It is short-sighted to celebrate the economic returns of women having no&#x2F;fewer children. Consider the average contribution to the furthering of mankind over one woman&#x27;s lifetime (without children, her lineage stops there), versus the potential contribution from her 100 descendants in 3 generations&#x27; time, or 1000 descendants in 5 generations&#x27; time.<p>Unfortunately, this myopic fascination for short-term economic gain and &quot;equality&quot; persists, and yet we wonder why the developed world&#x27;s economies are stagnating and teetering closer to failure. It&#x27;s our birth rates, stupid!<p>Besides, people are so much more than economic units, despite what our media tells us. Each part of the world has its own unique history, philosophy, art, ethnicity, food -- all handed down from our respective ancestors. And yet, we continue to march into the abyss and throw it all away for the sake of the economy; individualism and consumerism is the name of the game nowadays.<p>There&#x27;s no reason for this; we have to stop before we lose everything.<p>(I wrote some more on this yesterday: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11076964" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11076964</a>)