Yeah, there is a reason why South Korea continues to break records for the lowest fertility rate in the world, making even Japan's birth rate issues look small in comparison. Their society appears to be deeply, deeply sick in numerous ways. Not a good place to live, unless your calling is to work all your waking hours to make the rich even richer.
If you ever think the solution to a problem is to remove agency and freedom from an entire group of people, you have not found a workable solution, you're just trying to push away blame from those who are ultimately responsible.
I sincerely hope your comment is satire or sarcasm. It doesn't land that way, it just reads as misogynistic, uncaring and divorced from the modern world.
The solution for many issues that pose negative effects on society is, indeed, the removal of personal liberties and choice. That's literally what law is.
The struggle between personal agency and duty is a familiar theme in Asian literature, where duty usually wins. When you’re dealing with a literal extinction event what takes priority?
In Western liberal democracies, individual freedom always wins.
Given that the World is currently over-populated by almost every metric imaginable, and we are facing an extinction event as a result, I think you can hold back on your demand that we enslave women for a few thousand more years, yet.
How long will it take until humanity is extinct based on the global birth rate of [checks notes] 2.51 children per woman[0]? Please show your working.
When you say "developed countries", I assume you mean the G20 with a birth rate of 1.65 births per woman, but that includes the most populous nations on Earth (China and India).
That means what people are actually talking about is "the birth rate is fine, but it's rich people who will soon be outnumbered". That's not a human extinction event - that's a call to action on equality and inclusion, and to ensure wealth is more evenly distributed.
A lot of people who make these extraordinary claims of extinction risk are themselves very rich (Musk) or people who adulate them (people on Twitter). By insisting birth rate in the G20 is the issue that needs addressing, rather than wealth inequality, they make their motivation pretty plain to see.
But none of this prices in climate change as a risk. Is a human extinction event (or tipping point event) going to happen sooner or later than an extinction event caused by climate change?
As the population decreases and human consumption of resources decreases, will climate change accelerate or decelerate?
Why is birth rate a problem for people of this generation to address urgently, as a higher priority than climate change?
If it is a priority that requires direct intervention, why should that action be - as per the person I was replying to originally - require women to have less choice and autonomy? What method will this take? What other choices are there?
Frankly, I don't know why I'm putting this much effort into arguing with a flawed "philosophy" straight out of the Andrew Tate handbook, that doesn't get backed up by numbers.
If you're scared of poor people having more children, do something about poverty, not telling women they should have a moral obligation to stay at home and bring up your children.
It is not so hard for me to imagine a world where women have equal freedoms to men and are not actively discouraged from having children. We have structured society in such a way that it is often the more rational financial, logistical, etc choice to be child free.
Do you think we can fix those problems without stripping women of freedoms? I do.
Maybe eventually but I think South Korea is already at or very close to the point of no return from total population collapse. Given that we’ve never seen an example of what you’re referring to we probably won’t get there in time.
They are higher than South Korea. One big factor remains which are very high property prices and rents. People have a choice and want their kids to have space. If they cannot afford it then often they choose not to have kids (or have 1 less).
> However women would have to give up a lot of their hard won rights.
That's nonsense. Across the developed world, economic pressure on young people is reducing the options available to them. Many more couples would have more children if the economic barriers were removed, including the impact on career and cost of childcare.
Of course, developed nations will (hopefully) never return to the 5+ children per woman which sustained and grew the world population for millennia.
"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
Instead of fixing our societal problems - all of which have to do with the distribution of resources, healthcare, etc - you're actually advocating for enslaving (sorry, "disempowering") women?
4. We simply let things run their course and consider the current situation a new type of filter event, where those unable to deal with the new high-dopamine environment are unable to procreate. Some people will make it, society will change and a new kind of people will emerge. The black plague reduced the population by up to 90% and the current population collapse will not be half as bad.
This is deeply dismissive. A better response would have been to provide a fourth option with what you think is a potential viable option.
I can come up with one for you something along the lines of the government, providing sizable upfront pavements or stipends to families that have kids so having kids is an immediate financial gain. I don’t think most economies can sustain that though.
This is not just dismissive - it is profoundly so, and for good reason. The author deserves to be dismissed, having constructed a false trichotomy in which every option is merely a thinly veiled excuse for their sexist and misogynistic worldview.
They have not reached their position through reason, so reason cannot be used to dislodge them from it. Entertaining their chauvinism as if it merits rational debate only legitimises their position by pretending it is worthy of serious consideration. It is not. It should be called what it is: shameful.
Frankly, I am shocked that someone would publish such views under their real name. It suggests they may not fully grasp the gravity of what they have said. Are they aware that such comments render them unemployable in much of the developed world? That they risk being rightly shunned by the vast majority of people?
Thank you for politely explaining what I am too filled with incoherent rage to do myself.
The sexism of HN is astounding sometimes, here we have men politely debating whether women deserve rights. Everytime women are brought up on HN I am only disappointed further.
If GP had said that men deserved to be enslaved no one would think this was something deserving of a thought-out rebuttal, they would be told to leave. But it's fine when women are in the firing line!
There is no logic in Nathan’s argument - only a facade of logic designed to justify his misogyny.
He constructs a false trichotomy where every “choice” serves only to strip women of their rights or autonomy. That’s not reason - that’s prejudice dressed up in pseudo-rational language.
You cannot reason someone out of a position they didn’t arrive at through reason. Nathan’s view is not a logical conclusion - it’s a pre-existing bias looking for any excuse to present itself as inevitable.
And if you genuinely don’t see the problem with that - if you believe that calling out misogyny is somehow “emotional manipulation” - then you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. Because whether you realise it or not, you are aligning yourself with a worldview that is profoundly dangerous to women.
I don’t argue about whether women’s human rights are negotiable. They are not. They are sacrosanct.
I don’t debate bigots. I shame them.
> “We are in an unpleasant situation. It’s probably going to require an unpleasant solution.”
Well, as you’ve decided that basic human rights are now “optional,” let me propose a solution:
Since misogynists like you and Nathan are clearly a threat to women’s safety and comfort — and since women’s safety is essential for building the kind of secure, family-oriented society you claim to care about — why don’t we abolish your right to life instead? Start a misogynist elimination programme.
It would immediately reduce the threats women face, which are far more immediate and real than the hypothetical societal collapse you keep waving around.
Or does the idea of sacrificing your own rights to “fix” society not sit as comfortably with you as sacrificing those of women?
Hey I commented on a different reply of yours before realising you're the only commenter pushing back on this rubbish, so I just want to say that I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Leaving ideas like this unchallenged just legitimises it.
> We are in an unpleasant situation. It's probably going to require an unpleasant solution. You seem to be in denial of this reality.
It is an incredible coincidence that every time I hear this, the unpleasant situation happens to be fixable by just tearing away a few more individual rights, which will surely be back once the unpleasant situation is gone and not replaced by five more unpleasant situations
You’re barking up the wrong tree. If South Korea doesn’t turn things around, it’s logical that they get reabsorbed back into North Korea and then women have to deal with that. Choosing to ignore that reality isn’t going to make it go away.
So your solution - apparently the only one you can imagine - is to remove bodily autonomy from women. That’s not logic. That’s authoritarianism, selectively applied to justify your own biases.
As a thought experiment:
If the economic and social burdens are what are preventing South Korean women from choosing to have children, why don’t we instead remove autonomy from men?
We could provide women with universal, generous incomes, give them priority over men in all areas of life, and place them in charge of all family and household decisions. Men could be assigned the responsibility for all undesirable work, both inside and outside the home, to maximise women’s freedom and security when choosing whether to have children.
If that course of action seems absurd to you - but Nathan’s proposal to strip women of their rights seems “logical” - then your concern isn’t really about saving South Korea, or humanity, or civilisation. It’s just sexism and misogyny, pretending to be pragmatism.
What? No. I’m telling you that attacking that other poster isn’t going to change the reality of the situation. If you take no successful action, then his solution will come to pass anyway.
