notes on the falling birthrates
1/ the worst thing about the crashing birthrates is this specific implication: every year, fewer people find a special someone they instinctively want to have kids with.
2/ falling birthrates are the most robust sign that people are divesting from the future and throwing all their energies into squeezing out maximum pleasure from the present moment.
3/ big cats refuse to breed in a zoo - perhaps the modern world is a human zoo?
4/ if you want to have a future worth having, then you need people with stakes in the future. you need this more than you need the right political candidate or AGI or whatever. falling birthrates mean you're running out of these people.
5/ sure, fewer kids are bad for the effing GDP, but that's not why we should worry. we should worry because fewer kids means fewer adults who care for something outside of themselves, who want society to stay solvent beyond their lifespan, who reflect on second-order consequences
6/ a culture that cannot teach its young men and young women to have productive relationships together has gone horribly wrong somewhere.
this is the million dollar question: where was that somewhere?
This is how advanced civilisations fall to barbarians...because the advanced become narcissistically self destroying while the barbarians are realize that without babies, there is no tomorrow.
Agree with others here, also want to add video games, movies, etc. It allows mental rewards without actually doing the thing, whatever thing. Mine craft, eating, sleeping, building, farming, my claim is the brain says good job buddy and gives rewards, but in reality nothing has been done. Then same experience with movies, could even be with novels- but that's slower. It's the quick rewards to the brain, the social media likes and shares, the video game stats, we get hooked on them. They become our reality.