have you had an interaction with a conservative in the last 10 years that doesn't feel like a troll?

I can still see that comment in my inbox, and even if you remove the racist aspect, it is still deeply problematic from any position that faces a “facts and science” direction.

Because even if we ignore the fact that we have blown 4× past our planet’s safe and healthy carrying capacity that still allows maximum health and resiliency in ecosystems (as in, let’s ignore the fact that the planet could benefit immediately and immensely by losing 3 out of every 4 humans), there is then the question of why people aren’t having children… and again, it comes right back down to conservative policies of eliminating social safety nets, taking the burden of taxation away from the Parasite Class to place it onto the working class, and “freeing the market” to capitalist shenanigans that have caused home values and other costs to skyrocket and wages & benefits to erode.

People aren’t having children because it has become fiscally irresponsible to do so. And not just mildly fiscally irresponsible, but prohibitively so. From the 40s to the 80s, a couple needed only a few short years (or none at all, if the man had already established himself in the workplace) to afford starting a family. Homes were well within reach of even minimum wage workers, in that brand new homes in many regions were not that much beyond the other half of the one-third rule of, “a purchased home should not be more than 3× annual wage”. My own detached, single-family, split-level house was built in 1972, when the minimum wage was $2/hr, or $40k/yr. It sold in that year for only $15,900. That’s only 4× more than MINIMUM wage.

Now? In my tiny corner, in a tourist town 3+ hrs from the nearest metro region, median-value homes are 29× that of minimum wage, and 25× of the median income. Remember - median means middle… half of all working-class adults earn more than the median income, half of all working-class adults earn less. There is no way a couple can afford a stable foundation on which to build a family without dedicating several decades to the task before a baby even arrives.

And all this comes from Conservative “let the market decide” policies. I could enumerate all the triggers - such as corporations whose only purpose is to come in, buy up as much of a neighbourhood as possible, then rent the houses back out for as much as the market will bear to maximize their profit margins, thereby denying people an exit and leaving them locked-in as lifetime renters - but that would involve hitting Lemmy’s content limitations several times over.