14 Comments

From my understanding Natal Con is an event in which many fertile and virile people meet and struggle to reproduce as much and as quickly as possible...

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> From my understanding Natal Con is an event in which many fertile and virile people meet and struggle to reproduce as much and as quickly as possible...

Sadly, the gender ratio at actual Natal Con precludes this from being a viable solution - you're looking for Burning Man, a few months and states away. All we need is some crop-dusting-deployable anti-contraceptive...

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I would humbly advise any aspiring pro-natalists here to skip the conference and instead invest $1k in your kids’ college fund. They will thank you.

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Anatalism? Say "anatalism" 10 times as fast as you can.

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I would go if there was the debate on the ultimate cause of the fertility collapse.

In my view it is caused by a century of anti-natalist intellectual climate in the west that led to countless legal and cultural changes. Death by thousand cuts.

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Tax systems allow deductions for replacing plant and equipment but not for replacing labour.

So stupid Western countries are importing aliens to replace their own people.

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Babies are lovely.

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Why wouldn't we enter a death spiral where an ever greater proportion of old voters use their political power to extract ever more resources from young people, who respond in turn by having fewer children so they can afford their tax burden to the old?

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The problem isn't that old people support heavy spending on the elderly. The problem is that almost everyone supports heavy spending on the elderly.

See my *Myth of the Rational Voter*.

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You have a habit of denying human nature and empirical facts when they conflict with your ideology. We describe the world as it is, not how we wish it was.

The median voter is 55 years old and getting older. So they are either receiving benefits or are within sight of receiving benefits. Basic self interest explains gerontocracy.

And even young people have parents. While I support cutting SS in the abstract, it would depend a great deal on how the savings got used. If I have to support my mother and get nothing in return I’m actually worse off.

Wake me up when any major democracy does fundamental retirement reform. If we can’t do it now doubt we can do it later when there are even more old people.

In short, I think it’s a lot easier to convince people to give parents tax breaks and hopefully raise fertility rate than it will be to cut off grandma.

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The Black Death devastated Europe's population, but it is often said to have ultimately improved the standard of living for the survivors. Why won't the ongoing birth dearth have some of the same positive effects in the future?

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The Black death eliminated a disproportionate quantity of old and sick people during a time when everyone lived in profound agrarian poverty. The birth rate crisis will eliminate the young and energetic and productive, leaving the old and sick... and those old and sick have control of the political system and can tax and transfer vast sums of wealth in order to pay for their healthcare and assisted living.

The effects that were positive during the Black Death will almost be reversed: rather than young workers seeing their labor increase in value and political power change and enlarge, young people who want to start families and buy homes will be burdened with the financial support and care of increasingly large numbers of people who've already served their evolutionary purpose and are lingering, partly out of fear of death and partly from a greedy desire to enjoy as much pleasure and happiness and comfort as possible.

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Natural ressource rents matter less in the modern economy.

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Really? Urban land values are a socially created rent but more valuable often than resource rents.

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