Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Does anyone actually have kids because they’re abstractly concerned about globally declining birth rates? (As opposed to actually wanting kids) Or even because their government offers big financial benefits for having kids as in Scandinavia etc? I find I just don’t buy that this abstract prosocial concern meaningfully shapes behavior even when translated into “selfish” economic incentives. Kids seem like just too much work to have for any reason besides just wanting them. I also don’t buy the theory that women sometimes get pregnant to force partners to marry them. Maybe in ultra rare cases. These alt incentives can at best amplify or enable an existing desire for kids, not create it.
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Ralph Old Dad pfp
Ralph Old Dad
@withere
Kind of hard to not feel like the earth is overflowing with people like the shelters are overflowing with dogs. It’s easy to yammer on about replacement birth rates but if u look around there’s so many people not getting much care. So no, I think it’s for many subjective reasons people have kids. Arguing over replacement rates seems mainly like a rational for trying to control women
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
I would guess that the biggest influences on birth rates are: 1. how early do you marry? 2. how much child support do you have? 3. how many pregnancy complications did you have?
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Tom Beck pfp
Tom Beck
@tombeck.eth
No, they do not. I feel like almost everyone knows if they want kids or not by the time they're teenagers. Something about your experience as a kid feeds directly into your choice to have your own or not. That desire then stays steady throughout the rest of your life.
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Sachin pfp
Sachin
@sach
My friend's brother in Hungary had a third child partly because mothers with three children get some big tax break and a minivan, so these type of things may work if you already have a few kids
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Paul Millerd pfp
Paul Millerd
@pmillerd
No factor whatsoever in having kids. But now rooting for the U.S. and Taiwan to keep increasing child tax credits and payments 😂
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Anuraj R pfp
Anuraj R
@anurajenp
I think most people want kids otherwise there wouldn’t be 8 billion of us. Besides the genes that would make people not want kids are not propagated anyway. The current reduction in fertility rates across the world will most likely reverse in the next few decades as the affects of selection pressures kick in
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Ribin Ruck pfp
Ribin Ruck
@na
heard people concern over different death protocols w or wo kids
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Brent Fitzgerald pfp
Brent Fitzgerald
@bf
I assume such abstract concerns and gov incentives nudge the social norms a bit. So a person on the fence about having a child will be more likely to do so. At scale this results in meaningful change.
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b-rad.eth pfp
b-rad.eth
@b-rad
Birth rates no. Financial benefits won’t convince you to have kids, but they will impact the marginal number of kids you have. Plenty of parents friends I’ve talked to have said they would have more kids if they could afford it.
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depatchedmode pfp
depatchedmode
@depatchedmode
Something something Catholicism.
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Lewis pfp
Lewis
@0xlewis
Financial incentives make it easier to have kids earlier when people otherwise might postpone them. Starting earlier increases success probability and likelihood of having a greater number of kids
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