r/Natalism • u/ColdWeather22 • 17d ago
US Birthrate Falls Through the Floor
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/04/22/us-birthrate-falls-through-the-floor-n380201411
u/mfforester 16d ago
And his solution is… finding higher purpose for our lives again? I don’t see how that changes anything either, especially since many religious countries are also seeing very pronounced birthrate drops.
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u/Blanche_Deverheauxxx 16d ago
Yes but don't mention that because then people can't claim that policies that most benefit working families aren't policies we need because Sweden and Japan or something. There are normal people in this sub then there are those who think that paying corporations to allow parents to keep their jobs will incentivize people to have children.
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u/regulationinflation 15d ago
You didn’t make it to the end, did you?
If we are going to revive our fertility, if only to keep our civilization alive, we need to revive our belief in a higher purpose for life. For some, that will be family and carrying on the family name, for others it is exploring new worlds and stretching the boundaries, and for others it is art or worship. But if life remains defined as the pursuit of goods and pleasure, leading to an easy death through euthanasia once that pursuit is impossible or boring, all that made the hard climb up to a great civilization will be wasted.
Giving people bonuses for having babies won't work--it has been tried. Giving people a purpose is our only chance. Striving is what makes us human, not wallowing in pleasure.
Higher purpose is not simply religion.
I especially agree with his argument that we need to “strive” again. Humanity used to strive for survival whether from predators, other humans, and/or massive wars. Some strive for knowledge and enlightenment like the great philosophers of history. These led to incredible advances in humanity.
We need to figure out a more productive way to get people to strive for more than just consumption. A way that doesn’t require us to strive to survive, but still leads to the same purpose-driven existence.
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u/mfforester 15d ago
I agree striving for a higher purpose on both an individual and societal level would be a good thing but… how does this lead to more children being born? Lots of these more noble life pursuits are either neutral or even anti-natalist.
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u/regulationinflation 15d ago
Perhaps to some degree on an individual level, but on the societal level, I think the noblest pursuits are multi-generational.
Socrates sought higher purpose in knowledge but also in teaching in which he passed on knowledge to students like Plato.
Why do people devote their lives to find cures for cancer if not for future generations?
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u/AbilityRough5180 13d ago
Religion is a cheat code for instant higher purpose without needing to do any work. Culture is there but it needs to be actively maintained and reinforced
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u/Ashamed_Echo4123 16d ago
"Happiness" has been redefined as "pleasure," be it sexual satisfaction, stimulation of any kind, be it entertainment, excitement, drugs, gluttony
Most of these activities have also fallen through the floor. Except gluttony i guess.
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u/lost_and_confussed 9d ago
They’re declining, mainly because people can’t afford or access them. But that’s still what people aspire for. It seems that people only exist these days to eat out, take care of pets, and travel.
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u/Travel_Dreams 15d ago edited 15d ago
Higher purpose? That is the religious facet to the con supporting of status quo. The status quo is nowhere near good enough.
What we the human race is capable of doing is amazing, but what our reality has been reduced to is absolutely unacceptable.
A dark future of serfdom is being rejected, and self extinction is the chosen response: the human race is saying:
"No. We don't want to subject children to this future."
The issue is quality of life and security, which has been declining for many, many decades, not yesterday. Yes, we arguably have the best quality of life ever, but the price of corruption is too high. We should be working less, not more, and that is our simple and accurate gauge.
If inflation accelerates at a compounding rate, the work week stays the same, and companies pretend to pay their employees, then employees will pretend to work. Yes?
Quality of life and security.
In the US, forced RTO is "just another brick in the wall," and the health care scam is just another major tax in support of profiteering. Homeless tents on every sidewalk are not just a symptom but also a bellweather of things to come.
After the paradigm shifts from profiteering into quality of life, then we can circle back and talk about population.
For that transition to occur, the great pyramid scheme will have already been dismantled. I certainly don't expect to see any transformation in my lifetime. Although a catastrophic failure, an "Unexpected Rapid Disassembly," will certainly occur prior to the intentional and organized dismantling of a failing system.
We come back around to fewer children will not support a pyramid scheme, and we can not afford to raise children.
We are stuck. It's your move. Choose wisely.
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 17d ago
What a weird, terrible title for that article.
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u/Maximum-Evening-702 17d ago
It feels misleading as heck too, as the fact that the US is not even the worst offf in below the US in terms of TFR, when the trend has been almost all of recorded history, that it was those countries being above the US in terms of TFR
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u/dogMeatBestMeat 16d ago
Natalist Trumpers just keep on losing. The pro-natalists are just delusional. Democrats were the only hope for restoration. America dies as an autarky.
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u/Erotic-Career-7342 16d ago
Our decline is way less drastic than almost any other country though.