Thread

September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy

522 points · 391 comments · marjancek

roenxi · 1790756315 · focus · HN ↗
> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.
Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.
1. Maxion · 1790756968 · focus · HN ↗
  > Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
  Depending on what you're running for China is in some senses kinda what the US was back in the day, except there's no land so no easy way for them to accept migrants. These day and age migrants also aren't very accepted anywhere.
  1. realharo · 1790757569 · focus · HN ↗
    China is facing many of the same problems that the rest of the world is, with demographic decline, slowing growth, etc.
    bsoqk · 1790757743 · focus · HN ↗
    Those problems could be solved with a careful migratory policy (ie what America did back in the day because it was economically impossible for the entire third world to fly there; today, this could be enforced with laws)
    somenameforme · 1790759300 · focus · HN ↗
    The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.
    And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.
    jaza · 1790761633 · focus · HN ↗
    "The equal but opposite of the one-child-policy" is easier said than done. A brute-force approach worked for stopping more babies (I don't know if it's true, but what I heard back was that back in the 80s Chinese officials literally killed unauthorised babies moments after they were born - that's probably exaggerated, however they really did carry out forced sterilisations and forced abortions). It wouldn't work so well for creating more babies. You can't force people to have more children. Many countries are offering financial incentives for producing babies right now - cash at birth, free house, free childcare, etc - with limited success. I don't see how China could deliver (hahaha aren't I punny) a significantly different result if it goes down that same road.
    ben_w · 1790764740 · focus · HN ↗
    > You can't force people to have more children.
    There's a difference between "it would be evil to" and "it is impossible to".
    Barring medical issues, it is absolutely possible force this. There's even some jurisdictions where it's not a crime.
    If I read these two maps right, China's the only place, out of those where marital rape is not a crime, that abortion is not also prohibited:
    - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marital_rape_laws_by_country.svg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marital_rape_laws_by_coun...
    - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abortion_Laws.svg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abortion_Laws.svg
    (That said, I don't know how up to date such maps are, and have no way to verify laws; don't suggest machine translation from Chinese to English, it is bad).
    red_admiral · 1790769417 · focus · HN ↗
    > You can't force people to have more children.
    "People" here means women, and womens' rights are a very recent thing in world history. With a sufficiently evil and authoritarian government, it might be possible. It certainly has been tried in the 20th century: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Honour_of_the_German_Mother" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Honour_of_the_German_...
    somenameforme · 1790816666 · focus · HN ↗
    No, people means people. It takes two people to have a child, and the man has the exact same ethical, legal, and financial responsibilities to the child, pretty much everywhere in the world, until the child reaches adulthood. I also don't think conferring some sort of state award or honor on mothers who have multiple children is evil or authoritarian. In general I think it's quite a nice and appropriate idea as having children is ultimately the core civic responsibility of all people. It's literally the only way that a society, and on a larger level - species, can continue to exist.
    So 'motivating' people to have more children is rather the opposite of evil, though obviously some means can be more or less ethical. In the short-run children are an economic burden, but in the long-run you have complete and catastrophic collapse, in all ways - including economic, without a surprisingly large number of children. The government that takes short-term wins in exchange for accepting a long-term collapse of a civilization is failing society in every single way. I still don't know if I'd call that 'evil', but it's certainly far closer to it than one that looks to ensure that there's a next chapter for the civilization that it's supposed to be the leader of.
    somenameforme · 1790775438 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think it'd be especially hard. Ban contraception, economic coercion, mandatory family planning at a certain age and you're probably already there. For the economic coercion part there are endless forms it could take. An obvious one would be a 'national sustainability' tax assessed on the number of children one has (adjusted for minimum age) - 40% for 0, 20% for 1, 0% for 2, - 10% for 3, and so on.
    Another way would be to fine companies and local jurisdictions if their average number of children per employee/resident is below 2.1 or whatever, similar in spirit to Japan's 'metabo laws.' You could also require companies prioritize employment, beyond a minimal standard, based on the number of children per employee, and so on.

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