That’d be very sad… 
Then why do you think Israel has a positive birth rate for example (even among secular Israelis)?
No one would say that polluting the environment is entirely one’s own business, so the state can’t tax petrol… sure personal freedom is one factor in this, but a society and a state needs more long term thinking than that imho.
Sorry, but I don’t give a shiny shite about Israel. I don’t know why you keep bringing it up, to be honest. Different culture, different values. They might like to have shedloads of kids but they aren’t Swiss. It thought your aim wasn’t to bring other cultures to Switzerland anyway?
The state is there to serve the existing people, not dictate to them that they should be making more people. As I’ve said before, I’m glad that the state here isn’t in everyone’s face all the time and is light touch so I’m not afraid that they’ll go down your dystopian route of dictating how many kids people need to have. You still seem to be pushing for more state control micro-managing people’s lives. No thanks.
This is just not an argument grounded in Realpolitik imho - we do in fact make people a lot of very strict rules to smoothen the functioning of our society - heck you even need to die for your country on command if you’re a man.
Yes, they are just an example of a 1st world nation that has a positive birth rate.
You are very short sighted imho. With a declining population (meaning culturally Swiss population) we’ll have trouble to enforce the monopoly of force from the state. It’s just a matter of time then until someone else’s state with not so liberal values takes over, may take 400y or so, but it’s gonna happen eventually with no interference regarding birth rates.
Instead of dictating people to have kids, we can incentivize it. We also don’t dictate people have to work, but we damn sure make it a pain in the ass if they don’t - you somehow have 0 problems with that, yet when it comes to contributing to the survival of culture and society, it’s red tape. I just don’t agree and think we should just talk about it and do something now, which is much less radical than what we’ll need to do 100y from now.
Interesting twists and turns in this discussion. Long reply coming. 
To me, there is no single “fix” that any particular country can implement in order to quickly raise its birth rate. There are measures that countries can take to make life “easier” for parents, such as improved leave or child subsidies or whatever. But in the end, people are complex and the reasons for not having children or only for having one rarely boil down to one thing.
I’m not a parent but I know that it is hard. Not every person is cut out to be a parent. It’s a big deal to bring a new human into the world and raise that person into a productive member of society that is kind and loving and has all the values you’d want for your offspring. Even the worst murderer or dictator had parents who probably didn’t intend for their offspring to turn out that way.
Many people also believe there is more to life than revolving around child-rearing. As the last 50-odd years have shown, women can and do enjoy working outside the home and having a career. Before that, it wasn’t really an option due to how society was structured. One can argue we should go back to the old days where women only exist to pop out kids and cook dinner for the husband, but it will be a losing argument.
I can’t recall whether it was here or elsewhere, but some months ago I saw an interview with a psychologist about the relationships that parents have with each child and how two siblings can have such different outcomes in life. His argument is that while you might think you’re raising your children exactly the same, you are not. The person you were when you had the first child is changed by that first child - so you’re not exactly the same person you were when your second (or third, etc.) child comes along. Point being that government incentives can’t overcome one’s personal experience of being a parent.
400 years ago, Switzerland was a rag-tag collection of 13 cantons. I don’t think anyone is seriously worried about Swiss policy 400 years henceforth.
Unserious.
Gaza had an even higher birthrate before the recent genocide.
Most likely explanation is that it is something in the water
I think this cartoon contains a lot of truth. When life has become so easy that first world problems are your only problems, then you can get lost in your own comfortable world.
I suspect that if we have some kind of nuclear apocalypse and are running around trying to survive in a mad-max-like world, the fertility rate would actually increase.
We have a mental health crisis, perhaps due young adults now being on their phones all the time. We have more casual sex and less desire for commitment. Suicide being a leading cause of death. We might have made progress in terms of material well-being, but I’m not sure if we made progress in terms of spiritual well-being.
Speak for yourself 
I’m sure it would, but is it really a good strategy to increase the fertility rate?
Which problems are actually going to helped by increasing the fertility rate? There are much better ways that might actually work to address the pension and employment issues.
It is a bit like Brexit. Proposed as a solution, it actually made things worse.
Humans and human society has evolved to a point where survival has moved on from the strategies that worked for organisms crawling ashore on land.
Well we need an increasing number of suckers to pay into the Ponzi schemes known as pension plans. Also there is a need for the same to look after us in our dotage.
Indeed. The present AHV scheme is a Ponzi construct. It is not sustainable but increasing the fertility rate only adds to the problem.
There will be a need for more care givers in old age. The obvious solution is that it will provide employment. The advance of AI suggests this may be a good thing. All those office workers can retrain to wipe bums.
You maybe aren’t that’s a fair position.
I chose Israel, because it’s a comparetively wealthy nation with high birth rate. Gaza/West Bank birth rates aren’t atypical, Israel’s is.
Sure, but as I said above - I’d rather have very minor corrections/incentives to do this, than to get t o a point of no return and then have to really force it down the throats of people.
One could also argue it’s a part of natural selection, but then again - so is talking about this and combatting it within reason.
Yes and also a flurishing mental health industry that makes up new stuff as we go and acts at least somewhat political sometimes.
Bro must be a 10/10 I had 2 gfs and one is my wife now… (and the first could’ve been my wife as well)
A good strategy to deal with 1st world problems is to relate them to actual existencial threats. I get it, everyone was depressed in this generation - me included, but not every minor inconvenience is an existencial crisis and if it is, well maybe it’s a result of a “too easy” life.
Every problem we have on this planet would be more easily solvable with offspring from high IQ culturally and scientifically developed 1st world countries. It’d be a much better deal for humanity if Switzerland had a fertility rate of 6 compared to Somalia. There’s going to be a lot more (excuse the irony lol) “doctors and engineers” to solve all kinds of problems in the 1st group. Call this controversial, but it just is what it is - reality doesn’t care about feelings.
I personally also don’t care about the pensions system / old people past their social value that much, as long as they can survive, which they can due to AHV + EL, but there are many other benefits, like pluralism of ideas, more geopolitical power for a country, etc.
“Every problem we have on this planet would be more easily solvable with offspring from high IQ culturally and scientifically developed 1st world countries.” If you believe this, this explains a lot. History should tell you that this goes in waves. Empire come, empires go. Civilisations rise and then they fall. The problems are usually home-made. Inward looking cultures are generally the most vulnerable.
If you genuinely believe that some communities on this earth are genetically superior to others then you are deluded. The evidence says otherwise. Human strength is is in its diversity.
You know that’s not how you make babies, right? Both literally and figuratively.
Ilhan Omar is from Somalia, had a successful university education and is a member of the US Congress.
There is nobody with a Swiss heritage in the US Congress
Given a choice I would back the Somalis to most benefit a country.
Naa, must be from Mali. I want to see the next Mansa Musa.
All immigration came historically from Africa if you look back long enough. All those race purists must first learn exactly this: without immigration from Africa there would be no Europeans. OK, we did lose some features that the originals still had, like the pigment storage for melanin in our cells which regulates skin color. And that is all!!!
The other side of the conversation is that many countries may need to adapt to a future with slower population growth or possible population decline.
Plus a bit of interbreeding with Neanderthals
At last, a solution for the fertility rate
