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We agree on something.
As to the rest, the days of large families where some grandparent or aunt can take care of your kids is long gone. My grandparents had 7 kids. My parents 3. 1 or 2 for my gen and I expect my kids will have none. Not by choice, just priced out of household formation. My family are too busy taking care of their family to take care of mine. It's odd that you just assume you can impose on family like that and take it for granted without respect for their decisions.
It's also odd that your vision of a world would deny labour specialization that drives people to move where their specialized jobs are. Without specialization, our economy would collapse.
The world you dream of is long gone and can't come back until a couple of generations of rapid degrowth. Degrowth only happens when a great many of us stop having children for a while, until our numbers are back in check with our environment.
A+ comment. OP just thinking they could dump their kid off by their parents or sibling for free daycare is extremely selfish thinking lol.
It's literally how societies function. We're seeing it collapse in real time where that's not an option.
It's a great idea don't get me wrong, just like having multiple generations living in the same house to split costs. And it is collapsing in front of us, but what if your sibling/ cousin/ friend just expected they could drop their kids off at your house? Especially if you had your own kid(s) to worry about?
If someone was a stay at home mom or dad, and offered their time to watch kids of friends/family for a very small fee that's one thing, but just expecting someone you know to watch your kids for cheap is not the answer either. It's the EXPECTATION that someone else will watch your kids that I have the issue with.
My wife's mom was pivotal in getting through the first six months of my son's life. But that's because she lived 15 minutes away and had all the time in the world.
I got in a conversation with a friend who talked about how she was raised by her aunt, while the rest of the family worked to pay the bills for the home. They lived well not because they individually got rich, but because they learned how to share the wealth they had.
Privatization isn't specialization. Having a daycare on your block doesn't mean you need to tip out some outrageous vig to the local loan shark. If you're dead set on dividing people up into economic casts, where some people spend their lives taking care of everyone else's kids, you can achieve that kind of professionalization and then pay the people rather than paying the landlords.
It's alive and well. We've just denegrated it and punished those people who still pursue it.
We don't have to live this way. But we will if we continue to let billionaires bully us
Nobody is saying this but you. I was clear and said specialization.
I agree that there are a million better ways to organize civilization. Our current path is dystopia then extinction. It would be good to do better. Having more children on a planet going through an anthropogenic 6th great mass extinction is probably not the good move we're looking for.
That is the structure of the modern economy. I'm not magically speaking it into existence
But the conversation wasn't about models of ownership or economic modalities. Nothing I said is invalidated by capitalism, socialism, communism, democracy, authorotarianism etc... Degrowth is a simple, known method that is ethical and requires no magical thinking of hail-mary techno-inventing some just-out-of-reach-but-never-quite-here technology that all the growth based schools of thought seem to depend on. It works under any modality.
Let a little air out of the balloon before it pops. Not complicated.
That's got nothing to do with individuals having or not having kids. Neither does high daycare costs.
The problem with these metaphors is that they never have any material grounding. An economy isn't an air bubble. "Letting the air out" isn't "having fewer kids". And I'm not even sure what you think "popping" is supposed to be.
This is a really disastisfying discussion. You can't see how degrowth has everything to do with daycare prices and birthrates, so I can only assume you are new to the concept and haven't bothered a cursory glance to wikipedia.
In the same breath, you post how you don't like metaphores meant to characterize arguments to lay people.
I think we're done here.
Because there's not even a correlation, much less a causation.
Not when they're hollow, no
Is it impossible for you to just imagine smaller? No one is talking about knocking down key foundations and toppling systems, just building a smaller civilization with a circular economy that preserves the living systems on earth, while maximizing well being. The movement is called Degrowth. It's goal is sustainability.
Chopping off limbs? No. Degrowth is just the opposite of growth, a gradual ethical reduction of people and consumption until we fit on our planet. I say ethical because the principle mechanism is just having less kids. No one killed, just fewer born. Those people not born don't consume and we are closer to our goal. Sustainability is much much easier when you aren't blowing past limits.
I don't think you understand sustainability. Fewer people need fewer antibiotics. Fewer mines, less waste, less infrastructure etc...
We are not anywhere near sustainable right now. We have grossly exceeded our planetary boundaries.. Having exceeded our planetary boundaries puts us in a state of ecological overshoot.. The concept is not well understood outside of ecology circles, but it means a clock is ticking. Every day that we aren't in equilibrium with our environment is a day that the environment degrades. Our bodies are full of microplastics and PFAS while the climate is rapidly changing and biodiversity is dropping rapidly. It's hapening now, but in slow motion compared to human perceptions.
Human civilization is in an existential crisis. Any potential window for managing this crisis is rapidly closing. I have yet to hear any other credible means to address this crisis that is not a thinly veiled attempt of the rich and powerful to hold onto the system that made them rich and powerful.
The scientists used to scream for change. Now they cry because money buys billionaires an outsized voice compared to the quality of their arguments.
Edit: Anti-natalist is also likely a disingenuous mischaracterization. Degrowth is about fewer births, not no births, just until we fit our environment then stabilize. Detractors who can't engage honestly to the discussion love to use misleading terms. I hope this isn't you.
Unsustainability is condeming countless numbers and future generations to death, and possibly extinction.
If you have any better plan for sustainability let's hear it.
No we don't. Most of earth's wildlife has been converted to human biomass or our food in the 6th great mass extinction. There are virtually no wild places left. Your body is full of microplastics, PFAS and and an ungodly cocktail of other bullshit. This shit is in the rain, from pole to pole. The whole thing has an insatiable apetite for finite resources and is powered by non-renewables. We have pushed past 7 of 9 planetary boundaries. This is the scientific way of saying we're fucked unless we can figure out how to live within our means fast. Scientists are saying we are deep in crisis and you casually blather than we can hold everyone and more. We can't. We can't hold what we have now. Sure we could rebalance wealth to end excesses of the rich and poverty, but unless you get consumption and waste way, way down, its still cataclysmic destruction of the biosphere.
Deserted cities are indeed a long term consequence of degrowth. Land will be reserved for wildlife to flourish unmolested again and instead of continually mining virgin lands for resources we can mine our former abandoned cities while we work out the details of a recyclable, circular economy.
What are they? You get really vague here, presumably on purpose.
I propose mass not-births as part of the answer of degrowth. Anyone that proposes anything unsustainable is the one calling for mass deaths.
Here is a fact. For roughly ever degree of of Global Average Temperature above our pre-industrial average we lose about 10% of global food production. How are we feeding everyone again? 2024 hit 1.5°C and we're on track for 2.5 to 3.5C at least. What are we all eating?
I'm sorry unpleasant truths couldn't be delivered with a happier, more cheerful messaging. For what it's worth, skulls are always smiling.
Again, your type is always disapointing. You can only mischaracterise what we say because you can't discuss rationally. "Praying for calamity" tells me you have not listened or understood anything being discussed.
We are done here.
Pharmacies are closing now while we are at peak population. Its just capitalism doing its thing NBD.