but they'll need PPL to spend money to buy their products and make them more rich 😅
Not just wage workers. Customers. They need more customers to buy more stuff to grow their companies because corporate growth is the only measure of success they know.
Bro they happy less workers less people to pay and excuse to get robots to replace yall
Japan: Your job is your life. Six days a week, 12-14 hours a day. WE are your family!
Also Japan: You have to have babies, 2 or 3 at least, regardless of the cost of living.
Young Japanese people: No.
can't really have kids and work 6 days a week, especially without daycares. even if they were having kids it'd literally be a recipe for disaster. severe mental health issues galore due to the extreme lack of support for anyone who isn't already filthy rich.
Also me in America: No.
Fortunately it seems like Japan finally realized it's a bad idea. They're letting the people have Fridays off work for recreation. Now if America would do the same instead of doubling down on everything...
"Breeding for the economy" is some sick thinking.
It reminds me of Mussolini's idiotic policy of breeding for war.
The Russian Government are trying to promote something similar there. They have awful demographics and the Government attempts to improve fertility rates with the carrot method haven't succeeded so now they're starting to look at options for punishing families that do not have enough children.
We have children for cultural longevity as well as for the sake of making people better then us. Its better if their is something higher than yourself to motivate you. But unfortunately long ago America lost interest in making good people and instead want to make good money, which hurts the people of the future.
@@MrPlaylistMan I would gladly have kids for the sake of teaching them to live great lives, contribute to the world and further science/art/culture... I can't do that in this society, I don't want to give life to a kid and then send them off to a factory, I'd rather let society collapse if that's the vision those in power have for it. sure we'll all suffer, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.
@@TheInfectous I understand you're fear but again you have to have something you believe in that is higher then yourself in order to sacrifice for those future people. If you are waiting for our society to collapse before you start a family then you will be too late.
Those who already have a bunch of children and live outside of our society are mostly Amish, they will most likely inherit the ashes because they are self sustainable and seemingly double themselves.
I know it's a future issue my people will have to deal with, but I'm optimistic in general.
There has been a rhetoric over the decades, "don't have children if you can't afford them." The population listened, now everyone is complaining that no one is having children. Similar story with teen pregnancy and single mums.
The right (especially but not exclusively) made single and young mothers suffer for decades, never ever valuing their important contributions.
@@ladyeowyn42this part right here!
Can't have kids Can't afford to adopt 😢
The people who aren't having kids are the ones who CAN afford them.
Which is typically in response to someone saying why they want an abortion. A bit off that you dipped into taking that out of context. One is more direct (the one you are referencing) to the individual and the other statement (we need more babies) is a macro statement.
In America, giving birth in hospital costs a hefty bill of thousands of dollars.
Not to mention maternal mortality and parental leave are significantly worse than other industrialised countries
Honestly it's be far cheaper to burn all your money. chances are you couldn't do it as fast as a child would require you to spend lmao
Countries where this isn't a problem have even worse birthrates than us. Irrelevant.
@@soarel325 Calling it irrelevant seems short sided even if you don't fully agree with it.
@@soarel325 Correlation doesn't mean causation. These costs are one of the reasons fewer people decide to give birth
Trying to convince people to produce more children without offering literally any support to make children even feasible for many/most is wild. Not offering maternity leave, accepting gaps in resumes, making healthcare affordable (even if creating and birthing a whole human isn’t an adequate reason to take any time off, either to heal or give the child a chance at a fulfilling childhood/life), etc etc. I just. Can’t.
Having children is a DEATH SENTANCE in most jobs, even if legally forced to make time, they'll still find a way to cut you out, hire anyone who isn't birthing kids, and then blame you!
Having a child for anything other than love is a recipe for disaster for the psychological well being of the child.
I am sorry, but that is just plain silly. The population is filled with people who are here, not because of an "act of love', but from an act of physical sex. There is so much at play in what makes a mentally well person, genetics is the big one, followed by childhood experience, and environment. Nature, nurture. It would be amazing to know how many pregnancies per year are unexpected or accidents. Bit I wager the number is very high.
Ok let me try…having a military draft lottery for only those willing to serve.
Oh wait…
And most times... love just a-ain't enough
Yes! Children need to know they are loved every day. They can not develop normally otherwise. 12 kids was alright in the patriarchal societies when parents loved their children equally. Being poor is not the worst thing. Not being wanted is. Of course today many children are autistic or have some other condition. Unfortunately these do suffer even when they are loved.
For most of human history when people were having 5+ children, I somehow doubt love was the driving force
So basically the solution to declining birth rates is just fixing every other issue first that governments ignore so they get short term growth
There is no solution to declining birth rates. Europe and East Asia have thrown everything they can at the problem, nothing stops it.
Yeah I think that really does get to the heart of it all -- the obsession with short term (monetary, narrowly distributed) growth
Yeah just magically solve every issue. I guess you know how to do it. Please enlighten us
Short term growth and blatant disregard of the long term damage? Sounds like private equity to me.
Than regardless of all of the above and previously mentioned can you explain why the amish having kids left right and centre. Like any sort of socially disconnected culture that doesn't focus on these things is legit growing at replacement levels.
it’s always a mystery to me why the same men who want us to have children are also hell bent on making having children as difficult, painful, expensive, and inaccessible as possible
They want the wage workers, AND they want to profit from your offspring all through their childhood via expensive food, toys almost no subsidies so you’re forced to buy and produce corporate profits.
THIS!!!!
To encourage desperation and poverty.
Conservatives yes are contradictory in general on this issue but that doesn’t change that a declining birth rate is a really big issue
They are so detached. Since the murder of that CEO even those “alternative” media showed how out of touch with the reality they are.
People using "mating" when referring to humans gives me the ick. I like to think that there's something more to sex than merely fulfilling an instinctual function.
They don’t want to work. They want YOUR kids to work, for them.
Spot on! 🎯
commie
jk
So sad but true
Work is divine
💯
Funny how the individuals screaming for more kids never want to address the kids languishing in foster care.
They dont care those kids are already born
Those are "damaged goods" to a large portion of our society a.k.a. Monsters
That makes no sense
conservatives only care about money and continuing capitalism even tho it is failing 99% of people
Most of those kids aren’t the race they are talking about.
The most frustrating thing I hear about population rates is that there is a lot of focus on the number of children but not the quality of their lives and outcomes.
Edit: Since this comment blew up, I think it's worth bringing up some things that I meant like Montessori parenting and gentle parenting.
This. This. This. Like excuse me for not wanting to bring someone else into this nonsense without their consent! This system is an absolute 🎪
Yes. But they are largely two separate things, and a smaller working population does decrease life quality, all else equal
Well, when fewer children are born, the fewer people are able to take care of the already large population of elderly people - so the countries have to have higher taxes - which can then result in fewer younger people not wanting to have children - a wonderful spiral
Exactly, and then those same people often have certain opinions on how many kids people in central America or what have you should have, then they focus on the quality. Totally not racially motivated or anything.
@@johnstamos1542 As someone who listens to the fertility decline 'alarmists' i've never once heard them say the fertility rate is too high in other countries. THey actually point out that it is not just a western problem but a global problem
At this point I'm not having children purely out of spite, not that I would've ever been able to afford them anyway.
You would have been able to afford them. You'd just have to give up other stuff you want instead (a bigger house, faster promotions, etc.)
Also, not having kids out of spite just makes it more likely the government cannot subsidize you in your old age (e.g. medicare, social security, etc.)
Don’t. Trust me. Do what YOU want and move to another country if the US doesn’t provide you with what you need.
@@fark69 social security and other related pensions will most likely collapse before I get to retire anyway...
From the perspective of the gene pool, I'd like to extend a wholehearted thank you to you.
The city in a 2nd world Balkan country that me and my brother grew up in. Has the average apartment price per meter² at a value 4 times the average monthly wage. When my brother told me that since he had dug into it out of curiosity, we looked eachother in the eyes with understanding agreed "we're never going to own a home"
I feel you and believe me I absolutely agree.
Nothing says "we're going to be good parents" like being motivated to have children because of declining birth rates and not, you know, wanting or liking children.
Righr?
They'll probably tell the kids to pull themselves up by the bootstrap, even though they never had to.
I dont think that has anything to do with it.
That either means people were at some point forced to have children or children have over time become less likable. Which one is it?
@@themountain3461 that has literally happened throughout history. One of the main purposes of religion was to shame people into continuing to have kids while in poverty.
Female, single, 24 year old here. I got my uterus removed five months ago due to an illness. It was so difficult for me to get this surgery, although having health care reasons for it because of my age. I never wanted kids but was told that I would definitely change my mind and regret it later. My ability to have kids was considered more important than my physical and mental health. People told me that I'm selfish and that I will never know true love because of this decision. But wanting to live a free life without pain is worth it all. It might be selfish. But I don't care.
You owe nobody any explanation of what you choose to do with your own body.
Take care and stay strong love ❤.
@phenomenal821 thank you. I am just so used to having to justify my choice because I had to do so for so many years with most people not even listening.
Don't listen to them. It's your life, your choice. Besides, children should only be born under ideal conditions like loving and capable parents, decent community, good environment, plentiful resources, etc. If you're uncertain, don't bring a life here (as one who personally believes in some form of reincarnation (my spiritual beliefs are complicated), their consciousness will go elsewhere. They'll be fine).
I knew someone where the doctors kept asking her about having children with her current or a future hypothetical husband when she'd say they didn't want kids. The doctors in the area gave her the run around for years and for YEARS she lived in pain most of the time. She just hit her mid 40s and they were like, ah yea you probably won't have kids, we'll just do a hysterotomy. The fact that so many doctors in our area gave her the run around for so many years is truly terrible. They didn't have the money to go further for other opinions/care. I am glad you were able to get the care you needed without going through years of pain.
@zoeye7095
That's so horrible. She should sue them if she has the money.
I don't understand why people call it fertility decline, when it isn't people's fertility but the fact it's too expensive to have one. Or that people don't want them.
Actually fertility is also decreasing, independently of the decision making process.
Its not , its the desire for children in the first place, we dont have big incentive social structures that encourage it.
And ppl not viewing it as a requirement anymore since they have more options of what to do with themselves esp for women as they progressed. It used to b that for a lot of ppl that was THE if not the ONLY path
it’s because birth rates are also called “fertility rates”. idk why but fertility refers to both ability to have kids and actually having them
There’s lots of people who want kids and can’t. You don’t know what you’re talking about
Low hanging fruit here, but there are two things that really grinds my gears about the pronatalist (and maybe more specifically the manosphere) arguments that we are presented with in this video.
1: «People don't have kids because they are too self centred or narcissistic» - It is wild to me to propose that people should have babies, in spite of not wanting them, out of some self sacrificing obligation to society. "I didn't really want you, but Jordan Peterson thought I ought to, so here you are, I guess." Thanks, dad, here's my therapy bill.
2: «Women's have become too picky (the whole hypergamy argument)» - I double dare Chris Williamson and anyone else touting this point to present me with a solution that doesn't involve forcing women to marry less desirable men out of some, again, self sacrificing obligation to society. I'll fucking wait.
Low hanging fruit?
2. Maybe a solution could be to have better 3 places to meet instead of apps. Irl there is so many factors that could grab a woman's attention that is not present on apps. A nice smell, the way he moves etc. If we ask her in a study what she wants or on an app we will probably get a more logical/ cold answer.
My "favourite" part is that they are opining on things they will take very little part in. Let's be honest, so many men's contribution starts and ends with an orgasm. So like, 1h of work (I'm being generous here) vs the woman being pregnant for 9 months and dealing with all thay comes with it, then giving birth, then being the primary carer for at least the first few years.. But the dudes are the ones pushing for more children! Like, great, you're volunteering others to do all the hard work and all you have to contribute is orgasms? I'd be advocating for that too! 🤣
I love how when that one podcaster is asked directly, if maybe womans standards aren't too high, maybe men's expectations of themselves are too low. His answer is to say, nope, nope it can't be that, why would men want to work on themselves.
Literally ask a woman, the bar is generally so low that one would have to dig to get under it.
What do woman really want; someone to treat them with dignity and kindness, some who values their safety and security. Someone who treats them as equals. Someone who wants to be a 50% partner in a relationship.
What woman don't want; to be belittled, to be harassed, to be pressured to have sex when they don't want to, to be expected to be a full time parent to an adult.
Show up, show you care and can think about your partners wishes and desires. Remember your what your partner likes/dislikes, respect them and their boundaries. Do your fair share of the chores.
In short, treat them like you want to be treated. It's not hard.
@Perth369 That same Podcaster is also going to be even crueler to any woman he deems "unnattractive" and act like she isn't good enough
Imagine being born and then finding out later in life that the only reason you exist was because the "economy" needed you, not your mom, not your dad, not your siblings. You weren't wanted out of love, you were necessary for the rest of society to feed off of your labour until YOU procreate and repeat the process by feeding off your own kid's labours. Why in the hell would anyone even WANT to EXIST at that point? If society literally became some rigid corporate result based system where you lived according to how beneficial you might be to somebody else (aka the society that doesnt fook all for us in return) how would we be any diffferent than mindless drones?
I feel like the song "employment cost" really expresses yr thought well, I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen!
capitalism has to go
Incredibly well said! Treating people like cattle probably isn't the best
Well you know what they say about accusations and confessions, the "breed for economy" people are also the "left wants you to live in a pod, own nothing, and eat bugs" people
This is already the reality we live in. Precisely why I pity humanity and myself for existing as a part of it.
"Why aren't people having more kids?" People give reasons. Conservatives "No, it's none of those reasons you keep telling us, it's culture woke stuff."
They also refuse to accept that not having kids is just a valid choice too. They never ask people 'why do you want to have kids' because they don't question people doing what the see as 'normal' or 'traditional.'
I just feel zero interest in having a kid, the way I am also not that interested in having a horse. Horses are cool. I once rode a horse, it was an experience. But having one? No interest. No matter how much money I have, 'get a horse' would never be on my list. It's just a ton of work, or a ton of expense. Like on a daily basis I'm not 'wow, I wish I had a pony.'
Given my schedule, I feel I wouldn't be able to provide adequate attention to a dog. Dogs are nice, but between lack of space where I live and how many times a day the dog would need walking, it wouldn't work.
Because it is a cultural thing rather than a money thing. People are more educated (and education directly correlates to lower birthrates) + we have a more individualist culture than ever (more people might decide raising a kid is just too much effort and responsibility). Too many people make it sound like we are living through literal hell. People have lived through far worse conditions than today and bred far more.
Even now, there are people who breed a lot in western countries, but it's migrants who come from systems with different values. The fact the fertility of 2nd generation migrants falls to be nearly as low as that of native inhabitants just goes to show it's a culture thing.
Of course economic factors do play a role and there's also things like contraception and the new mating behaviours with things like online dating so the decline in birthrates is a 'death by a thousand cuts' type of thing.
To be fair the MSM controlled by globalists does want you not having kids. “Why having kids is-“ if an article looks like that then you know who’s behind it
@@weall1208The fact that child labor is illegal and therefore kids are an economic burden rather than an economic investment, is a cultural thing? Get outta here lmao
The distraction of culture war over class war is a capitalist tool as old as capitalism itself.
You know one thing that I barely hear people talking about regarding this topic? How maternal care is getting worse in a lot of countries, and how there have been so few advances in women's healthcare when it comes to pregnancy and birth. I'm at the time in my life now where some of my friends are having kids, and the amount of chronic health conditions that can come alongside high risk pregnancies or traumatic births is frankly terrifying.
I have a friend who's wife is now living with a chronic nerve pain condition since giving birth to their first child two years ago. She might have to live with that condition for the rest of her life - so now her quality of life is permanently made worse, just because she decided to have a child.
And that's obviously just one example, but you don't have to look far to learn about women who have been left with permanent gastrointestinal damage, permanent pelvic pain, brittle bone disease caused by pregnancy etc. And yet folks who give birth are just expected to...live with these risks? Really?? I can't for the life of me understand why more work isn't being done into how we can make pregnancy and birth safer and less potentially disabling.
Primitive excuse. At birth and child mortality is the lowest in human history now. If childbirth is delayed into late 30s, sure then chronic problems are more likely.
Well, you know why. We all know why.
And on top of the damage pregnancy and childbirth does to physical health, there's also the fact that childbirth is the leading cause of PTSD, meanwhile the NHS budgets a paltry £125 for post-partum care for the mother (not to mention poor training that leads to doctors being unable to properly diagnosed common complications like tearing of any degree since they - at most - only read about it) and it's little wonder that suicide is now the main cause of maternal mortality in the UK.
I mean, it's the risk, it's not like you can literally give someone life without the possibility of ending up completely screwed. Even with medical help, I don't think it would reduce that, it would just make it a little more tolerable.
Maternal mortality rates are getting worse, but pregnancy has always been risky to one's health. For every one woman who dies in pregnancy or childbirth, there are 70 women who require life-saving medical intervention just to live.
I just suffered a miscarriage, hemorrhaged, spent Christmas + 3 days in the hospital. Besides physically recovering, my husband and I will need to financially recover before we try again to have a baby.
I’m so sorry to hear all of this happened; wishing you a fast recovery physically, mentally, and financially. Take care of yourself.
I’m so sorry for your loss, and hope you are able to recover (including physically and mentally) I can’t imagine going through that and wish I could give you a hug
My response to anyone saying that something “historically” used to be a certain way is to remind them that, historically, people used to die all the time from tooth infections. Just because things used to be a certain way, does not inherently mean that the prior way was better.
Historically high death rates for infants and children and high maternal mortality were common. Low birth rates are kind of the tradeoff we got in fixing those problems.
And a lot of 'historical' practices we rightly now denounce as bad. Like it was historical to burn witches. Though I worry some reactionaries want to take us back there...
I agree, but it seems people are just grasping for solutions to this problem and aren't finding any modern ones, so they start desperately looking at history to find some
Also people forget historically women’s bodies were a little larger in the area. And not to mention people didn’t pop out kids for love but for free workers.
As a dentist, I tell people that we used to "historically" do our work without anaesthetic.
Idiotic take. You're confusing something that existed for a reason which was functional (e.g., society can't perpetuate itself if people don't have children and raise them; this is best done within the context of a stable family, and families are stable when the parents are married---hence why literally every human society developed the institution of marriage---and marriage requires a bunch of privileges and responsibilities to be a useful institution which entails a bunch of social implications) versus a reason that is accidental (e.g., our teeth didn't evolve to handle our modern diet and dentistry didn't catch up to deal with that satisfactorily for some time).
That said, the prior mode of marriage, family, sexual relations preserved societies for millennia---what has modern social """liberation""" given us?
Hi, Japanese fan of the channel here. The population crisis has been our country and government’s number one issue for as long as I’ve been alive. From a Japanese perspective, it’s alarming that in the west it’s apparently turning into a left/right thing. When people start taking sides based on their political teams, it is never conducive to productive debate and effective solutions. Don’t the Collins and the manosphere pronatalists realize that their aggressive campaigning actually turns most people off? Normal everyday people, especially women, aren’t going to get “enlightened” by their rants and start popping out babies.
The single biggest way our country has failed in my opinion, and it looks like maybe other countries are too, is framing this as a women’s issue. Policies that emphasize increased maternity leave ultimately reflect the different societal expectations between mothers and fathers. (And can I just say, mothers being able to take maternal leave and having a job to come back to is the bare minimum, even if there were no population crisis to combat.) What policy should’ve done was to enforce paternity leave. No woman who’s serious about her career and financial independence is going to take five years off to have and raise kids, when her male colleagues are using those same five years getting ahead in their careers, building five years worth of professional experience. Equal duration parental leave between mom and dad absolutely needs to be the norm.
Moreover, for the first few months of a child’s life, the mom’s body will still be recovering from pregnancy and birth. If she takes that time off from work, dads shouldn't go “perfect, she can use the time to take care of the baby and I'll keep working like nothing's changed.” No, the only thing she should be doing is maybe nursing. Otherwise, the parent that didn’t carry and birth the baby can take care of everything.
And don't forget to share childcare responsibilities after parental leave too! I know too many dads who think they can get away with doing only the "fun" parts of parenting.
Anyway, don’t let them blame this on women! There are too many factors that go into these decisions to dismiss it with a lazy “modern woman selfish” argument.
Edit: I want to clarify that the Japanese laws regarding parental leave rights are the same for all genders. I think this is the case in most (if not all) developed countries, lest there be significant legislative sexism. Dads have the same legal entitlement to parental leave as moms, and employers cannot deny their leave requests. However, in practice, dads often underutilize these rights. If anyone is curious, parental leave is up to a year (or more, if daycare placement is unavailable) for each parent, and you're entitled to 80% of your salary prior to leave.
This comment needs more likes!
100%!!! I don't want to be economically punished for having kids.
Also, Korea does these new baby nurses that are supposed to care for Mom and Baby for the first few weeks to help them both.
100%. One of the main reasons I don’t want children is because it will tie me forever (in the mind of society) to being nothing but a mother. Having my own wants and dreams is not selfish.
But this is the other side of the progressive argument about why birth rates fall: they attribute it to women’s rational behavior, an individualist, capitalist answer. That’s why reactionaries blame women!: they’re told by the progressive talkers that it’s a woman’s wealth/choice issue. How are they supposed to respond?
"It's alarming this is becoming a left/ right issue in the West, don't let them blame it on women".
The dissonance some leftists experience is wild.
It’s not an existential threat to humanity. It’s an existential threat to the current institutions, industries and companies who want the status quo of power, wealth, to remain and grow.
Hear, hear. It's pretty wild that having kids or not is a revolutionary act today.
Plus what happened to "the world is being overpopulated?"
Conservatives casually forget there over **8 billion people** currently on the planet. Plus plenty of countries that aren't as industrialized have high birthrates. It's almost like they want people to exploit.
@@zionleach3001 nothing, it was bullshit then, it's still bullshit now.
Disagree, that’s likely a super minor factor, especially with the advent of A.I on the horizon where company’s are hungry to replace as many non-critical roles as possible.
There are ALOT of issues that come with a severe dip in population. Japan 🇯🇵 and South Korea are Grade-A examples. If nothing is done both will collapse economically then experience cultural and ethnic erasure. This is how societies magically ‘disappeared’ in ancient times.
Romania encouraged it's people to have as many babies as possible. Abortion was illegal and so was contraception. They ended up with thousands of children in orphanages. The orphanages had poor conditions and many of these children did not thrive.
So its rugged individualism when providing welfare/services but we're all in this together to make more kids? Its so strange how pregnant women and babies get treated like public property. Messes with my head.
The commodification of the human being in full swing, but it's not working any more, people know too much.
@Redactedlllllllllllll excellent point! That is super important during the Manosphere and Misogyny bit. Its almost as if turning dating into a market leads to market falures. Who knew?!?
Funny how when it comes to pregnancies it's all "my body my choice" but not when it comes to vaccinations.
@@isodoubIetdude this is just, excellent bait, I mean it could use some work, opening a better line of easy dunk would help, but overall solid, 6/10 bait
@@isodoubIetIm glad you brought that up! The difference is vaccines are like building codes that keep everyone safer but being pro-choice is like supporting the castle doctrine that allows people refuge. You cannot be free if someone can force you to be pregnant just like you cannot be free if you cannot defend your home.
Anybody who calls his child Industry Americus should be considered unfit for valid opinions.
@ Elon is one of those people. Even worse, the full name is X Æ A-Xii. Another child is called Techno Mechanicus.
@@asmodon Thank you. His children's names are absolutely ridiculous.
@@asmodonit's incredible how Musk named one of his kids after the bullshit fake latin of the Warhammer franchise. The richest man in Earth cares so little about his kids that he can't even name them using actual words from an actual language.
@@sirennoir258might as well call their kids lead paint and stick shift lols.
His name is just indie for short
The total cost to a woman isn’t just her health, her time, and her child-related expenses. It’s her future earning potential. Having kids is a money-losing proposition.
You know, there's more to life than just earning money. There's value in having children and raising them, but if you can't see that, then by all means join the 4B movement.
False hope is worse by far than the hard truth.
@ Lol, you must exercise by jumping to conclusions. I have 2 kids with my spouse, and both of us are full time employed with good jobs. We can barely afford them and would have to significantly downsize if we wanted a 3rd. We pay more for daycare than for our mortgage.
Work early while you can. Interest compounds over years, and you can’t get that time back.
We live in a capitalist society, therefore money is everything idiot. Not everyone finds joy and poverty and misery.
@dl2839 you can't safely survive in a capitalist society without earning money. you can't safely give your children good lives without earning money. please, go ahead and try.
@@dl2839Your last sentence contradicts your paragraph above it. Lol
The only reason a "population collapse" is a problem is because world economies are currently built on capital hoarding. As we extract value year-after-year, the primary economic value comes from services rather than resource efficiency, and a drop in customers becomes a drop in resources.
This is not the only reason. Subsidies to the elderly, combined with a shrinking tax base of working age adults means heavier tax on workers and more wage contraction to afford the same level of care and infrastructure we have right now in the future
Oligarchy will be the end of us all.
@@BOSSDONMANand yet they refuse to change it willingly, kicking the ball further down the road and often putting our society quite literally in debt to the future collapse in so many depressing ways. Its so infuriating that it wraps around to just being terribly sad.
The same trends occured under communism, where no such mechanisms were in place.
This is the only comment or video who i have seen nail it.
You get what you create. They wanted money and cheap labor, and so they got money and cheap labor. This whole society is built to harvest money and get maximum results. And that is truly what they have been getting (the rich). Our whole society is designed to do that. So even when women stepped into the work force, our society is still asking the same thing. And so women will deliver that what is asked.
If they want stable families and population, they should create a society that supports that to happen. Them complaining about not enough children is crazy, because they have not been asking and pushing us to have kids, but to generate money. We delivered what they asked. If they want children, they should redesign society.
Its like baking an apple pie, and complaining it doesnt have any chocolate.
They planted an Apple Tree, not an cacao tree. And so they cannot complain about their apples.
33:42 “One reason [to not have children] is an overwhelming, self-centered narcissism.”
I often hear this criticism of the childfree. Yet the main reasons parents give for having children are no less selfish:
• passing on their legacy or family name
• having someone to care for them in old age
• saving a failing relationship (or solidifying a promising relationship)
• being unconditionally loved
• creating a miniature version of themselves
• giving purpose to life
• alleviating boredom
• reliving childhood
• fitting in with others who have kids
It's crazy to me because I'm choosing not to have children precisely because I don't want them to live the kind of shitty life I've lived. I feel like the reluctance to bring children into this is primarily motivated by concern for their quality of life. How is that considered narcissistic instead of considerate and thoughtful?
@@Sundji having a kid doesnt guarantee that theyll live the same life you did. If you provide for them and nurture them as you should then they can live a better life
@@mallow_i think the point is that if people know they can’t provide those things, why “fake it till you make it”? Secure those things first, and then bring another life into this world. They very much will live the same life if I’m in the same position.
I don’t see how “giving purpose to life” is wrong at all. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live for something more than yourself and wanting to find fulfillment in starting a family as long as you’re ready for the responsibility. I mean hell, I want to have kids and start a family cause I want to have a close, long lasting and fulfilling relationship with both my future wife and however many kids we have because I value family n all that. I obviously live for myself and do things that I enjoy and want to do, but at the end of the day I feel like living for yourself ends up being empty and meaningless in the end when you’re dying and you have nobody to hold you when you meet your end. Idk I’m just shitting out my ass rn but yeah it ain’t selfish I guess.
yeah, nothing more narc behavior than duplicating yourself and trying to turn said child into a mini me
Not once did any of the pronatalists say that they liked children. They advocate for having as many as possible but not once did they talk about raising those kids well or about enjoying spending time with them. I think that is extremely telling and shows just how empty their position really is.
I mean most of what we saw were 10 second clips from 30 or 60 minute interviews that he used to support his points, so I don't think we can draw conclusions from that.
@elmateo77 Sure, but this didn't come off as an overly biased position. What's more I don't think I've ever seen a pronatalists ever talk about what's good for children. They would say they love children but it seems like they love the idea of children over the actual children. When you have 6,7,8 or more kids you can't be fully involved in their lives.
They don’t like children. The amount of parents I’ve seen who have said these exact words: “my children make my life more difficult” is astounding. Also, if one truly loves their (potential) child, they would not bring them into a world where they will most likely be exploited.
@@aaAa-bp1yd Who hurt you?
@@danke1150 did you reply to the wrong comment my guy
“governments need high taxpayers”
“okay then let’s tax billionaires”
“no not like that”
"governments need high taxpayers"
"okay then legalize it"
"no, not like that"
I don't know if you've ever done the math But even if you confiscated all of the net worth of every billionaire in America you could only run just the federal government for 6 months for that money. Billionaires don't have much of the wealth, most of the wealth is in middle class home equity, small business and people retirement funds and pensions and they would all go down significantly if all the large companies where not profitable because they all get their valuation on forward looking earnings multiples and with no earning or growth they cease being an asset and they actually become a liability meaning the valuations go to zero...The only way you fund large welfare state is like Denmark does with 50-60% tax's on everyone especially the middle class and that's never going to fly in America.
@Ryanrobi The 6 months figure is incorrect, it's actually 9 months.
@Ryanrobi > every billionaire in America
"Billionaire" is really just shorthand for the entire class of absurdly wealthy people, and depending on who you ask often includes taxing the largest corporations as well. Companies like Amazon pay a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent of their revenue in tax - far lower than the already historically low 21% they're "supposed" to be paying (as of Trump's 2017 tax cuts).
A lot of it is obfuscated of course. On paper they "pay" the 21% but the vast, vast majority of that is "paid" in terms of write-offs and other loopholes that allow them to discount their taxes to near nothing. Sometimes below nothing (that is, they occasionally get a tax _refund_ while simultaneously filing record profits with the SEC).
That's corporations of course, but ultra wealthy individuals have similar trickery to avoid paying the already near-historically-low amount that the government has deemed to be their "fair share". The most well-known one is CEOs taking a tiny "salary" and getting paid with stock or other non-monetary assets that they can liquidate as-needed and avoid paying the top tax rate.
Another trick they use is to take out large loans to buy things, despite having more than enough money available. Using their own money would be treated as income (the taxation is realized when they do that liquidation step noted in the prior paragraph). As long as the interest is less than the top tax rate, they're saving money by using the loan (and they typically pay a much lower interest rate than you or I could even dream of getting). Oh, and those loans are considered a liability so paying them off can not only avoid the top tax rate, but even turn into a tax write-off.
There's plenty of other trickery as well that they can pull. Likely far more than I'm even aware of. It's how Trump infamously paid only $750 that one year during his first presidency. Not $750,000 - just $750, lower than most middle class workers in the country.
The real problem is, and has been since Reagan gave us "trickle-down" economics, that while GDP has continued to grow through the roof, almost none of that growth has made it down to the workers - it's mostly being hoarded by the wealthy, both individuals and corporate entities. Refusing to tax exactly those same people and entities means the country is forced to demand more and more of its working class (either through raising taxes, or through reducing services and making them pay out of pocket) while the working class have (proportionally) less and less wealth available to fulfill those demands.
At some point that is going to break. There's only so many services you can cut and only so much wealth you can extract from those who are already struggling financially before everything just stops working entirely. Then all hell breaks loose, and that's rarely good for anyone - including the wealthy (French revolution, anyone?)
@@altrag Well said
As a single, childless, 34 year old woman- i dont want to participate in this "game" anymore. It's really ironic to see all of the yt ppl, mostly men lecturing us all about having babies and to stop being narcissistic.. these males do not care about my black life and my non-existent black children anymore than how far our lives benefit them.
The only people that want us to have more kids are rich people. They need lots of workers and consumers to keep them rich.
Mhm, gotta keep the labour replacement rate at a steady flow. 👍
It is crazy because there have never been more people. People having less children when they are worried about sustainability and quality of life is logical in a world where we have a choice. Also, babies die a whole lot less than 50-100 years ago.
Don't forget the religious extremists! They also play a part.
The rich are just going to replace you with an economic migrant underclass. The rich realized that the middle class doesn't benefit them as much as a permanently stratified two-layer society.
@@emilyrln Reddit-tier take.
They like the free market, except when it comes to the real-life impacts of capitalism: anxiety, precarity, and low birth rates.
The rich parents saying it's not the money it's the culture is laughable. Grifters gonna grift
North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and Vietnam all have below replacement fertility, actually worse than in the West. So do Scandinavia and those so-called socialist countries in Europe. So no it's not capitalism.
The lowest birth rates exist(ed) under communism and socialism. Try again.
Your comment would make sense if you could actually point to a single non-capitalist country that got wealthy while maintaining high birth rates.
You people just say things.
the reason why capitalism lowers birth rates is because it makes everyone rich lol
I love how conservatives will entertain every possible reason for a falling birth rate, except two:
1. Maybe people don't want kids.
2. Maybe people don't think they can afford to have kids.
3. Maybe people aren't sure their kids will be living in a better world.
Then why in socialistic country birth rate kept going down during socialism, where there were a wide range of support (much wider than in capitalistic countries, that ever implemented that aid) to parents, including facilities for children, like crèches, kindergartens, schools, afterschool clubs, sanatoriums, etc, subsidies, provision with accomodation, that got bigger if parents had more children, etc? People mostly could afford children, mothers were not fired if they got pregnant, there were some mothers who were in decretive holiday for several years.
I hate how you guys generalize all conservatives, as if we all think alike instead of being individuals. I feel that some people shouldn't have children, but that is what pretection is for, not killing babies, and there is surgery.
@@studijasymrov7630 See number 1. According to recent surveys, about 25% of the adult population doesn't want kids. That number is probably higher, but we've only recently begun to destigmatize not wanting kids, so currently, that number reflects the percentage of adults who are willing to admit they don't want kids.
havent finished the video but i am already familiar with these people in the thumbnail and intro.
they care about white babies, not general population.
this is a reaction to the great replacement conspiracy theory.
It's funny though, my step sister has 3 kids and was originally going to quit her job to be a stay at home mom. Then, her husband expected her to fo everything in the house and she decided to go back so she wouldn't go through the crap her husband was putting her through. My dad even admitted that early in his marriage to my mom, he purposely messed up things so he'd never have to do it, forcing my mom to do it if she wanted it done right. It's a story as old as time of men expecting women to do everything for the house. Now women are starting to have more standards and not want the lazy guy who only sees women as chattel and someone who will value and recognize them as an individual rather than the old norm of finding a man who will "provide" for you, especially in the current circumstances.
It's also funny how at odds Republicans and Giant Corporations are when it comes to this. The Federal Minimum Wage hasn't been raised and is currently not a liveable wage, so companies will take advantage of that to low-ball employees, causing a single income to not be as feasible. While Republicans complain about women no longer being in the kitchen and the caregiver of the kids, they can't afford not to be at the workplace. The problem is the blame is shifted to the woman as they become viewed as lazy and selfish, not the exploitive nature of industry needing more people in the machine to get them more money.
Here's a crazy idea: what if the wealthy people contribute a bit of their wealth each year and give it to the people who want to have more kids? I would call it a "tax"
Birth rates aren’t just a function of money. If anything higher income countries have lower birth rates.
@@batmanrobin6848 because having children is hard in wealthy countries. Children are a huge money sink and can’t contribute in the way they do in more agrarian countries. And the village is gone too, so it’s all on two or even one parent. Our entire way of life isn’t geared towards having children anymore, just towards working and generating profit.
Becuase there won't be any wealthy people if they aren't having kids
@ElliBeenie I'm imagining a society where there's loads of small, completely free daycare facilities that act as sort of community parenting. You can drop your kid off whenever you want (though not overnight) and there's simple meals provided. There could be regularly employed staff funded like schools, and community members could volunteer time in exchange for tax credits etc.
@@smvsspould I mean, extremely young children should get to spend the first one or two or so years around a parent or a very small and consistent circle of caregivers. I’m no expert, but I’ve heard that one on one bonding is extremely important for children to develop a healthy sense of safety and emotional wellbeing. But after that, I’m in favor of finding a way to mimic the village in some sense. And free community day cares and the like sounds amazing for that purpose. Anything to lessen the burden on the parents. And focusing a bit less on profit and a bit more on (children’s) happiness would be nice.
I wonder how people don't see the contradiction between what Musk says (make more children) and what he does by working his employees like robots, fighting against employee' rights, etc. How should those people make, take care of and educate a bunch of children?
By pursuing one of the most important objectives of right-wingers: roll civil rights back 100 years to when women weren’t allowed to work or vote and were basically property passed from a father to a husband.
you cant reason with anyone who seriously believes we can replace the infinitely complex coordination of human movement/labor with robots in any substantial numbers.... everything they believe is just "take from everyone not born rich and work them to death for ego and entertainment" because thats all its amounting to. no one is gaining value when the trillion dollars laundered into europe every year has the dollars value in a freefall..
@@Pårchmēntôs man just because well off people never mature out of toddlerhood doesnt mean that normal/real people dont. speaking on the last part of your comment. essentially legally confined to childhood in that case but only because well off people believe everyone else behaves like they do when its the complete opposite. that same problem well off people have (thinking everyone is like themselves) is why generational stereotypes are stupid af. they are only talking about behaviors that only well off people could have and thus less than 4% of any generation. aka a hyper minority, not the behavior of the majority. all we get to know about history is what well off people liked/did. not what normal average people were like..
People like Apartheid Clyde literally can't understand anything about how people live paycheck to paycheck. He was never in that situation or knows what that's like. Money to him has always been akin to having the highest score in a video game.
People like him continuously have trouble understanding that they can't force anyone to involuntarily work for them for free and (expectedly) forever.
Musk is happy to father children, but he isn’t a father to any of them.
"not wanting to have children is because of overwhelming narcissism" is the type of take you always hear from people who view children as their property and try to mold into copies of themselves, punishing and disowning them when their progenies are not exact copies. 🤨
THAT. Or they refuse to adopt because "it isn't theirs"
@ChaoticUniventhose people are the worst. Only being able to love a child if it is biologically yours ha to be own of the most narcissistic things ever. It’s also a sign someone shouldn’t be a parent in the first place.
And ironically I've heard some people make the opposite claim that having children is actually the narcissistic thing to do, because you're bringing new people into existence just to mold them into your own image and increase your own personal legacy.
@ChaoticUnivenwhat? Most of the people adopting are those with kids already. Most child free people couldn’t be bothered to raise kids.
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who has decided not to have children- for me personally hearing takes like this or anything suggesting "selfishness" only serves to embed me into my child-free way of thinking further.
If you want people to have kids, make it possible to survive financially WITHOUT them first. If I can barely afford rent and groceries now, how the hell would I afford a baby? They want to treat people terribly and pay them NOTHING but still expect people to have an army of children?? God I loathe them.
When you force someone that doesnt want kids to have kids, you get neglected/abused kids.
Texas has tragically seen a rise in child abandonment and "dumpster babies" in the wake of their draconian abortion laws.
They don’t care about the quality of the life of others, conservatives in the west have often declined governmental responsibility for it. It’s your problem your life sucks. And in the US they built a world, where no matter how bad you’re doing, you’re about always forced (by violence if needed) to work for them.
I see this happen way to often. I have heard conservatives say you should have a fully developed brain before you have a child, but also completely oppose abortion and BC, it doesn't make sense.
Plus, they also have no problems with young kids going into the military or working in dangerous occupations … before their brains are developed.
same with people who have kids when the environment and circumstances dont support it! neglect is a form of abuse, even if its, unfortunately, outside of the parents control. i experienced pretty heavy neglect, including medical neglect, because the current healthcare system doesnt support a family with multiple disabled children. as an adult ive been playing medical catchup because there wasnt any time (thanks to being well below working class) to address my own problems as a child, and theyre only getting obstructively worse as i get older
It was Christmas Day and musk has 11(?) kids, but seems he spent his day shit posting on twitter.
The only time he's been seen in public with any of his children was after Luigi.
Musk is a HORRIBLE parent! An example is the way he emotionally abuses his trans daughter. He also leaves the upbringing to the mothers.
"sorry kids, im busy owning libs on xitter"
@@odonnelly46 Didn't she publicly disown her father???
Did already make a tweet? It just took a few secs...
I hate to say it but declining birth rates are directly related to the loss of the middle class, lack of available homes to own, and job insecurity. Corporate America has long penalized women for wanting kids, and decreasing income per worker has made single earner households unable to afford to procreate. Childcare costs more than fast food workers, and the current nuclear family can’t afford both babies and someone to watch and care for their offspring.
Exactly. My father was middle class and bought a house, two cars, and supported a family of four on his income alone. Try that now.
None of this would've happened if feminists hadn't halved the value of labor in this country and doubled the price of housing.
It's not just about money or reversing the impact of having kids on women. Corporate Scandinavia.has long incentivized having kids, had forced equivalent paternal and maternal leave, making having kids no longer a penalty for women, free government childcare, and baby subsidies. None of these interventions has reversed the declining birth rates
No one is talking about the fact that the obsession with fertility rates are with white woman's fertility, not all women's fertility.
So the data is only focused on white women?
Yup!
As a child I was told we were overpopulated. Now as at “child-bearing age” I’m being told if I don’t have kids I don’t care about the future survival of humanity. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS
Yeah I remember they were two separate Captain Planet episodes about over population
I would say, make up your mind. You don’t have to make this huge decision based on what strangers want for you.
Simple... Both things are not correct. 🤷♂
@@Aquamarine325 my mind has been made up since I was about 12 hahaha. Child free is best for me for a lot of reasons
Yep. I was told as a kid that the population explosion was a big problem. I had my 2.1 kids and my husband had a vasectomy 15 years ago. One of my two kids says they didn't want kids at all, I don't blame them. Parenthood sucks in the US and housing is really unaffordable.
I will never understand how not having kids is supposed to be a mark of selfishness. I had a kid for 100% selfish reasons--I wanted to have one. Spent thousands of dollars trying get pregnant not because I selflessly wanted to bring a new person into the world but because I wanted to experience motherhood for the rest of my life. Before my son existed, there was the idea of a child that was selfishly concocted in my mind as the end goal. Having kids is selfish; they never asked to be born, they were forced into existence on the desires of their progenitors. How the hell is not having kids supposed to be the more selfish option?!
you really made me think about it, i do agree as literally all of us are forced into the world and some of our parents only had us because they forgot to pull out, many parents just make more kids because they love making them and not actually raising them, many parents just don’t care for their children at all and think that they deserve to be treated with respect and love because they put in the effort of making life. i will never understand why not wanting a child is selfish in other people’s eye’s, it’s their own body and they have their own way of doing things. but apparently now in america those simple rights are being taken away.
Sometimes misery loves company...
"I had to, you have to too"
Sometimes revenge...
"You'll know the pain I go through raising you when you have a kid just like you"
And that's only a couple of reasons.
Yep, there are valid reasons why it's important to allow people that don't want to be parents to not be parents.
Thank you for admitting that.
According to them, it's selfish because you are not willing to make sacrifices like your parents did and all humans did throughout history.
From a non parent, THANK YOU! My mother said much the same, she wanted a child to have a loving relationship with and we did, until the end of her life. My best friend. I think of her all the time.
Do this right and you too will be remembered an cherished in your lifetime. Good luck.
Alright let me share our thoughts from Germany here:
We are both 34 years old, been together for 17 years. She is a PhD working at the local university, I run a brick and mortar games store and we live in a bigger university town.
Let's say we want to have a kid.
That kid needs to live in a one bedroom apartment because even with almost 5 grand of net income each month we could not afford anything bigger let alone own our own appropriately sized property.
The kid will be born in a local hospital, but there are a lot of maternity wards closing down and less and less midwives around.
The kid will need child healthcare but a lot of local pediatricians have closed their practices and are not being replaced.
The kid needs a daycare space as soon as possible because we need that dual income and even though we should by law have a right for a spot, local daycares are full and chronically underfunded.
The kid then needs to go to a local school which have been closing and the remaining schools have more and more massive class sizes.
Only to end up in 2045 as an adult who needs to support a German retiree population that spent decades voting for policies that made their childhood existence an underfunded mess compared to all previous generations.
Yeah no, why burden a consciousness with that existence.
"Why burden a consciousness with that existence".
I LOVE how you worded that.
For me to have kids I'd have to believe a life on this planet as a person is worth living.
It isn't.
Life sucks.
Germany is a first world country, why is this happening?
So the government doing this and the government doing that is your only answer? No personal responsibility making it work?
@@SweBeach2023 Government is the organisation that we have devised to get together to make things work when large scale projects are required. If you pay taxes then that is your personal responsibility covered.
Why would I want to bring children into a world with depleting resources, biodiversity loss, rising global climate temperature and increasing divide between the upper class and everyone else? My partner and I both have degrees, full time jobs, side jobs and still couldn't afford one child.
my boomer father loved to bring up declining birth rates in arguments. when he'd ask me why i don't care about them, i'd give him the same answer he'd give me about climate change: "i'll be dead, so i don't care". we don't talk anymore.
That's a shitty attitude toward life. Yes you'll be dead but your people don't go away.
Oof
Oh look, it's a nihilist. How quaint.
Thanks for being open and honest about this. We are decendents of selfish people.
@@Shockguey Nothing wrong with being a nihilist.
Two things:
1) The human instinct for population equilibrium might be working better than human intellectuals' command of demography
2) Not all species breed well in captivity
100%
Right?! I find it so odd how little people will talk about the two points you brought up
"Instinct for equilibrium" is a bad way of putting it. People make these choices for rational reasons.
Brilliantly stated
Humans bred incredibly well during the Industrial Revolution. Humans are the only species having contraception avaible.
>Makes life difficult for average person
>Expects them to have children
"WHY AREN'T PEOPLE HAVING BABIES?!?!?!?!?"
how are coservatives spesicically making our life difficult?
@@youknowme1475 how are they not?
@@youknowme1475
While it certainly isn't entirely on conservatives as centrist liberals do this as well, albeit not at the same rate, but the ever widening income inequality comes from squeezing the lower ends of the spectrum.
The concept of the "middle class" is becoming rarer and rarer with children less likely to be more successful than their parents. Social mobility is at an extreme low.
But it's likely easier to ask you how conservatives have made it easier? Like in the US the only major victories of the right have been cutting taxes for the wealthy and striking down abortion laws. Lol the latter of which has made people less likely to have kids, not more.
How is life more difficult than 100 or 200 years ago when people had more kids?
It's not. How is it that lower class people are able to have so many kids while middle and upper class people claim they can't afford any?
The audacity of those podcasts to say they need more high paying tax payers when they historically pass laws so they can avoid paying taxes
....Industry Americus....god help those poor children
Nothing screams "I don't view my child as an individual human being but a financial/political asset" than naming a human being "industry"
Isnt this some Warhammer 40k sh*t 😅
Certain people shouldn't have children
Horseshoe theory is real... That one reminded me of brainrot Soviet names. Abbreviated versions of "glory to the socialist revolution", "the era of communism" and the like.
It's been a long time since I've physically cringed from a sentence, and like. Wow. That is potentially the most objectifying name I've heard for a baby. That's disgusting, and I really feel bad for the poor kid
Japan: “no one wants kids and it’s not an easy thing to fix! Also there’s a housing crisis, worker protections are absurdly low, and if you don’t work at least 60 hours a week you are culturally looked down upon.”
I love Japan but its work culture is even more insane than mine here in America
They recently declared a 4 day work week to make it easier for people to have kids - not sure it will help them now, too little too late...
@@anythingbut... Yeah good luck convincing Japanese workers to follow it. Unless they're kicking people out of offices at 5pm and locking the doors behind them, they'll just continue working off the clock, because that's what's been ingrained into them.
@@anythingbut... I don't think it will help because it needs more cultural shifts
@@anythingbut...It's only really being implemented in the government. Maybe it will hopefully spread to the private sector
@@anythingbut...thou that policy is only for government employees. I’m not sure if that group covers the a considerable part of the working population, and how many of them are of the typical child having age, so it effectiveness for birth rates in general might not be notable. Now for mental health, yeah good for them.
As soon as you hear the words "demographic collapse in the developed world", you know exactly what their angle is.
Why were my dogs barking when they heard that?
Yup.
Oh boy I just Wonder What demographic they could possibly be worried about golly gee🤔
@@hkl2007 no, it's absolutely a dogwhistle for the Great Replacement Theory.
@@StonerBaerwhich is correct and currently happening
When people say things like "The childless don't contribute to the future and should pay more taxes" don't realize that the childless also pay taxes to make sure their kids have a school and free lunches.
Also, calling people selfish for not having kids when millions of people pop out babies to save a relationship, feel important, receive tax credits so they can buy a brand new car or go on vacations seems selfish.
The childless (like all people) usually end up taking in a lot of subsidies in retirement, and if they didn't have kids, then the tax base is full of other people's kids who have to pay for them
Maybe people should refuse to work if they can, those people can pay for their own brats
Financial slavery isn't possible, without lots of fresh new people to enslave every year.
It's even obvious in the way they state it. We need to *_'produce'_* more babies. As if children are a product.
Check that 13th amendment exception real quick, consider how states are currently putting laws on the books that criminalize homelessness, and spend like 3 brain cells putting 2 and 2 together.
The current system of government and economic needs endless supply of cheap labor to exploit and more consumers to buy the cr@p that they make, both of which are in placed to enrich the 1%, the politicians and the corporations. That’s why they’re freaking out that people are not having enough kids.
That's one of the fatal flaws of capitalism, the apparent need for continued growth. Apparently that also applies to the birth rate.
It is the simple law of supply and demand which applies to human labor like every other commodity. The more laborers there are that can be called upon, the lower the exchange value of labor will be. The bourgeoisie are so concerned about this because they are also faced with the effects of technological innovation on the value of their commodities. As technology made things that once took a few days, maybe more, to produce, now can be produced in exponential quantities within one day, the exchange value of the commodity continues to drop. This lowers the rate of profit, and so the capitalist must reduce the cost of production in order to keep up, by way of lowering the value of wages. Little does he know, and much less the social democratic parties of the world, that no matter how much the exchange value of labor declines, it will not save the profit rate. Technology ended feudalism and now it is ending capitalism.
no one should have 9 kids unless they have a team of full time nannies, imo. The oldest ones are going to be parentified and robbed of an important element of their childhoods. The youngest ones are not going to get the full amount of attention and care that every child deserves. And I say this as someone whose extended family had 10, and they very certainly weren't and aren't rich
Conservatives don't care about any of this.
I bet many wealthy parents don’t hardly even parent their own children. They hire people to take care of them.
💯
It’s still important for educated people to procreate regardless
My father had 8 siblings and they all carry negative mental and emotional trauma from having parents who just couldn't humanely care emotionaly for each one of them because they lived with etreme burnout from being parents. No one should have 9 kids, it's child abuse.
If Elon musk is concerned about birth rates, maybe he shouldn't champion policies that will make people poorer. He might not be aware that the average person isn't a billionaire
Yes
Do you realize that a part of this very video is about how the poorest people in the world are the one who have more kids?
@@Justme-rt4gj And what was your conclusion from that? Musks message is directed at the western world where the environment requires more money to raise a child. He also wants a smaller state so you tell me how ow non rich people, who get no financial support, are meant to deal with the expensive costs of having children. He even states the rich should be incentivised more to have children. So if rich people have more children and poorer people in the western world don’t, which of those silver spoon children are going to do those low paid jobs required for society to function? You think Elon musks kids are going to be cleaners?
Yes poorer people in poorer counties have more kids but did you ignore/not understand the reason why? In those environments, families do very low skilled jobs and their income can be boosted by having children and getting them to help out from a young age. How is that anywhere near comparable to having children in the western world where child costs are significantly more expensive? It’s fairly simple to understand if you consider financial and environmental aspects. In the western world, if you want to raise kids you either need to make it cheaper to do so by either paying people more or getting help from the state. If people in power don’t want to do that than this is what happens. Declining birth rates in western economies
Considering daddy had an emerald mine? He's horrifically out of touch.
He should go crank out some Tesla robot babies to work for him.
Old people haven't held up their end of the bargin, they havent given up the wealth or the government why would we create more of ourselves to be abused?
Wolves are worried about the sheep not breeding
Insult to wolves. They are wonderful animals just trying to survive.
Politicians and businesses just want to thrive at the unnecessarily evil expense of others.
Good for nothing farmers are upset about dead horses not breeding.
Ummm. What would you say if they told you to stop having children? You would bray : "What? Just the rich ae allowed to have kids now?!?"
PPL need to know A-I can change everything for better or worse..
@@cadethumann8605 Hey this looks familiar, have I seen you in another reply thread not too long ago saying the same thing?
These are the same people who told us not to have children we couldn't afford. In addition, they belittled anyone who was poor with children.
Conservatives might want to ask themselves why they are determined to make it so hard to safely start a family before asking people why they don’t want kids.
That's a good self-reflective question for them; too bad they're too narcissistic to ever admit they are wrong.
@@evenow Welcome to the echo chamber.
that still relies on the assumption that people want kids when they are more often just biologically tricked into having them. if you actually have the ability to choose to not have kids then congratulations on your privilege. poverty hasn't gotten in the way of high birthrates in the past. it's good that people have that freedom, less kids are the natural outcome of that, get over it
What?
@@evenowadmit what?
You know how expensive it is to keep a child alive and thriving?? Especially in the US they do not care about the child’s wellbeing at all after birth.
Extremely tickled by the irony of suggesting that rich people should have more kids because they’ll pay more taxes when finding tax loopholes is a hobby for rich people.
Yes, an easier solution to the lack of tax money for infrastructure is to raise the taxes for the very rich, not raise the amount of "high tax paying people. These kids are not going to have a blue collar job, they have a trust fund, another way they don't pay taxes
Couple that with the fact that their children inherit their wealth and you're producing more tax evading billionaires.
This topic and the discussions around it are so frustrating.
1. For decades Conservatives valued individualism over collectivism. Now they're saying that individualism is the enemy.
2. They also valued less government interference, but now they want to use the government to push their world views on others.
3. Conservatives have also told poor folks that they should not make kids if they can't take care of them. Now they're complaining about the low birth rates.
4. Conservatives have (more than their liberal counterparts) advocated for the rights of corporations, which formalized the singular focus on profit creation for shareholders, that super-charged the wage/wealth gap. Now that folks aren't making kids because they just can't afford to live the childless lives they have right now, conservatives are in a tizzy.
None of this makes sense.
These rich folks have realized that lower birth rates will greatly affect their ability to enjoy the type of lives they currently have. This low birth rate scenario is an existential threat to THEIR lifestyle, not to the planet or society as a whole.
And for many of them, they only want "certain people" to have more babies. Because if we're being brutally honest, there isn't a birth rate problem in sub-Saharan African countries, or in India. And there's only an issue in China because of the one-child policy that dominated for decades.
There's isn't birth rate problem of the same magnitude among immigrants in the US or Canada. But that's not who they want making more children.
Bottom line: these people are using the "birth rate problem" as a euphemism for The Great Replacement Theory.
Don't forget they're also undermining public health and discouraging child vaccinations which will lead to an increase in child deaths. Or do they think this will mostly only affect the poors? It really makes no sense.
Agree with most points but amongst immigrant groups, birthrates do tend to collapse after the second generation in the West.
See how the dude in the beginning of the video hesitates after "preserve"
Yes! Yes! YES!!!! I can't believe it took so long to find THIS COMMENT!!! The "lords" need more "peasants" to tend THEIR fields to keep the money flowing into THEIR pockets. They don't care about us peasants.
Just to play devils advocate here:
1. Individualism espoused by conservatives is about being able to take care of oneself and being self sufficient. They only were trying to tell people who were not self sufficient to have less kids and become self sufficient first. That’s why conservatives told teenagers not to get pregnant because if you are not self sufficient then bring a child into the world at 16 will make the goal of self sufficiency less likely.
2. They value less govt interference because it can limit individual progression. If a government places in regulations that small businesses cannot afford to pay, then the small businesses owner loses his or her self sufficiency, because his business could not pay for a new tax or regulation that his bigger competition was able to pay for.
3. If poor people need government help, then higher taxes on those who are self sufficient such as the small business owner in point number two become necessary. The point for conservatives has always been to reach self sufficiency and then have children. And a lot of what you see conservatives complaining about are educated households that have two incomes raking in $150k as a household deciding to remain childless.
4. Businesses both large and small are necessities for an economy to thrive. Conservatives know the nature of businesses and operate not expecting them to change their nature but use the carrot in order to incentivize them towards American job creation. Case in point NAFTA which sent a ton of jobs overseas was signed by Bill Clinton. And now you see a consecutive such as Trump criticizing NAFTA and similar trade agreements because they got rid of a lot of blue collar manufacturing jobs, which left a lot of blue collar families in a position where they were no longer self sufficient.
The conservative ethos has been that people should be self sufficient. And that after becoming self sufficient, there are expectations, in this case having children.
Now there are flaws in that whole ethos in that it may not be realistic to expect everyone to be self sufficient all the time. But the good thing about a self sufficient population, or one that does not need the government to support them, is that if the government provides its citizens very heavy support, its citizens are not in a position to be critical of their government because if you bite the hand that feeds you, that hand can just decide to stop feeding you altogether.
I write this because I genuinely believe that at most people’s core, we are good albeit flawed people. But our intent is good; we just see the path towards bringing about what’s right will just look differently based on internal assumptions that we were either born or raised with. I think it’s best to give each other the benefit of the doubt rather than resort to name calling and antagonism.
Discussions on why women aren’t getting married and having children are usually just conversations between two DUDES… 36:25😂😂😂😂😂
Lol , they have to talk about problems in a dishonest skewed way, that excludes certain voices and raises others
That or the one woman they could find that blindly agress with any man and claim it's indicative of all women
That's a prejudiced thing to say, honestly. Men have a huge stake in whether or not women get married and have kids or not. Their voice deserves to be heard.
@@scallamander4899but it shouldn’t be the only voice. It should be 50/50 as you need two to make a kid
@@scallamander4899lol I hope that was a joke
Politicians talk about the declining birthrate, but none of them are talking about the elephant in the room: the cost of living.
If food, utilities, and Healthcare was cheaper many would certainly welcome the idea of having a family, even a big one.
"make it easier to have 9 kids if they want"
Yeah this is a wealth gap problem lol. You used to be able to do this as a couple in our fabled middle classes
A family with 9 kids was very likely always poor, and let's not forget that having so many kids will very likely come at the cost of the mother's health or even her life.
the people who did this did it from 1 bedroom apartments. Our standards have raised, its not a money issue its a trying to live in the luxury the baby boomers had issue. The baby boomers in the west were the most affluent generation in all of human history. if you expect to have their life you don't understand how shafted most of humanity was. We have it better than medieval kings.
Abject poverty, neglect and abuse.
I'm 1 of 9 from a poor family even if my parents were rich you cannot equally raise thst many kids without parentification which is abuse. It was fucking awful growing up like that especially when you realise their was always a favourite child. I will always be against large families no one gets on in my family no more. Yay
Even if you have sufficient wealth to provide for nine children, reasonably speaking you won't have sufficient time to properly parent all of them. Either you'd need to employ someone to assist in their care or, more likely, you'd have older children (mostly girls) raising the younger ones. That's a form of child abuse, by the way.
The reason the wealthy want us (or specific groups of us, which hints at further motives) to have so many children is because they need more cogs in their money-printing machines. They do not care about the standards of living those children will have, or whether those children will starve--only that they exist and will eventually become workers under the thumbs of the oligarchs.
Society will not end if there is a population crash--which I am not convinced will happen in any case. I suspect this will be a temporary dip. But even if it does crash, we currently have 8 billion people; humanity is hardly going to go extinct even if we get all the way down to 1 billion. Which we won't, because there are still plenty of groups that have a positive birthrate, and some of those groups are entire, high-population nations.
As for the nations more affected, they'll adapt. They'll accept more immigrants, or they'll adjust their economic models. The billionaires may lose their billions, though, which is what they are actually afraid of. Fewer people means fewer workers to exploit for low wages while fending off unions.
2 kids in childcare is double my mortgage, I can’t afford a bigger house, education and healthcare systems are broken, the earth is on fire, clean air and water is a luxury… why would I want to bring any more kids into this world
Read history and you will find that the population collapse in Europe in 1347 due to the Black Death brought about an improvement in living standards and rights for peasants due to a scarcity of labour. This led to a fall in the power of the landlord class and feudalism. Similar mechanism at work here. The elites want a plentiful supply of cheap compliant and cowed labour desperate for any form of work and willing to put up with dreadful conditions as a result of weak bargaining power inherent in high rates of growth.
As a milkman on leaving school at the age of 17 I had a practical object lesson in the fallacy and tragedy of large families on scant resources. People with 4 or more children had to watch every penny, rows and deprivation were common and such families were always on the edge regarding material comforts and way of life. The families with 2 or 3 children and modest lifestyles were best off. Those with 8 or more children were always in a parlous state, depending on charity and outside help at a time when this was a source of great shame.
You need a sizeable number of 2 children families but the society does not support this to any great extent.
I’m putting my child in childcare in a few months and it’s free for 3 half days a week going to 5 half days soon. The UK figured out how to get us to have more kids 😅
My grandparents had about 5 to 8 kids per family unit.
That may apply to you if you earn below average income in a rich country, but worldwide The quality of life actually increased in the last century. Globaly, not just in America.
While money can be a factor, we are currently living in a period of relative wealth (with less global poverty overall) and stability (even though wars are reemerging today, they are nowhere near the scale of those in the 20th century). The average income of Americans alone is more than enough to sustain two or three children.
For me, it seems that contraception, the fact that women have increasingly entered the workforce (as seen in wealthy Arab countries becoming more open to women working), and the unwillingness of people to slightly reduce their standard of living (which doesn’t mean becoming poor, but might involve giving up certain things or desires) are probably the strongest factors. However, these are also the hardest to act upon due to reasonable ethical concerns.
It's more complicated than just saying, 'It’s the culture, bro,' but there are factors beyond economic ones that seem to be stronger predictors of this phenomenon.
The irony is that birthrates will probably drop during Trumps term, due to fear of the consequences of botched pregnancies and miscarriages not getting medical treatment.
And women who want children rendered infertile (or deceased) due to that as well.
Sterilisation rates are significantly increasing because of this. And so is long term contraceptives like IUDs and implants.
Pregnancy is currently seen as too great a risk.
And there will still be 'abortshuns', just not safe ones.
You say "pregnancy is seen as too great a risk" but then also "there will still be meatball surgery abortions" .... I mean, if women are concerned with safety shouldn't they take more steps towards not having accidental pregnancies instead?
@@mrkiky My brother, did you not read the comment?
@@mrkikythere’s complications with pregnancies whether they are wanted or not. Even if people are ready to have a baby , and want to have a baby they still might lose the baby due to medical complications. And the mothers life can also be put at risk
@mrkiky
Not as clever as you thought. You also forgot grape.
@@dermboss402 and you really think emergency abortion to save the mother's life will be made illegal? not even Charlie Kirk is against that🙄
I want my kids to have a good childhood, If I keep having kids, I will be homeless or have terrible children who are living in squalor. I guess that is ok, as long as the rich get their workforce right??? Who needs quality of life....
31:04 "The point of why governments need to encourage pronatalism is because they need to produce more taxpayers. If governments only produce more non tax-paying, very low-earning citizens, their infrastructure is still going to crumble, they're still going to be politically unstable, they're still going to have pension-fund nightmares. What you need is high tax-payers."
Hrmm, it sounds almost like having a large amount of our society's capital controlled by a very small segment of the population who regularly avoid paying taxes and who use their disproportionate control of resources to lobby for lower taxes is actually bad? Almost like a more effective solution would be reducing income inequality by redistributing the resources hoarded by ultra-wealthy people such as yourself to the general public...
🤔
They'll have no choice when they can't use unemployment and homelessness as a cudgel. Its why they keep both at "managable" levels. Not possible when depopulation is significant enough, and what few of us remain can demand much better living standards in exchange for working for them.
My understanding is that all the wealth of all the billionaires in the US would fund the US government for 9 months, and you can only seize their wealth one time.
If you make 100 on a test, and someone else gets a 50, let's take 25 points from you and give it to the other person in order to make things equal. Neither person would bother to do any work in class after that. The problem with redistribution of wealth is that it contains no incentive. The outcome is predetermined, so why bother.
@@arpadzigisfari5819
"all the wealth of all the billionaires in the US would fund the US government for 9 months, and you can only seize their wealth one time."
Sure, but this makes some rather ridiculous assumptions that only make sense if you're explicitly pro-billionaire.
Like the fact that seizing a productive asset like a company doesn't cause it to liquidate? The money-making firm still exists. If an investor transferring his shares wouldn't implode the firm, then why would transferring those shares to the government immediately wipe out all of the value?
@@flyerton9958Also, the idea that the tax on income above, say, $100k a year would be 100%. I’d say 50% is fair, if the rich actually PAY it. Trouble is, they have plenty of money and leisure to avoid paying as much taxes ax as possible! 😑
How about conservatives adopt the children who don't have homes so they grow up healthy and educated.
Healthy...maybe. Educated...? By a conservative?
Statistically they are going to end up abused and traumatized because your type has campaigned to keep that legal, unlike nearly every other country.
They'd have to be pro immigration for that.
conservatives don't make for good parents though
they do, reasonably often. especially the hyper-religious wackos. they just also often treat them pretty horribly. neglect, abuse, and indoctrination into their doomsday cult.
so I guess they get homes? growing up healthy... less so. educated? lol, no chance.
My husband and I wanted to have children but then roe v wade was overturned. Pregnant women are having miscarriages and dying of sepsis because doctors aren't allowed to treat them. That's not a risk I want to take
That's not happening, that's propaganda.
@dl2839 friend of mine had this happen, they waited too long to treat he because if they treated her too soon it wouldn't be considered medically necessary YET even though they knew she'd need an abortion eventually. She nearly bled out and has had chronic illness ever since
@@dl2839literally just speak to actual real life doctors if you have the chance
@@CaseyBowman7 Sounds like medical malpractice to me. She should file against them.
I’m from the UK and really struggling to understand this comment. No Roe v Wade means the state decides abortion laws, can someone explain how this is a cause of miscarriages and sepsis?
I'm an only child of a single parent. I'm also gay. One of my biggest regrets and the thing that kept me from coming out for years was the fact that I couldn't give my mother any grandchildren. I'd love to adopt, or better yet to have a surrogate child, but I have over $80k in student loans, I have to pay nearly $600 per month for health insurance just for myself, and I have to pay all the normal monthly expenses like rent, food, and utility bills. Despite making about $70k every year, I'm stuck living in a ratty 2br apartment with my partner and a roommate. Our total household income is over $100k, yet we can't even afford to rent a house, and we're quite a bit better off than most people. In the United States, it costs about $50k just to adopt a child, not including any of the expenses of actually having the child. It's impossible. Even if I had a really good female friend who was willing to let me approach them with a gas mask and a turkey baster, I still couldn't afford to raise a kid even if the act of getting said kid was free. The economic side of this equation can't be ignored, and I find it ironic that many of the loudest "natalists" are also extremely rich and largely responsible for the massive concentration of wealth that prevents many normal people from being able to afford children in the first place. They are the cause of the problem they're so concerned about.
they want to have their cake and eat it too. they could have two cakes, if they put some money towards it.
its a transactional world, and they expect us to pay them for giving them what they want. its very over.
"he fact that I couldn't give my mother any grandchildren. I'd love to adopt, or better yet to have a surrogate chil" guilt your straight friends to have more kids. Help them raise their kids. Ain't your fault your mom never bothered with a back up.
@@dixonhill1108 My mother never bothered with a backup because she had a very difficult, complicated pregnancy and she was told that it would be a serious risk to her life to have another kid. It was even recommended that she have an abortion with her first pregnancy, but she opted not to, luckily for me. It's absolutely not her fault for having only one child.
I remember watching some economist years ago theorizing that the population will likely stabilize after a few generations of decline. We have this issue of thinking environments, people, and mentalities will stay the same forever and it's never been true. Human population spent 100 year exploding, of course it would slow down eventually. We have also faced massive population declines in the past thanks to disease and famine, so this is also hardly a new issue.
THIS! nothing is linear, our behaviors are conditioned by our environment. Having kids a hundred years back was and advantage and an asset. Now it’s a burden and it sucks. But if anything, history has taught us that this will likely change again in the future once circumstances change again.
True. But unfortunately economists won't stop panicking about lack of growth and will happily advocate for tech or importing people to solve the problems of an economy reaching equilibrium.
But also they are not concerned with the world population declining (which it is not). They just don’t like that “their people” are not reproducing enough.
@jessip8654 While throughout history this was true, in cases like the aftermath of the Black Death, the Little Ice Age and other disasters, you forgot one crucial thing that is essential to our modern society.
The Line Must Go Up
This is the greatest truth of the modern age, constant, continous growth in market value. Apple and others MUST increase in value, year after year, month after month. It is not enough to have a prosperous, self-sustaining profitable business, companies like that are relics and oddities of an older time and economic model. Nowdays the line must climb for success, nothing else, like actually selling stuff matters. Vivek Ramaswamy runs a pharma company that dosen't actually make any drugs; but it's valued at over a billion, The Line Must Go Up.
This means that unlike in previous eras; where function and actual production was valued so everyone wouldn't starve, almost all things of great value in the modern era are valued because the Line Goes Up. You can gamble with them, trade them, maybe they even make stuff like cars, but their value is now seen as inherent, rather than representative.
All this to say, if the circumstances that prop this all up go away, the entire system falls down in a way no other system has since maybe the Bronze Age Collapse. We can either have change now, or get hell later.
Are you ignoring something, like the dumb way the economy is set up, that requires population growth to work?
Will the population stabilize? Probably. But once countries start collapsing it will not matter. The new sea people will eat the world.
If you don't get the reference, read a book.
Well. It is an easy calculation.
When people feel safe and well treated, they make more babies.
When they can hardly afford to eat, they don't.
is that why countries with poor infrastructure and bad economy have higher birth rates? lol.
is that why poor countries have higher tfr while developed nations are falling behind?
@deargatekeeper no they live in a world like the post war were kids die so often that they just keep having more mpst developed countrys dont have that problem to the extent so theres higher focus on the well being of the children you bring
This statistically isn't true though. Countries who have tried giving subsidies to people who have kids found it did not increase births, even when the subsidy outweighed the increase in costs vs. wages
@@deargatekeeper No. It's because the children die faster at a younger because of lack of healthcare. Also, the need for labor is a motivation to have children. And lastly, a lot of these countries don't have access to good and informative sex education & birth control. A lot of western countries were in the same predicaments 60 (+) years ago. In those poor countries, people are having more children not because they want to, but because they have too. Lastly, people are going to have sex regardless, it's a natural thing. And with that comes children (most likely unwanted), whom they will still take care of. I was born and raised in Haiti and move to the states 10+ years ago. I am talking from experience, the high birth rate in poorer countries is rooted in lack of healthcare, need for labor, gender roles and religious believes.
women who do not have children and remain unmarried are NOT typically dependent on the state. It is the women who - and I include myself in this, having had a 'traditional' life as a stay at home mother with three children - have had children and worked less who depend on e.g. welfare for when the partner 'breadwinner' takes off and refuses to pay childcare, and on state pensions for old age having not had the ability to work long enough and for a sufficient salary, that are dependent on the state. My three children, none of whom have children of their own, are all working and paying taxes that will allow women who did NOT have children, to get full pensions while I am dependent on the state for a pittance.
I probably fit this. I'm a higher earner, with extra disposable income, because aside from cats I have no dependents.
Plus, I have to figure that, compared to people I know who had kids, I'll probably enjoy better health for a longer time, with way less wear and tear on my body.
Outrageous. Thank you for keeping humanity going. I hope the law and society will value parents more in the future.
Right? I don't make enough to build a house yet, but I earn more than about 3/4 of American households. It's hard but it is so much better than being a house slave completely dependant on whatever mediocre man I got saddled with. I'lltake this struggle every day over that one.
I don’t understand, wouldn’t your kids paying taxes also contribute to your stability since you’re relying on public services? Just as the women who had no children were paying taxes that went to public schools and services meant for children?
Yet you don't want laws that would hold those men who take off accountable, curious
“It’s not the money,” says the woman with all the money. Sickening mindset these people have.
I live in America. Am childless. Married, Just turned 36. My husband and I have both worked 50-70 hours per week our whole lives just to stay A LITTLE comfortable. I would love to have children and be a mother but it's just way too expensive. Not enough support. It's just that fucking simple.
No, it isn't. If you really wanted them, you could have them. You just don't want them, and make excuses to yourself about it. That's ok, but you are missing out.
@@jimbarino2You don’t know this person or their life. Stop dismissing their valid reasons.
@jimbarino2 and you know their exact economic status how?
Peterson calling people who don't want kids "selfish" is ironic because he considers collectivism to be a Commie idea that will destroy the world or whatever.
He also never once considered old people living many years to be selfish.
Well not having kids is putting the human species in existential danger and colletivism killed tens of millions of people the last century so both things seem really great ideas to me.
@@Justme-rt4gj ok now explain the part about how war, fascism, and capitalism killed 100x more than that.
Insane insane to Me that people like him after deciding someone is extremely pathologically Selfish will and then demand they have children. My guy why would you want to put a kid through that????? Its good when selfish people realize they aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to give a child a good life, it means they don't end up hurting any children!
I ~almost~ understand the mindset conceptually but also no I don't what the fuck?
Exactly. Sacrifice? OK, but...for whose benefit? The child that otherwise would not exist in this world that youre convinced is declining? Yours??? Fo here.
Wow. As a woman with five children (and might have had more if my last 4650g baby during a pandemic wasn't so difficult), those pro-natalist arguments are just so insulting and infuriating. The irony of their arguments so often being self-centered, self-serving and self-aggrandizing while they blame the selfishness of those "other" women for fertility is also not lost on me.
Not once have I heard one of them claim that it's women being selfish or whatever you're talking about.
I've watched a bunch of these pro natalists. Women in the workforce, for example, they always say that it is NOT women's fault. Rather it's the governments fault for creating an economy where both the father & mother NEED to work in order to survive. They argue that it should be only one parent while the other stays home.
I suggest doing research before allowing emotions to take over & assuming the worst next time.
@@elpidalastname9834 There are clips, in the very video you're talking about, of two different people doing exactly that 🤦
@@elpidalastname9834 you seriously fault the government for an economy where both parents have to work to survive, rather than employers and business owners for not paying enough?
@@mortarien I mean it's definitely both--that's been a two-way relationship for a long time. But yeah, the employers and shareholders seem to be gaining disproportionate amounts of power here
@mortarien given the fact that lots of these issues stem from governments appeasing to businesses, a large chunk of politicians who are literally business owners themselves, majority of politicians get campaign donations (bribed), majority of politicians do insider trading, and so much more, yeah... I would say so, given that it's so blatant and blasted all over news channels 24/7... Are you seriously saying that you don't believe this?