Ask HN: Why aren't the childless incentivized for not stressing global resources

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815272

by jelliclesfarm • 9 years ago

2 21 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It is clear that the world population is exploding. Families with multiple children are subsidized by government while individuals who responsibly curtail their instincts to procreate and preserve global resources are in a way penalized because they never seem to enjoy the benefits for their choice.

Why is the choice to have 2..3..19 and counting..rewarded while the child less individuals who do not stress the worlds resources get nary a thanks..never mind the well deserved monetary/quality of life rewards.(example: tax dollars go to educating others children and not towards something the childfree population would enjoy)

Thoughts?

cjbprime2• 9 years ago

Families with multiple children are subsidized by government

Yeah, that's not how any of this works. Parents spend on average $10k-$20k cash per year on their children in the US.

2..3..19 and counting..

You should be aware that fertility rates have plummeted to below replacement rate in almost every developed country. The fertility rate in the US is currently 1.8 children per woman, meaning that if not for previously higher fertility rates in the past and immigration, the population in the US would be decreasing over time.

jelliclesfarm10• 9 years ago

But other parts of the world are overcrowded..if we could redistribute population, won't we relieve hyper dense hubs and manage resources more effectively.

cjbprime2• 9 years ago

Yes. This will definitely happen (more than it already is), because developed countries aren't producing enough children to take care of their aging local population.

angersock2• 9 years ago

Why should they be? Look at it from the other side:

They clearly have no interest after they themselves pass on. Their failure to contribute children hurts whatever civilization they're a part of, because they haven't created more taxable human beings, more workers, more artists, or more scientists.

Why reward such selfishness?

jelliclesfarm10• 9 years ago

That is an interesting point of view.

I want to play along.

So..what about imperfect offsprings of those who play the procreation game? What do we do with them?

angersock2• 9 years ago

Imperfect offspring are still useful for a society, they just are maybe suited at different things. Both a strong but dumb person and a frail but smart person are useful in their own ways. :)

KanyeBest• 9 years ago

Our economic system is based on growth, I believe.

Population growth increases demand for goods and services. This generates new jobs, venture opportunities and increases the value of existing assets such as real estate and securities. Overall population growth creates a positive spiral in the economic sense.

Of course none of this takes into account that we live in a world with limited resources. And there is no incentive to do so - as long as you have sufficient assets that stand to rise in value. It's the people who have the least that suffer the most from overpopulation.

wahern• 9 years ago

I think all things being equal, growth in population is a wash. In a static economy I would think that one more adult will on average and at scale contribute about as much as they consume.

AFAIU our economic system (or at least our expectations of it) is based on productivity growth--more output for an equivalent input of labor. The additional output gains are the basic source of wealth creation.

For various reasons I think it's easier to maintain robust productivity growth with a growing population. Workers reach maximum productivity age 40-50.[1] Also, if you want the 40- to 50-year-olds of tomorrow to be at the top of their game you want them to begin learning to use their tools today.

So an aging population has an increasing proportion of workers past their prime and, worse, those people will be even less productive with newer technology than workers about to enter their prime productivity years.

If the population is shrinking then things are worse because now there are fewer workers paying for services for the elderly. But that's a different sort of issue, I think.

Alternatively, we could just kill old people. Then we might even be able to sustain high productivity growth even as the population shrinks. But I suspect old people might be critical for sociological reasons; society might be much less stable in their absence.

[1] https://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2016/12/09/why-productivity-g...

jelliclesfarm10• 9 years ago

What if

1. most work done by today is done by robots?

2. Anti aging improves and life span increases?

Mz5• 9 years ago

First, not having kids in no way guarantees that you will live lightly on the land. Plenty of childless people drive cars, take air plane flights for vacations, own big homes and generally live a consumerist lifestyle to the max.

Second, simply having kids does not, by itself, mean you will add all kinds of burden to the system. When I wrote a college paper some years back for an Environmental Law class, a typical American kid consumed something like 200 times the resources as a typical kid in India.

Your argument in no way holds any water. It sounds like you basically are saying you want to be personally rewarded in some way for not having kids. Generally speaking, not having kids frees you up to put your time and energy into your job and hobbies and what have you while not having to pay the costs involved in having a kid. That seems like plenty "reward" to me if you do not even want kids to begin with.

jelliclesfarm10• 9 years ago

I wasn't making an argument. Listening to various points of view. Thanks for yours.

jelliclesfarm10• 9 years ago

Also: what is your opinion re global warming?

Housing, for example, is a direct function of population growth. We are clearly showing strains in quality of living there. Thoughts?

Mz5• 9 years ago

Climate change has gone on since the birth of this planet's atmosphere. We have the term "Ice Age" as evidence of our knowledge that average temperatures have varied over time. The planet has been getting warmer for at least hundreds of years, having nothing to do with humans. We are adding to that, but we don't really clearly know exactly how much is due to human activity, nor do we know as well as we sometimes claim what that will lead to.

Humans are terrible about running around shrieking "The sky is falling!" News basically means bad news.

When the oil wells in Kuwait were set on fire, it was predicted that they would burn for years and be a global environmental catastrophe. When crack teams converged upon Kuwait, invented new techniques on the spot and put them out in six months, this did not get celebrated on par with the hand wringing that initially occurred. Y2K followed a similar pattern.

When things turn out okay, we consider that normal. When disaster gets averted, we often rewrite history and claim it was never a serious threat to begin with. Then we find some new thing to have conniptions about.

Climate change is real. Potential disaster due to climate change is also real. But we routinely overcome such problems and then are all Meh, no big afterwards.

"It's the end of the world as we know it -- and I feel fine."

Ask HN: Why aren't the childless incentivized for not stressing global resources

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