> At the risk of speculating, I get the feeling you may not want kids, and are projecting those feelings onto other people.
Oh it's fine, I like to consider each possible alternative hypothesis! Speculation is the name of the game!
There's a risk I could rationalize.
There's also the possibility the desire to have kids is baked in the utility function.
If it's baked in, how much of that is mental/software based(cultural) and how much is biological/hardware based (ex: animals want to mate, without having the need a large brain to rationalize this, all they need is a pulse)
I think there's a large risk that having kids is a culturally defined "normal want", but one that serves the group yet goes against the interest of the individual, something that can be seen only if/when the individual has access to consciousness/culture/knowledge etc and also doesn't need "extra pairs of hands" to help on the farm (technological progress)
Animals can't see that, but humans can: then the declining birthrates globally would just be a "correction" by people realizing that having kids is not something they really want.
Yet societies want that (otherwise they'd stop existing) so they would push for whatever narrative or rationalization is serving society's purpose. Most individuals would internalize and accept that (like how most people accept and don't question the religion they're raised in)
It wouldn't take much people opting out for the population growth rate to become negative: anything less than 2 kids per couple on average, and the X (in X^N) goes below 1, meaning X^N decreases.
Now that more people see the rigged game, they opt out, causing a difference families having more than 2 kids (say very religious families or whatever) can compensate for.
It's funny how it's men bothering with that (the title is written to conviently exclude half the population): I guess it's easier to see something as a problem when you don't have to personally bear as much of the costs (in wear and tear of the body + risk of death a few centuries before)
Oh it's fine, I like to consider each possible alternative hypothesis! Speculation is the name of the game!
There's a risk I could rationalize.
There's also the possibility the desire to have kids is baked in the utility function.
If it's baked in, how much of that is mental/software based(cultural) and how much is biological/hardware based (ex: animals want to mate, without having the need a large brain to rationalize this, all they need is a pulse)
I think there's a large risk that having kids is a culturally defined "normal want", but one that serves the group yet goes against the interest of the individual, something that can be seen only if/when the individual has access to consciousness/culture/knowledge etc and also doesn't need "extra pairs of hands" to help on the farm (technological progress)
Animals can't see that, but humans can: then the declining birthrates globally would just be a "correction" by people realizing that having kids is not something they really want.
Yet societies want that (otherwise they'd stop existing) so they would push for whatever narrative or rationalization is serving society's purpose. Most individuals would internalize and accept that (like how most people accept and don't question the religion they're raised in)
It wouldn't take much people opting out for the population growth rate to become negative: anything less than 2 kids per couple on average, and the X (in X^N) goes below 1, meaning X^N decreases.
Now that more people see the rigged game, they opt out, causing a difference families having more than 2 kids (say very religious families or whatever) can compensate for.
It's funny how it's men bothering with that (the title is written to conviently exclude half the population): I guess it's easier to see something as a problem when you don't have to personally bear as much of the costs (in wear and tear of the body + risk of death a few centuries before)