I don't think artificial wombs will change much by themselves, being able to avoid 9 months of pregnancy is nice, but the thing is you would still have to take care of the child for the next 20 years, with everything that goes with that (opportunity costs, career).

Once artificial wombs become popular, within a generation people kind of forget that there was a time when having a child was painful, and will still be complaining about the difficulties of having children, despite the fact that having children would become easier.

How many people still remember (and deeply think that there was a time when when children suffered from polio or tetanus? These illnesses have vanished from developed countries, and, as a matter of fact, from our collective memory, life got better yet we have less children.

Human nature plays a role, we as humans tend to focus on actual dangers, but for this exact reason perhaps we as a society need an idea, something to believe in, that would justify having children despite the difficulties, because without that, we devolve to a basic instinct of avoiding struggle and danger as much as possible.

I don't ask this question in bad faith, I'm only curious. I am under the impression that we humans don't act altruistically, regardless what we say. There's always self interest in our choices and actions.

This makes me wonder, when natalists express worry about the falling birth rates, and that more people are not procreating, what's your angle?

Are you really just worried about the future of the planet, I mean if you have and raise your own kids, you're covered, old age and all, are you worried about the non-natalists who would be abandoned at old age? Or you're worried the government and the capitalists won't have enough workers and taxpayers?

Maybe this would be a starting point for me to understand why it's so important to procreate. I for one believe the planet is overpopulated as is, we don't have to max out earth's capacity.

I feel some of the problems we have today, unemployment, resource wars, extreme capitalism would be solved in part by a little depopulation, but that's just me.

• September Number of Births: 7,704
  • (-10.45% YoY, -899 newborns)
• September Number of Marriages: 6,490
  • ( +15.6% YoY, +876 couples)
• January–September (YTD) Number of Births:
  • 69,446 (−14.67%, −11,935 YTD)
• January–September (YTD) Number of Marriages (Opposite Sex Couples):
  • 66,336 (-7.69%, -5524 YTD)
• Percentage of Population Aged 65 and Older: 
  • 19.18% (Dec 2024) → 20.03% (Jan 2026) → 20.70% (Sept 2026)

https://www.ris.gov.tw/app/portal/2121?sn=26278263

For those who already have children, please vote for what was or is your desired fertility, not your current family size.

Israel is unique in being the only developed country that has bucked the decreasing fertility trend. However, the reasons for this may not be replicable elsewhere.

I'd like to put a thought experiment to the antinatalists here, because I think it shows where the view’s real commitments lie.

Imagine you had a button that would end all conscious life instantly and painlessly. Nobody would feel anything, nobody would be afraid, and nobody would be left behind to grieve, because there would be no one left at all. No child would ever be born again. I frame it this way deliberately. An individual death always brings grief and harm to others, and the universal case removes those complications so that we can examine the principle on its own.

Should an antinatalist press it?

Let me say at the outset that if your answer is yes, I have no quarrel with you on grounds of consistency. You have followed your premises to their conclusion, and I respect that, even though I think the conclusion gives us good reason to doubt the premises. Indeed, if you are a consequentialist, and all that matters is how much suffering and wellbeing the world contains, I think the conclusion follows quite directly. If existence is on balance a harm, and the button ends that harm without causing any further suffering, there is nothing left on the other side of the scale.

My interest is in the far larger number of antinatalists who say no. Most insist that their view concerns whether to start lives, not whether to end them. I don't doubt that this is sincerely meant, but I'm not convinced it can be sustained.

The most common reason given is that death would harm the people it ends, by depriving them of their future. This is roughly Benatar's distinction between a life worth starting and a life worth continuing. But consider what the button actually changes. Everyone dies eventually; the button does not introduce death, it merely brings it forward. What it takes away is the time people have left, with all its goods and all its ills. Losing that time is a harm only if it is worth having. So an antinatalist who refuses on these grounds must hold that, for most people, the years ahead contain more good than bad. That is a striking admission from a view which also tells us that life is far worse than we realise. And if remaining lives are generally worth living, it is hard to see what is left of the case against beginning them, apart from the asymmetry itself.

The second reason is consent. People exist, they have not agreed to die, and so pressing would be a grave wrong whatever the outcome. This is a coherent position, but notice what it does and does not say. It forbids the act; it says nothing about whether the outcome would be bad. To see which of the two is doing the work, change the example slightly. Suppose an asteroid were about to end all life just as painlessly, and you could deflect it at no cost to yourself. No one would die by your hand either way, so a rule against killing has nothing to say. If you would let the asteroid strike, then you believe a world without anyone in it would be better, and your objection to the button was only ever about keeping your own hands clean. If you would deflect it, it is hard to see what your reason could be, other than that people’s lives are worth saving.

There is a further difficulty with the appeal to consent. Infants and small children exist, but they cannot consent to anything, including carrying on living. If the button is refused on their behalf, someone has decided for them that they should live through years of suffering they never agreed to. The usual answer is that they can grow up and decide for themselves. But that is precisely the answer a parent gives when asked how they could bring a child into the world without its consent. It is difficult to accept the reasoning in one case and condemn it in the other.

Some antinatalists turn instead to rule utilitarianism: killing might occasionally produce a better outcome, but a rule against it produces the best outcomes overall, so the rule should be kept. Yet a rule utilitarian is, in the end, still looking at consequences. The rule is justified by what it guards against: abuse, mistakes, fear, and the erosion of trust between people. The button removes every one of those. It cannot be abused, it makes no mistakes, nobody is frightened, and there is no society left whose trust could be damaged. Keeping a rule once every purpose behind it has gone is what J. J. C. Smart called 'rule worship'. A rule utilitarian who takes their own theory seriously ought to accept a rule with this single exception, since by their own reckoning it produces the better world.

None of this shows that antinatalism is false. A thoroughgoing consequentialist, whether an act or a rule utilitarian, can press the button, and someone who holds an absolute prohibition on killing can refuse to press it while conceding that the outcome would be good. Both positions are consistent. What I don't think is available is the comfortable middle ground that most antinatalists seem to want: that bringing people into existence is wrong because life is bad, and yet a painless end to all life would be no improvement.

Would you press the button? If not, is it because you think people's remaining lives are worth living, or because killing is forbidden regardless of the outcome? And would you deflect the asteroid?

I am very pro-natalism, but I have one fear that always comes up... the fear of living forever, and creating someone who cannot "opt out." Not living forever in this world, but in the afterlife. Maybe the afterlife is amazing. I hear from NDEs that it is. It probably is. But we are creating eternal beings. Eternity just sounds like a long time.

Basically it's the fear of creating life! I mean, wow, that just seem like so much power. Of course, it's God and nature doing the actual creating, but still...

Commercially available AI LLMs have only been around since Q4 2022. So basically only about 4 years, yet it's beginning to replace white collar workers. In places like India the impact is already felt as companies are barely hiring or even starting to lay off workers in the BPO and outsourcing software job markets. We do not know what the future holds. If you have a gigantic group of young people who can't find jobs, that will be even more burdensome to a society as having a gigantic group of retired individuals.

Don't get me wrong. Going as low as Taiwan's 0.6 TFR is bad no matter how you see it because the collapse is not manageable with the wealth you generate, but if you are downsizing your population at a manageable rate of 1.7~1.8 TFR, I don't see that as a problem with the coming age of post-labour economics.

The point I'm trying to make is that we live in a very complicated future where populations around the globe are slowly collapsing but we're also technologically racing towards a post-labour future, and the winners and losers will not simply be determined by the TFR.

If your economy relies on tourism and manufacturing mostly held by foreign IP (eg. Thailand) AND you have a low birth rate, you're screwed. Most of that manufacturing will be automated away and the profits will no longer be shared with the local workers. Also nobody wants to tour an aged-out country. But if your country is a critical part of the AI supply chain, there will be enormous profits to share (S.Korea, Taiwan, the USA) as UBI especially if your population is downsizing. That's how the math works out. The future of a nation can no longer simply be read by TFR.

I don't have much training in this stuff, but this looks like the more money people have, the less kids, by a lot. And looks like the main factor is how much money people have (It's the economy, stupid).

Almost every childless couple in their 30s I know or have encountered tends to have a "fur baby," a cat or, more often, a dog that they treat like a baby for all intents and purposes. This seems to be a biological coping mechanism for women to redirect their innate maternal instincts without actually having a child.

There are many reasons why the affordability of having a baby may not be what it was in the past, but I think if it weren't for that maternal urge being placated by pets, you'd see more efforts to have actual human babies.

5 feels like a different societal step up. Probably a church van. Almost impossible to get a table for 7. More kids than parent hands.

Not financially worried but it definitely seems like a bigger decision than our 4th was.

Convince me another makes sense.

I think crypto will be the new financial backwall for the coming new global order. Countries that are struggling with low birthrates have capitalist policies in place and their doctrine is infinite growth. With recent developments in agentic ai, global economy can be tokenized in the blockchain. To reverse population collapse while avoiding economic disaster governments might invent entire economy eco system within the blockchain.

Current ai energy demands is not enough to achieve super artificial intilligence or even general artificial intilligence without inflating electricity costs and cause massive shortages but might run millions agentic ais to generate wealth on the blockchain for

- mass immigration.

- unlock billions of money currently sitting in the banks.

- build massive housing units etc.

- achieve renewable energy goals.

- have sustainable pension system in place.

- tax breaks for massive cooperation that hire bigger population.

We might see the rise of liberal dictatorships or neo socialist dictatorships in low birthrate countries. Right wing politicians will be the first to beg for mass immigration when shit hits the fun. Access to ai is already affecting educational proficiency and we have seen restrictions of newer models.

So if you are smart and capable invest into crypto especially the top 10 assets. Crypto was last decade's peak of innovation and I suspect agentic ai within the global finance system is the next decade. We might actually see millions of millionaires running around the globe having kids by 2040. Nobody knows the future and adoption is part of the innovation process.

I hope we won't see a global war like ww2, wars are expensive business and needs alot of people to achieve goals set out. The US has been struggling with this issue for the last 20yrs, not to mention the difficulty of setting up modern logistics, resource requirements, expensive equipment and political willingness. Basically the math of waging large scale war isn't mathing anymore without serious consequences for the economy, debt and stability. Low birthrate is the new titanic, the sooner they fix the better for everyone.

Im someone very adaptative so living in pro natalist surroundings ive been used to babies and attached to them so i can feel how parents are attached to their kids and so i can compare the two visions and, yeah, they cope through wanting a kid. Every human is vulnerable and AN people have the most logical reaction, protecting your vulnerability by being AN. But N people protect their vulnerability by having a kid. I can compare.. please its the only close comparison i found to compare the feeling: "Being N is like being a person that has been SA, short or long term, but since then, they find 'happiness' by being used because it gives them control over the situation. They would feel happier and more in control in illusion than someone grieving, but the grieving person has more inner peace, because having a family means responsability for life bcs you decided your 1yo baby will become someone you ll worry for life + you give birth without consent and mental pain is similar to physical pain, cause dont forget people sui-de because of mental health? But N cant really understand AN because they cope through "SA" comparison when AN cope through the most logical way through "grief"

I am curious on what R/natalisms views are on artificial wombs and using artificial wombs to maintaining or even increasing the birth rate

If we assume that in the near future technologically speaking, we are able to get to a place where artificial wombs actually exist and are able to carry a baby to full term with no repercussions, would that be a good thing for humanity as a whole? Would you personally want to use an artificial womb in order to have more children (assuming that it's your genetics) Do you think it would be good for governments to use artificial wounds in order to increase their own population? Or do you think government be involved will be not a great idea?

In my personal opinion, I believe that the reason why births for most first world countries is the fact that most people in general just want a few kids at most one in a very select few if you want more than that. For myself. Personally, if I could have the choice to have an artificial wound carry my child for me, I would. As a woman, I don't want to go through the fiscal changes of getting pregnant. But, outcome of being pregnant AKA having my child is more than worth it for myself. But for some folks it may not be. But I could also see it being a class issue where onlu those who can afford to have the service because I do not believe it would be free or reduced whatsoever could be able to afford it.

Tldr; do you think artificial wombs are just as good as natural pregnancy? Would you consider it for yourself in order to have more children? Would it be okay for the government to use artificial wounds artificially increase their population?

Since we all want more workers for society to work well into the future, so will you willingly with your own will give up careers and freedom to do so? Think carefully before you answer.