Leo, what are your thoughts on the falling birth rates in the West?

[The Don]

Hi.

We never talk about birth rates here. Why is that? Not to disparage anyone but shouldn't we be wise?

Anyway, how many of you really know what is happening in the West? Fertility rates are below replacement levels since 1970. The nuclear family is gone because everyone is oriented towards success.

There is a book entitled "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline", wrote by amazing people. The authors are called Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson.

My main concern here is the consequences of falling birth rates.

What are the consequences of falling birth rates? It's not just fewer people. It's less technology, less science, fewer doctors and so forth. It's a huge cost.

In life, we need to ask these questions frequently: what is the cost of getting married? What is the cost of NOT getting married?

Spirituality is not just about washing yourself of yourself. Spirituality teaches us wisdom. Spirituality gives us insights into the nature of reality. Life and nature don't care about the illusory nature of reality.

I'm concerned about the future, as many children are growing up without fathers. That's chaos.

Edited April 14, 2020 by The Don

[Consept]

Personally I think the issue is more about not looking after who's already on the planet, loads of kids are in care homes, orphanages are growing up without fathers. Then these damaged are having kids who are also damaged and on goes the cycle. Putting more kids into this doesn't really help and I do think it's a spiritual component amongst others that we're missing out on, if we had this we'd realise the impact we have on young people's lives.

[SamueLSD]

Some predict we will never surpass 12 billion people global population, due to birthrates and mortality rates evening out. 

As living conditions improve, people tend to have less children

There may be other explanations though. 

[DLH]

Round two, for the Baby Boomers will be happen this December and into 2021. 

Move over Gen X, Y, Z, and whatever other Gen I have missed.

The Baby Boomers are coming Back!  Lol

[The Don]

We can't just say "we shouldn't be worried about falling birth rates".

We can't stay passive about what's happening.

We can't go on with our lives and do nothing about it.

At the same time some things are not in our control but we can try to influence people.

If we look at human history, there are major problems. Wars, disease, instability, torture and so forth. I can't stay calm when a collapsing society lurks behind.

I'm not OK with the thought that I'll be fine in this lifetime and I don't care what's gonna be happening next.

All problems stem from ignorance and people still choose to be ignorant.

Edited April 14, 2020 by The Don
To add a new sentence.

[Leo Gura]

@The Don Let it play itself out. Trust that this issue will solve itself.

What are you gonna do? Mandate creampies? Lol

The human race is not important at all in the big picture.

[The Don]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The human race is not important at all in the big picture.

Goodness exists in the form of self-love which means that human life is sacred. Otherwise, human life wouldn't be possible.

People like Stalin and Hitler had no regard for human life. Then look at what happened. Unimaginable suffering.

The most important question we can ask is, how do we make people good?

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, The Don said:

Goodness exists in the form of self-love which means that human life is sacred. Otherwise, human life wouldn't be possible.

People like Stalin and Hitler had no regard for human life. Then look at what happened. Unimaginable suffering.

The most important question we can ask is, how do we make people good?

This is very counter-intuitive but by trying to make people good you create evil.

Real goodness is not something you make. Real goodness is the surrender to whatever is. Whatever is, is Good. Not realizing this is the cause of all suffering.

Human life is no more sacred than virus life. Watch your self-bias

[The Don]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Human life is no more sacred than virus life. Watch your self-bias.

Just because your mind says so doesn't make it true. Watch your self-bias, @Leo Gura.

You are human. By comparison and abilities,  you are actually more important than a virus.

Even when you fully know and understand God, humans are fundamentally more important than anything else. Let God take care of itself.

[LastThursday]

4 hours ago, The Don said:

What are the consequences of falling birth rates? It's not just fewer people. It's less technology, less science, fewer doctors and so forth. It's a huge cost.

Think of it more like a system with a temperature control.

The more numbers of people you have, the greater the (economic) activity and the higher the temperature. Lower the temperature by having less people and the activity drops. Capitalism is predicated on always getting a return on your capital, i.e. constant growth. If the growth goes permanently negative, it's no longer capitalism - and a different system is needed. So what?

But also, realise that the world is very interconnected as Covid-19 has shown us. Any "deficiency" in economic ouput in one set of countries will be made up by other countries who have an increasing population. The global temperature is still going up.

Edited April 14, 2020 by LastThursday

[Roy]

6 hours ago, The Don said:

What are the consequences of falling birth rates? It's not just fewer people. It's less technology, less science, fewer doctors and so forth. It's a huge cost.

@The Don The cost is the planet might have a chance to recover to sustainable levels and the people that are ALREADY alive might not have to suffer as massive of an impending decline in living conditions. The ecosystems in place cannot even maintain the living standards of the top 5% (that we are apart of by the way), let alone the other 95% who are desperate to reach those standards as well. We need the smallest amount of births required until we sort our shit out.

Nothing will matter if there is irreversible damage to the Earth, at least irreversible for modern human civilization, the Earth will be fine in the long run luckily 

You say "less technology, less science, less doctors" is a huge cost. That's a projection of your own value system. Who says we should keep doing an endless full court press towards greater technology? It may or may not solve our current problems, it's a shot in the dark. What WILL solve our current problems is a collective raising of love, community, and consciousness. A healing of pointless xenophobia, nationalism, and class-ism. Humanity sharing resources. A willing sacrifice of our current lifestyle and partial reversal back to agrarianism. You don't need a research lab or large hadron collider for that. It's much easier, and anything short of a concerted effort towards those things will spell our doom.

The problem you're worried about is solving itself anyways. Population curve has been declining for many years yet we've had the largest exponential growth in technology in history the past 20 years. Why? It's because we've raised the development of some parts of the world so much there is nothing better to do for people than science and high education jobs.

Why pump out another 2-3 billion babies hoping for an Einstein or two when you could just shift some existing resources and further educate the people that exist? Pardon my french but that argument is just asinine.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Roy

[RendHeaven]

5 hours ago, The Don said:

Just because your mind says so doesn't make it true. Watch your self-bias, @Leo Gura.

You are human. By comparison and abilities,  you are actually more important than a virus.

Even when you fully know and understand God, humans are fundamentally more important than anything else. Let God take care of itself.

Wow you are so arrogant, and yet you are aggressively ignorant of it! Really consider the following before you get defensive.

You said, "Just because your mind says so doesn't make it true."

Fantastic insight!

But why don't you apply your own advice to yourself? YOUR mind is the one that says "humans are fundamentally more important."

As you said, don't blindly think of that as the truth.

Where is @Leo Gura's self bias in saying that humans and viruses are equal? There is no bias there whatsoever lol. That's just raw, neutral, impartial observation. Bias only occurs once you start "tilting" the playing field in favor of one thing or another. The very act of designating importance IS bias.

To rid yourself of bias, drop importance.

Edited April 14, 2020 by RendHeaven

[Roy]

2 hours ago, The Don said:

You are human. By comparison and abilities,  you are actually more important than a virus.

Once again notice how this just a projection of how you value "abilities". If you dig to the bottom of all the facts and other content, and are completely honest about what you see.....

You stumble into the brick wall of truth that no thing is more important than another thing. Living or non-living.

I am no more important than the small spider in the top corner of my office that I'm in right now, or the coffee mug on my desk.

Now you might BELIEVE that I'm more important but it's nothing more than a story. The spider could get crushed, the coffee mug could get shattered, or I could get my apartment broken into and get shot in the head.

In the big picture there is no actual reason why my existence matters more than those other things. It's just another change in the universe which will keep chugging along.

Of course on a relative level we should care and try to prevent these things.

But if you want to be completely honest and really  learn about reality you need to accept the big picture and incorporate it into your life, otherwise you're missing out and worst of all willingly limiting yourself.

 

[silene]

There's likely to be problems in countries with declining birth rates, also poor countries which have high birth rates have their own problems, shortages of doctors, access to technology, education etc. So far, (some of) the richer countries have responded with immigration, which itself has led to a backlash from conservatives. It's good to be educating ourselves about social problems and discussing possible solutions, but from my understanding of history there's never been a golden age without some endemic issues. Life moves on and if there is a decline at the moment it won't last forever, there will be future generations with different life values to ours. 

[Consept]

6 hours ago, The Don said:

Just because your mind says so doesn't make it true. Watch your self-bias, @Leo Gura.

You are human. By comparison and abilities,  you are actually more important than a virus.

Even when you fully know and understand God, humans are fundamentally more important than anything else. Let God take care of itself.

Why are we more important, if you think of the earth as a living organism we are a virus on the earth and quite a bad one at that (not that we can change that as we evolve) if you look at the damage weve done overall as a species not just to ourselves but to the earth, why are we so sacred?

If you think about hitler and stalin thought they were doing good at the time and many people went along and agreed with it, do you not think people in 300 years are going to look at us and think we were basically savages? Its all a matter of perspective and not having perspective is what leads to madness

[The Don]

11 hours ago, Consept said:

Why are we more important, if you think of the earth as a living organism we are a virus on the earth and quite a bad one at that (not that we can change that as we evolve) if you look at the damage weve done overall as a species not just to ourselves but to the earth, why are we so sacred?

The heavens belong to the LORD, but He has given the earth to all humanity. (Psalm 115:16)

Edited April 15, 2020 by The Don

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, The Don said:

He has given the earth to all humanity.

"If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides." -- Montesquieu

[LastThursday]

57 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

1 hour ago, The Don said:

He has given the earth to all humanity.

"If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides." -- Montesquieu

And a gender.

[annonnimm32]

Hello The Don, took some time but here i am.  What you really are concerned is the life expectance of children who are born . From what the mother eats and say she got pregnant when she wasnt ready, the formula has changed , leaving room for cancer at best, We must understand, people, that getting pregnant does not mean having a baby. Our bodies have a time period when in a relation with someone, both male and female subjects go through physical changes like muscle growth ,weight loss and other internal changes getting both the male and female room for making a baby and ensure that 9 month period . Vaccinated couples getting ready for procreation which can actually take months , their bodies are searching for proteins the fetus needs to develop a strong immune system while non vaccinated couples offer that protein naturally without having to modify it to match the fetus . 

Sex is  promoted so it can be used for self sterilization, its a technique they learned from animal study  . A sexual active animal will not father so much and not on first try.  Sex is great, sure but it doesnt assures a 9 month pregnancy ,thus a formula change but not total sterilization, just uncertain pregnancy.  There is an exception... In times of certain military wars between the begining and end of the war or natural disasters  no matter how short it lasts, everyone is ready. Italy birth rate started to double when the time choir boys got the snip snip . The close they got to sterilising the population was compromising the protein that protects the fetus for 9 months.  Should they try to physically snip snip us it wont lower much the birth rate

[annonnimm32]

If we look very close, not only a pregnancy last 9 months but also the process of getting ready to get intimate with someone takes 9 months at least ,during which a skinny male or female well gain a bit of weight will suddenly jog,  work out and if you ask them they wont have a specific answer but they are getting ready to get intimate and make a baby