When I ask my cousins and siblings why they don't want to have the kids the opinions range from too much of a restriction to my freedoms, too expensive, too much work, it'll ruin my body.
These area all valid reasons and in fact it was a tough sell for my wife and I to convince ourselves whether even we should have children. I'm glad I did, but I had no idea how much work it takes and I honestly would not judge anyone who opts-out of having them - but...it does mean we face demographic collapse and free child care is just not enough.
Give young families cheaper homes, cheaper college education and have a cultural shift which values having a child as much as a career if not more so and maybe we'll start to see things change.
It's not just in the hardware sector, it's across the board.
My (American) wife moved to London years ago and was a manager in a prestigious London museum overseeing 60 people.
She has over 20 years experience in some of our top museums and her salary in 2023 was a paltry £30k.
We just moved to the US and within a couple of months she has a job in museums here but now paying 2.3x the salary (converted back to £) and only managing a team of 20 people.
Less stress, more resources for uniforms and initiatives and annual salary increases here way above inflation.
As a Londoner I feel quite aggrieved by the situation. It's one thing to increase your salary 50% as a lot of engineers do moving to the US. But to 230% increase your salary is just nuts.
Only London's financial sector pay was globally competitive - but now with Brexit's rules fully locked in even that sector is slowly losing its talent and customers to Europe and beyond.
As a jaded 40+ year old developer this got me choked up.
I remember that optimistic view we all had of technology in our youth.
For me the optimism was a little earlier than 2012 so maybe it goes hand in hand with being young and less experienced (jaded?).
I agree with some of the other commenters that a corporate structure makes altruistic goals like these impossible.
Only Wikipedia and The Internet Archive for me carry that feeling of goodwill still. I think OpenAI going from non-profit to profit will similarly erode the product as market incentives push it further away from what benefits the user most.
Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit.
Counterpoints are useful to help negate echo chambers where we end up clicking on the articles which validate our world view.
In addition the most upvoted comments (at least on the Financial Times website) are sometimes more informed and nuanced than the articles themselves. The article often gets the debate rolling - come for the articles, stay for the comments (so to speak).
Illegal immigration? Yes - they are upset by people whose first act on entering a country is to break the law.
I say that as a legal immigrant to the US whose parents were legal immigrants to the UK. It took me over 18 months to get my green card approved and years for my parents to obtain a British ancestry visa so they could enter and work.
As far as hate towards transgender people, it takes energy to hate. Most people (who don't have trans loved ones) simply don't care and are upset that they are compelled to care.
When I ask my cousins and siblings why they don't want to have the kids the opinions range from too much of a restriction to my freedoms, too expensive, too much work, it'll ruin my body.
These area all valid reasons and in fact it was a tough sell for my wife and I to convince ourselves whether even we should have children. I'm glad I did, but I had no idea how much work it takes and I honestly would not judge anyone who opts-out of having them - but...it does mean we face demographic collapse and free child care is just not enough.
Give young families cheaper homes, cheaper college education and have a cultural shift which values having a child as much as a career if not more so and maybe we'll start to see things change.