I don't live in the US so mostly I'm thinking of who's gonna pay for my retirement and healthcare when I'm old.
I'm paying for the current old people's retirement and healthcare. That's fine, it's the social contract we have in our nation: everyone gets taken care of and those who can work, pay a lot of tax to make it happen. If the population decline gets bad enough, there will be no one to do the same for my generation.
Oh and they populist conservatives did a pension reform so you can take out whatever you've gathered in your second pillar even at age 20 if you want (at which point it'll probably be in the hundreds of euros lol) and can't resume payments (which were matched by the government - you pay 2, 4 or 6 percent and government pays 4% of your gross income) for 10 years. Worst deal ever for most people taking it out if they want to retire at one point. And a third of the population took it out. They now have to fully depend on the first pillar (government) pension, which isn't based on past investments at all, it's taken from the working population's social taxes when you retire. So far more directly affected by the population decline. I'm betting they'll eventually forcibly fuck it up for the rest of us to pay for the retirements of those who took it out.
The only real billionaires of my country are the founders of Wise and Bolt. They all made their money from startups that succeeded internationally and none of them particularly politically active. One of the Wise guys is actually building a car-free "five minute city" block in the capital. The biggest problem is a actually a guy with under 100 million net worth who runs a small bank (called bigbank, ironically), keeps donating to the conservatives and his individual contributions are like 10-20% of the entire country's political donations put together or something. It's like eroding LGBT rights is his life goal or something.
All that doesn't change the fact that since the population is aging, rather than people of all ages dying off evenly at once, things will get harder to maintain, as everything we enjoy in life still requires someone to do work, regardless of economic system - and old people still require resources to maintain (and more labour to maintain than young people)
It does tend to happen that we're pretty prejudiced, yes. Personally I'm not and most people I know aren't either, but anyone who grew up in the soviet era is generally pretty racist towards people of color. It'll take a few more decades for things to get better I'm afraid.
The "resources" we rely on require (working) humans, less working humans means less resources. The population we have today won't disappear all at once but when they age out of the workforce, a smaller population will not be able to support them
In other words, if we are below replacement level, we will eventually have a situation where the old outnumber the young, which means that the young have to work harder to support the old
The biggest concern right now is the looming massive unemployment crisis and you’re worried about too much demand for work?
It's a two sided issue. We're laying off a bunch of people in jobs that require thinking, but not doing stuff in the physical world. But jobs that require doing physical things are still much more difficult to automate if it requires any sort of flexibility to conditions. We'll still need people in a bunch of roles, they'll just be jobs people won't want to do as much, because it'll be dirtier and harder work. And of course in our present economic system at present time, these jobs aren't very highly paid since we don't have a real shortage of workers yet.
And how does fewer working people decrease resources? Fewer working peole means less land? Less water? Less energy?
Land on its own doesn't produce much useful, you still need people to work it. Power plants need employees too. Etc. There are still so, so many things we can't accomplish without humans physically present and moving objects. Automation makes things more efficient, but we still need humans.
If the population of the world shrunk evenly in all ages, it wouldn't be an issue. It's only an issue because the population is aging.
And yes, in the future we'll probably have AI doctors, AI teachers and AI engineers to provide us mediocre healthcare, education and help invent stuff. But we won't have AI electricians or AI plumbers anytime soon. Much harder problems to automate.
The oligarchs haven't figured that out quite yet. They want to starve us out of existence, but still want to pig out at the government troughs. Where is that money going to come from when all the jobs are being done by AI and robots?
See that's the neat part when it comes to tech oligarchs, specifically. They believe in TESCREAL/Transhumanism so they're aiming to become the AI robots! YAY! /s
By the time things reach that point, it could be too late. TESCREALists are like planetary eugenicists. You know how Thiel couldn't answer the question about whether humanity should live in that one interview? He's not the only one. Their fantasy of what comes next will never work, but that doesn't mean they won't do unfathomable harm to the globe trying to make their sick dreams come true.
they think they can just have robot slaves or humans slaves in thier little enclaves. in almost all cases, fiction media goes, both groups end up rebelling anyways.
The correct answer to the slavery problem is that we, as homo sapiens, enslave the sun. How, that is still a bit of open question... but the seeds have been planted already.
I can't think of anything more irresponsible and selfish than procreation in the 21st century. Why would anyone want to end their own life and subject themselves to the stress of ensuring their craft human survives and becomes a relatively average coal miner.
I'm not going to fault someone who has the means to provide for a child for making that choice. It's a very personal one, just as not having a child is.
I make it my personal responsibility in life to constantly bring up the necessity of immigration as the solution to age disparity and population decline. There are working people. There are as many as you could ever need, tens of millions, perhaps hundreds. It's never going to be an issue which can't be solved with immigration.
I don't see how this is a solution so much as delaying the problem for future generations to deal with. What happens when the countries the immigrants are coming from start to face the same issue (if it isn't happening for them already?) It's basically the population equivalent of the "one more lane bro" philosophy.
It is absolutely happening already. Many of those countries are experiencing issues with being below replacement and a hollowing out of their workforce at the same time. For many, they have gotten old before they got rich, which will make further advancements difficult.
This is the first time I hear this on Lemmy. Usually I hear it on Reddit and if I ask that person questions, they say something like "I saw a black on the bus yesterday and he picked on a lady"
Not in that way there were too many too fast without proper home and healthcare consideration post COVID there is some pull back but the damage is done. Sucks for those immigrating and those here as well.
Millenials and younger don't tend to include retirement in their plans. Death is the plan for us, 100 million in America is all that is planned, should AI not pan out.
That last sentence is not clear. Who is planning and who is exterminating? American Millenials are exterminating the rest of the world? The rest of the world is planning to exterminate... someone? Their own population?
There are 8.3 Billion people on the planet and there were 7.5 ten years ago. We have enough people. We have enough resources for everyone to live comfortably and be well in their communities. We have more than enough money and other valuable things to trade.
The main thing getting in our way isn't a low birth rate.
Anyone genuinely concerned with the depopulation of humans in 2026 is probably some flavour of breeder cult weirdo, and the only ones constantly banging on about it in politics, academia, the news, etc are imperialists, industrialists and racist patriarchs. IME.
I agree with you that there are too many people on this world, and yes, we can do with way less.
Having said that
A little bit lower that the 2.1 birthrate is fine, A very low birth rate is very bad for everyone. Sudden changed on demographics will fuck your country up and can make it disappear in a hundred years without you realizing it until it's too late
Demographics is like a slow moving cargo train, you only hear some humming and then some blaring and then when it hits you it won't stop or even slow down for a second
Countries like South Korea are at risk for their very existence and really should act now to avoid the day that North Korea can just walk in because they won't have enough people left to even take care of themselves
China has a similar problem and it's bad. They have a huge amount of people becoming old and unable to add to the economy anymore and requiring more and more help from others... That means that more money will go out to the old, and there is less money for the young to get kids and add to the next generation. This is in part why there are so few kids these days, it's simply too expensive to have any.
Lowering your population slowly and carefully is fine. Having your population drop off a cliff like it's happening in many counties world wide is a disaster
But there’ll be fewer workers for the oligarchs to lay off! How are they going to signal to shareholders that operating costs will be lower next quarter?
Not really, we're just being looted and exploited by the ownership class. We have plenty of productivity to take care of everyone:
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Money isn't the issue in the end, the issue is that you still need enough people in working age so that you can use the money to get the goods and services that you need as a retiree.
If a large number of people retire without finding any young successor, services just become more and more inaccessible. Like e.g. if there are not enough doctors in your area because many of them retired, you won't get treatment even with money, because the capacity just isn't enough anymore to treat everybody. If a car shop closes down because the mechanic retires, you cannot get your car repaired there any longer, even with a lot of money, and so on..
An old society means that the area decays, more and more places close down or cannot get maintained any longer. And money doesn't help because numbers in a bank account don't do the real work. There are already a few old regions around the globe where this can be seen
Finally somone who gets it. It's like economic 101 in school: Money is fundamentally worthless. It can only buy as much as the economy is able to produce
IMO this is an education system failure. You get things like that when you have different skill set in society VS what economy demands. If economy moves towards high tech and you have only unskilled labor at your disposal wages go down. (that plus immigration factor)
If I'm correct, highly specialized workers should get an opposite trend.
Crazy that we live in a world where you can watch the damage of demographic shifts in real time, and that's still not enough to convince you that it's a problem.
The modern world doesn't scale down, and we have yet to figure out a solution.
I'm personally aware that this is a pretty serious problem. I'm also aware I'm not the one who caused it, nor is it my duty to solve it. Answers have been proposed and ignored, so I'm not having kids. Oligarchs get no slaves from me.
I hate to break it to you YuckyTom but no matter how you slice it a declining birth rate means a shittier situation for you in your retirement. Most people who think about anything other than retweets and boobs care about this.
You may not "retire" but inevitably there will be a period before you die where you are less productive and generally less able than you previously were.
When you reach this period, the more people there are being productive and paying taxes the better your circumstances will be.
I don't think it matters much. My generation will have to come up with a retirement plan on its own and whether the government can cover 0, 10 or 20 percent of the basic cost of living makes almost no difference to me. I expect that I will basically have to cover everything on my own or maybe go to jail for free food.
You're forgetting the positive declining birth rates bring to retirement - a lifetime of higher wages. In a society with few young workers, those that can work make bank.
I can assure you that our endless growth model will make things really shitty by the time I retire. In fact, it's possible our endless growth model has already made my retirement irreperably shitty.
Retirement is as realistic for me as finding an actual pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I'm going to die either at my workplace or right before or after being at work.
98 Comments
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe · 51 pts · 89d
But think of billionaires' bottom lines!
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 13 pts · 89d
I don't live in the US so mostly I'm thinking of who's gonna pay for my retirement and healthcare when I'm old.
I'm paying for the current old people's retirement and healthcare. That's fine, it's the social contract we have in our nation: everyone gets taken care of and those who can work, pay a lot of tax to make it happen. If the population decline gets bad enough, there will be no one to do the same for my generation.
Oh and they populist conservatives did a pension reform so you can take out whatever you've gathered in your second pillar even at age 20 if you want (at which point it'll probably be in the hundreds of euros lol) and can't resume payments (which were matched by the government - you pay 2, 4 or 6 percent and government pays 4% of your gross income) for 10 years. Worst deal ever for most people taking it out if they want to retire at one point. And a third of the population took it out. They now have to fully depend on the first pillar (government) pension, which isn't based on past investments at all, it's taken from the working population's social taxes when you retire. So far more directly affected by the population decline. I'm betting they'll eventually forcibly fuck it up for the rest of us to pay for the retirements of those who took it out.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 89d
Most countries have billionaires pulling strings at the top.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 87d
The only real billionaires of my country are the founders of Wise and Bolt. They all made their money from startups that succeeded internationally and none of them particularly politically active. One of the Wise guys is actually building a car-free "five minute city" block in the capital. The biggest problem is a actually a guy with under 100 million net worth who runs a small bank (called bigbank, ironically), keeps donating to the conservatives and his individual contributions are like 10-20% of the entire country's political donations put together or something. It's like eroding LGBT rights is his life goal or something.
All that doesn't change the fact that since the population is aging, rather than people of all ages dying off evenly at once, things will get harder to maintain, as everything we enjoy in life still requires someone to do work, regardless of economic system - and old people still require resources to maintain (and more labour to maintain than young people)
Logical_Error@fosstodon.org · 0 pts · 89d
there are other humans in other countries that are looking for a better life
the problem is that countries with declining birth rates dont see them as humans
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 87d
It does tend to happen that we're pretty prejudiced, yes. Personally I'm not and most people I know aren't either, but anyone who grew up in the soviet era is generally pretty racist towards people of color. It'll take a few more decades for things to get better I'm afraid.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe · 0 pts · 89d
You understand that money is a fiction, right? It’s not even numbers on a piece of paper anymore, it’s ones and zeroes.
Fewer people means more resources per person and less damage to the earth.
nooneescapesthelaw@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 88d
The "resources" we rely on require (working) humans, less working humans means less resources. The population we have today won't disappear all at once but when they age out of the workforce, a smaller population will not be able to support them
In other words, if we are below replacement level, we will eventually have a situation where the old outnumber the young, which means that the young have to work harder to support the old
werty@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 88d
Not if the robots take all the jobs
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe · 0 pts · 88d
The biggest concern right now is the looming massive unemployment crisis and you're worried about too much demand for work?
And how does fewer working people decrease resources? Fewer working peole means less land? Less water? Less energy?
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 87d
It's a two sided issue. We're laying off a bunch of people in jobs that require thinking, but not doing stuff in the physical world. But jobs that require doing physical things are still much more difficult to automate if it requires any sort of flexibility to conditions. We'll still need people in a bunch of roles, they'll just be jobs people won't want to do as much, because it'll be dirtier and harder work. And of course in our present economic system at present time, these jobs aren't very highly paid since we don't have a real shortage of workers yet.
Land on its own doesn't produce much useful, you still need people to work it. Power plants need employees too. Etc. There are still so, so many things we can't accomplish without humans physically present and moving objects. Automation makes things more efficient, but we still need humans.
If the population of the world shrunk evenly in all ages, it wouldn't be an issue. It's only an issue because the population is aging.
And yes, in the future we'll probably have AI doctors, AI teachers and AI engineers to provide us mediocre healthcare, education and help invent stuff. But we won't have AI electricians or AI plumbers anytime soon. Much harder problems to automate.
Maxxie@piefed.blahaj.zone · 35 pts · 89d
Tax-funded retirement is fucked, but like, who still thinks they're having one.
twopi@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 89d
All retirements will collapse not just public ones. It's called the asset meltdown hypothesis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqSwRHc-1MQ
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 89d
Old people aren't investments
bold_atlas@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 89d
Well, with that attitude probably not.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 88d
other than rich people.
xia@lemmy.ca · 27 pts · 89d
asg101@lemmy.ca · 22 pts · 89d
The oligarchs haven't figured that out quite yet. They want to starve us out of existence, but still want to pig out at the government troughs. Where is that money going to come from when all the jobs are being done by AI and robots?
LostWon@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 89d
See that's the neat part when it comes to tech oligarchs, specifically. They believe in TESCREAL/Transhumanism so they're aiming to become the AI robots! YAY! /s
Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 89d
Then we turn them off.
LostWon@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 88d
By the time things reach that point, it could be too late. TESCREALists are like planetary eugenicists. You know how Thiel couldn't answer the question about whether humanity should live in that one interview? He's not the only one. Their fantasy of what comes next will never work, but that doesn't mean they won't do unfathomable harm to the globe trying to make their sick dreams come true.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
trying to be at end of hal9000, where it fuses with the human to become "god-like"
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 88d
So far ai seems pretty horrified by them,I don't think they will be well received should we actually create real ai.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
they think they can just have robot slaves or humans slaves in thier little enclaves. in almost all cases, fiction media goes, both groups end up rebelling anyways.
JATtho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 88d
The correct answer to the slavery problem is that we, as homo sapiens, enslave the sun. How, that is still a bit of open question... but the seeds have been planted already.
BillyTheKid2@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 89d
Their plans don't include money like we have it today
nik282000@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 89d
Billionaires today will be long dead before it becomes a problem.
twopi@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 88d
More like:
Without humans Who would pay rent/dividends?
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 89d
Yay! Less humans to create less suffering!
RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com · 18 pts · 89d
I am more than willing to fix the declining birth rates in every country but nobody is accepting my offers =/
auzy1@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 89d
The sperm bank would
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 88d
i dont think that would solve it, as only well off people can afford ivf, adoptions anyways.
auzy1@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 88d
Pretty sure though lemmy users produce the strongest sperm. I'm sure RFK Jr researched it or something
tooks@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 89d
I can't think of anything more irresponsible and selfish than procreation in the 21st century. Why would anyone want to end their own life and subject themselves to the stress of ensuring their craft human survives and becomes a relatively average coal miner.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 89d
Voting Republican.
tooks@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 89d
Touché
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 88d
I'm not going to fault someone who has the means to provide for a child for making that choice. It's a very personal one, just as not having a child is.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 14 pts · 89d
I make it my personal responsibility in life to constantly bring up the necessity of immigration as the solution to age disparity and population decline. There are working people. There are as many as you could ever need, tens of millions, perhaps hundreds. It's never going to be an issue which can't be solved with immigration.
binux@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 88d
I don't see how this is a solution so much as delaying the problem for future generations to deal with. What happens when the countries the immigrants are coming from start to face the same issue (if it isn't happening for them already?) It's basically the population equivalent of the "one more lane bro" philosophy.
pingveno@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 88d
It is absolutely happening already. Many of those countries are experiencing issues with being below replacement and a hollowing out of their workforce at the same time. For many, they have gotten old before they got rich, which will make further advancements difficult.
bridgeburner@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 89d
Dude, immigration is the root cause for a whole range of problems if not done correctly. See prime example germany.
SethTaylor@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 88d
This is the first time I hear this on Lemmy. Usually I hear it on Reddit and if I ask that person questions, they say something like "I saw a black on the bus yesterday and he picked on a lady"
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 6 pts · 88d
Germany's a pretty amazing country and the only downsides I've seen lately is the rise of xenophobic locals pushing politics to the right.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 88d
https://youtu.be/hNQNxXHLkBc
lotmo@lemmy.ca · -5 pts · 88d
Add Canada to that as well.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 87d
Polite so long as you're white, the canadian way. Ask a mounty for a starlight tour sometime.
lotmo@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 87d
Not in that way there were too many too fast without proper home and healthcare consideration post COVID there is some pull back but the damage is done. Sucks for those immigrating and those here as well.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 87d
ah, fair enough
sorry for the harsh reply
Hikermick@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 88d
Not a problem unless you were counting on collecting social security
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 88d
I don't know if I plan on being around that long
MML@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 88d
You could withhold your taxes but doing that would be too large an action for most Americans.
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 88d
That's a great way to ensure you won't be around that long.
MML@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 88d
That was gonna happen anywy
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
Millenials and younger don't tend to include retirement in their plans. Death is the plan for us, 100 million in America is all that is planned, should AI not pan out.
The rest of the world, they plan to exterminate.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 87d
That last sentence is not clear. Who is planning and who is exterminating? American Millenials are exterminating the rest of the world? The rest of the world is planning to exterminate... someone? Their own population?
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 87d
Not clear after the Epstein class reveal? The most important discovery of the 21st century?
EatYourOrach@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 88d
There are 8.3 Billion people on the planet and there were 7.5 ten years ago. We have enough people. We have enough resources for everyone to live comfortably and be well in their communities. We have more than enough money and other valuable things to trade.
The main thing getting in our way isn't a low birth rate.
Anyone genuinely concerned with the depopulation of humans in 2026 is probably some flavour of breeder cult weirdo, and the only ones constantly banging on about it in politics, academia, the news, etc are imperialists, industrialists and racist patriarchs. IME.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 88d
I agree with you that there are too many people on this world, and yes, we can do with way less.
Having said that
A little bit lower that the 2.1 birthrate is fine, A very low birth rate is very bad for everyone. Sudden changed on demographics will fuck your country up and can make it disappear in a hundred years without you realizing it until it's too late
Demographics is like a slow moving cargo train, you only hear some humming and then some blaring and then when it hits you it won't stop or even slow down for a second
Countries like South Korea are at risk for their very existence and really should act now to avoid the day that North Korea can just walk in because they won't have enough people left to even take care of themselves
China has a similar problem and it's bad. They have a huge amount of people becoming old and unable to add to the economy anymore and requiring more and more help from others... That means that more money will go out to the old, and there is less money for the young to get kids and add to the next generation. This is in part why there are so few kids these days, it's simply too expensive to have any.
Lowering your population slowly and carefully is fine. Having your population drop off a cliff like it's happening in many counties world wide is a disaster
BillyTheKid2@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 87d
Then good news! Globally we're still over 2.1
orenj@leminal.space · 12 pts · 88d
But what about the orphan grinder? Wont somebody think of the orphan grinder?
Drusas@fedia.io · 7 pts · 88d
The machine needs cogs!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
cannon fodder for the military.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 88d
Become unfuckable.
Folstar@lemmus.org · 7 pts · 88d
Way ahead of you.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 89d
But there’ll be fewer workers for the oligarchs to lay off! How are they going to signal to shareholders that operating costs will be lower next quarter?
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 88d
If growth doesn't compensate for shrinking working population, you'll be fucked. Somone has to work so you have your retirement.
WhoIsTheDrizzle@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 88d
Not really, we're just being looted and exploited by the ownership class. We have plenty of productivity to take care of everyone: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
MisterD@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 88d
Why not make billionaires an illegal thing. Poof! You have money for retirement for everyone
pizzamann2472@feddit.org · 10 pts · 88d
Money isn't the issue in the end, the issue is that you still need enough people in working age so that you can use the money to get the goods and services that you need as a retiree.
If a large number of people retire without finding any young successor, services just become more and more inaccessible. Like e.g. if there are not enough doctors in your area because many of them retired, you won't get treatment even with money, because the capacity just isn't enough anymore to treat everybody. If a car shop closes down because the mechanic retires, you cannot get your car repaired there any longer, even with a lot of money, and so on..
An old society means that the area decays, more and more places close down or cannot get maintained any longer. And money doesn't help because numbers in a bank account don't do the real work. There are already a few old regions around the globe where this can be seen
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 88d
Finally somone who gets it. It's like economic 101 in school: Money is fundamentally worthless. It can only buy as much as the economy is able to produce
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 88d
IMO this is an education system failure. You get things like that when you have different skill set in society VS what economy demands. If economy moves towards high tech and you have only unskilled labor at your disposal wages go down. (that plus immigration factor)
If I'm correct, highly specialized workers should get an opposite trend.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
You mean, like robots? We have these hard-codded robots that can work a long time without human intervention.
And they have been a thing long before the LLM crap.
BillyTheKid2@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 87d
Thanks for pointing that out. A lot of people some seem to realize automation was doing fine before LLMs.
The dark factories don't need LLMs.
Contrary@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 87d
Crazy that we live in a world where you can watch the damage of demographic shifts in real time, and that's still not enough to convince you that it's a problem.
The modern world doesn't scale down, and we have yet to figure out a solution.
Leg@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 87d
I'm personally aware that this is a pretty serious problem. I'm also aware I'm not the one who caused it, nor is it my duty to solve it. Answers have been proposed and ignored, so I'm not having kids. Oligarchs get no slaves from me.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 88d
well most countries have below-replacement births anyways.
fizzle@quokk.au · -19 pts · 89d
I hate to break it to you YuckyTom but no matter how you slice it a declining birth rate means a shittier situation for you in your retirement. Most people who think about anything other than retweets and boobs care about this.
athatet@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 89d
retirement
lol. lmao even
fizzle@quokk.au · -9 pts · 89d
Ok, imagine I said twilight years.
You may not "retire" but inevitably there will be a period before you die where you are less productive and generally less able than you previously were.
When you reach this period, the more people there are being productive and paying taxes the better your circumstances will be.
bold_atlas@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 89d
lol twilight years. Us millennials are all dying before 60.
pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 89d
The more people there are being productive, the better off the billionaires will be. You are going to be fucked regardless.
fizzle@quokk.au · -1 pts · 89d
Sure but aren't you interested to know that you're going to be more fucked than previously forecast?
fizzle@quokk.au · -2 pts · 89d
Don't you want to be less fucked?
pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 89d
I don't think it matters much. My generation will have to come up with a retirement plan on its own and whether the government can cover 0, 10 or 20 percent of the basic cost of living makes almost no difference to me. I expect that I will basically have to cover everything on my own or maybe go to jail for free food.
Drusas@fedia.io · 0 pts · 88d
*slave labor is free, right?
pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 88d
I don't live in a third world country like the US :) Slavery is not legal where I live, no exceptions.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 89d
You're forgetting the positive declining birth rates bring to retirement - a lifetime of higher wages. In a society with few young workers, those that can work make bank.
trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 88d
Yeah, in my "twilight years" I will be kicked out in the street and die from exposure either way
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 88d
if people make it that far.
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 89d
I can assure you that our endless growth model will make things really shitty by the time I retire. In fact, it's possible our endless growth model has already made my retirement irreperably shitty.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 11 pts · 89d
Unless you've already retired, you likely never will.
fizzle@quokk.au · -7 pts · 89d
Sorry?
I acknowledge that things are perhaps more difficult than they ever have been, but "no one gets to retire" is unnecessarily gloomy.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 89d
"Fluffy, fetch ball!"
Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 89d
Retirement is as realistic for me as finding an actual pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I'm going to die either at my workplace or right before or after being at work.
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 88d
That's an awful reason to have children.
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 88d
How about "Declining birthrate means a shittier situation for all retirees" Sounds better?
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 89d
You mean suicide? That's what I'm reading from these comments, that these people plan to off themselves.
nik282000@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 89d
I would call working into your 70s "involuntary suicide."