The article seems to revolve around defining an archetypal average peasant, which reminded me of [1]. While the article is well-written, I feel like I walk away with very little, given the story's focus on generalities.
[1]: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...
Interesting blog.. Is it not strange to see a post with 126 points and zero comment?
"in nearly all of these societies everyone got married and was expected to get around to having children because the community required them rather than necessarily because they wanted to."
I wonder if this is the uncomfortable truth behind low birth rates in the modern world, and nobody ever really _wanted_ to raise kids so much as they just kinda had to (especially if they wanted to have sex)
The uncomfortable truth is that people are poisoning themselves into extinction. Births succesfully controlled for.
> I wonder if this is the uncomfortable truth behind low birth rates in the modern world
Well, you could ask people in age why they don't get in couple and have children, you could look at studies trying to understand why otherwise comparable countries have different birth rates.
Or you could wonder if the uncomfortable truth hidden from us is a fable about individuals' personal character.
We have socialized the gains of children (via their adult tax receipt used to pay for benefits and healthcare) but (largely) privatized the costs of children solely onto their parents.
In the modern world, if you do not have children, but instead save your income in a retirement fund, you have an even better claim to the labor of the next generation than the childrens' parents through your increased retirement fund.
Privatized X matched with socialized anti-X is the classic condition for a moral hazard to emerge.
Good point - I also think we have a race to the bottom w.r.t housing. When homes were abundant one income could support a household (ish). Then we added more women to the workforce at the same time NIMBYism took hold and peer competition meant you needed two incomes. Then fewer people had kids and you needed two stressed out incomes without the expense (in time and money) of kids to support one. Hell, the “who’s hiring” thread sometimes has companies talking about massive overtime being expected, hard to raise a kid like that.
Perhaps in time we’ll see more polycule formation driven by housing costs…
(These are all on average of course, there are still high earners who manage)
Average amount of living space per person in a new house has nearly doubled in just the last 50 years. Price per square foot is pretty much the same as decades before (adjusted for inflation).
Isn't it the abundance of housing?
>>When homes were abundant one income could support a household
Was it the case, though? Could one income support household with 3000sq ft house, big new truck and college for each kid back then?
I think occasionally a blog post of his gets a lot of comments, so people generally submit his new blog posts to him, but not every one engenders discussion.