The disturbing yet unavoidable final solution to the collapse of birth rates in the West

NakedStreets · 2023-11-07T04:52:00+00:00

Why childless people?

Let’s think of two examples:

Person A: Childless, saved a significant amount for retirement, continues to contribute towards taxes and the economy.

Person B: Penniless, has one child who goes to prison, has a second child who becomes a drug addict.

Why would Person A be the one you send away?

throwaway164_3 · 2023-11-07T04:43:11+00:00

The whole point of retirement savings, IRAs and 401k is that you can pay for yourself when old no?

Besides, the whole point of progressive taxation system is you pay in when working and the system supports you when you retire,

Rogue5454 · 2023-11-07T05:03:13+00:00

Um…older people pay taxes too. They also paid taxes from when they were young to old.

People who don’t have kids pay taxes helping to raise people’s kids.

People pay taxes for all in some way.

The way to increase population is for employers to actually pay employees what it’s costs to live & be able to have children if they want.

Cool_Relative7359 · 2023-11-07T06:32:47+00:00

The point is that we either go extinct or take a radical solution.

Urgh, this old BS again. Okay, so if 75% of fertile women today chose not to have kids globally, and the remaining 25% only had one child each, we would still have 15x the number of people necessary for minimum viable population. No one is going extinct. Thats just fear mongering.

capitalism would fail, we'd have to restructure society, but we won't go extinct.

And the solution I propose is to pay women to be parents untill the kid is 6 or just make it a an actual job in society so people can afford it and not worry with more being paid for having more kids. Financial independence for women, kids for society, and a mom that's home with them for the kids.

slazengerx · 2023-11-07T05:03:07+00:00

Leave old childless people at their own, don't feed retirement with younger money, let them work to the end for themselves. Basically a state for themselves, where they vote, produce and get paid by each other to the end. Not give them any social benefits that may cost and stress younger people more. This seems cruel, but it is the only way that younger people will not be enslaved and younger generations will be able to be born.

I'm childless and I'm happy to forgo social security and medicare if I don't have to pay any federal taxes or FICA going forward. I don't need anyone else's support but... I want something in return for declining what's legally due to me. Does that work for you?

claratheresa · 2023-11-07T05:12:41+00:00

Life expectancy will simply drop. Children are not life insurance policies or indentured servants. you should not cripple your kids because you didn’t save.

wtknight · 2023-11-07T13:06:05+00:00

Old childless people have already paid into social security, though. They need to get their money back somehow. Otherwise their money has been stolen.

Productivity is higher than ever. The rich just need to be taxed more.

thetruthishere_ · 2023-11-07T13:52:06+00:00

Lots of old people are working to the end now. In the US anyways.

There are senior citizens working more than ever now everywhere I go.

Us childfree people are paying for others kids and seniors too. Im taxed to death, even more so because Im self employed.

-Shes-A-Carnival · 2023-11-07T18:38:38+00:00

so after promising every worker SS and Medicare in return for confiscating their FICA taxes with no choice to opt out you think it should just be abrogated and they should be thrown on the street

CrustyBubblebrain · 2023-11-07T06:29:32+00:00

I'm actually weirdly supportive of the oncoming population collapse. Very much so because of the environment/limitation of resources, but also for other reasons, too.

I'm a millennial and I don't expect that 'things' in society are going to get any better as I age, anyway. I will already be recieving far less from U.S. SS than I'm contributing. The healthcare system is already shitty. The housing situation is already shitty. The employment situation for a reliable career is shitty. None of this is likely to improve within my lifetime; I am fully grateful that I have a vehicle that runs and a very small home to call my own.

I do have one child, though, and I'm optimistic for his future. I plan to vote in whatever way will make his life easier than mine. I'm excited that most of my generation is not choosing to have children because:

Many people are just not really not fit to be parents. Perhaps I'm not, either, but...I'm very happy that the people who know that they would make shit parents are obstaining from contributing to the human population.

The fewer people there are, the better outcomes my child can expect. A smaller workforce, for example, means that my child will have a lot more leverage as a working-age adult than I did. Obviously, this doesn't take into account the disadvantages that robotics and AI will have on the workforce...but in general, when it comes to human life, less=more valuable.

Likewise with housing. When the boomers, gen X, and millennials all finally die off, I sincerely hope that gen Z and gen alpha inherit the earth. With fewer of them, housing shouldn't be such a goddamn crisis.

ornamentalwallpaper · 2023-11-07T06:15:54+00:00

Leave old childless people at their own

You are just really trying to screw over the low status guy even more, aren't you. Fucking brilliant.

Yeah when you read people like OP you can't escape the feeling that the sky is falling, but on the contrary, every decade someone whines about some invasion of giant lizard monsters, climate catastrophy or some other goddamn thing and it never comes. In 30 years we will probably have artificial wombs

januaryphilosopher · 2023-11-07T07:14:11+00:00

The population is not collapsing everywhere. It is exploding outside the first world. Many states have very young populations. There's no reason why that state couldn't make use of that. And, of course, in your state nobody would actually work to the end, they'd just save up to quit their jobs after a certain age and retire without government benefit, or on disability grounds as they usually wouldn't even physically be able to work (which is why retirement exists). I'd also ask what you plan to do with adopted/foster parents or anyone who couldn't have a child, had valid reasons not to have a child (do you want to encourage more children being born with genetic illnesses?) or contributed way more to society than having a child would have done. Also, parents who never actually parented their children and we're essentially just donors, where do they go? And it seems really unfair for women if men just need to give a bit of sperm, but for women actual pregnancy with huge and far-reaching medical consequences is required to avoid punishment for the rest of their lives, no?

Electronic_West_1831 · 2023-11-07T08:52:52+00:00

So your solution is that people should be coerced into having children under the threat of social exclusion in old age - i.e., your only worth as a human being boils entirely down to how many crotch droppings you’re responsible for breeding, and anything else is null and void; so one could devote their lives to their community, selflessly help and support others, and enrich countless lives, but in your dystopia, none of this counts for shit because they didn’t do their duty and procreate for the good of the race? And what about homosexuals, the disabled, people with heredity illnesses etc. - do they go in the camps before or after they’ve reached retirement age?

TidyMess123 · 2023-11-07T04:42:58+00:00

People aren’t putting off having kids because of taxes, they are putting it off because their wages aren’t enough to afford having kids. Make childcare affordable, make housing affordable, and more people will have kids. It’s that simple.

Sunshine12e · 2023-11-07T05:35:00+00:00

Machinery, equipment, robots, etc. can take the place of many physical and/or mental tasks that currently have to be done by younger, more physically and mentally fit people. Then, when there are less people, there will be MORE land/housing/etc. for those who are here. Also, immigration.

PMmeareasontolive · 2023-11-07T18:23:55+00:00

this is the Y2K panic of modern times. You know what the catastrophe will actually be? Everyone invested in real estate will lose when housing prices plummet. Wages will also increase because laborers will be in demand. That's your crisis. A nightmare for the monied classes.

esdebah · 2023-11-07T11:58:26+00:00

Are you suggesting we ghetto-ize the childless?

Flightlessbirbz · 2023-11-07T20:41:42+00:00

They paid into social security too. And what about old people with kids who don’t take care of them? Which happens a lot, especially to men who have only sons and fail to maintain a close relationship with them growing up. And there are never any guarantees even if you did everything right. Your children may sadly pass away before you, be unable to work, or simply not have the desire or means to take care of you.

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13choppedup2chopped · 2023-11-07T05:07:01+00:00

I read some where that the government spends more money on old people than children. I would support reversing this trend.

AidsVictim · 2023-11-07T06:00:36+00:00

This doesn't fix the birth rate problem or inverted population pyramids. It's one way to control spending on the elderly but does not solve the fundamental problem of men and women not having enough children, as the causes extend far beyond tax rates.

Razieloo · 2023-11-07T08:40:29+00:00

It’s mathematically possibile for this not to work too.

If each couple has just one child the population shrinks but they technically have a kid so they get the benefits.

Financial_Leave4411 · 2023-11-07T17:37:17+00:00

All old people should pull themselves up by the boot straps and support themselves with all the resources they have hoarded over their lifetime. It’s not younger generations responsibility to care for the old; it’s each person’s individual responsibility to save for themselves and if they can’t make it they die. No need for special legislation, over the next few years we should see nature take its course which should open up more jobs and houses which should help increase income while lowering housing cost. This financial correction will allow people to live comfortably with or without kids and life will move on. So no need to be upset just let nature take its course.

Joyful-Adsorption · 2023-11-08T00:17:28+00:00

Accumulation of wealth and longevity is creating a huge divide in the classes. Smart phones are preventing social skills which build long term relationships.

Accession of wealth through real estate needs to be limited. The greatest generation came back from WWII to track homes. The boomers and Gen X also benefited from track homes, cheaply manufactured houses that resold easily and appreciated in value. It was very easy to snap up more than one property and become a landlord. Then with advancements in health care, they are living longer. The thing that scares me, at 42, is the advancement of anti aging treatments. Imagine if people could live to be 150? How hard would it be to compete financially when you are 20? Imagine if we could live forever? The people who hold assets now would always be on top. Is it ethical to allow people to elongate their telemere?

To grow old and die can be scary. To watch your progeny grow and progress makes it worth it to pass on and leave everything to future generations. We seem to be losing sight of this.

OutsideSound3247 · 2023-11-07T05:35:10+00:00

Or we can import more immigrants and make our country diverse. Or are you a bigot OP ?

/s

Mr-Yuk · 2023-11-07T17:10:32+00:00

Why post these dumbass rants? You think reddit is gonna be the catalyst of change? Grow up

AdEffective7894s · 2023-11-07T06:21:32+00:00

I would have suggested benevolent death schemes of I wasn't convinced that the process would be abbused to force senior citizens into ending their lives so that the govt can save money

We are already seeing this with cannada offering assisted suicide to the homeless.

Quick-Rise1624 · 2023-11-07T06:29:20+00:00

Honestly I agree and I’m a progressive

If you chose to not have kids and travel the world or paint or whatever, that’s fine

But don’t also come expecting to be pampered by the young generation if you had no hand in creating or raising them

WilliamWyattD · 2023-11-07T06:33:13+00:00

The dependency issue (too few productive age citizens for too many older and younger ones) is mostly a function of population declining too quickly. If one does posit that the total population is too large, you'd ideally want to bring down the population level gradually and evenly.

But there are also issues with the total population being too low, even if it stabilizes. There are also clearly issues with it being too high. And determining what is the right level given the technology of the day is not easy.

We are a world of nations, so you cannot simply look at this on a global level. If a nation's population is too low, you start to lose economies of scale and the ability to specialize. So you lose efficiency of a sort, which can make you less competitive in the world.

At any rate, the real problem we face now is that not only are birthrates declining, they are in freefall. The decline seems to be accelerating. And above all, we do not really understand why, which means that arresting the decline at any aggregate population level a nation decides is ideal seems very difficult without measures that could be extremely distasteful. What we have to remember is that on the whole, national TFRs WILL rebound. After perhaps some 'canary in the coal mine' nations do fall due to TFR, the rest of the world will do what it takes. Nations will not, on the whole, let themselves go extinct, much less the human race. The problem is that the less room to maneuver nations have once they decide to get serious, the uglier the solutions could look like to modern sensibilities.

As for easing the dependency gap by basically letting older people without families suffer and die in the streets, don't think we could handle it. It's like saying a solution to immigration is to let as many people come in, but provide them no social safety net. Seems simple. Now there is no cost--but we will not do that. At some point you will throw money at dying people in the West, and if you do it as an unplanned, emergency response, it will be done quite inefficiently.

Anon8896 · 2023-11-07T09:53:22+00:00

Then make the retirement age 80, fixed.

tiddermacss · 2023-11-08T16:10:47+00:00

op an imbecile with no like experience.

SallyShortcakes · 2023-11-09T07:29:32+00:00

No because the world needs less people not more

Opening_Tell9388 · 2023-11-10T14:50:58+00:00

Having to rely on your children as a parent is a burden I wish to not put on my kids. My money will be straight enough so they don’t have to worry about me.

Emergency-Escape1708 · 2023-11-10T15:23:00+00:00

I think the US economy is a massive uncontrollable Ponzi scheme-like racket that is essentially borrowing from the future to pay for the present luxuries on a large scale. The problem is so massive and staggering that even the government executives stopped trying to steer it in the 70s and unleashed it unfettered like a cancerous growth in the hopes that the system will become selfcorrecting due to people's individual decisions.

This economy is so debt burdened that these issues will never be solved. A few generations during the 19th and 20th centuries enjoyed the greatest standard of living in the whole world, by borrowing from the future. The prosperity and abundance during the 20th century was a great ball of a time for the people of that generation because they got to enjoy so much abundance and stretched the limits of of fulfilling their unchecked individual desires, all of which have come at a cost for the future generations because their life guiding philosophy was yolo.

I don't think future generations will experience such abundance for a few more centuries until one or two lucky generations that will again enjoy such abundance. So essentially if you see, it is like a cycle where the economy is fake-growing - "no salary increases to keep up with inflation, more profits, less buying power, the growth is all about revenues and profits and gdp and on and on. People in the US should feel lucky that they are exploited in a unique way while being placated with useless consumer goods to solve their immediate frustrations, the rest of the world is barely hanging by a thread in terms of prosperity.

What I'm saying is the economy's natural state is one that resembles a gilded age - this goes on for generations until the government has finally tried to fix it to a serviceable extent and then a few lucky generations get to see real abundance and property and after that another gilded age - this time with technology so far advanced we don't even know how it will effect life everywhere. Then we have the massive populations which are encouraged to grow into billions because more cheap human labor.

This is the era of the dystopian corporations owning the world in the palm of their hands, we are officially in that future. Everything is just shiny and tech companies have managed to tap into exploiting human instincts and this will get worse. The world is not all chirpy and "touch grass" like dumb airhead normies like to pretend. They just do that because to most regular masses, to fathom the full extent of these issues will bring them face to face with how they are all contributing to it and destroying the future so they can have branded handbags and indulge in absolutely useless activities that are purely an indulgence of their animal desires instead of building stable futures for most of the population.

The truth is as human population grows, the system will become more uncontrollable and unsteerable towards a real vision because to give a stable and prosperous life to future generations means giving up luxuries and reducing consumption in the present. Unlike what the noobs who trust in science and technology to solve all problems for all eternity like to believe, the truth is we are only accumulating more and more problems for future generations to solve.

And all these falling birthrates and growing disenchantment are just a small part of a bigger cancer we have created. And then there is the phenomenon that no one hears about, we are literally living through a species bottleneck, which will probably be a long drawn out affair. Yes unbeknownst to most people the current economic conditions mixed with the rapid advancement of technology at an exponential rate is creating a bottleneck as we speak. This massive population enjoying all these freeduhms and fulfilling their own desires is not something that can possibly be sustained over the next few centuries.

How will these issues be solved? I don't know that. But what I do know is that the current system will be dragged kicking and screaming into the next century and it definitely won't be a barren landscape with no future. It will be a painful existence for most of the population because most easily attainable natural resources will already be on their last leg by then. Life will become radically austere and I don't think all this freedom and luxury will be available to them. Don't be fooled by all the consumer tech advancement and shiny cheaply made goods, none of this signals prosperity. We are not living in "cool times". Anyone who thought, science and technology will bring more prosperity and abundance and freedom will be looking like fools, because by all measures the population works more than ever, the bigger the system grows the more enslaved to it we become. All these "fun facts" about us having better living standards and people living until old age is just a side effect. If anything we live more complicated and tougher lives than any previous generation. There is no solution here, because humanity will ride this wave until the very end. In the meantime life gets harder and more streamlined with fiercer competition for everything in life because it's intentional and by design.

Notsonewguy7 · 2023-11-10T16:06:02+00:00

I think we could run this economic system with a fraction of the people currently in it. Yes we are seeing a decline in birth rates but it is more extreme in wealthy countries.

The truth is the solution is accepting we'll have less people. Not using immigration as a bandage.

SallyShortcakes · 2023-11-10T17:36:21+00:00

I think you lack an objective view of the state of the world and it’s problems.

Title	The disturbing yet unavoidable final solution to the collapse of birth rates in the West
Author	EuphoricBrightTipper
Upvotes	0
Comments	104
Date	November 7, 2023 4:37 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/17pmhaz/the_disturbing_yet_unavoidable_final_solution_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/the-disturbing-yet-unavoidable-final-solution-to.1237659 https://theredarchive.com/post/1237659

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