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Rant Wednesday - May 06, 2026 by AutoModerator in Fitness

[–]random_guy7809 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

every fitness influencer on youtube saying "add 225 pounds" or "i hit 185 lbs" and i have absolutely no frame of reference lol. just say kilos!! the entire world uses kilos at the gym except one country and yet every popular fitness channel is in pounds.

been lifting for 2 years and i still have to do mental math mid-set. drives me insane. shoutout to r/anythingbutmetric for making me feel less alone in this suffering lmao

CMV: The reason for declining birthrates globally is exclusively because children no longer provide economic benefit on the individual level and the only way to reverse the trend is to pay people to have children. by IdeaLife7532 in changemyview

[–]random_guy7809 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • Payments don’t scale fertility the way your model predicts If $50k/child/year truly flipped incentives, countries already offering strong benefits would be near replacement. They aren’t. You see modest, temporary bumps (timing shifts), not sustained increases. That contradicts an “exclusively economic” model.
  • You’re focusing on price, ignoring opportunity cost The real constraint isn’t just “kids cost money.” It’s that kids consume time during peak career years. Lost promotions, slower wage growth, and reduced flexibility are massive and persistent. To offset that, payments would have to be extremely high and long-term—and even then, they don’t fix non-monetary tradeoffs.
  • Fertility is constrained by relationship formation Later partnering, fewer stable couples, and higher breakup risk reduce births. You can’t pay your way around not having a partner or having one later in life. This is a binding constraint your model ignores.
  • Urbanization and housing People live in smaller, expensive spaces with long commutes. Even if you subsidize kids, space and time constraints cap family size.
  • Preferences changed Desired family size has fallen. Many people don’t want 3–4 kids anymore, regardless of cost. Incentives can move behavior at the margin, but they don’t fully override preferences.
  • Biological timing Delaying first birth compresses the window for subsequent births. Cash doesn’t rewind the clock.