ike comments on Rationality Quotes December 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Salemicus 03 December 2014 10:33PM

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Comment author: ike 22 December 2014 02:58:55AM 2 points [-]

“The birthrate in the United States is at an all-time low. Whereas our death rate is still holding strong at 100 percent.”

Jimmy Kimmel

Comment author: DanielLC 27 December 2014 09:01:45PM *  5 points [-]

It's actually only about 45 percent. The death rate for the world as a whole is about 93 percent.

Comment author: Philip_W 03 January 2015 01:55:46PM 3 points [-]

That's just not true. Death rate, as the name implies, is a rate - the population that died in this year divided by the average total population. If "death rate" is 100%, then "birth rate" is 100% by the same reasoning, because 100% of people were born.

Comment author: ike 04 January 2015 12:33:51AM 1 point [-]

That depends on whether fetuses are people ...

If yes, the actual birth rate is around 80%. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_Stats/Abortion.htm

Comment author: Philip_W 05 January 2015 08:07:24AM 0 points [-]

birth rate

I wouldn't consider abortion a "birth", per se.

Comment author: ike 05 January 2015 04:53:01PM 1 point [-]

Exactly, so only people who aren't aborted count as born, in which case the birth rate is 80%.

Comment author: Philip_W 06 January 2015 01:30:34PM 0 points [-]

Ah, "actual" threw me off. So you mean something close to "The lifetime projected probability of being born(/dying) for people who came into existence during the last year".