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2.5 Kids | Lemonade Stand - Ep. 040 Premium [VIDEO] (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-27 00:00:09
Edited:
2026-09-25 22:44:46
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Content

Recorded on January 20th, 2026

TOPICS

New Style of Dating App

Birthrates vs. Affordability

Replacing Kids with AI

Apple and Google join forces?

Apple's Products and Market

Outro

Files

Comments

Joseph

This literally uploaded the second I switched to check for an update on the discord lmao

Priceful

amazing episode, no notes (i haven't watched it yet)

Lake.

I literally just checked like 5 mins ago to see if I missed the upload lmao

Dagen

Hi

Alphonse

Praise be, i can start eating dinner now, thank you all for the vid~

Bryce Strange

In my experience, women who get jaded from dating apps still try alternate methods, like asking friends or speed dating or mixer events. Men, including me, who got jaded from dating apps just give up and focus on other aspects of their life. If I had to guess, its probably due to women having a stronger belief in soulmates, true love, or "movie" romance where they dont want to give up on that idea

chaosandcoffee

GenZ hating phone calls is definitely real

Mire

I'm a woman who goes to speed dating events, so I guess I'll give my opinion: I mostly just hate the apps, and am looking for any structured alternative to find a partner irl. I hate how impersonal apps are, and how judgemental they make me feel, both towards others and myself. Obviously speed dating is also a quick judgement, but I feel like I can get a read on someone so much better in real life than over a profile or text. It's certainly not perfect, and meeting someone through shared interests or friends is way better. But that's a limited pool, so speed dating is an ok alternative.

CoCap

For me as Gen Z I feel I'm the complete opposite. I like a phone call second only to face to face. I don't like texting or emailing because I can think over the message whilst I'm waiting for a response or misinterpret the the message I received. But on the phone I can understand tone easier. I also prefer the immediate response much more than the delay between texts or emails.

Conner Paul

As a guy I find its hard to talk to women in person because of all the societal expectations that are put on me to initiate the conversation and essentially convince a woman that i'm worth her time with words, body language, tone, the way i'm dressed etc. vs an app where I only have to worry about my words...that being said I find it so much easier once i've had an interaction with someone in person to message them later and have a smooth conversation because I got an idea of their vibe in person, so its a weird mix.

Matthew Lara

I doubt that its the aspect of not preferring phone calls that doesnt get men on this particular dating app. As a gen Z person, i can relate to prefering a texts over phone calls, but the concept of actually talking to a potential partner and knowing that they are an actual person off the rip vs a bot on other dating apps would be compelling to get me to switch if i was on other apps. I think this has to do more with marketing or just not being talked about online. My friends that are actively dating always talk about apps like bumble or hinge, so I assume once the word spreads a bit more about this app, im sure way more men will potentially be attending these in person events in LA and using the app. It could be that the initial marketing efforts and posts on instagram might have been found or suggested more to women and thats why the ratio is skewed at the moment. Also his posts on the ig for six30 dont break 300 likes at the most, so it doesnt seem like the content is reaching that many people yet. There is also another app/website that is doing the same thing called “222 place” which seems similar, just not focused on dating primarily, just hosting events for people to meet where no one uses their phone, but is wildly more popular. And back to that question about why young gen z men arent dating as much, and this is my personal opinion, i think some younger men like myself are probably just nervous about going to in person events like this. Unless you are a extrovert and super social person or have friends to attend events like this with, it might feel a bit weird going alone. Its a lot easier to just decide to stay at inside and ar home sometimes than deal with the nerves of going out, even if i could potentially have a great time, its just getting over that initial hurtle/ fear. Idk maybe thats just me though.

T Pain

It's extremely oversimplified but could the birthrates be dropping because having kids isn't cool? I'm a millennial woman and I think there was a big vibe switch about parenthood growing up outside of economic issues, idk how to explain it

Bailey Yin

I agree with Aiden. Economics does play a massive role in a declining birth rate but a large part is just a lower desire to have kids. I think in general, they take a lot of work and there are now a lot more ways to spend money and time on individual pursuits or stuck in addictive activities.

Vinay Lanka

In rural India atleast, one particular reason why people have more kids is because they are considered an extra hand on the field / could get educated and build wealth for the family. It's like having more chances at some sort of a lottery.

M C

Sorry Big A, but data all shows accidental and unwanted birth rates are way down. Teen pregnancy down 78% since 1991. The age which people who are having kids (even like with what Aiden said who can afford it) is higher because women don’t want to have kids in the early twenties at large. They get their education and assumingely then want to work and use it… not just have kids so we are societally pushing back having children until early thirties at large. Then if someone who loves their job - they know having a kid will realistically screw them. If you really wanted to solve this issue. You would create a work system that allows for more part time work for parents with full benefits. If data shows we are over 20% as productive, then people should work 20% less without impact. Right now, for lots of women, they are cooked with their long term career goals if they choose to have a family. Fixing that would solve this issue.

M C

Also to further this, Big A - you can’t compare what people wanted as a family unit when the women wasn’t even allowed to have her own bank account or credit card. When your economic situation and entire life is locked into the family unit and you aren’t allowed to strive beyond that… then yeah you want more kids because that is your entire life and social life revolves around that. Now it doesn’t have to revolve around that.

Gianna Flo

Does Aiden’s friends app cater to queer people? Curious if any of that percentage of women are lesbian or other wlw.

Peter Sadek

Extremely high birth rate is a factor of low life expectancy as someone who comes from a third world country. Extreme low birth rate is a factor of other things that will not be shown by looking at countries that have to birth 10 kids because they expect 5 of them to die and the other 5 to have a couple of males that can work and be productive. It just isn’t the same metric on the extremes.

Jonathan

While I agree a major factor of birthrates declining is women’s autonomy. I think something Aiden is kinda of missing with the birth rate affordability debate is connecting it to the first topic of why gen z men aren’t dating in the first place. For as long as i can remember the only way i would even want to start a family, and thus relationships and the willingness to put myself out there romantically, would be providing equally or better than my parents did for me. That includes a lot of things like always having a parent available to pick up and drop them off from school, pay for extracurriculars, be involved in pta or sports. Be able to support them and their dreams. Pay for their college if they choose. None of these are likely outcomes and i dont want to be caught dreaming instead of focusing on what i have now and can control. I have had the internet my whole life and was not naive to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to realistically work a job that i find value in and afford a home let alone a kid on top, god forbid multiple of them. Affordability and the prospect of having enough money to raise a family has always been at the forefront of my mind. What i choose to work on everyday is more important to me right now and has a positive impact on the world, and works in affordability. The alternative, realistically seems, I would want to kms at a job i hate just to afford to provide a worse life to a child i cant promise a better future to. Maybe that is just the curse of an upper middle class, college educated, white man. 😢

Trevor Walker

Allot of my friends could financially afford to have kids, easily. But when I ask them why they don’t have kids it’s always “I still wanna do X”. Whether it’s travel, or more schooling, or buying a house. I think the reason people don’t have kids is due to a lack of free time

John Novakovich

I strongly agree with Aiden. The whole “DINK” trend is about couples with two incomes and no kids. This phenomenon of delightfully choosing a child-free life would’ve been unthinkable even in the late 60’s and 70’s when there was contraception. There is no financial barrier to them having kids, but a cultural one. Kids are seen now as Costs rather than Benefits. People (like Atrioc in this episode) think first about the financial and time costs to kids, not about the unique joy they bring. This conditions us against having kids, and this doesn’t get fixed when incomes rise. We have the data that proves it.

Eric

we’re still doing apple product rants in 2026?

John Novakovich

Also, people putting off kids lowers birth rates. The norm seems to be to start trying at 30-35 when it’s harder for women to conceive and when men’s reproductive health starts to dip. This is brand new in all of human history. This “delaying” of marriage and kids is not done entirely out financial necessity (apparently men aren’t even on dating apps, and it’s not for lack of $) I know a 43 year doctor and 35 year old JP Morgan VP who are single but say they want kids. They’ve had the money to settle down and have kids for a long time, but accepted cultural messages that they “shouldn’t” when they were 22, 27, 32, etc. Now for them and millions of others it’s borderline too late. It sounds un-cool or conservative to say, but the biological reality is that we need to make kids seem more desirable and high status, especially for people in their twenties. Low birth rates will not be solved if the average age of a first birth is 29

mrq02

When Aiden started talking about the gender difference on that dating app, I started looking it up. As soon as he said you had to have a phone call, I closed the tab. lol

Subpar

2.5 kids what is this the lemonade stand

why are there so many cybertrucks in Akron Ohio

yeah, as someone who does more of the homemaking tasks the idea of having a kid just sounds like a soul crushing amount of things on my plate. my fiance and I have talked a lot about it but the practicality of it just feels like it would come to us both having to give up our hobbies for the next twenty years of our lives

jarod hill

To echo what some others were saying, over the decades and centuries kids have gone from a benefit to a cost. Seemingly having children or not was always a selfish decision to many people. My family was historiicaly farmers until my grandfather started working in a factory as an adult They all had 3 children or more, with some having as many as 8. On a farm it was a way to advance, you either got to do less work once they get old enough or you can expand the farm with the extra hands. My grandfather on the other hand only had 2 children, he didn't need his children, to have more free time or to be more sucessful. So in my view, having kids changed from an avenue to better your life, to a decision purely decided by your personal value of having a family. More developed countries have less people in farming and they are now aided by machines, and generally seem to lean to valuing indavidualism rather than family relations. So for me, my need to have family connections is near zero, and kids offer me no benefit other than an emotional connection, ecinomically they only offer a burden. Now that sounds cold and it may be, but I still want to have a kid, I want to know what it feels like to be a father, and I want to teach them why the world is beautiful. My desire to experience being a father is the only reason though. Everything else either doesn't affect the decision, or activly pushes me from parenthood.

Pineapple Scuddleduck

Just wanna pop in with my gen z anecdotal experience. As someone who lives far from my family and friends, I like calling. It's the best way to connect with my family.

Ferrn213

I think the app is too new to even answer that question

GJealousy

For birth rate, I think it's entertainment. The main divide between poor countries and rich countries that I have thought about for a long time is the competition for attention. In poor countries your options for entertainment are much less and you'll likely end up interacting with others if only out of pure boredom.

Michael Walker

Aiden is spitting with the affordability vs birth rate. Birth rate isnt going to go up with affordability. People are not going to have kids just because they can afford it. Like Atrioc confirms, even if you have unlimited money you have limited time. If Atrioc has 2 kids and Aiden and Doug have only one, you are still on a downward trend. This doesnt even include how many of these children dont get to live an entire life that supports the elderly.

mrq02

I came into this believing, like Atrioc, that the primary reason people don't have more kids is economics. But Aiden did have a really good point about the fact that plenty of very wealthy people don't have any children. It's something I'm going to have to think about for sure.

Christian Baker

My wife and I have wanted to have kids for years, but the cost of child care is insane. We cannot have kids yet and we're getting to our mid thirties. Atrioc was trying to address people that want to have kids but cannot. Don't agree with Aiden because people that do not want to have kids are not part of the discussion. To say that people like us that say they want kids would change their mind if it was actually possible is crazy to me. Edit: If Americans want 2.5 kids on average, this accounts for people that don't want kids.

Paul Duong

On the decision of having kids. Both Aiden and Atroic are both touching on the same issue. The option of having a kid isn't as attractive at the moment. In developed societies, having kids has a cost in money, career and time. In developing countries there isn't as much competing as an option to child raising; no career to focus on or overseas travel missing out on. For modern society, unless you want to limit how good the not having kids option is, the only other way to influence the decision towards more kids is to remove the costs of having them.

Christian Baker

Right but I disagree with Aiden because people that do not want kids are not part of the discussion. The discussion is enabling people that want kids to have their desired number. DINK does not matter if the couple does not want kids.

Christian Baker

Sorry, multi replying to people. The discussion was around enabling people that want kids to be able to have them. It was stated that American's want 2.5 kids on average. This accounts for the couples that do not want them already.

Christian Baker

I would have kids if we could afford it. It is a cause. Look up child care costs. I don't understand how the comment section doesn't understand that people who don't want kids are already accounted for in response statistics. Atriocs argument is people that 100% do want kids WILL have kids if they can afford it. I don't know why we're talking about people that don't want kids when it's already accounted for in the 2.5 statistic. Even if the real number would be 2.1 with affordability, that would be great!

Christian Baker

I think Atrioc was getting a little irritated because that whole point is anecdotal. On average, Americans want 2.5 kids and if they could afford it would try to have 2.5 kids on average. This accounts for the people that don't want kids. This is academically breaking my brain that everyone seemed to miss this.

John Novakovich

Yes they do matter. The whole point is that you need your whole population to average 2.1 births to stay level- not just those who want kids. The more people who opt out of kids altogether, the more kids everyone else needs to have to reach a societal 2.1 average. On this topic, DINKs are objectively dragging America down.

Christian Baker

You are just presenting another route to child care. I would say that child care is more important then ever because families cannot afford a stay at home mom. Also, people that do not want kids are accounted for with the 2.5 stat.

mrq02

No, the point Aiden was struggling to get across was that 2.5 kids isn't enough. If 2/3 of Americans wanted 2.5 kids, that would only be 1.5 kids on average. That's below replacement rate. You need 80% of people to HAVE 2.5 kids to meet replacement rate (assuming the other 20% have 0 kids). I think that Aiden may be onto something. I think that even if everyone could afford it, there'd be a significant enough amount of people who do not want to have children that it would be below replacement rate. And the reason I think that is because ~50% of women earning $100k or more are childless. If that 50% were to hold true, the average American would need to want to have 4 children to hit replacement rate, which just isn't the case. I find it easy to believe that a third of Americans wouldn't want to have children at all. At only 2/3rds of American having children, it needs to be 3 children per couple to break even. While I think it's still largely an economic issue, I think Aiden has a strong and good point that it's a societal one as well.

Filth McGee

This may be a hot take but affordability is definitely a huge factor in this issue because back in the day one person could literally support a whole family’s expenses while another person didn’t work and raised the children. I’m not saying it’s necessarily better that way but in an economy where thats even a possibility, the idea of having kids would be a lot more enticing.

M C

No because what I’m fundamentally asking for isn’t childcare. The desire to have both the career in your passion and being able to be part of your children’s lives is not just “childcare”. Because if it was just “childcare” then just provide free childcare for all would supposedly have the same outcome. But that substantially different.

Trevor Walker

I think that people “want 2.5 kids” just not today. I have friends who keep saying “after we do X we will have a kid” but after X there is a new Y to go do.

Yev

really enjoyed the childbirth debate you guys had!! very engaging!!

Wilkane

The solution is artificial wombs

Wilkane

That still falls under "women dont want kids" I think

Neko mimi

As one of the few women who watch this, I can give my perspective. I meet more women who don’t want kids just because they don’t want to. Having children and being a parent are two of the biggest sacrifices anyone can make, because it’s a complete lifestyle change you can’t backtrack on. Through different perspectives from women across the world (including education), more women know it’s an option you could take but it’s not the best option out there. I think more women now are following their dreams before starting a new chapter as a parent. It’s entirely possible that whatever chances or opportunities life throws at the average fertile woman now, has become more fulfilling than having children and being a mother. One last thing most men tend to forget: Childbirth is very painful and many women now don’t want to go through so much pain. Postpartum depression is very real and people don’t want to do that to themselves if they don’t have to. The process of becoming a mother is very daunting. It’s nothing new but technology hasn’t advanced to make childbirth easier and that’s just the first step.

Vincent Lam

This is very interesting, I would say that maybe a smaller percent of the reason is that have kids doesn’t really increase your status. Like for most first world countries I would say that we are materialistic and that things such as a college degree, a nice car, a nice watch, jewelry, the newest tech or whatever brings like social credit and fame. In essence when you ask a bunch of kids what do they want to be when they grow up. I would think most of them would say “I want to be rich and famous” . From a kids perspective I think like there are like a million other things that they would rather do than raise a family. This mindset maybe continues to adult hood.

Bird

As a GenZ man who would never have considered doing an in person speed dating event, I assume by default any dating type stuff is like the apps and overwhelming a sausage fest so it wouldn't be worth my time. Im genuinely shocked to hear that its the opposite and would consider (Not right now I have 2 jobs and no free time to treat someone right) trying it out. I think knowing other men my age dating apps feel like throwing rocks into the void so putting in extra effort to meet someone feels more and more deflating. Also easy fix for the 6:30 app: instead of a phone call it immediately opens a voice channel that makes the discord doot when you join. Stress gone instantly.

Azayrian105

I got to be honest boys. The second they talked about the dating app I immediately signed up. It is just how I want to meet another person. Actually talking with someone sounds so much better.

Maxel

I don't think that's what Aiden tried to say. From my understanding, what he meant was that even if it were cheaper, the birthrate would not go up drastically because more people are choosing not to have children. Whether that's true is up for debate, but I don't think he was saying that the economy has no impact on whether people who want to have children can have children.

Maxel

You also have to factor in that Gen Z (which I'm part of) seems to be in an even worse state socially than Millennials. I mean, we don't have third spaces, a lot of people have completely checked out, and most dating apps suck. I just can't imagine that if we fix the economy, people will suddenly date more and have children.

anton haeffler

I think Aiden has a point about economic constraints not being the only reason for the declining birth rate. Just my thoughts, but I believe the issue is as much part cultural as it is economic. It is now the norm for both parents to work and to prioritize things outside family. Even though we have got objectively wealthier in the last 100 years, and even though we could work less for the same purchasing power, we don't. We still work as much, maybe more. As much as it is affordability, I also think it's cultural, and probably has a lot to do with the amount of time we have available. Personally I think it would be very hard for me and my partner to both work full time and also have enough time and energy to be good parents, even though we could afford it (we live in Sweden). A cultural shift in our attitude towards work is probably needed, maybe starting with a 6 hour work week as the norm.

Caleb Haaga

I've got 1 kid already. My wife works from home but if she didn't have to we would immediately have a second one. We just need both our incomes for the mortgage. It's less about the cost and more about time to spend with the kids

Tyler Daughtry

I think rich people is a bit of a self selecting argument. I have 2 kids. If I didn't have to pay for child care I would make $1300 cash a month more than I do right. If I could invest $800 a month I would be rich very quickly

Jack Woodward

Doug Doug my goat defending gen z I personally love a phone call

GetFisher

People are also getting married later so they have less time to have a kid than they used to.

Tyler Winkelmann

Not that Doug will read this but I have hinge and got way more matches after fixing it from his old judging my subscribers dating profiles 😅

Scotty

Just a comment on the birth rate discussion, but in Canada our birthrates began a steep decline in the 1960s - around the time when contraception and abortion became legal. We saw our birthrate go from 4.0 to below replacement in a decade. I think it would be wrong to deduce that Canada had been an unaffordable nightmare for 65 years and that’s the reason it fell. It clearly was aligned with more access to birth control, women’s education and autonomy. I think you could find similar trends in most western countries. I’m not denying affordability plays a role (Canada’s birth rate also fell during the Great Depression before recovering) but I agree with Aiden that if we just happened to make everything affordable again, I don’t see the women in my life deciding “yeah time to pop out 4 kids”

bee

Aiden is right. It was also incredibly unaffordable to have a child in 1930s USA, and yet despite a precipitous drop (due to the depression), birth rates were still higher then than they are in present 2020s USA. Are financial pressures a contributing factor to birth rates? Should we organise society better, to allow people the freedom to have the number of children they want? Absolutely. But I completely agree with Aiden that increasing women's education and reproductive choices is a much larger driver to the trend than it being purely cost-based, and that at some point society is going to have to reckon with that if we continue to advance women's rights - which shouldn't be taken as a given either. Not to get all Intro To Feminism on you, but the de facto patriarchal society throughout most of known history has been organised for men to exercise control over the one resource women have exclusive access to, which is reproduction. Like, it isn't just because men thought it would be a sick prank to play for thousands of years, to organise society to make women a lesser class of people. It's actually a pretty novel and extremely recent innovation to attempt to give women the options to control our own personhood. We haven't been doing it for long enough to really know the long-term outcomes for populations. But there are gonna be a lot of factors that influence the decision to have children, and while affordability is absolutely one of them, I wouldn't be so certain that even if that were solved, the 2.1 replacement rate average would end up met. I could probably write 10k more words about this, but that's my 2 cents as one of apparently 5 or so women who listen to this pod.

Steven

Annecdotally I think the percentage of women in particular that want to have children at all decreases significantly when education for women increases; the life choices available to them widens and leads to many women choosing paths in their life which do not include having children. Historically this has not been (or been significantly less of) an option. That makes the replacement rate burden even heavier on the remaining women who do want children. So even under the argument that with affordability improvements the replacement rate would revert to the historical norm, that would not be enough to sustain a constant or growing population. E.g. pulling numbers out of my ass here, if historically 90% of women wanted to have children, and that approximated a replacement rate of ~2.1, then each couple would need to want on average ~2.33 children. If now only 70% of women want to have children then each couple would need to want approximately ~3 children to sustain a constant (not even growing) population.

David Leo

Ok I think there are one factor that hasn't been discussed that stand out as relevant. The opportunity cost of having children regardless of economic means. Even if I have unlimited money, I'm gonna have to invest at least 18 years of my life into my child (even more at 2.1 kids). most women also can't/ shouldn't have children past 40. Most people view these 20 years as an opportunity to explore your interests and find personal fulfillment, since you are still young and your body is more capable. having a kid limits you immensely in that pursuit . Of course having a kid can be immensely rewarding for people, but it seems to like less and less people choose to do it. And I believe Aiden makes a good point about richer people having less children, because they seemingly choose their own fulfillment over having a child or simply don't think they will find fulfillment by having one(also probably true regardless of means) . To me I looks like culturally most people who have the means to raise a child simultaneously have a lesser interest in having one, mostly because of their lifestyle, which they obtain by focusing on not having children. I also feel like people feel less culturally pressured to have children. I as a 24 year old simply don't feel pressured at all to have children, while older generations certainly feel that pressure more.

xipluuv

On the Gen Z/calling topic, I think theres a social anxiety aspect to it. Like the reasons often tied to making phone calls are usually important life admin tasks that we often push off, so tying those tasks to phone calls can carry that weight to them. In my experience I get nervous with phone calls because I'm worried about being misheard or misinterpreting what I heard from the other person, so being able to text or email relieves that stress because I can always refer back to a written message vs a phonecall that I can only rely on my memory for. As a woman too I often put on a "customer service" voice too where my voice becomes much higher whenever I call somewhere too lol. Otherwise it feels like fellow Gen Z friends I have some of them are on constant calls with friends, like someone people I know are one 4 hour facetime calls, but struggle with calling their bank about something.

Zachary Kress

I know this has nothing to do with what you guys said but maybe you guys could talk about it. The owner of the Memphis Grizzlies owns a business called Ubiquity that sells telecommunication devices and satellites and a story from Hunterbrook (https://hntrbrk.com/ubiquiti/) exposed that they selling their products to the Russian military. Pretty wild stuff

Zachary Kress

Vat babies is the only solution to the birth rate problem. Don’t have to carry. Doesn’t interrupt your life. Can have a child whenever in your life

Oleksii Valihura

In addition to all of that, as a man, the whole pregnancy and birth sounds horrible to me. Even in the best-case scenario your hormones will be crazy for a year+ between pregnancy and postpartum anxiety/depression.

Matt Bettwy

I think the bleak reality is that Aiden and Big A are both right. Economics is likely the biggest *fixable* variable preventing people from having as many kids as they want… and tackling that is a huge part of getting birthrates up. But at the same time, it’s not realistic to think it will bring us over 2.1 for all those non-fixable reasons Aiden mentioned; womens autonomy, contraception availability, urbanization, and the opportunity cost of giving up a part of your ‘prime’ to raise a kid instead of pursuing your interests or career with all of your energy all keep driving the desire for families down. Even if we magically tackle affordability, AI Aiden-bots might still be a necessity to support the ever more unbalanced population pyramid

Cynical Manatee

With regards to the the having kids issue, I agree with aiden that cost of living is not the direct cause, it is a contributing factor. Examining my own life, If i had a child thrusted upon me right this minute, this kid is probably going to make it to 18 decently. My parents raised me with less means than I can provide right now, however I still would not want to have that for my child. In the modern day, we know too much about how to properly raise a child, and anything less feels like it is neglect or abuse. To give my child the best possible outcome, I would want to spend a ton of time and effort on them, because i would love my kid. My selfish mind tells me that that time now is given to the child and not me anymore. 2 kids is even more effort than just 1.

mrq02

Most people use income to qualify "rich". Not net worth. So it's not self-selecting in that regard. However it is perhaps self-selecting in the sense that people with high income typically value having a high income more than many other things, so it stands to reason that they would potentially value earning money and working more than they would value having children. And thus aren't the best sample for "if everyone had enough money..."

Micheal Renfrew

Something about the tax on condoms made me imagine having to Klarna their Condoms in 3 easy payments.

Eira

On the other hand people are now more likely to have kids outside of marriage. I think both those factors (getting married later, less likely to have kids) are potentially mutually reinforcing but are more likely from shared root causes (probably the main ones are contraception access, economic pressure, and careers)

Ellie Teller

Bro the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, loosing ur time at ur job sucks but people straight up die during childbirth, or it puts them and thie parter in a weirder place, or they don't want their kids to have the same mental health shit they do, like money doesn't solve all of the problems of having kids it just makes it easier so Aiden is definitely onto something imo

Jesse

I think Aiden has weak sperm and is jealous

Justin Pietrocarlo

I don't have phone calls very often, but i'm on Discord voice calls with my friends 4 days a week I don't mind calling to schedule a doctor's appointment, but my doordash better not even think of calling my phone. I do get anxiety from the Teams call ringtone, it actually puts me in a bad and irritable mood, it's worse than an alarm clock. If i need to ask someone a question for work though, i default to walking to there desk -> calling them on teams or phone if they're an external company -> sending them a teams message/email. I'd be curious if wfh people who never have to call people are more anxious about making phone calls, like they're out of the habit.

James Brown

Gen Z Men have been trained back to a point where they feel its taboo interact with women. Now its just easier to chill out in discord with the pros. I see it all the time. Some men are borderline scared to interact with women. I hate phonecalls. Sadly, they're a part of life.

Spike Neye-Swift

in terms of the Western democracies, i feel like there are multiple factors and affordability is just one. the other is just the ever increasing march of hyper individualism and the atomisation that accompanies it. no one has any time. in a couple, both the husband and the wife work full time. childcare is expensive and not a perfect substitute. modern life is way more stressful and no one has any time to do anything. Kids are just another source of stress or burnout. and also, no one can fucking meet anyone anymore because any physical space that isn't printing money is considered worthless and thus destroyed. i dont understand why we're, as a society, surprised that the birth rate has collapsed when every policy decision over the last 45 years has systematically disregarded (or relentlessly monetised) the practice of raising children as a realistic or attractive prospect. instead, everyone just needs to work harder, up their productivity, hustle, etc.

Arne

There was a very interesting article in the Economist end of last year („Watch who you’re calling childless“) Apparently birth rates did not really drop in the US as dramatically as you might think . The way we measure it (TFR) makes it seem that way, but if you would measure it via the CFR way you would see that it‘s still ~ the same. Quote: In 2000 by age 26 the average American woman had produced one child; the average 32-year-old, 1.6 children; the average 40-year-old, 1.9. In 2024 the average 26-year-old had 0.6 children and the average 32-year-old 1.2. But the average 40-year-old has still had 1.9, having delayed in her 20s and caught up in her 30s. Really shifted my perspective, but for sure there is a real Average decline worldwide even by the CFR measure Greetings from Zurich

James Brown

I think Aiden was right in his idea that we don't have to constantly grow and push for higher living standards. Why can't we stop and bring everyone up to speed. This extreme growth outstrips the greater good. We need to stop, look back and become more efficient. You can't grow and refine at the same time.

James Brown

Time is the real issue with having kids. I know what it takes to make it today, and I don't comfortably know that I could teach a kid to do this with the time I have.

Tynan Gacy

For the replacement rate conversation, I think it's worth saying the quiet part out loud: if we do not meet or exceed the replacement rate globally, it will eventually lead to the extinction of the human race. You can argue whether or not that fate is worth delaying, but assuming that it is, you need to find a solution for birth rate decline. Economics are at least part of it (it is by far the largest reason for me and my wife) but other things are undoubtedly in play.

Pfish

Can say I know why guys aren't going out to these in person dating events but I can say, that when I go out in person, at least among people under 35, and excluding couples, there are a lot more groups of women than there are men in general. My friend and I grabbed dinner late last night (an hour before the place closed) and we were the only 2 guys at the restaurant. It wasn't ladies night either, to my knowledge that's Thursday not Monday. Maybe women uniquely flock to Mexican restaurants but I doubt that.

Luke Miller (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 01:00 I admittedly don’t want to have kids for selfish reasons such as not wanting to sacrifice my time, hobbies, and sleep, etc., but I think there’s also something to be said with the decline in religious belief in amongst millennials/gen z that has led to a decrease in traditional family structures. I don’t feel like I owe it to a higher power to have children and I also think the world is a scary place with inevitable suffering that I don’t want to force my child to have to go through.
2026-01-27 23:27

Steven Winkler

I think something to consider with birthrate is the why. Why did so many people have 5+ kids. So much of America were out in rural areas, having tons of kids for labor and then the whole fact that statistically all your kids were way less likely to survive. Now people are having kids to fit life style or to fulfill their personal wants a majority of the time vs needing kids. And then consider cost, and housing, and human autonomy etc.

Jackson Wood

On the phone call front. For sure most gen z do not want a phone call with a stranger. With my friends it's often better, but with strangers it's much easier socially to have that barrier between you and them.

Joshua Mwebi

The iPhone X actually sold really well lol

Johnny Johnny

As a Gen Z I don’t like phone calls because I hate waiting and I hate when people are unprepared. And phone calls set up a situation for me to be unprepared, to wait, AND leave someone waiting.

Miraz

I wonder how much male vs female online dating coaches are effecting it. A lot of dating advice for women is focused on just putting yourself out there, not letting your body shape get in the way of your confidence, and how to stay safe mentally and physically. The idea that you should want to make changes in your life, but those goals shouldn't get in the way of enjoying life and making memories.

YammoYammo

The idea that the same population that is financing King Ranch F-250s is also holding off on kids out of concern for their long financial outlooks is pretty funny. Aiden takes the W on this one

Miraz

I think that the decline in teenage pregnancies should be apart of the conversation around the declining birth rate and other childrearing statistics. Pregnancies from kids 19 and under have been plummeting since the 90s, and now a days more teenagers choose abstinence or contraception's.

James (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 01:00 regarding apple: the trio seemed to completely forget about how apple silicon has basically reshaped the entire desktop and laptop industry. they are a hardware-first company, and i think this investment into actually producing the cutting edge hardware needed to run any of these ai models could prove to be quite important and valuable, especially when the other tech companies mentioned like meta and google haven’t really been able to see the same level of hardware success. in a world where ai changes the world, apple are the most primed to actually manufacture, sell and distribute the hardware we need to access these ai agents and models… and do so at a profit.
2026-01-28 03:13

Flying_Potato076

Regarding Samsung, they are profiting off of this increased spending on data centers through the sale of memory (RAM). As the roc puts it, they are another shovel seller in this gold rush.

Flying_Potato076

I feel like there is more general introspection about future uncertainties. My parents didn't worry much about my future besides if I got hurt, but now we have to contend with global politics, climate change, and possible societal upheaval. If we're not optimistic about our future, how can we raise another person to live through those unprecedented times.

Sturm

As a younger side gen z and a parent I would like to make a few comments about potential birth rate confines. -I would side with Aiden on that financially is what is making it harder for kids. Now I do think it is apart of it but I agree it isn’t all of it. What I do think is going on is what was brought at the start about social people. - I never thought about or at some points in my life ever wanted kids. When I met my partner and got to know them and marry I found then I wanted kids. Life felt chaotic and still is but it felt like the next step after marriage kind of biological. Which is what has been previously talked about where people aren’t meeting people any more or having long lasting relationships. - The other side I feel is that people today at least people in my age group I know are on the path of ambition. Not one person in my friend group of my age has kids and I feel as though it is kinda a trend thing as well. Once I had some more of my friends started being it up and thinking about having kids themselves as if they want to be apart of it and keep up with the rest of the friends group. Once one of my cousins had kids it seemed kinda like a bandwagon - Now don’t get me wrong it is so hard right now since nobody my age has kids to find childcare cheap. The family side of things is all messed up where there was before phones people all the time would allow there friends to watch there kids and parents who were willing to come around and help out which i don’t feel is the same now. - That leads to my final think about why the birthdate is dropping. People are stuck in the head due to devices or other things that when they go out the only go with friends or co-workers which doesn’t lead to finding the right one if it isn’t someone in your friends group and most don’t want to mess with the friend group relationships in case things go south and you ruin the whole friendship thing. Also people are so stuck on there phones that from people my age can’t get over the fact of a guy or girl doing something they dislike. They are looking for the perfect match one that matches them perfectly. Now I ain’t saying there isn’t someone out there for you like that but most find someone close to you or fill in the hole they need but some thing ga just have to be middle ground or accepted that the other person does that. Don’t throw a relationship away for something just petty. - On high 6+ birth rates in poorer countries I think is due to how they treat woman, more kiddos are likely to die in childhood so you need more to make sure enough survive, and very close knit families that expect there children to have many children, but also will help with children even after they are full grown so that younger ones can provide and help without worry. Also children in those countries are very much accepted in job rolls that mothers will have to do they aren’t usually left behind until they are older.

Rowan Daly

In terms of birth rate, I personally would like to focus on two main points that distinguishes the birth rates of first world countries today and third world/historical birth rates: 1. You can get so much more out of life outside of kids in the modern world. People hundreds of years ago, or in poorer countries today, worked in largely agricultural or very labor intense work that in all likelihood did not offer then a chance to gain higher education, move where they lived, have access to broad information about the world that we do now that could introduce a desire to travel the world or join an online community. They had a manual job and a community around them, and a large goal of life with all these different options such as education or travel or even job mobility being inaccessible was to start a family and have children, especially since often these communities would encourage exactly that to happen. This brings me to point two. 2. Children often returned value to their life earlier. This is a very pragmatic approach, but think about it. Yes, there are factors in being a parent outside of the financial side, but in planning for a family very often people wait until later in life because they know of the financial and time based commitment they will have to make to raise one. In terms of first world countries right now, having a child would mean sacrificing a career or paying for childcare as well as paying for another mouth to feed, school fees, potential hospital fees if they had a serious condition, etc. It's a huge commitment that might remain a financial commitment for potentially over 20 years, seeing how long children are continuing to stay at home with their parents. Now lets look at the other end of the spectrum in poorer/historical communities. These communities, relying on agriculture or manual labor and typically not having the resources to allow children to go through an entire primary/high school system while remaining supported by their parents, would have them help with either a family farm, or with household duties (they would have more time/cause to do this without school) and even by getting a job to support the household early on. Hence, in the pragmatic sense, their ROI was seen a lot earlier in life, even from 10-14 years in. This child would contribute to the business/household, could carry on the family business in the future, didn't require a college fund or school fees or their own car or anything. Hence, looking from the POV of potential parents in each of these situations, you can certainly imagine the reasons why in the modern world it is much less appealing to have a child, let alone 2-3 children which statistically would end up costing decades of nurturing and millions of dollars in support (where instead you could follow your passion, travel, engage in higher study, etc.), as opposed to those in poorer/historical societies (or even poor people in richer societies today with government support) who can gain a larger ROI sooner, which not only decreases the burden of having a child but increases the benefit of having more children where the older ones can take care of the younger ones, etc, as opposed to each child costing hundreds of thousands of more dollars in future costs. Just my thoughts on the situation. Both sides had points in the episode and I would love to hear what the lemonade stand/fellow patreons think of this!

Justice Fitzgerald

You could hand me a blank cheque and I still wouldn't want kids

Rohan Patel

Holy shit I get where peter thiel was coming from now.

Appollochan

not gonna lie, I really agree with Aiden on the birthrate stuff. Having children used to be sonething that people just assumed would happen, but these days most of my millennial friends express that they just don't want children regardless of if they had money or not. 0: That said, I don't think the low birth rate will be the end of humanity. I imagine over a long enough time frame it'd be cyclical, like pretty much everything else seems to be, humans will just have to figure out how to power through.

Fluplaxio

Turn a dating app to a mog sesh after I find out they don’t know about the Atrioc gambit, about the glizzy (hands), the glory of gold. They dont even know about the How Money Works to Big A to Lemonade Stand cartel.

Zachary Lucchetti

Very opposite from a male perspective, that’s an interesting point

Ben Hughes

Just from my own personal experience, my main driving factor for not having kids yet is definitely affordability. I do think women’s autonomy/education, and people (myself included) wanting their own personal time (exposure to topics/hobbies in a way that’s wasn’t available in the past, exploring those hobbies, having more media/social distractions, etc.) are massive contributors as well, and should be acknowledged. But as a college educated person making $65k+ a year, and having a long time partner, my financial security for a family has evaporated over the last 5-6 years. Primarily with housing ballooning 200-300% in my area, but also food/clothing costs. I grew up quite poor and refuse to do the same for my potential children. It’s a stress inducing environment that’s not good for anyone involved.

Yasi

I actually do have a void in my heart and am trying to fill it with something :(

Oscar Capraro

I think it’s weird how off base Doug seems when talking about Apple. Maybe he just hasn’t rethought his position taking into account their newer products, or maybe he’s just spent too much time dealing with bay area Apple shills that any argument for Apple just sounds like noise, but I think he should reconsider his stance. Macs are roughly the same price as an equally powerful windows laptop, macOS is far less bloated than windows 11 (and ads don’t come pre installed), and Apple silicon is genuinely such a game changer. Once they switched over to arm chips the difference is night and day, unified memory makes it feel like you have way more ram than you really do, and the difference in power consumption is crazy. There are definitely a lot of problems with Apple, but when Doug says things like they charge more for inferior products, it just doesn’t feel like it comes from a genuine assessment of what’s there

Erik Kremzner

I think the unspoken direction of what societies might feel pressure to do is to reduce autonomy and human or women's rights to increase birth rates, it's obviously not the society people want to live in, but in the long run it might end up being the society that stands to the test of time. Which is a very concerning thought.

Tempest Liu

I’m gay but I definitely get more messages at later hours. I hypothesise that the cause is the not convenient and uninspiring hours.

Robert Soto

I think the lemonade stand needs more Aiden dances

Miraz

I really like the fact that you mentioned time spent nurturing. I think a lot of the time when people mention the birth rate they jump straight into affordability (which is a huge factor). Men and women talk about how unaffordable it is to raise even once child, but I noticed that less men are talking about the time it takes to actually raise a kid and the reality of living with one until they are 18. You have to build another person up for decades when you could be building yourself up instead - especially in ways that bring you closer to your goals, career milestones, or even just taking the time to relax with a sports game you have a bet on. You don't want to go into parenthood unfulfilled, so there are those who are not even thinking about it as they can't see a period of time where they'd be fulfilled consistently enough to ponder bringing a child in. That feeling is only going to get worse as they see the toll of nurturing on parents and especially single parents around them.

Colin Doubek

I did immediately look up that Six30 app, and I feel confident I would have signed up if it was not limited to LA.

Dillon Lukaszewski

I have only watched for like 7 minutes rn because I gotta go to class but I feel like from my experience with my single friends and myself, is that gen z guys dont want to physically meet people or get on the phone with someone until they have texted someone enough to feel comfortable. That being said, I dont use dating apps or talk to women so idk.

Connor Van Eeken

I am very opposite of an Apple cuck and I love the looks of the new orange iPhone lmao

Noah Jonathan Bishop

Yea absolutely obv its not every gen z person i think theres a growing divide in gen z microcultures and subcultures due to the internet but generally many more young men are spending more time on the internet and less in the real world talking to real ppl

Going

I have studied the birth rate issue a lot and Aiden is almost completely correct. The main driver is Women's independence. There is something called the demographic transition model, but Aiden is right that family sizes are larger to work agricultural fields and generally for the labor they provide in developing countries. The same thing is true with countries that have primarily factory labor. Now in developed countries the thing that Atrioc is missing is that most people aren't people who want to 100% have kids or never want kids at all. Most people are in the middle. Now for Women the main driver is them wanting to complete life goals of their own. Most often this has to do with getting educated, having a career, ect. Most of those Women want to have kids at some point, but its something they put off in favor of their other life goals which can be shown in how much later couples have kids nowadays.

John Novakovich

I’m Gen Z and dating sucks. But I’ve repeatedly put myself in uncomfortable situations because on the other end of it could be a date/relationship. Is that not how you see things? It’s hard for me to understand why a phone call would stop someone from entering a favorable dating pool unless, in their core, they don’t really want to date to begin with.

John Novakovich

You can grow and refine at the same time. Most companies do both every day. Many people do as well.

John Novakovich

I sometimes feel that this could be the root cause too, but our parents thought the USSR could nuke them like any minute. The 50’s-90’s look rosier to us in hindsight but in the moment they had plenty to worry about, big and small. They still had kids though.

Ruben

They specifically specified that the MacBooks are good, it's the iPad and iPhone line that are not really... evolving. For example: no fast charging, no USB-C until forced, no RCS until forced, Siri isn't all that good as far as I've heard, and now they need help from Google to get Siri up to speed. And all of that for a much higher price than all competitors. An iPhone is inconvenient to switch away from, very easy to use by non tech savvy people, they have good long term support, they're good at taking videos and the OS is stable and fast. That's where the advantages end.

Ruben

They specifically specified that they were not talking about MacBooks

Oscar Capraro

Aiden did talk about macs briefly, and yeah they all agree that iPhones suck, but Doug doesn’t frame his arguments that way. He talks about how Apple makes worse products, or says they don’t innovate anymore or asks when was the last time anyone was excited over a new Apple device. He might have iPhones and iPads in mind when he says this, but it comes off like he’s judging a whole company off of their worst products. He goes on a whole rant about how Apple just keeps pumping out the same products year after year, citing their mobile devices, but completely ignoring them designing their own chips and consistently making top of the line laptops for good prices over the past 5 years. It just feels like he has a narrative in mind and is willing to ignore some pretty crucial aspects of what Apple does to go along with it.

James

It felt like *I* took a bong hit trying to understand Aiden's birth rate discussion. He's right that when kids are a cost rather than 'free' farm labor, people are going to put them off more. But Big A is right - I think Aiden is ignoring decades where births met replacement while cost of living was lower, child labor wasn't useful to most families, contraception was still widely available, and women were still fairly liberated. The assertion that there is no sum of money you could give people to have more kids is simply not based in reality. Where you get the funding aside, if you gave people 2 million dollars to raise at least 3 kids instead of working, you can't tell me that doesn't move the line. It seems vastly more feasible to restructure society in such a way that people aren't prevented from achieving goals at work and in their personal lives by having children - fundamentally an affordability problem, than to completely abolish work for most people. Societies with communal child rearing have existed for millenia - it was the norm for most of human history; and while communal property has been similarly commonplace until just recently, "communism but with robots" is going to be a less likely transition for post red scare, hyper-capitalist modern society IMO. I mean, I think he's right to question the wisdom of a society which cannot ever shrink, and robo-communism seems like a decent solution to inevitable problems, but his solution is still fundamentally affordability. Robo-communism does ameliorate the need for a high birth rate, but it does so by reducing inequality & unaffordability... Unfortunately we can't do two things at once, so we will have to stay destitute and have no children forever.

Seit2663

Did you guys where color coordinate the white and black shirts for this argument😂

Claiming Light

I've done very well on dating apps. It's incredibly powerful to be able to read a dossier authored and provided to you by the very person you want to talk to. If you're willing to read a few paragraphs, apply some reading comprehension and ask questions about the things you read, I think anyone can do exceptionally well. You're basically competing against freaks who try to send dick pics as an opening line. It's not hard. Yet, despite all that, I hate those freaking apps. Humanity isn't meant to be reduced to items from a restaurant menu. And when you make the opening meetings itemized and transactional, everything that follows is going to follow that trajectory. Why did we leave it to pocket protector engineers to decide the fate of human romance? Wasn't it enough to let them decide what news we hear, what entertainment we consume, what comments we see, and every other aspect of modern life?

Fluplaxio

I think with the question of birthrate we have overblown expectations of what we need to have because of the baby boom. They got back from WW2 they get smashing like crazy, they have money, and have opportunity. If we just had a steady birth/death rate that didn’t have a generational imbalance because of macro factors I think our perspective of “the perfect balance” would be different.

Rachel Cunningham

I pulled the "immediate call" on dating apps back in the day it was goated as a strategy tbh. I fear phone calls but it just wasted so much less time to either 1) just immediately meet up with the person in a public place or 2) immediately check out the general vibe

Marvin Krug

I feel like it is fair to say a company where around 10% of their revenue comes from those good laptops and 60% from their phones and tablets is not innovating that much, the MacBook is a caveat in the overall picture and not the company's defining product. Most people experience the phones and that is what shapes the narrative about the company, even if other products are innovative and well priced.

lemonboi

i would like and episode where they pitch cultural solutions to the birth rate, (ala the daily fuck) cause cultural shake ups are an interesting concept tbh.

Oscar Capraro

I mean yes, 60% comes from phones and tablets, but that’s over 50% from phones, and less than 10 from tablets. Macs make them more than iPads, and they did talk about iPads a fair amount. Yeah their biggest product is pretty awful, but Macs are their second biggest source of hardware income, so it just seems strange to harp on why their iPads suck, and brush off their genuinely good products

Dragau4

I think I get what Aiden is saying and I agree, I have noticed that a VAST majority of the girls I have met talk about never wanting kids and hating kids(unrelated to economy), I think it is way more than affordability

exgota

but they don’t need to? they’re chips are the BEST consumer chips in the world and it isn’t close. what innovation do they need?

Eric

My brother and I were talking about life generally, and here's what he said. "There's this ring of pedo's that aren't going to be brought to justice. I just can't muster the energy to give a fuck." I think that the issue with birth rates is that people are becoming more demoralized with life.

AH

I very much could afford to have childern but the idea of being pregant and risking my life and body doesn't appeal to me at all. There was a time that would have been my only purpose but I am allowed to have other goals so I wouldn't I pick those. Paid surrogacy isn't legal in Canada so money doesn't address that issue. The robots we need to fix the birth rate crisis is wombs.

TheThoughtCabinet

One of the best examples of good solutions to low birth rates is a Bulgarian scientist-turned-politician named Elena Lagadinova who took a crack at the child problem back in the '70s. She took surveys asking women, the people having kids, why they weren't having kids, and they mainly broke it down into lack of job security and lack of child care. The country instituted a 3-year maternity leave with guaranteed job protection and massive state-funded kindergartens, and this caused the birth rate to jump back up to nearly 2.3 almost overnight from a low of 2.02. It stabilized the population for the next 15 years until the government collapsed in '89. I'm not saying this is going to work for every country in every situation, especially if they're far behind, but solutions like this are worth a shot.

Zombie1047

As a GenZ guy, I definitely do hate and sometimes dread phone calls

Kerrin Grosvenor

As a mid 30s woman with a 6yo, there are two other considerations that weren’t super covered: Fertility. We wanted two kids, and even at 30 we had enough fertility problems that we were going to need IVF to have a second. This would realistically likely cost somewhere between AUD40-80k. It wasn’t even the cost (which we could cover) but the emotional and physical impact of IVF itself, even before pregnancy itself. Secondly, society does not effectively support parenting. It’s really freaking hard, even as economically well off people. It’s hard to be a happy individual, happier to be a present parent, and hard to have a healthy relationship. The more kids you have the harder all of those things become again. We know what life we want to live and the parents we want to be, and the reality we face is that having more children makes the likely success of achieving any (let alone all) of those things increasingly harder. Thus, we have only one child, despite planning for 2-3 initially.

Chad

I think atrioc is straight up wrong for the first time ever /s Aiden is on the nose ive seen far more poor people having tons of kids and rich 20 somethings waiting for a ten year plan for single child Its not economics we are made to want to breed are society has changed to where its not a priority

Chad

Based gov support for child rearing

Matchu

These are my own personal opinions informed merely by my own personal experience but pertaining to online dating, I'll try to put in as simple english as possible: our culture growing up has portrayed women as dainty, perfect, beautiful creatures to be protected, and portrayed men as strong, independant, intelligent creatures that need to do everything on their own without help from anyone and need to show zero signs of emotion else they be construed as weak, and if EITHER party (men or women) show signs of anything different to these norms, it goes "against the grain". Obviously, neither of these extremes are true in reality, and I do feel that gender discussion has continued to improve in recent years. But with that being said, women (on average) have much higher confidence in the dating market. (I won't say "self confidence" generally speaking because that's a whole different but related thing). But specifically in dating, men (on average) are much more desperate, a woman can land a date and secure a relationship much quicker (on average) than a man can. So 80/20 is a very believable and understandable ratio. As a side note, pertaining to phone calls, I'm a Zillenial and yes any kind of formal encounter with perceived potential for bad outcome(s) stresses me the fuck out, especially if it is not accompanied by facial gestures and body language to help in emotional assessment. Doug brought up "they talk in discord with their friends all the time so i dont get it?" (paraphrasation) but that is much different because it is an informal context among friends. There is definitely some validity to the argument that discord calls and such do help you get your reps in, but it really is different so it can only help so much. Again, these are my own personal opinions informed merely by my own personal experience.

Emmanuel Alagbala

Yh lmao the answer is actually quite simple. literally just ask women and tackle their top 3 issues

Emmanuel Alagbala

Just look for statistics for the top 10% on birth rates, i agree with aiden that women may say they want 2.5 on average but the reality of it may make them drop to somewhere below 2.1. It's not inconceivable with how women complain abour the realities of those burdens. Ironically i think this woukd be a fantastic opportunity to interview young women and early mothers and/or YOUR PARTNERS

Connor Lindgren

This has been one of my favorite Aiden arguments and I side with him in terms of birth rates being far more complex than economics. Something that is an interesting piece of the puzzle is that in the US, birth rates have fallen most prominently in more impoverished communities. In addition, the population of people who make at least twice the poverty limit have held a fairly stable rate since 2003. While this could support Atrioc's argument, it doesn't prove that the change is economic. There could be culture shifts at that income level that are mainly responsible (higher adoption of contraceptives, etc). Food for thought! All of this according to this statistica chart https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/?srsltid=AfmBOopHgMXOyjyDjLqdZPZkKo7QiLRqtzxoV5zWeGDLwnsHaXDwi_Yk

dchao207

I’m in my early 30s and do not see a future where I can have kids. I would have to meet someone I trust enough to raise children with and have that kid in the next 10 years to have a hope of getting that kid to college before I turn 60 and hopefully retire. And given the need for today’s parents to support their children well through their mid 20s, I could only do it with a very optimistic outlook on my career. And who realistically can have that level of optimism today. I make like top 5% in income for my age and I cannot see it happening. We’re cooked chat.

Negentropy

Regarding Wikane's point, artificial or exo-wombs would only address the challenges and opportunity costs of pregnancy and giving birth - which don't get me wrong, are significant issues in of themselves, but what M C (plus other commenters like bee and Neko mini) are pointing out is the much greater time, fiscal and opportunity cost commitments which come with raising children (and unfortunately even today is often disproportionally burdened upon women), which would need much greater societal restructuring than we are currently contemplating to meaningfully accommodate. That, or some kind of total "conception-gestation-childcare-education" public program combining exo-wombs with a mass child crèche system where a government creates wholesale new humans without any parental involvement (probably would need some kind of semi-randomised way to create embryos without direct parental connections) and raises them as wards of the state or some kind of mass-subsidised adoption program (either which would have enormous challenges to ensure those children had comparable quality of life to "regular-birth" children, even if you could hypothetically solve all the technical problems with such an idea). Ironically, making a massively expensive and technically ambitious new social pillar might be easier for a lot of economies to pivot towards than letting workers work less for better pay, but perhaps I'm being too cynical.