Europeans make love but not babies
ec.europa.eu
When demography expert Daniele Vignoli asked young couples for their thoughts about having children, a theme emerged: uncertainty about the future. In an experiment that Vignoli conducted in Italy and Norway in 2019, he showed a total of 800 couples in their 20s and 30s newspaper headlines about the economy. His aim was to explore how negative media coverage might be affecting people’s choices about when, or whether, to have a baby. Vanishing youth

Whereas previous economic shocks such as the oil crisis of 1973 caused a temporary dip in fertility, the 2007-2008 banking meltdown was different because birth rates continued to decline even after the economy started growing again, says to Daniele Vignoli, professor of demography at the University of Florence in Italy. He believes the turbulence a decade and a half ago marks the point at which people’s uncertainty about the future began to take hold.

  • Killing_Spark@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    First of all thanks for the detailed response!

    I guess my main point that I think it’s a pity people do not find a way to be inspired for constructing better future while there are conditions for doing so. I work in science and technology, natural sciences, and I saw progress in my lifetime which to me is amazing and inspiring confidence in what people can do if they want. This also not only potential for transformational technological progress, but also societal change.

    I think you have a pretty rare viewpoint in two regards:

    1. You have that insight into new developments in these fields. Most people aren’t that connected to research and only see what actually reaches the wider market, which is often a version of a cool technology which has been twisted by corporate needs and greed.

    2. I am in computer science and hoenstly the developments seem rather bleak. The two “cool” things funding is being funneld to are AI and to a lesser extent quantum computing. Both have to potential to revolutionize the computer world and by that most of the analog world. But the powers that actually control these are not democratically chosen and have their corporations goals in mind before those of the wider society which is pretty scary.

    Frankly even the fact that people as a specie are successful enough to change the planet as a whole (some species managed this in the past, but not quite so fast) is kind if inspiring in a strange way. It’s like for an young individual getting strong enough to lift a large weight, it’s impressive, but also a cause to think maybe where we want this weight to be where it will not fall and break someone’s leg or worse.

    I agree that that is pretty amazing in a weird way. But I don’t think the analogy is great. We did never want to change the planet as a whole. It just happened because we are bad at estimating and good at ignoring the influence our behaviours have on the world. It’s more like the person lifting and lifting because they want to become stronger and then after some time it breaks their spine.

    Just recently, regulations are emerging which are creating institutions necessary for actually positively free and fair space in the web. EU and Germany in particular are making key contribution to this process.

    At the same time we see the EU make every effort to undermine this fair space in the web by implementing rights for the governments to snoop on each and everyone of the users communications. There are not just positive forces at work in the EU and the negative ones seem to only win in power in the last few years.

    There is no doubt there is a downturn in many concrete aspects of development, as you listed. This makes it harder to plan ahead, and people make worse choices, accelerating the downturn. Even if these people could actually sustain work for the future since they are not so disadvantaged. How to reverse this trend? I think at least it really helps to also remember what positive progress was made more and less recently. Really, literally, learn, teach, and communicate about technologies, history.

    I don’t think that is a solution to the grievances people have with the current situation. I do know that we have a pretty nice past few decades. But I am aware that those are very likely over. The developments and growth of wealtch in the past was possible because capital was distributed in a growing society. We have stopped growing and that vastly slows down economic and social mobility because the inheritances gain more and more influence on your own wealth compared to the work you do in your lifetime. No technology is going to fix that.

    For me this probably falls into the veracity of knowledge industry category. Knowing as much as we can what action makes which effect helps to prevent false sense of security that ritual of sorting garbage on it’s own is enough to reverse antropogenic climate change.

    I’d claim that most people know that actual change would be necessary but they have not yet accepted that they themselves will have to change. And that isn’t changed by teaching I think.

    Germany produced some remarkable technology, and is on forefront of some sustainable developments. And my own experience with Germans shows reasonably optimistic attitude - although my sample is very biased, and I do really know enough.

    Germany has a very good research community and a pretty vivid green movement. But it also has a very big very conservative community that does not want to accept this new reality. It’s hard to get to know them if you are from another country and in the academia bubble, it’s not surprising you don’t see them too often. Remember that about 40% of germany is not living in cities but in rural areas.

    Do you think there is something which could inspire Germans? It’s not like the majority are living in poverty, so they must have goals beyond survival, right?

    That paints a pretty positive picture. Maybe you overestimate the wealth a common household owns. 50% of the people above 17 have less than 20k€ to their name. That is not even cash but just value they posess in form of money and things. [0] What also does not help is that families with childs are more likely to be in poverty (about 20%). Additionally in the range of 18-25 about 25% are in danger of poverty. [1] (The definition here is that you are affected if you have less than 60% of the median national income) All while the differences between the rich and the poor keep getting bigger. And remember the economical and social mobility is VERY low in germany. Your starting point is very likely to determin where you will end up in life. What would inspire people would be actual change in the way we distribute the financial burdens. Our taxation system leans heavily on taxing work and taxing wealth very little.

    Or maybe more than just a bit angry, quite unhappy and angry about the way things are going, and angry for being ignored by the mainstream, and finding return to “good old days” to be the answer, since “obviously” the problem is all the new progressive stuff. So my guess is that this reactionary position is a response to lack of future vision.

    I don’t think it’s a lack of future vision. The current government had a pretty clear vision of where they wanted to go when they started. They do fail to deliver on some of it which angers their voters and they manage to suceed in some other parts which angers their not-voters even more. And those that are inclined to vote AfD dont do so because they are angry, they are angry because they support the backwards and nationalist thinking the AfD supports which clashes with the direction the other part of the society is moving in.

    But maybe some people just inherently fascist, but I do not find most people to be like that.

    I think that is a social bubble thing. I also know very few people that vote AfD. That does not diminish the fact that there are 20% of people who say they would vote for them. Just because I don’t see them does not mean they aren’t there and it especially does not mean that they are not dangerous.

    Maybe creating new inclusive narrative for future could help here too. I’d say it’s good to talk to them, but it may border on compromising with fascists which is hard to accept. But if I may suggest, as external observer, very cautiously, I think German can not continue ignoring the`right wing problem, and it can not just arrest them all too, so something resembling dialog might be needed, not speaking to their solution, but to the root of their concern which might be elsewhere. Not sure, dangerous road.

    Definitely, we cannot ignore them. It’s impossible anyways and it would be dangerous to do so. I don’t think an inclusive strategy is the right way. It’s the way they want us to move, to see them as something normal that we should just accept. There are interesting times ahead one way or another.

    (Sorry the links are german but the numbers should be relatively self explanatory provided the context)