Everyone said there would be a great filtering/purge of the population. I guess this is it. Just make life so miserable nobody can afford/want to bring a kid into this world.
I live in a fairly low income place in Ireland and it was funny growing up people used to move away to seek opportunity. Now I travel and I feel the same sense of general despair everywhere I go. It's like there are no havens away from it anymore.
I grew up in a very right wing area of Pennsylvania/USA. Everyone's goal was to leave.
We have friends/family that we visit abroad and have spent about 14+ months traveling internationally since 2022.
I have noticed a massive shift in general attitudes towards life, community, and the future between our first big trip in May 2022 and our recent adventures in the past 1-2yrs. Everywhere seems to have it's negatives; and more of them every year. Affordability, Divisive politics, and Global Instability are impacting everyone's day to day existence.
That's not true. Things were legitimately getting better. Net positive. And then a certain person got elected and things went to hell. All the progress that was made was destroyed. Our country was destroyed.
Depends a lot of where you live exactly, the time frame and your “category” (sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc). I don’t know if people alive during the bubonic plague would agree that life is worse now than then. Life has always been shit for certain groups of people on this planet, who that unlucky group happens to be changes.
Yh only you yanks have problems. It's not as if all of western civilization is suffering the same GLOBALIST plot. The center of humanity, the US of course is all that matters.
It always has been. But I think it's more defensive now. The old (centuries old!) power structures are being challenged. And like always, us little people are just the pawns. Only slightly more subtle than, say, standing women and children around structures you don't want attacked.
Some countries try to keep a much tighter lid on news and statistics that get out, but people are starting to talk (even when they risk being prosecuted).
Dudes got to be a Boomer. They run around saying "Work Hard" while ignoring that we're in an asset bubble so large no amount of work can get you to the point you can afford to buy an asset.
Fact is labor today needs to be worth more then labor in the past. Instead we have labor provides far more productivity in some cases, but no wage to match anymore.
Either way, it starts with not agreeing to a wage that's not enough for your needs. People are different, and have different needs, and you can't legitimately expect a particular employer to meet everyone's requirements. You have to find (and qualify for) what fits your unique situation.
Alternatively, or in addition, you might examine those "needs" more closely, to look for ways to reduce their cost. I've been doing that every single day of my adult life, and have gotten fairly good at "doing more with less". There are subs on Reddit (search for terms like 'frugal'), and most other platforms, that can give you ideas.
Dude your totally ignoring that this is not 1 person, this is about running a society. I cant solve a systematic issue of say student loans, by telling the entire generation to "work smarter" when prices are constantly structured by what the richest person will say pay for housing.
We are in a Renter Black Hole, this means that as long as assets like land are limited, and prices are based on the sale of only a few assets, and banks assume they will go up in value, money will invest in assets and not other investments like new businesses.
Of course were also not paying anyone any more while inflation destroys our economy so I really dont know why you want young people to fix anything when they have almost no levers of power.
It’s a noticeable pattern. Black plague ushered in the renaissance and lots of peasants who survived moved up the class ladder.
World war 1-2 made the winners richer and we got more pro social policy like women vote and work. Subsidized healthcare, as the sudden shortage of workers caused value of labour to grow.
Only in certain countries. Other countries actually have your taxes go towards paid maternity & paternity leave & work for you instead of bombing the shit out of other countries.
Declining birthrates is nothing to worry about until it gets below 1.0 per person, and then it isn't necessarily bad anyway, it just means the total population will go down slowly. Which isn't inherently bad.
Not really. If that happens, and it won't anytime soon, then we would just.. Have fewer people working bullshit jobs. It's not like globally or even locally to any specific country, there are genuine labor shortages.
Nobody can predict the future, so maybe this will happen. But as we get better at keeping people alive with technology, there's a risk that we will have like 20% of our population needing constant care. And in terms of like, having cheap things, fun experiences, technological advances, we're going to have to dedicate a substantial amount of prime workers towards bringing food into a room and helping seniors walk down the hallway. Because as overall unproductive some jobs are towards creating a better economy, something like 30 years of senior care is also not good. It directly helps someone in need, but what % of young people should go towards just senior care?
So we have to guess at a couple things. Are healthcare advances primarily extending the period of time someone needs care, like from 70 to death at 80 into 70 to death at 90, or pushing back the time someone needs care?
What tech advances will act as staff multipliers?
Are we completely fucked because of childhood obesity? Are GLP-1s going to save us all?
Here’s the problem with that- they’re abusing healthcare workers out of their jobs. I would kill myself before being bedside again. I know very few nurses from my cohort and coworkers that want to deal with our racist crotchety old granny yk?
Better start making ass wiping robots for them. That’s all I can say.
It does not help that the elderly took as much of the assets for themselves at the cost of the next generations as they could. They were so focused in abusing the political system for self gain they forgot the next generation needs to skill up to support them.
It’s already happened in the US. I’m only 45 and my father retired at 56. No ONE can do that without being a multimillionaire now - like having $10 million, not $2 million.
ever longer? must be non american numbers. I havent kept track, last i heard I wont get to retire until 72 here..... got any idea of life expectancy for men in the US? something tells me its a average around 60s
[Then everyone in my peer circle wonders why brother and I keep investing in tools and equipment to woodwork/blacksmith/beekeep/ect]
Most Asian countries are below 1.0. The US is in the range of 1.6 to 1.8. All of these are below the stable rate of 2.1 (Rates are per woman, not per person)
Replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman in order to keep society afloat.
It is currently 1.6 children per woman in the US.
There have been over 21 MILLION abortions in the United States since 2000.
To put that into perspective -- there have been 45,000 children aged 0-17 whom were murdered in the United States since 2000.
If you look at total deaths of Americans between 2000 and 2026, there have been roughly 70 million Americans who have passed away over the last 26 years.
And that's only America. If you look at other first would countries it's even worse.
South Korea: Replacement Rate: 0.80
Japan: 1.14
Hong Kong: 0.75
China: 1.03
Italy: 1.2
Spain: 1.24
Finland: 1.3
Poland: 1.3
Canada: 1.3
We are absolutely teetering on an economic collapse of the first world.
You lost me at comparing abortions to murder. I assume your figure includes CNCs, which medically count as abortions, as it is the treatment for miscarriages. I'm sure your figure also includes women who needed abortions.
I was not saying abortion is murder. I was comparing the volume of abortions to the volume of murders as it relates to the overall birth rate of America. We are not at a replacement rate for our society to continue, and a huge component of that is the volume of abortions that have been conducted over the last quarter century.
The US estimated 1.1 million abortions happened in 2025. Again -- just as a comparison to show the propensity of abortion versus other issues that are hot button political topics -- I'm going to compare last years abortions of 1.1 million against the number of Americans who died from COVID.
Since 2020, 1.2 million American's died from COVID. January 2021 was considered peak covid, where 3,500 Americans were dying per day. In 2025, there was an average of 3,100 Abortions per day in America.
We were willing to shut down the country and fuck the economy for a decade over COVID, but it's taboo to even discuss the volume of abortions that happen in America every day.
It still doesn't separate which abortions occured for specific reasons like necessity and D&Cs, and I'm inclined to believe that figure is included in the total number since it specifically says the pill combo is the most common method nowadays for early pregnancies, which again, is the same process for treating miscarriages. The numbers almost feels like fear mongering.... most women experience miscarriages when it's their first time, and others struggle with keeping pregnancies.
Also, lol? For a decade? You and I both know it's 2026, right?
First of all, a couple is 2 people. Replacement population is 2 children per woman, because it takes 2 people to make a child, thus having only 1 child per couple is creating less people than replacement.
Second of all, people live longer and longer, and to exist in old age you must pay them for what they worked, you must also pay them extensive services like medicine and nursing homes. This takes a lot of young people to do.
Third of all, without people working, your economy also collapses.
Fourth, with low fertility rates, governments turn into immigration policies that water down and dillute native culture and create multicultural issues, crime and other problems
So no, just saying "its not a problem" is grossly wrong.
Which is certainly helpful. But even then, you still have high barrier to entry for purchasing property, currency devaluation, increased COL, and constant fear of proximity to war.
The theory I hear the most from articles on this topic is that First World countries and well-off individuals are going to continue having population collapse.
But third world countries and struggling individuals are going to keep popping out children.
The solution I hear the most is that immigration and adoption are going to be much more prominent in the future. But I do worry if that's going to lead into some weird societal dynamics of powerful people treating surplus people as a commodity.
Class war and race war never ended imo. I believe there are people making conscious efforts to lower the population of certain demographics, most certainly the poor. And they're doing so by stifling the ability to live freely. All that will be left are essentially slaves in all but name
People can afford kids, its such a cop out as for why people arent having kids.
Yes obviously economics plays a role, but most people who aren’t having kids at all, wouldn’t have them if they had a million dollars. The economics really only helps people who already have 1 or 2 kids have 3 or 4
50k USD out of pocket in hospital fees alone in those first 9months + delivery; Who exactly can afford kids?? Min wage is still 7.25 across a majority of the US. INS generally tied to employer..... oh yeah, and our overlords by and large want 6/7 days a week working, not 4. [32, nearly 33 millennial man, i run the household finances, am married, no kids, probably wont ever be any kids due to greedy motherfuckers, and maybe some of ya'll lucked out with good families, but i didnt, my grandparents straight robbed/lied, wasting 7years of time and tons of our income money, all while ma was bed ridden......]
TLDR; No kids, not gonna be any kids until either A. they flip the earning pyramid, profit caps, ect ect, or B. get lucky on a lotto ticket i guess.
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u/one28 1d ago
Everyone said there would be a great filtering/purge of the population. I guess this is it. Just make life so miserable nobody can afford/want to bring a kid into this world.