Nah. If delusion is the route to happiness, I'd still not recommend it. The biggest argument against religious belief is that it is so obviously a human construct - i.e. made up. (View Post)

The world as a whole is likely now at ‘peak child’, and global population will level off in coming decades and then may indeed start to drift down. For the planet, and probably for societies, this is… (View Post)

I’d then add a p.s. about the benefits. It’s noticeable that in western economies, it’s the poorer and more vulnerable communities that often retain the sort of extended family networks that middle c… (View Post)

Thinking about ‘affording’ it is the wrong way about, though. If it were a question of affording it, then wealthier families would have more children - and farm their care out to staff as used to be … (View Post)

Some decades ago, when I studied demography at Cambridge, the academics’ favoured theory was that it mostly came down to economics. If having an extra child was a net economic benefit to the parents … (View Post)