I agree that affordable housing is crucial, but the idea that this is 'impossible in a democratic society' ignores global realities. Several democracies heavily subsidize housing—look at Vienna's social housing model or Singapore's HDB system. Yet, this has not solved the birthrate problem; Singapore’s fertility rate recently hit a record low of 0.87.
Ironically, the highest birth rates globally occur where economic security is non-existent, a state of living none of us want to return to.
What is truly worrisome about a country like India is that it is facing sub-replacement fertility before fully industrializing. In states with highly unique identities like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the native population has already fallen well below the 2.1 replacement mark. While internal migration from higher-fertility northern states fills the gap, it creates significant political and cultural friction.
In developed countries, the state can at least leverage accumulated wealth to bankroll healthcare and social services required by a rapidly aging population. In a developing nation like India, they risk growing old before they grow rich, leaving an aging population without the robust safety nets or fiscal runway of the West- we might even see the country slide backwards into sub-saharan African levels of poverty
"Effectively impossible" does not mean "impossible."
Yes, Vienna's housing policy is effective... It's also the only place in the world that manages it. I would argue that it is ideal, but nearly impossible to implement. We can't escape the fact that Vienna operates what is effectively a sovereign wealth fund to create all that housing, which works with the subsidiaries of Austria's actual sovereign wealth fund in development. It's a nice system to be born into, it's nearly impossible to bootstrap.
>the highest birth rates globally occur...
Nobody is suggesting returning above replacement rate births. Falling below replacement rate is only a problem long term because it happens slowly, but exponentially. It will cause a displacement crisis that will rival climate change. Lowering world population would probably be a good idea, theoretically, but again, there's a difference between a linear decline and an exponential decline.
>In developed countries, the state can at least leverage accumulated wealth to bankroll healthcare and social services required by a rapidly aging population.
I don't see how this is relevant. One can be both for "abundance" and taxes on wealth.
Not to repeat myself too much here, but Japan also handling housing very well for two reasons: (1) NIMBYism does not exist by law (and practice) and (2) there is almost zero protected homes for historical/architectural reasons. As a result, you can build and build and build in Japan. There are few limitations except a uniform national building code. Tear down and rebuild (bigger) is constant in big cities in Japan.
Exponential decay isn't impossible to manage if the exponent is reasonable (i.e. closer to 1, i.e. if the average number of children per woman was closer to 2.1). It's just going down too fast.
My understanding of Singapore work culture though is it's intense and competitive. Yes the housing is cheaper and more accessible but it's the same age to get there (maybe a bit earlier). You aren't "economically secure" earlier in life than in Western countries. I don't know enough Vienna's system to speak for it.
Everyone is now dopamine maxxing on smartphones and internet. There's no desire to have kids because kids were a pre-internet and pre-modernity phenomena.
Now that we're fully entertained, there's little need for having children. The FYP has enough entertainment to overcome the biological itch.
Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms.
We're microdosing on pleasure and that's desensitized every biological urge to raise children.
Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms.
People have been having children later since about the 1930s. The change has been gradual, so it's only really hitting hard now because they've not had any children during the years when it's relatively easy, and now some can't. That could still be due to technology but not social media exclusively.
Coincidently though, this aligns pretty much perfectly to people's stability also shifting to happen later in life. Specifically the economic stability to raise a family on a single income. That's not really possible any more, so it shouldn't be a surprise that people don't do it.
Just to add a little factual data to this point, the fertility rate in England and Wales has been below two children per woman since the 1970s.
The impact of the new TV programming in rural India has been profound—and very positive, say Jensen and Oster. Their interviews revealed that when the new TV services arrived, women’s autonomy increased while fertility and the acceptability of domestic violence toward women significantly decreased."
How can you tell that tech is the cause of people not having children, and not just what they're doing because they don't have children to fill their time?
I don't think you can point to the rise of tech as a casual just because it's popular. If people aren't having children they'll do something else instead. To say what that is you need more evidence that what people are doing.
I was thinking more along the lines of "I'm not in a position to have children because I can't afford them, so I won't. Now I have more time to fill, what's on TV?"
How can you tell that isn't what's happened from looking at the rise of tech?
The wealthy demographics aren't having kids either, and the decline correlates with each inflection point in the rise of pleasure and mental stimulation technology.
Sub-Saharan birthrates are starting to decline just as they're gaining access to smartphones.
All of the countries where women have fewer rights are also experiencing decline in birthrates. They have ~10-30% smartphone penetration.
"Having a child seems fun" is dopamine opportunity cost as much as a financial one. People have always been poorer, but they've never been so endlessly stimulated.
> I'm not in a position to have children because I can't afford them, so I won't. Now I have more time to fill, what's on TV?
Replace this with, "I'm bored. What's on TV / YouTube?" Everything else is unnecessary complication.
>Everyone is now dopamine maxxing on smartphones and internet
Childbirth has been collapsing for decades before Mark had launched "thefacebook.com". Japan's TFR cratered in 1960 and never recovered. Did Japan have smartphones in 1960?
People from the 70s are in their 50s today. Approaching retirement age, but most still able and employed. Things will get interesting in those countries as they hit old age and quit the workforce in a large wave.
Vienna massively depopulated in the mid-20th century, so it had a large excess of underused real estate. Vienna is only now starting to come back to its former population. It is like making the observation that housing is cheap in Detroit.
We need to make cheap housing work in places that have not experienced large-scale depopulation.
> We need to make cheap housing work in places that have not experienced large-scale depopulation.
This will require incredible subsidies both to build and maintain, which I fully support, but I think is politically untenable due to everyone’s unwillingness for taxes to go up while the developed world already carries enormous sovereign debt loads (>100% GDP).
We ate the seed corn, broadly speaking, to maximize the gains for some at the expense of the young and the future. Hopefully I’m wrong, and both taxes go up and the bond market will support more borrowing in the near term for spending that actually delivers value.
large parts of vienna have also been destroyed in the wars, for example 80000 apartments were destroyed or unusable. so it's not underused real estate but more like empty space in the city to develop from scratch. any other city that is not densely packed can have that. new development currently happens on empty space that was never developed before.
Lol "unique identity" just for 2 states is left political propaganda. Don't fall for it. Every state (for that matter, most districts) in India is unique and none are unique because there's so much in common. Depending on how you look at it.
Coming to main topic, much of West doesn't have fiscal runway. But your point about getting old before getting rich is valid. But it is not all bad news.
IMHO one of main challenges for a democracy like India is, planning just about anything that involves land, capital takes just as long as in, say, US or UK due to lots of consensus building, "activism" delays, lawsuits etc. And by the time the thing is built - be it airports, roads, sewage pipes or water treatment etc., the population is far far higher. And it turns out inadequate almost like back to square 1.
Now THAT problem will reduce or go away. You take 20 years to debate a new garbage disposal facility and overcome NIMBY brigades? no issues! The population stays same when you stop arguing and get it done.
> Lol "unique identity" just for 2 states is left political propaganda. Don't fall for it. Every state (for that matter, most districts) in India is unique and none are unique because there's so much in common. Depending on how you look at it.
Err...My point being that it's not like Biharis who move to West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are welcomed with open arms. West Bengal itself is a masterclass in what happens when you dont industrialise and implement birth control policies.
> Coming to main topic, much of West doesn't have fiscal runway. But your point about getting old before getting rich is valid. But it is not all bad news.
If USA's quality of life reduces people can still expect to live better lives than they do in India.
>IMHO one of main challenges for a democracy like India is, planning just about anything that involves land, capital takes just as long as in, say, US or UK due to lots of consensus building, "activism" delays, lawsuits etc. And by the time the thing is built - be it airports, roads, sewage pipes or water treatment etc., the population is far far higher. And it turns out inadequate almost like back to square 1.
Do you think China and Singapore just build like that? If you do you're kinda wrong. A LOT of time is put into planning and gaining consensus. Yes, the means aren't the same as India or USA, but Singapore for instance regularly holds ground level consultation with many people from different walks of life. Strong manning things leads to worse outcomes and both China and Singapore know this and only exercise it when absolutely necessary. The real issue is competent leadership. In most parts of the world only the most undesirable enter politics. It seems like the take away Indians and Americans have at looking at Singapore and China is StrongMan=Good without realising that it was a democracy that placed man on the moon, invented computing and more. The success of China and Singapore is predicated on their leadership and excellent civil service.
You probably have not lived in China (or singapore) and are hence making the comment. What usually happens is some authorities float a project idea on the news. At this point the idea would be toyed with. Depending on feedback gathered via academic studies and social media responses, if the project is seen as controversial the projects scope will be adjusted to some common ground that works well enough for most of the identified stakeholders involved - this is what the civil servants are paid to do. In china this usually is an ongoing dialog between local and central government. In Singapore this usually means focus groups and discussion. Neither countries really want to deal with angry citizens (but will do so extremely harshly when the need arises).
This is in stark contrast to a place like India where pulling up bulldozers to solve problems is becoming increasingly common. Politicians will command building of infrastructure just to satisfy voters without thinking through long term consequences. Often you get projects which exist just to check of the fact that they have built something even if that thing is utterly useless once complete.
> You probably have not lived in China (or singapore) and are hence making the comment.
Followed by:
> This is in stark contrast to a place like India
First: Do I need to have lived in China to have an opinion about anything in China?
Second: Apply your same silly "lived in" rule to your comment about India. The hard part about building in India: It is a democracy with a (somewhat) functional court system and (somewhat) free media, so you cannot steal/take people's property without just compensation. In China? Forget it. The govt does whatever it wants.
I think he's mixing up bureaucratic competence (and lack of corruption within bureaucracy and political class) with democratic consensus.
Yes, Singapore will never have a boondoggle like California or UK HSR. But the two are not comparable precisely because of all the problems that come with democracy. You just can't see them building a "bat tunnel" for $200m.
India is just a poorer version of UK/USA. China is a bigger version of Singapore. Not just that some things are worse. You can file a lawsuit and keep things on hold for 20 years. The "bulldozing" that happens is mostly local, low level stuff like some mafia or criminal thug getting punished outside of the court system often because that is exactly what the voters demand.
That problem won't go away because India is not at 80 - 95% urbanized like the west. There are still ~50% in villages, who will continue to migrate to cities.
The problem is India only has a few metros. India should be building 100+ new cities and rapidly urbanize. Cities are engines of growth. The slow migration from villages to legacy metros amplifies the infrastructure problems.
Yes. Actually it'll make sense to build new cities instead of pumping billions paying inflated land cost to build roads, rail etc. and metro systems that only pull even more crowds. Let the main cities rot, be replaced over time by new ones. Most empires did that, globally.
At some point I hope that we will reach a point where these megacorps figure that running these things locally might be most cost effective. FWIW I think local models I run on my MacBook are good enough for most of the tasks that this kind of interaction may ask for.
Hah, Ive been thinking the same thing. Recently I prototyped a 2d paint app to validate the idea using chrome's Prompt API: https://arjo129.github.io/apps/voice_paint.html
Honestly what'd be epic is if this could be made to work with a XR headset. Imagine using the headset to capture the piece you are working on and generating saying "hey can you drill some holes over here"?
That would be pretty excellent. We need a layer agnostic notion of "here".
Until then I've just had it list every surface in a legend, each colored differently, so I can say "three inches down from the top of pole six, and rotate it so the hoop part of the bolt faces northwest."
Im an oss maintainer and recently the slop Ive had to deal with is excruciating. Theres nothing wrong with using AI for code, but generating 10prs that are all broken cause you have no idea what youre doing and hoping to get into GSoC is nonsense.
This assumes citizens actually putp a lions share of their money into more risky investmemt vehicles. For reference, this may not be the case with a large swathes of our older population. Bank rates, t bills and bonds here are generally lower than cpf. If you are a high income earner the contribution is capped and combined with low taxes this is not a bad thing.
Very few locals pay
rent here. Most people buy houses. Its kindof forced thanks to the system, but its designed in a way that unless you are a decimillionaire housing is expensive, but attainable. This is done by splitting the housing market into private and public housing. Is this perfect? No.
"Indonesian and Malaysian workers". Sounds like you never actually visited construction sites. Most of the workers ive come accross are from Bangladesh, India and China. Malaysian and indonesian immigrants tend to be better off than them.
Eh IMO any metric like this can be gamed. My project that reached hn front page was coded in a short time (and yes some ai was used), but otoh I think it was something that showed hey you can do this really interesting thing (in my case vlm based indoor location).
Also its not uncommon for weekend projects to be done in a shprt span with just a "first commit" message dump even pre-AI.
Yes, any metric can be gamed. But I believe measuring the entropy of a repository, comparing state of the code-base over time can be done deterministically, which would make it harder to game it.
So either we are going to completely avoid automation and create a community council to decide what deserves to be shown to rest of the community or just let best AI models to decide if a project is worth show up on front page?
Isn't it possible to fabricate the timestamps on commits and then push them up all at once? If you're planning on literally checking that the commits are publicly available for a certain amount of time, that seems like it would needlessly punish projects that someone worked on offline and then happened to push up once it was completed.
Simulation. It takes a lot of effort today to bring up simulations in various fields. 3 D programming is very nontrivial and asset development is extremely expensive. If I have a workspace I can take a photo of and just use it to generate a 3d scene I can then use it in simulations to test ideas out. This is particularly useful in robotics and industrial automation already.
I don't see any examples of a 3D scene information usable for simulation. If you want to simulate something hitting a table, you need the whole table (surface) in space, not just some spatial illusion effect extrapolated from an image of a table. I also think modelling the 3D objects for simulation is the least expensive part of an simulation... the simulation is the expensive thing.
I doubt this will be useful for robotics or industrial automation, where you need an actual spatial, or functional understanding of the object/environment.
With research like this you need to start somewhere. The fact we can get 3d information helps. There are people looking into making splats capture collision information [1].
I have worked on simulation and in my day job do a lot of simulation. While physics is oftem hard and expensive you only need to write the code once.
Assets? You need to comission 3d artists and then spend hours wrangling file formats. Its extremely tedious. If we could take a photo and extract meshes Im sure we'd have a much easier time.
Ironically, the highest birth rates globally occur where economic security is non-existent, a state of living none of us want to return to. What is truly worrisome about a country like India is that it is facing sub-replacement fertility before fully industrializing. In states with highly unique identities like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the native population has already fallen well below the 2.1 replacement mark. While internal migration from higher-fertility northern states fills the gap, it creates significant political and cultural friction.
In developed countries, the state can at least leverage accumulated wealth to bankroll healthcare and social services required by a rapidly aging population. In a developing nation like India, they risk growing old before they grow rich, leaving an aging population without the robust safety nets or fiscal runway of the West- we might even see the country slide backwards into sub-saharan African levels of poverty
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