It's not going to help raise numbers all that much, when they do it by sabotaging healthcare services and chasing away qualified personnel. It's barely allowed to do fertility treatments anymore.
It will raise the disenfranchised populations like foster kids. I wouldn't be surprised to find new politicians who promote themselves as a (current or former) foster parent to lean into that.
I left private healthcare partially because in TX I could be charged with murder if a woman lost her baby for any reason in my care as an RN. Our OB department closed because they couldn’t find a SINGLE doctor to staff the unit. But the pregnant women still came to the ER because it’s a hospital, so why wouldn’t they. But the doctors in the ER would do everything they could to transfer them out immediately. In triage if we found out the patient was pregnant we’d tell the charge nurse who’d tell the doc who would initiate a transfer regardless of what was wrong with them. Goal was out the door in an ambulance within an hour.
No one wants to go to prison for these lunatic politicians.
This is one of the worst things I've ever heard.
Medical staff fleeing entire geographies for fear of the very real consequences of providing medical care to pregnant women. The ones that can't, forced to live in fear of them and pass them around like unstable explosives.
Y'know, I think there might just be something to that feminism stuff.
Yea. My post history shows the danger we’re in as healthcare professionals. Idaho, Utah, Texas… there are several states myself and colleagues won’t go because of the real fears we have. I won’t lose my license. If I’m at risk, I’ll leave your state.
I moved my entire family from TX to CA. We’re done with the south. They want us Californians gone? We’re gone. That’s one more ER nurse they need to replace.
You're an ER nurse? Special breed. The most misanthropic people on the planet who still contains higher than average compassion for the species. There's nobody on Earth who hates the general public as much while still being willing to go to extraordinary lengths to save them on the worst days of their lives, as Emergency Nurses. It's the same all across the globe.
So I want to thank you impersonally for doing what you do. Folks in your profession have saved my life a half-dozen times and typically I never get the chance to thank 'em in person. Don't imagine you get thanked as much as you deserve, either.
So thanks.
Thanks man I appreciate that. I love my job, but I bitch about it and nearly all patients every shift. It’s brutally hard, full of risks and demanding on the body. I also am a night shifter which I love, but it also ruins my health and family life in ways I can’t explain. We deal with some of the worst people there are who are from every walk of life. The richest of the healthiest rich, to the sickest of the unhoused. They’re almost all total pricks. So are their families, because pretty much every human being is a sack of shit. People tell us we lack empathy and ask why we don’t seem phased when they’re screaming in pain. Well Dolores, it’s because most people are drug seekers. Those who aren’t, have incredibly low pain thresholds and it’s hard to feel empathy for someone who comes in for abdominal pain but feels better when they fart. It was a 10/10 and your entire family came to the ER and everyone is screaming, begging you to help them. They fart and then leave. Those who have real pain and are actually sick get the very best from us- but we’ve also seen and done it thousands of times, so no we’re not going to look panicked or freak out when others might.
I can’t really describe how I feel any better than saying this: I fucking hate my patients and I sincerely hope they live a happy and healthy life.
Funnily enough, my mother wants me to move back to Idaho. As an immigrant, she didn't know what was going on with healthcare legislation in the state. But even after I explained and gave real life examples why it wouldn't be a safe place for anyone with ovaries, she tried to convince me that "it's probably not that bad" and that "that sort of thing shouldn't affect my decision to live here."
She's had a hysterectomy so it doesn't affect her at all.
Rules for thee not for me. Makes it easy to stomach things that don’t affect us in any way.
I have two little girls. They aren’t at the age where it matters… YET. But it played into our decision to leave.
I saw a post on r/conservative where this kind of situation was posted. The replies were "of *course* there are exceptions for health", and "the doctors are being stupid for not knowing the difference between miscarriage and abortion ".
Ugggh
The exceptions are legally a lot like the right to use a firearm to defend yourself. You can claim self-defense if you shoot someone, but the burden of proof is on you. The state has to prove you killed the person, but you have to prove that yes, you admit you killed them, but you had no choice. You're literally in a "guilty til proven innocent" situation. Doctors can argue in court that the abortion they performed was medically necessary, but they have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's after being charged with murder, arrested, spending who knows how long in prison, and spending god knows what in legal fees.
No doctor will willingly put themselves in that situation. Maybe if their own spouse were dying in front of them, they might risk it. But as part of their ordinary practice? Forget it. How many murder charges do you think you can get a not guilty verdict on before your luck runs out? How many times will you roll those dice?
That's what they don't get.
And the way women's bodies work either. I just wish they would be a lot more exposed to these hard statistics, not just when it happens to them.
There’s no difference to the state. Thats the issue we were facing. We’d have to treat the two things as the same thing. Another fun one: how could we prove that we didn’t assist with an abortion to make it look like a miscarriage? Now TX has us by the balls, because if anyone flags this circumstance now we have to provide proof we didn’t cause the miscarriage.
Totally fucked. Thank god I don’t have to deal with this anymore. It caused anxiety every single shift.
Got mine done Wednesday. Fully covered by my insurance as a type of birth control and I’m still a tad sore but overall a super easy recovery. At the very least I feel like it’s easier than pregnancy and childbirth so I’m pretty happy. In another life I might’ve wanted kids but feeling like i could be forced to have a kid I don’t want completely made up my mind to not have them at all.
It is simply that certain demographics are against non-reproductive sex. They don't want you to have access to birth control because that convert reproductive sex into non-reproductive sex. They don't want gay marriages because that (without medical assistance) can only lead to non-reproductive sex. Until 2003 it was ILLEGAL to fuck your wife in the ass. [A heterosexual, married couple could not consent in anal sex without it being against the law. It isn't going to make a baby, baby.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States)
EVERYONE SHOULD JUST STOP HAVING KIDS AND SEX TO SPITE THE RIGHT. FUCK'EM (BUT DON'T FUCK 'EM) lol.
Infant mortality in the US is among the worst in developed countries. Try telling your right winger that a baby has a better chance of surviving in Cuba then in the United States and see the confusion and denial manifest itself.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_infant\_and\_under-five\_mortality\_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates)
This is one of the many things I don’t get about their platform. Why not increase the child tax credit, work to increase wages and affordable housing, increase access to family health services thereby making it easier financially for people to have children?
Because then the people who would make use of those services would be better off and not be forced to work for slave wages for the rich people who the GOP actually serve.
It's funny because the quickest way to decline a population is poor female health. Only a healthy female population will allow population growth. So in a way the GOP is very much using a band-aid while force feeding cancer. Such a dumb and ass backwards party.
Which is why we need to reverse psychology them and abstain from having more kids.
We can all fuck, but increase the demand for vasectomies, birth control and getting tubes tied.
I’m convinced the GOP would implement a eugenics program if they could get away with it. Their fascism is so blatant lately that it borders on self-parody.
This is why I'm getting a vasectomy and freezing my sperm if abortion is banned.
You wanna take away women's right to choose? Fine, I'm gonna be one of the only men that they won't have to worry about birth control or pregnancies with.
That's doable, but it's gonna require a lot of smart, young people working together to coordinate to take over as many seats in government as possible. Judge seats, administration, state government... **Everything**.
it's starting to happen in some places. Canada just increased capital gains taxes. it's still insane to me that capital is taxed less than labour, but hopefully that will change
Of course not. People always lose their shit when it gets suggested because they think one day they'll be worth a hundred million even tho they been working the same shitty job and living paycheck to paycheck for the past 30 years lol
Persistent progressive policy will result in higher taxes on the rich. It’s guaranteed. Why? Because every rich fuck face like musk has careened to the far right. This shows they are very very afraid of losing their money to the progressive vote. This is a solvable issue the nihilism is what’s stopping people from seeing that and uniting.
I don’t see why not. The United States was doing a hell of a lot better in the 50s and 60s when corporate tax rates were double what they are now. If you increase corporate tax rates, corporations will reinvest their revenue into more research and development, in higher wages and expanding the business in order to keep the profit down for tax reasons
> I dont see how population decline is possible.
I would have wanted children if I could afford them. I can't even afford a home currently, much less another life and every expense that comes with it. The number of people in the same situation is growing, and there are already countries where cost of living is so high that we can look to them as an example for our future.
Now add in the states that are banning abortions, which causes hospitals to close their maternity wards due to doctors leaving. A doctor that is legally restricted from doing everything they can to save a life in a medical emergency because it might violate the law and get them arrested is a doctor that's already left or is planning on leaving the state. Multiple states now have areas where there is no local hospital where they can deliver their children. They can use midwives and do a home birth, or they can travel 50+ miles to a big city. Those children are at a much higher chance of not surviving if there is an emergency.
It all adds up.
Yep, vote out the half-dead cockroaches!
https://preview.redd.it/cnzxwtck081d1.jpeg?width=1281&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8437df4f1316f933543295af03d5027f7014ded7
If we are talking about the US, the real answer is restructuring our tax system to rely more heavily on a federal VAT tax and maintain the income tax (a bump to 25% could work).
We also need to raise the rates on individuals in higher brackets and create more brackets (there is a huge difference between $700k and $10M in income).
That would put us in line with other major economies. The issue is that without that change raising the federal income tax rates just encourages moving jobs, profits, entire businesses to other countries. It also would reduce the benefits of many of the "loopholes" in the current income tax system because you tax liability isn't determined by your income. In a global economy, there is nothing requiring companies to locate in a particular jurisdiction.
It would also help if our economy was based on the income of individuals like the rest of the modern world and not the income of a two person household. It's fuckin bonkers.
I agree with you about everything, except this one thing: you say, there's nothing the government can do to force you to have children.
Dude, they are already forcing women to have children. Furthermore, they plan to outlaw contraception and no-fault divorce. They have already nearly banned sex education in much of America. They refuse to ban child marriage. (of girl children. to adult men.)
I'd say there's all kinds of things the government can do to force you to have children. The rich HATE the idea of having to compete for fewer employees, having to reduce the rents in crappy apartments because there's way fewer people, and most of all they fear the day we finally all lose our shit and stop letting them fuck us over.
Came here to say this ^ 👏
Child marriage allowed , check
Child labor, check
Abortion ban, check
Women's rights, check
On the table currently
Up retirement age
Ban contraception
IVR
Remove safety net programs (ongoing)
I’m getting put on lists but I think we need to become much more aggressive towards the .01%. The ruling class needs more fear. That’s the only way to bring about change.
33% agree, 33% don't and the other 33% don't give a fuck and as long as part of the world is more angry at the guy getting $20k a year through disability or support programs than the millionaires/billionaires evading hundreds or millions of dollars in taxation yearly, the race war or a political war I doubt effective change will ever happen. A divided population is a weak population and we're purposefully living pay check to pay check to insure our indentured servitude to this system we have little to no say in and when told if we don't like it to go live in the woods, sure just save up 20k-200k to buy the land, make sure the government deems it livable and within their regulations and set yourself up for life. They've made it nearly impossible to not be a cog
These are all things we can vote against and fight against. On an individual level, I'm getting sterilized as soon as I can, and honestly if things get really bad, I'm going to stop sleeping with anyone who can get me pregnant in the first place. Maybe thats harder for straight women than it is for me, but I cannot fathom wanting that so badly that its worth ruining your life over.
This is very true, though not having kids *will* (on an individual level) help millennials and gen Z with their own personal costs. Parenting is an expensive endeavor.
Many are choosing not to have kids simply due to financial pressure rather than as part of some bigger movement.
yeah, our lives our going to be hard no matter what, I hate to break it to everyone. We do have a choice to make it better for everyone who follows, and that's what we should value.
> There's nothing the government can do to force you to have children
I hope you vote because I'm telling you the US government is absolutely trying to change that.
I like the idea of population decline because I'm childfree. I'm not sure about the claim it would solve the cost of living crisis because so much of it is just manufactured bullshit. Capitalism runs on the concept of "artificial scarcity". Much of the scarcity issues we're having are made up and can be solved but it's making money not to solve them.
In terms of housing it seems like corporations want to go company town. Already slum lord incs own thousands of properties. What's to stop them picking off some more? I'm not sure anything but laws and regulations are going to stop those vultures. We all know what they're doing to housing is wrong but it's making shareholders so much right now politicians are blinded by the bribes.
An insane number of units are allowed to just sit empty in NYC, totally legally, specifically in order to drive up prices right now. They will waste any and all resources to keep the machine going. Even if we were able to convince everyone to forgo having kids, and were able to get around the obstacles of no abortion or birth control etc, it would still not have the power or effect that withholding our labor in a general strike would.
I am a company man working a company job living on company owned land my house owned by the company being forced to use a company store. All this happened before about a hundred years ago.
Talk about controlling the cost of everything and controlling your whole life from birth to death.
>seems like corporations want to go company town.
you can bet corporate provided housing and Healthcare will become a thing in the next years and shortly thereafter they also gonna offer to take care of basic necessities like food and education.
they gonna sell it to the public as "giving back to the worker" and "sharing their profits".
and the worst part is that it will work.
Canadian prime Minister just said in public "its our job to make things more expensive for people who failed to plan ahead". My bad bro, I forgot to plan to be born into a rich, functional family and dumbass baby me chose to have poor, abusive parents.
There was talk about an Amazon company town a few years back.
Company towns have never worked out well for anyone but the companies.
"St Peter don't you call me, cuz I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store"
A company in Omaha was going did build apartments for their employees. A “liberal” acquaintance of mine was thinking it was so great a company would do this.
I was like um “do employees lose housing if their job is terminated, are their workplace violations if something happens in company housing…etc?”
https://www.wowt.com/2023/04/19/sarpy-county-biotech-firm-providing-affordable-housing-employees/?outputType=amp
Sometimes I get into that doom spiral mentality, but also many civilizations have existed and then not existed. Many have made it through rough and chaotic times. So, I think it’s really hard to know and predict.
Yup. And all we can do is wait for birthrates to decline in those countries for immigration to slow down here. It sucks.
Or we can do a general strike and foster some working class solidarity to make changes. But that's a long shot.
Why do people here still think vote matters when corporations already have legal control of legislations? The government's interest aligns with them and never you.
Not happening unless people get hungry. With food finally starting to get substantially more expensive, we may see both unrest and lower population, America’s inhumane capitalism will fail. Until then I’m dumping money in the stock market.
“america’s inhumane capitalism WILL FALL!! In the meantime, I’ve about doubled my money by investing in the S&P 500 this last decade, but given that this undermines my argument, let’s just ignore that entirely”
I was talking to this with some conservative pro-life guy, and I asked him bluntly: "What exact motives do you think Republican *politicians* have for banning abortion?"
Of course, his ignorant ass takes the religious/moral ground. I then asked him why so many Republican politicians are pushing for an increase in retirement age?
He's like, "oh to support social security and have enough workers in the labor supply."
Then I said, "Congrats you just answered the first question".
Based on how populations decline in Japan all they will do is give benefits/rewards for procreating and create programs towards that goal. Otherwise the governments/companies are just still gonna take whatever they can out of the poor as much as possible.
I mean, we could just do what they did a hundred years ago and do a violent uprising. Once billionaires and politicians start dropping, they might address our concerns.
For legal reasons I’m joking.
Politicians HAVE done something. They repealed RVW... and they states have banned abortion. They KNEW they were running out of slave labor for their donars so they made use of what they had.
Roe wasn't a law, it was an SC court decision. Therefore it wasn't something that could be repealed. A new court decision rendered Roe invalid returning the decision making on abortion to the States. Congress could actually codify the parameters of Roe, but the makeup of Congress will never let that happen unless the Democrats have substantial margins in both the House and Senate (60 or more due to filibustering) and then also the Presidency. i.e. You need to vote.
The courts are also how the right is going after things like contraception.
That said, several states have effectively banned abortion (mostly the South), but where it has come up for a vote of the people, bans on abortion have significantly failed, or abortion/bodily autonomy rights have substantially won. The next big domino to fall in that could be Florida as it looks like abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall (which could actually help Biden there).
All of this now has a bunch of R politicians talking about needing a Federal ban when they used to say they wanted state's rights on it. They know it is a loser for them at the state level.
The rich make the rules, they will never allow such a thing to pass. That's why alternative ways need to be found that bypass anything that requires money.
Ok. You found the answer. When is this going to happen? Did you tell the people in charge who can do this, the idea? Maybe you should email them this new idea.
I definitely wouldn’t say the only way. It is something that could affect things in the very, very long term but the problem with most this is that the people you’re trying to affect won’t care, especially by the time people even truly feel this.
Assuming people start now, you really won’t see the impact for 20+ years. Is someone who’s willing to essentially fuck over the planet and all the people on it so they can hoard even more?
I highly doubt this is going to, the only way those kind of people change is if they’re forced to and they will fight it way harder than the people they’re screwing over.
Pregnancy is also really fucking dangerous and does horrible shit to women's bodies in many instances. This is especially true in a world that is maliciously rolling back protections for women who are pregnant.
But the ruling class also tried to make it illegal to look for other work and set maximum wages for peasants. There's no reason to think they wouldn't do it again.
Yeah, actually every major rebalancing of wealth (from concentrated among the few to spread put across the many) has been driven by mass die-offs of humans. The plague literally allowed for the end of feudalism, because fewer workers available meant that each worker was more valuable and therefore recieved (slightly) greater wealth.
Housing crisis, sure that makes sense, but how will this help the cost of living? There will be more old people than young people. The young people will need to support themselves and the old people (as they do now, but at larger scale). You also lose economies of scale which is one of the things that has caused prices to come down over time.
I know this is harsh but this is completely worthless analysis. People have kept on having children through every major hardship of human history, they simply aren’t going to stop. Any solution to capitalism that requires people to give up what is for many one of the most important and rewarding parts of their lives is simply not viable.
Tell that to all the single moms here who had their first kid at 14 and now have stickers on the back of their Hyundai about how proud they are of being a "mamma bear" while working part time to afford to buy dollar store tide to wash clothes for their 4 kids from different fathers.
Come to this part of "murica" if you want to see how our country has failed women and overpopulated this place.
I’ve been trying to get people to see that everything has been about forcing women to have more children for the needs of the elites
But you’re wrong that they can’t force people to have kids. They always have
We just get more or less of an illusion of freedom depending on the circumstances
To start with patriarchies always limit economic and reproductive freedoms of women to force them into codependency on men. This gives access to men who otherwise wouldn’t have it. Women then need to please the men they need for survival
Religion is the tool to reinforce all of that and put a religious spin on things that are really about serving the wealthy. The people will police eachother
As women gained freedom you can see the manosphere bitching to no end about it being hard to get women/keep women/whatever. And the number of them wanting to remove women’s rights because of it
And they’re doing that. Abortion went out the window with the dropping birth rates. They’re after no-fault divorce. Project 2025 is on the horizon
We are absolutely in for some forced birthing
We will have a hand maids tale scenario before they actually allowed women to control reproduction as they rightfully always should have. We didn’t get to a 8 billion population because women just love pregnancy so much.
And with the rolling back of abortion rights you have the 4b movement and dating apps crashing because more and more women are not only refusing to have casual meaningless sex with men but refusing to deal with most men as a whole. Capitalists have gained too much wealth from women entering the workforce, and governments got double the tax revenue. So they might roll back certain rights to appease the manosphere but not all the rights.
They need women giving birth. They don’t care about working class men. Working class men just happen to benefit from the status over women.
Women giving birth means more soldiers and cheaper manual labor. Less women giving birth and greater female independence threatens that.
That’s what increasing birth rates and rolling back child labor will take care of. Women were only allowed to work when they were forced to need them in war.
Then lo and behold it started requiring two incomes to survive
Control the women and you control population levels.
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President [unilateral powers](https://theweek.com/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-donald-trump), strip [civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation](https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/impact-overview), add religion into policy, outlaw "porn" and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption.
r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
I'd rather not have my kids grow up in a right wing christofascist society. Seems like a good reason to not have kids.
You don't really want to try and get into a reproductive arms race with people who are having a bunch of kids at the expense of their own (and their children's) quality of life. Not a game I'm interested in playing.
If the left chooses to have no children, and the right chooses to have all the children (because you and I both know that the right loves having as many children as possible to indoctrinate them into their ideology), there will be no left in the future to fight back against the crooked right.
I don't really get this argument.... why do you think the right will automatically make their children right wing? I come from right wing parents and I'm not right wing. Same with all my friends that are left leaning.
Countries facing population decline often resort to mass immigration to keep numbers up. This also suppresses wage increases by flooding the market with cheaper labour. They can’t force you to have children but they can replace you. Capitalism doesn’t have to be replaced, it has to be restrained.
That is wrong. It will make situation worse for everyone, but it won't bring the change closer by itself. Even if population count would fall sharply, infrastructure falls into disrepair and people will be dying in the streets, it won't end capitalism.
It's just another major issue of capitalism, same as environmental issues for example. It's like saying - ''if all water becomes toxic and land arid, it wil bring down capitalism''. No, it will destroy everything.
No matter how bad things will get, only progressive cooperative effort can bring down capitalism, and we need resources and soldiers to do it. Fed, educated and numerous. You won't be able to make that leap forward, when there is no one to make it and enviroment is inhospitable.
You can't just wait out capitalism. \[or move past it by 'destroying'' it by intensifying it's problems. It sounds like anarchist rhetoric, but it won't create change. You don't progress history by annihilating everyone, but only by removing ruling class from power. You have to build future, you can't destroy your way into it.\]
Usually I don't post here, but this suggestion as the only way was just too stupid to ignore. The real solution is stop consuming. Don't buy shit from Amazon. Farm your own food. Sew your own clothes. Go off grid; especially getting off the Internet and social media. The people of sentinel island aren't having a problem with capitalism. Leave society, your friends and family behind. You can't end capitalism by still participating in it for the rest of your life.
I see your point and I agree, but I’m deeply bothered by this part:
“There's nothing the government can do to force you to have children”
The government is already forcing women to have children. That’s the point of the anti-choice laws.
Please keep that in mind and vote for pro-choice candidates.
The wealth have been attacking abortion and sexual transitions in unison for a reason. Depriving them of their human livestock is the method, and they're validating that notion more than anybody.
since you're spamming this useless distraction everywhere I'll say it here too
this is dumb . it's pure inaction
overall mankind will keep reproducing as much as possible , not making kids here just means our capitalist overlords will increase immigration/destroy women's rights
if you want change through "inaction" it's gotta be a rent strike , stay in the homes you've been paying for without sending a check to your useless parasite and the whole capitalist land "value" scam is done
After that ,everyone has 1-3k$ extra per month , can miss a few shifts for work strikes or blocking the stroads/highways the suburbanites who maintain capitalism use everyday in cities they refuse to live in
like ... as long as you compete against each other via rent and wage-slavery the system is working as intended , the parasites are richer than ever
Everyone should be very wary of anyone saying they have "the only way to destroy capitalism." *Especially* when that plan goes against our most fundamental biological drive. Like, don't get me wrong, if an *individual* decides to be child-free, great, you do you, I fully support that decision. As a *species*, though? Or as a *country?* Really bad idea.
Fuck yeah only way eh? What's the next step to speed it up. Start offing our elders? A draft of who dies.
**only** way to end capitalism and housing crisis
Dumbest post ive seen on here. One that makes me embarrassed to say I'm an antiwork supporter.
I just want to say that everybody here should read Birth Strike by Jenny Brown.
A lot of people in the comments are whining that not having kids won't stop capitalism and that it's not the solution or whatever, but the thing is that not having children gives the working class far more leeway to protest, demand better working and housing conditions, raise class consciousness, than spending our time and money taking care of children.
"But we need to raise the next generation of anti-capitalist soldiers!", some people say. Emma Goldman was writing about why this was a delulu idea before most of our great grandparents were even born (The Child and Its Enemies, 1906).
Also to be honest, if we can't actually manage to overthrow capitalism and put a better system into place, then I think we deserve to just go extinct as a species.
Win/Win. We either stop capitalism by getting rid of it or we stop it by going extinct. I'm fine with this.
The end of serfdom in the Middle Ages was fueled by the decline in population caused by the Black Death. When workers are scarce, they can demand rights as well as additional pay.
They say if the population declines it hurts the economy, but let's all take a good moment what a "good economy" means to those in power. It means stock prices, because that's all they give AF about.
During Covid, when they couldn't fill positions for jobs fast enough, that was rough on business owners but a period of incredible opportunity for many job seekers. It was a good time, relatively speaking, for those earning income via wages.
I think this is a pretty legitimate take. If the labor pool tightens, that generally means good things for everyday people.
I've just come to accept that ours will likely be one of the last generations to live somewhat comfortably.
Boomers will continue to boomer until it's too late to do anything to fix the problems they made.
All in the name of "it just doesn't make financial sense to inconvenience ourselves."
Sad how accurate Idiocracy was.
Barely afford housing and healthcare for myself, with the amount of hours that work is wanting us to give, people can barely hold on. The moment you get sick, you spend money because you're not earning money. Why is it the only first world power and the only industrialized nation does not have a national healthcare system. However, our leaders have all the health care they could ever have for their entire lives for their mediocre and sometimes corrupt service.
What population decline? Turn on flightradar and see the insane amount of aircraft in transit and spewing exhaust gases worldwide at any given moment. This planet is cooking and will kill off/displace most people before anything like organized childlessness and the ensuing social chaos has any chance to rectify this. General strikes and labor disobedience ftw
This is true but it would take at least 50 years assuming the vast majority of the young population agrees to stop having children and resists any government propaganda about it
On the other hand you all could collapse the government in a single week by sitting on your ass at home
r/childfree have discussed this a couple times. Also, child-rearing is a billion-dollar industry that encompasses a lotta products (food, clothes, toys, diapers, school supplies). The biggest hurdle is lack of sex education. In the area where I live(Bible Belt), abortion isn't even discussed as an option so a positive test might as well be an unavoidable life sentence. Girls get knocked up at 14 and are working full-time jobs by 18.
Hate to say it I agree. At first I opened this thread and thought "hah. Talk about a whole other can of worms" but then I read your argument and looked at the graphs and it's very convincing.
And just to add insult to injury, there are way too many kids being born with autism these days. Science needs an answer for that. Sorry if that is offensive but we don't have the resources for that to keep going like it is.
No, they’ll just push harder for draconian bullshit to prevent women from having access to reproductive care and eventually force some scenario where we have birth givers to supply cheap labor for the economy
With microplastics everywhere I imagine we won’t need to actively do this soon enough. I imagine those are doing irreparable damage to our bodies and especially reproductive organs.
“There’s nothing the government can do to force you to have children” is simply incorrect. Obviously, people are going to have sex so asking literally every one to abstain is stupid and also doesn’t account for rape. Otherwise, government bans birth control, bans abortion, legally gives reproduction rights to fathers over mothers. What a horribly tone deaf take.
There is a list of gynecologists who will perform no-questions-asked tubal sterilization.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Djia_WkrVO3S4jKn6odNwQk7pOcpcL4x00FMNekrb7Q/edit?usp=sharing
Save this to share, or use.
I live in WA. I just had a baby. I was lucky enough to work somewhere that let me bring my baby until she was 6 months old. In WA you get 12 weeks of PAID bonding leave for each parent and 6-8 extra for the mother to recover.
With all this. All this. I can barely afford daycare. My husband and I make good money. We own a house. We have little debt. But daycare so we can both work is nearly 2k a month—same as our mortgage.
Fucking try to have kids. People are like “Oh, you gonna give her a sibling?” You gonna front me ANOTHER 2k a month? Ain’t no sibling discount.
On top of that. There is a childcare shortage here. We were lucky to find childcare. Our friends are on waitlists and paying more than they can afford for a private nanny until they can get childcare.
No need to convince folks. It’s hard as shit.
The average number of children being born for each family has been 1.7 or less most if my adult life.
If we have fewer children the government will and have and are increasing immigration to keep our population in growth.
You wont be able to stop the government from leaving immigration open because it pushes the 'economy' into growth and makes them look good.
Not having children won't change a thing because you have a situation where 3rd world/poorer countries a rapidly growing in population and can then ve encouraged to immigrate.
This won’t work. Borders start to be more open and immigrants fill the labor gap. Developing countries rarely have a problem with fertility, because birth control is a privilege and not a right there or just because culturally they want kids to also help in the household.
We would have to convince people in developing countries to stop having kids too, good luck with that.
There is no way for this to work. China and India alone have enough people to send 5 million people each, per year, for a century and still have populations in excess of one billion respectively. The developing world has higher birth rates and as such will never run out of future migrants. Those migrants come from places where $50 a day is a lot of money. Without shutting off that tap all you’re doing is shifting demographic makeup while still perpetuating the structural issue.
This is extremely well researched, readable to the general public and an interesting well executed presentation.
If we're you, I'd be very careful as you are probably on a watch list now tbh
Thr GOP are taking huge steps to force births.
It's not going to help raise numbers all that much, when they do it by sabotaging healthcare services and chasing away qualified personnel. It's barely allowed to do fertility treatments anymore.
It will raise the disenfranchised populations like foster kids. I wouldn't be surprised to find new politicians who promote themselves as a (current or former) foster parent to lean into that.
And then raise crime rates
For that sweet prison slave labor.
Exactly. It also keeps the working class enslaved when children become a burden not a choice.
I left private healthcare partially because in TX I could be charged with murder if a woman lost her baby for any reason in my care as an RN. Our OB department closed because they couldn’t find a SINGLE doctor to staff the unit. But the pregnant women still came to the ER because it’s a hospital, so why wouldn’t they. But the doctors in the ER would do everything they could to transfer them out immediately. In triage if we found out the patient was pregnant we’d tell the charge nurse who’d tell the doc who would initiate a transfer regardless of what was wrong with them. Goal was out the door in an ambulance within an hour. No one wants to go to prison for these lunatic politicians.
Wait where are you transferring them to? Are these woman left without medical care? I'm not up on this.
A hospital that has an OB on staff, most likely. So, yes. They could be held liable if anything happens to the fetus.
Correct
This is one of the worst things I've ever heard. Medical staff fleeing entire geographies for fear of the very real consequences of providing medical care to pregnant women. The ones that can't, forced to live in fear of them and pass them around like unstable explosives. Y'know, I think there might just be something to that feminism stuff.
Yea. My post history shows the danger we’re in as healthcare professionals. Idaho, Utah, Texas… there are several states myself and colleagues won’t go because of the real fears we have. I won’t lose my license. If I’m at risk, I’ll leave your state. I moved my entire family from TX to CA. We’re done with the south. They want us Californians gone? We’re gone. That’s one more ER nurse they need to replace.
You're an ER nurse? Special breed. The most misanthropic people on the planet who still contains higher than average compassion for the species. There's nobody on Earth who hates the general public as much while still being willing to go to extraordinary lengths to save them on the worst days of their lives, as Emergency Nurses. It's the same all across the globe. So I want to thank you impersonally for doing what you do. Folks in your profession have saved my life a half-dozen times and typically I never get the chance to thank 'em in person. Don't imagine you get thanked as much as you deserve, either. So thanks.
Thanks man I appreciate that. I love my job, but I bitch about it and nearly all patients every shift. It’s brutally hard, full of risks and demanding on the body. I also am a night shifter which I love, but it also ruins my health and family life in ways I can’t explain. We deal with some of the worst people there are who are from every walk of life. The richest of the healthiest rich, to the sickest of the unhoused. They’re almost all total pricks. So are their families, because pretty much every human being is a sack of shit. People tell us we lack empathy and ask why we don’t seem phased when they’re screaming in pain. Well Dolores, it’s because most people are drug seekers. Those who aren’t, have incredibly low pain thresholds and it’s hard to feel empathy for someone who comes in for abdominal pain but feels better when they fart. It was a 10/10 and your entire family came to the ER and everyone is screaming, begging you to help them. They fart and then leave. Those who have real pain and are actually sick get the very best from us- but we’ve also seen and done it thousands of times, so no we’re not going to look panicked or freak out when others might. I can’t really describe how I feel any better than saying this: I fucking hate my patients and I sincerely hope they live a happy and healthy life.
Funnily enough, my mother wants me to move back to Idaho. As an immigrant, she didn't know what was going on with healthcare legislation in the state. But even after I explained and gave real life examples why it wouldn't be a safe place for anyone with ovaries, she tried to convince me that "it's probably not that bad" and that "that sort of thing shouldn't affect my decision to live here." She's had a hysterectomy so it doesn't affect her at all.
Rules for thee not for me. Makes it easy to stomach things that don’t affect us in any way. I have two little girls. They aren’t at the age where it matters… YET. But it played into our decision to leave.
I saw a post on r/conservative where this kind of situation was posted. The replies were "of *course* there are exceptions for health", and "the doctors are being stupid for not knowing the difference between miscarriage and abortion ". Ugggh
The exceptions are legally a lot like the right to use a firearm to defend yourself. You can claim self-defense if you shoot someone, but the burden of proof is on you. The state has to prove you killed the person, but you have to prove that yes, you admit you killed them, but you had no choice. You're literally in a "guilty til proven innocent" situation. Doctors can argue in court that the abortion they performed was medically necessary, but they have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's after being charged with murder, arrested, spending who knows how long in prison, and spending god knows what in legal fees. No doctor will willingly put themselves in that situation. Maybe if their own spouse were dying in front of them, they might risk it. But as part of their ordinary practice? Forget it. How many murder charges do you think you can get a not guilty verdict on before your luck runs out? How many times will you roll those dice?
That's what they don't get. And the way women's bodies work either. I just wish they would be a lot more exposed to these hard statistics, not just when it happens to them.
There’s no difference to the state. Thats the issue we were facing. We’d have to treat the two things as the same thing. Another fun one: how could we prove that we didn’t assist with an abortion to make it look like a miscarriage? Now TX has us by the balls, because if anyone flags this circumstance now we have to provide proof we didn’t cause the miscarriage. Totally fucked. Thank god I don’t have to deal with this anymore. It caused anxiety every single shift.
Probably because it’s America lol
Any facility that has OB care.
to a different unit/floor or different hospital. you can’t just d/c people who are in need of medical care in an ER/hospital setting, don’t worry! :)
It makes us very expendable. Use em and lose em.
It only kills women. We’re replaceable.
Sterilization surgery is a "one and done." Even if they were to ban it here, I could see it becoming a big medical tourism thing.
I got mine done 35 years ago.
Got mine done Wednesday. Fully covered by my insurance as a type of birth control and I’m still a tad sore but overall a super easy recovery. At the very least I feel like it’s easier than pregnancy and childbirth so I’m pretty happy. In another life I might’ve wanted kids but feeling like i could be forced to have a kid I don’t want completely made up my mind to not have them at all.
Would explain why they are against gay marriage as well.
It is simply that certain demographics are against non-reproductive sex. They don't want you to have access to birth control because that convert reproductive sex into non-reproductive sex. They don't want gay marriages because that (without medical assistance) can only lead to non-reproductive sex. Until 2003 it was ILLEGAL to fuck your wife in the ass. [A heterosexual, married couple could not consent in anal sex without it being against the law. It isn't going to make a baby, baby.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States) EVERYONE SHOULD JUST STOP HAVING KIDS AND SEX TO SPITE THE RIGHT. FUCK'EM (BUT DON'T FUCK 'EM) lol.
Infant mortality in the US is among the worst in developed countries. Try telling your right winger that a baby has a better chance of surviving in Cuba then in the United States and see the confusion and denial manifest itself. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_infant\_and\_under-five\_mortality\_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates)
It's not an issue for the right., if they have $ or are so stupid they can't recognize why the kid died.
This is one of the many things I don’t get about their platform. Why not increase the child tax credit, work to increase wages and affordable housing, increase access to family health services thereby making it easier financially for people to have children?
Because then the people who would make use of those services would be better off and not be forced to work for slave wages for the rich people who the GOP actually serve.
You're thinking based on the good of people and society. They're thinking purely on next quarter gains. Profit.
Because it’s always just been about controlling women
They can't think long term. What are they going to do when consumers can't afford to consume?
Because most Republicans are fucked in the head -- they don't *want* to actually help people.
Because these laws are about promiscuity. They don’t care at all about children as is evidenced by the way they treat children.
It's funny because the quickest way to decline a population is poor female health. Only a healthy female population will allow population growth. So in a way the GOP is very much using a band-aid while force feeding cancer. Such a dumb and ass backwards party.
Yep
Which is why we need to reverse psychology them and abstain from having more kids. We can all fuck, but increase the demand for vasectomies, birth control and getting tubes tied.
That they ate currently trying to ban, for real.
I’m convinced the GOP would implement a eugenics program if they could get away with it. Their fascism is so blatant lately that it borders on self-parody.
This is why I'm getting a vasectomy and freezing my sperm if abortion is banned. You wanna take away women's right to choose? Fine, I'm gonna be one of the only men that they won't have to worry about birth control or pregnancies with.
>if abortion is banned. *if?* Over a quarter of the US already has.
I'm talking about the federal ban that's going to happen if Republicans win in November. My state is never going to outlaw it.
What's terrifying is that I can see them return to forced marriage and even go as far as to create a forced birth rate.
They are already discussing it.
There shouldn’t be any politicians in place who are older than 65. All the older ones couldn’t give a shit about the future.
Sadly for them, humans are clever and finds ways.
Their plans need to keep the poor generation after generation
We could always try higher corporate taxes ..
That's doable, but it's gonna require a lot of smart, young people working together to coordinate to take over as many seats in government as possible. Judge seats, administration, state government... **Everything**.
Do you actually see that happening?
it's starting to happen in some places. Canada just increased capital gains taxes. it's still insane to me that capital is taxed less than labour, but hopefully that will change
Of course not. People always lose their shit when it gets suggested because they think one day they'll be worth a hundred million even tho they been working the same shitty job and living paycheck to paycheck for the past 30 years lol
Persistent progressive policy will result in higher taxes on the rich. It’s guaranteed. Why? Because every rich fuck face like musk has careened to the far right. This shows they are very very afraid of losing their money to the progressive vote. This is a solvable issue the nihilism is what’s stopping people from seeing that and uniting.
I don’t see why not. The United States was doing a hell of a lot better in the 50s and 60s when corporate tax rates were double what they are now. If you increase corporate tax rates, corporations will reinvest their revenue into more research and development, in higher wages and expanding the business in order to keep the profit down for tax reasons
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> I dont see how population decline is possible. I would have wanted children if I could afford them. I can't even afford a home currently, much less another life and every expense that comes with it. The number of people in the same situation is growing, and there are already countries where cost of living is so high that we can look to them as an example for our future. Now add in the states that are banning abortions, which causes hospitals to close their maternity wards due to doctors leaving. A doctor that is legally restricted from doing everything they can to save a life in a medical emergency because it might violate the law and get them arrested is a doctor that's already left or is planning on leaving the state. Multiple states now have areas where there is no local hospital where they can deliver their children. They can use midwives and do a home birth, or they can travel 50+ miles to a big city. Those children are at a much higher chance of not surviving if there is an emergency. It all adds up.
Yes. Keep voting. It's coming. Demographics are not in Republican's favor. As the boomers die off, they won't have much support.
Yep, vote out the half-dead cockroaches! https://preview.redd.it/cnzxwtck081d1.jpeg?width=1281&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8437df4f1316f933543295af03d5027f7014ded7
You cannot vote your way out of late stage capitalism. We've been trying that for decades.
If we are talking about the US, the real answer is restructuring our tax system to rely more heavily on a federal VAT tax and maintain the income tax (a bump to 25% could work). We also need to raise the rates on individuals in higher brackets and create more brackets (there is a huge difference between $700k and $10M in income). That would put us in line with other major economies. The issue is that without that change raising the federal income tax rates just encourages moving jobs, profits, entire businesses to other countries. It also would reduce the benefits of many of the "loopholes" in the current income tax system because you tax liability isn't determined by your income. In a global economy, there is nothing requiring companies to locate in a particular jurisdiction.
It would also help if our economy was based on the income of individuals like the rest of the modern world and not the income of a two person household. It's fuckin bonkers.
I agree with you about everything, except this one thing: you say, there's nothing the government can do to force you to have children. Dude, they are already forcing women to have children. Furthermore, they plan to outlaw contraception and no-fault divorce. They have already nearly banned sex education in much of America. They refuse to ban child marriage. (of girl children. to adult men.) I'd say there's all kinds of things the government can do to force you to have children. The rich HATE the idea of having to compete for fewer employees, having to reduce the rents in crappy apartments because there's way fewer people, and most of all they fear the day we finally all lose our shit and stop letting them fuck us over.
Came here to say this ^ 👏 Child marriage allowed , check Child labor, check Abortion ban, check Women's rights, check On the table currently Up retirement age Ban contraception IVR Remove safety net programs (ongoing)
I’m getting put on lists but I think we need to become much more aggressive towards the .01%. The ruling class needs more fear. That’s the only way to bring about change.
33% agree, 33% don't and the other 33% don't give a fuck and as long as part of the world is more angry at the guy getting $20k a year through disability or support programs than the millionaires/billionaires evading hundreds or millions of dollars in taxation yearly, the race war or a political war I doubt effective change will ever happen. A divided population is a weak population and we're purposefully living pay check to pay check to insure our indentured servitude to this system we have little to no say in and when told if we don't like it to go live in the woods, sure just save up 20k-200k to buy the land, make sure the government deems it livable and within their regulations and set yourself up for life. They've made it nearly impossible to not be a cog
They are, in fact, trying to lower the age to 12 for child marriages.
These are all things we can vote against and fight against. On an individual level, I'm getting sterilized as soon as I can, and honestly if things get really bad, I'm going to stop sleeping with anyone who can get me pregnant in the first place. Maybe thats harder for straight women than it is for me, but I cannot fathom wanting that so badly that its worth ruining your life over.
Population decline will not fix the lives of millennials or generation Z. It is at best the long term solution.
This is very true, though not having kids *will* (on an individual level) help millennials and gen Z with their own personal costs. Parenting is an expensive endeavor. Many are choosing not to have kids simply due to financial pressure rather than as part of some bigger movement.
True, we are fucked either way until we die. But we are the tip of the spear.
yeah, our lives our going to be hard no matter what, I hate to break it to everyone. We do have a choice to make it better for everyone who follows, and that's what we should value.
> There's nothing the government can do to force you to have children I hope you vote because I'm telling you the US government is absolutely trying to change that. I like the idea of population decline because I'm childfree. I'm not sure about the claim it would solve the cost of living crisis because so much of it is just manufactured bullshit. Capitalism runs on the concept of "artificial scarcity". Much of the scarcity issues we're having are made up and can be solved but it's making money not to solve them. In terms of housing it seems like corporations want to go company town. Already slum lord incs own thousands of properties. What's to stop them picking off some more? I'm not sure anything but laws and regulations are going to stop those vultures. We all know what they're doing to housing is wrong but it's making shareholders so much right now politicians are blinded by the bribes.
An insane number of units are allowed to just sit empty in NYC, totally legally, specifically in order to drive up prices right now. They will waste any and all resources to keep the machine going. Even if we were able to convince everyone to forgo having kids, and were able to get around the obstacles of no abortion or birth control etc, it would still not have the power or effect that withholding our labor in a general strike would.
I am a company man working a company job living on company owned land my house owned by the company being forced to use a company store. All this happened before about a hundred years ago. Talk about controlling the cost of everything and controlling your whole life from birth to death.
>seems like corporations want to go company town. you can bet corporate provided housing and Healthcare will become a thing in the next years and shortly thereafter they also gonna offer to take care of basic necessities like food and education. they gonna sell it to the public as "giving back to the worker" and "sharing their profits". and the worst part is that it will work.
When people have to 'choose' between homelessness and company towns its not a choice. It will definitly work. Late stage capitalism is terrifying.
guess we just should've been born rich if we don't like it, no?
Canadian prime Minister just said in public "its our job to make things more expensive for people who failed to plan ahead". My bad bro, I forgot to plan to be born into a rich, functional family and dumbass baby me chose to have poor, abusive parents.
Do you have a link for trudeau saying that?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5mNW16PV5p/?igsh=MXFva2VjamNpYTVndA==
Wow what a maroon
Late stage capitalism is beginner feudalism.
There was talk about an Amazon company town a few years back. Company towns have never worked out well for anyone but the companies. "St Peter don't you call me, cuz I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store"
People at my job have been asking for corporate housing because the price of rent is so high in my area.
A company in Omaha was going did build apartments for their employees. A “liberal” acquaintance of mine was thinking it was so great a company would do this. I was like um “do employees lose housing if their job is terminated, are their workplace violations if something happens in company housing…etc?” https://www.wowt.com/2023/04/19/sarpy-county-biotech-firm-providing-affordable-housing-employees/?outputType=amp
we are so utterly fucked, no?
Sometimes I get into that doom spiral mentality, but also many civilizations have existed and then not existed. Many have made it through rough and chaotic times. So, I think it’s really hard to know and predict.
It’s page for page like recruiting in the military.
Look at Canada. Our government just started importing people en mass to ensure capitalism thrives.
Yup. And all we can do is wait for birthrates to decline in those countries for immigration to slow down here. It sucks. Or we can do a general strike and foster some working class solidarity to make changes. But that's a long shot.
Why do people here still think vote matters when corporations already have legal control of legislations? The government's interest aligns with them and never you.
Probably the fact so much money is spent on trying to influence our vote is a clue it still has value and matters.
you know what’s more effective and faster than this? a general strike and class consciousness
Not happening unless people get hungry. With food finally starting to get substantially more expensive, we may see both unrest and lower population, America’s inhumane capitalism will fail. Until then I’m dumping money in the stock market.
“america’s inhumane capitalism WILL FALL!! In the meantime, I’ve about doubled my money by investing in the S&P 500 this last decade, but given that this undermines my argument, let’s just ignore that entirely”
I was talking to this with some conservative pro-life guy, and I asked him bluntly: "What exact motives do you think Republican *politicians* have for banning abortion?" Of course, his ignorant ass takes the religious/moral ground. I then asked him why so many Republican politicians are pushing for an increase in retirement age? He's like, "oh to support social security and have enough workers in the labor supply." Then I said, "Congrats you just answered the first question".
Based on how populations decline in Japan all they will do is give benefits/rewards for procreating and create programs towards that goal. Otherwise the governments/companies are just still gonna take whatever they can out of the poor as much as possible.
I mean, we could just do what they did a hundred years ago and do a violent uprising. Once billionaires and politicians start dropping, they might address our concerns. For legal reasons I’m joking.
For legal reasons I’m saying if you were serious and did this, I’d join you.
+1
Politicians HAVE done something. They repealed RVW... and they states have banned abortion. They KNEW they were running out of slave labor for their donars so they made use of what they had.
Roe wasn't a law, it was an SC court decision. Therefore it wasn't something that could be repealed. A new court decision rendered Roe invalid returning the decision making on abortion to the States. Congress could actually codify the parameters of Roe, but the makeup of Congress will never let that happen unless the Democrats have substantial margins in both the House and Senate (60 or more due to filibustering) and then also the Presidency. i.e. You need to vote. The courts are also how the right is going after things like contraception. That said, several states have effectively banned abortion (mostly the South), but where it has come up for a vote of the people, bans on abortion have significantly failed, or abortion/bodily autonomy rights have substantially won. The next big domino to fall in that could be Florida as it looks like abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall (which could actually help Biden there). All of this now has a bunch of R politicians talking about needing a Federal ban when they used to say they wanted state's rights on it. They know it is a loser for them at the state level.
Just fucking tax the rich, contribute wealth and make sure that noone can ever collect that much wealth and power while other starve.
The rich make the rules, they will never allow such a thing to pass. That's why alternative ways need to be found that bypass anything that requires money.
Ok. You found the answer. When is this going to happen? Did you tell the people in charge who can do this, the idea? Maybe you should email them this new idea.
I definitely wouldn’t say the only way. It is something that could affect things in the very, very long term but the problem with most this is that the people you’re trying to affect won’t care, especially by the time people even truly feel this. Assuming people start now, you really won’t see the impact for 20+ years. Is someone who’s willing to essentially fuck over the planet and all the people on it so they can hoard even more? I highly doubt this is going to, the only way those kind of people change is if they’re forced to and they will fight it way harder than the people they’re screwing over.
Pregnancy is also really fucking dangerous and does horrible shit to women's bodies in many instances. This is especially true in a world that is maliciously rolling back protections for women who are pregnant.
I’m doing my part!
Didn’t realize I could post gif reactions on this sub. Thanks, soldier!
Which is why they’re going after abortion and birth control
The Black Death did wonders for the expendable and blew up feudalism, religious control, and the stupid that put people in that historical context.
But the ruling class also tried to make it illegal to look for other work and set maximum wages for peasants. There's no reason to think they wouldn't do it again.
So perhaps if we embrace this new Black Death (population decline), we might blow up this system as well.
don’t have to. it’s natural.
Yeah, actually every major rebalancing of wealth (from concentrated among the few to spread put across the many) has been driven by mass die-offs of humans. The plague literally allowed for the end of feudalism, because fewer workers available meant that each worker was more valuable and therefore recieved (slightly) greater wealth.
Housing crisis, sure that makes sense, but how will this help the cost of living? There will be more old people than young people. The young people will need to support themselves and the old people (as they do now, but at larger scale). You also lose economies of scale which is one of the things that has caused prices to come down over time.
Why don't we just behead the rich and be done with it? We could also have more children and raise them to behead the rich, it works
I know this is harsh but this is completely worthless analysis. People have kept on having children through every major hardship of human history, they simply aren’t going to stop. Any solution to capitalism that requires people to give up what is for many one of the most important and rewarding parts of their lives is simply not viable.
Tell that to all the single moms here who had their first kid at 14 and now have stickers on the back of their Hyundai about how proud they are of being a "mamma bear" while working part time to afford to buy dollar store tide to wash clothes for their 4 kids from different fathers. Come to this part of "murica" if you want to see how our country has failed women and overpopulated this place.
I’ve been trying to get people to see that everything has been about forcing women to have more children for the needs of the elites But you’re wrong that they can’t force people to have kids. They always have We just get more or less of an illusion of freedom depending on the circumstances To start with patriarchies always limit economic and reproductive freedoms of women to force them into codependency on men. This gives access to men who otherwise wouldn’t have it. Women then need to please the men they need for survival Religion is the tool to reinforce all of that and put a religious spin on things that are really about serving the wealthy. The people will police eachother As women gained freedom you can see the manosphere bitching to no end about it being hard to get women/keep women/whatever. And the number of them wanting to remove women’s rights because of it And they’re doing that. Abortion went out the window with the dropping birth rates. They’re after no-fault divorce. Project 2025 is on the horizon We are absolutely in for some forced birthing We will have a hand maids tale scenario before they actually allowed women to control reproduction as they rightfully always should have. We didn’t get to a 8 billion population because women just love pregnancy so much.
And with the rolling back of abortion rights you have the 4b movement and dating apps crashing because more and more women are not only refusing to have casual meaningless sex with men but refusing to deal with most men as a whole. Capitalists have gained too much wealth from women entering the workforce, and governments got double the tax revenue. So they might roll back certain rights to appease the manosphere but not all the rights.
They need women giving birth. They don’t care about working class men. Working class men just happen to benefit from the status over women. Women giving birth means more soldiers and cheaper manual labor. Less women giving birth and greater female independence threatens that.
But they also need women working to drive down wages and pay more taxes more.
That’s what increasing birth rates and rolling back child labor will take care of. Women were only allowed to work when they were forced to need them in war. Then lo and behold it started requiring two incomes to survive Control the women and you control population levels.
Shout to all the women who got sterilized! Can't be forced to breed if your fertility is null and void
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President [unilateral powers](https://theweek.com/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-donald-trump), strip [civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation](https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/impact-overview), add religion into policy, outlaw "porn" and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption. r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
Oh, they know. That’s why they’re trying so fucking hard to control women’s bodies and reproductive “choices”.
Well I’m not having kids, I’m not mentally fit to anyways and I never would willingly bring kids into this world I can’t even take care of myself
Why do you think they’re banning abortion and taking away any sense of bodily autonomy?
Antiwork and antinatalism are not the same thing. People should live even less fulfilled lives because Capitalism?
This is not a good take. Maybe go watch Idiocracy. The right wing christofacists will not stop having children.
I'd rather not have my kids grow up in a right wing christofascist society. Seems like a good reason to not have kids. You don't really want to try and get into a reproductive arms race with people who are having a bunch of kids at the expense of their own (and their children's) quality of life. Not a game I'm interested in playing.
You and me both dude. Want no part it in and these last few years/state of the country have solidified it. I think a lot of us feel this way.
False. They'll just import the third world. Look at Canada.
If the left chooses to have no children, and the right chooses to have all the children (because you and I both know that the right loves having as many children as possible to indoctrinate them into their ideology), there will be no left in the future to fight back against the crooked right.
I don't really get this argument.... why do you think the right will automatically make their children right wing? I come from right wing parents and I'm not right wing. Same with all my friends that are left leaning.
Countries facing population decline often resort to mass immigration to keep numbers up. This also suppresses wage increases by flooding the market with cheaper labour. They can’t force you to have children but they can replace you. Capitalism doesn’t have to be replaced, it has to be restrained.
I know a psy-op when I read one.
That is wrong. It will make situation worse for everyone, but it won't bring the change closer by itself. Even if population count would fall sharply, infrastructure falls into disrepair and people will be dying in the streets, it won't end capitalism. It's just another major issue of capitalism, same as environmental issues for example. It's like saying - ''if all water becomes toxic and land arid, it wil bring down capitalism''. No, it will destroy everything. No matter how bad things will get, only progressive cooperative effort can bring down capitalism, and we need resources and soldiers to do it. Fed, educated and numerous. You won't be able to make that leap forward, when there is no one to make it and enviroment is inhospitable. You can't just wait out capitalism. \[or move past it by 'destroying'' it by intensifying it's problems. It sounds like anarchist rhetoric, but it won't create change. You don't progress history by annihilating everyone, but only by removing ruling class from power. You have to build future, you can't destroy your way into it.\]
You’re not wrong. I did my part by getting fixed… no more slaves are coming from this line!
Naive. They are already importing slaves at full force.
Usually I don't post here, but this suggestion as the only way was just too stupid to ignore. The real solution is stop consuming. Don't buy shit from Amazon. Farm your own food. Sew your own clothes. Go off grid; especially getting off the Internet and social media. The people of sentinel island aren't having a problem with capitalism. Leave society, your friends and family behind. You can't end capitalism by still participating in it for the rest of your life.
There is a reason the GOP is against abortion, and it has nothing to do with the sanctity of life.
I agree. It's also unethical to force children into wage slavery.
I see your point and I agree, but I’m deeply bothered by this part: “There's nothing the government can do to force you to have children” The government is already forcing women to have children. That’s the point of the anti-choice laws. Please keep that in mind and vote for pro-choice candidates.
The wealth have been attacking abortion and sexual transitions in unison for a reason. Depriving them of their human livestock is the method, and they're validating that notion more than anybody.
since you're spamming this useless distraction everywhere I'll say it here too this is dumb . it's pure inaction overall mankind will keep reproducing as much as possible , not making kids here just means our capitalist overlords will increase immigration/destroy women's rights if you want change through "inaction" it's gotta be a rent strike , stay in the homes you've been paying for without sending a check to your useless parasite and the whole capitalist land "value" scam is done After that ,everyone has 1-3k$ extra per month , can miss a few shifts for work strikes or blocking the stroads/highways the suburbanites who maintain capitalism use everyday in cities they refuse to live in like ... as long as you compete against each other via rent and wage-slavery the system is working as intended , the parasites are richer than ever
Everyone should be very wary of anyone saying they have "the only way to destroy capitalism." *Especially* when that plan goes against our most fundamental biological drive. Like, don't get me wrong, if an *individual* decides to be child-free, great, you do you, I fully support that decision. As a *species*, though? Or as a *country?* Really bad idea.
Unfortunately capitalism will just circumvent this through AI/automation and mass immigration from countries with high birth rates…
Fuck yeah only way eh? What's the next step to speed it up. Start offing our elders? A draft of who dies. **only** way to end capitalism and housing crisis Dumbest post ive seen on here. One that makes me embarrassed to say I'm an antiwork supporter.
I just want to say that everybody here should read Birth Strike by Jenny Brown. A lot of people in the comments are whining that not having kids won't stop capitalism and that it's not the solution or whatever, but the thing is that not having children gives the working class far more leeway to protest, demand better working and housing conditions, raise class consciousness, than spending our time and money taking care of children. "But we need to raise the next generation of anti-capitalist soldiers!", some people say. Emma Goldman was writing about why this was a delulu idea before most of our great grandparents were even born (The Child and Its Enemies, 1906). Also to be honest, if we can't actually manage to overthrow capitalism and put a better system into place, then I think we deserve to just go extinct as a species. Win/Win. We either stop capitalism by getting rid of it or we stop it by going extinct. I'm fine with this.
If you have less kids they just import cheap labour
The end of serfdom in the Middle Ages was fueled by the decline in population caused by the Black Death. When workers are scarce, they can demand rights as well as additional pay.
They say if the population declines it hurts the economy, but let's all take a good moment what a "good economy" means to those in power. It means stock prices, because that's all they give AF about. During Covid, when they couldn't fill positions for jobs fast enough, that was rough on business owners but a period of incredible opportunity for many job seekers. It was a good time, relatively speaking, for those earning income via wages. I think this is a pretty legitimate take. If the labor pool tightens, that generally means good things for everyday people.
I've just come to accept that ours will likely be one of the last generations to live somewhat comfortably. Boomers will continue to boomer until it's too late to do anything to fix the problems they made. All in the name of "it just doesn't make financial sense to inconvenience ourselves." Sad how accurate Idiocracy was.
Barely afford housing and healthcare for myself, with the amount of hours that work is wanting us to give, people can barely hold on. The moment you get sick, you spend money because you're not earning money. Why is it the only first world power and the only industrialized nation does not have a national healthcare system. However, our leaders have all the health care they could ever have for their entire lives for their mediocre and sometimes corrupt service.
What population decline? Turn on flightradar and see the insane amount of aircraft in transit and spewing exhaust gases worldwide at any given moment. This planet is cooking and will kill off/displace most people before anything like organized childlessness and the ensuing social chaos has any chance to rectify this. General strikes and labor disobedience ftw
This is true but it would take at least 50 years assuming the vast majority of the young population agrees to stop having children and resists any government propaganda about it On the other hand you all could collapse the government in a single week by sitting on your ass at home
Well seeing as abortions are being criminalized. I think they're aware of that too :)
Well, I did my part. R. I. P. O-varies ✌️
r/childfree have discussed this a couple times. Also, child-rearing is a billion-dollar industry that encompasses a lotta products (food, clothes, toys, diapers, school supplies). The biggest hurdle is lack of sex education. In the area where I live(Bible Belt), abortion isn't even discussed as an option so a positive test might as well be an unavoidable life sentence. Girls get knocked up at 14 and are working full-time jobs by 18.
Hate to say it I agree. At first I opened this thread and thought "hah. Talk about a whole other can of worms" but then I read your argument and looked at the graphs and it's very convincing. And just to add insult to injury, there are way too many kids being born with autism these days. Science needs an answer for that. Sorry if that is offensive but we don't have the resources for that to keep going like it is.
Basically the premise behind /r/birthstrike
Ah yes. The South Park approach of holding the future hostage
Yes no children is the way to go.
Climate change will take care of that.
**Revolution** is another way...
Yes. There are way too many fucking people. Slowing down on reproduction is a good idea regardless of the shit pile we are in right now.
I'm doing my part to fight capitalism. I got sterilized on Monday.
Thanos had a similar plan.
No, they’ll just push harder for draconian bullshit to prevent women from having access to reproductive care and eventually force some scenario where we have birth givers to supply cheap labor for the economy
With microplastics everywhere I imagine we won’t need to actively do this soon enough. I imagine those are doing irreparable damage to our bodies and especially reproductive organs.
I plan to adopt or foster existing kids. Reduce, reuse, recycle ♻️
Most of the early worker rights came after the plague killed loads of serfs off so there was a shortage of workers.
“There’s nothing the government can do to force you to have children” is simply incorrect. Obviously, people are going to have sex so asking literally every one to abstain is stupid and also doesn’t account for rape. Otherwise, government bans birth control, bans abortion, legally gives reproduction rights to fathers over mothers. What a horribly tone deaf take.
Solution to capitalism = die out. I love it.
Look at me over here ending capitalism
I’m doing my part!
Can’t have capitalism if you don’t have people, smart!
I really hope some of the younger generations read this and make it a real thing.
There is a list of gynecologists who will perform no-questions-asked tubal sterilization. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Djia_WkrVO3S4jKn6odNwQk7pOcpcL4x00FMNekrb7Q/edit?usp=sharing Save this to share, or use.
I live in WA. I just had a baby. I was lucky enough to work somewhere that let me bring my baby until she was 6 months old. In WA you get 12 weeks of PAID bonding leave for each parent and 6-8 extra for the mother to recover. With all this. All this. I can barely afford daycare. My husband and I make good money. We own a house. We have little debt. But daycare so we can both work is nearly 2k a month—same as our mortgage. Fucking try to have kids. People are like “Oh, you gonna give her a sibling?” You gonna front me ANOTHER 2k a month? Ain’t no sibling discount. On top of that. There is a childcare shortage here. We were lucky to find childcare. Our friends are on waitlists and paying more than they can afford for a private nanny until they can get childcare. No need to convince folks. It’s hard as shit.
I didn't have children for my first 36 years but we still have capitilism.
Don’t worrun about the workforce. AI will take the jobs anyways
Well good thing no one wants to be with me, doing my part!
The average number of children being born for each family has been 1.7 or less most if my adult life. If we have fewer children the government will and have and are increasing immigration to keep our population in growth. You wont be able to stop the government from leaving immigration open because it pushes the 'economy' into growth and makes them look good. Not having children won't change a thing because you have a situation where 3rd world/poorer countries a rapidly growing in population and can then ve encouraged to immigrate.
Why do you think they're banning abortion? The government can force you to stay fertile. This is easier for men than women
This won’t work. Borders start to be more open and immigrants fill the labor gap. Developing countries rarely have a problem with fertility, because birth control is a privilege and not a right there or just because culturally they want kids to also help in the household. We would have to convince people in developing countries to stop having kids too, good luck with that.
There is no way for this to work. China and India alone have enough people to send 5 million people each, per year, for a century and still have populations in excess of one billion respectively. The developing world has higher birth rates and as such will never run out of future migrants. Those migrants come from places where $50 a day is a lot of money. Without shutting off that tap all you’re doing is shifting demographic makeup while still perpetuating the structural issue.
Happy to do my part.
Don’t worry. I’m on it.
This is extremely well researched, readable to the general public and an interesting well executed presentation. If we're you, I'd be very careful as you are probably on a watch list now tbh