- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
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Hopefully not.
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say that as long as global population is going up, we’re having too many, not too few. Once it levels off we may have to think about whether we want to degrow the population or just leave it.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if by the 2080s, “peak human” according to the quoted estimate, Brave New World baby factories are an option should we need them.
The issue is growth rates are wildly different among different areas and cultures. The population in some places is dropping precipitously which will cause economic problems, especially around elder care.
While I agree that a gradual population reduction would be beneficial, rapid declines will increase human suffering and should be avoided.
different areas and cultures
It’s really more wealth and education based. Muslim Kazakhstan has a birth rate near replacement, neighboring Tajikistan has a big one, and Afghanistan a couple of stans down has one sky high. Further south yet, India still has a very family-centric culture, but they’ve dropped below replacement now.
All problems right now, when there’s a global surplus, are due to lack of immigration. I say we work on that.
Doubt we even need them unless its for organs. Companies are always trying to do more with less. It’s better to just not hire more staff that retired or left than laying off some. Smaller well educated population is better than bloated useless one.
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and guess that 1 or 2 billion is enough long-term to retain all the diversity of lifestyle we’ve come to love, and then each person will be able to safely consume many times more.
that is the level I think the world could handle and recover year to year (well if it was not overtaxed to begin with) and allow folks to have a modern type of lifestyle with our current don’t try crappy way of doing things.
I read 10k was minimum for space colony to keep good biodiversity. We can lose pops for a while. So long as automation keeps up.
Yeah. I’m guessing technologies would start to get lost if we went below a million without careful planning, but even then we have centuries of exponential decrease to go before we’re really in trouble.
Even without automation, less people means less consumers, so the only pain is short term as there’s a ton of decrepit old people (like me if I’m still around) for the youth to care for. Some large projects might lose economy of scale, but then again anything finite like land will get way cheaper.
Lost knowlege has precedent in history. That’s when 40k style Standard Template Construct come into effect. Which We already started with chat gpt and such. Just need to optimize it. Bigger issue is if humanity will progress In technology or remain stagnate.
People keep saying we need to worry about elderly but realistically if there is less manufacturing or service jobs from automation and people don’t want robot carer’s then technically there would be more care jobs open. Seems like will sort itself out in the end.
Bigger issue is if humanity will progress In technology or remain stagnate.
That’s also a good point. There is a quote, “society progresses one funeral at a time”. That goes for social progress, and to a degree for scientific progress as well.
I’m going to go ahead and say I don’t want today’s old people in charge forever.
Seems like will sort itself out in the end.
Yeah, I’m not terribly worried about everything else; we got lucky inventing mass contraception when we did.
Once it levels off we may have to think about whether we want to degrow the population
The problem is this is one of those long term things that people have a hard time understanding. By the time you see it level off, it’s decades too late to change things. Let’s not make the same mistake as we continue to do with climate: instead of putting it off until it becomes a crisis let’s make small changes now so the crisis doesn’t happen.
We definitely can’t grow population forever and are likely beyond a sustainable population already, but let’s try for a smooth leveling off and soft landing rather than flying off a cliff and crashing into the rocks
Hmm. So how should we go about that today? Trying to raise population growth in developed countries, besides having proven very hard to do ethically, makes the problem with a high peak population worse.
It being hard to do is all the more reason to start now. We certainly don’t want to step back in human rights or healthcare so perhaps our only choice is incentives or assistance. Yes, that has proven not very effective so far but our only choice is to try. Perhaps assistance and incentives need to go a bit farther. I know I found a lot more challenges to being a parent than just the cost. Perhaps there’s some social statuses that need to be changed but are subject to generational inertia: when does being a parent confer status or respect, or at least not stunt your career?
Yeah, if it works we’re back to worrying about overpopulation, which is far worse. It’s a moral hazard. I was hoping you had a third option. Otherwise, no, let the birth rate collapse.
The main driver of population growth is people living longer. The problem with less babies being born means less young labourers for all the old fucks to exploit. Logan’s Run would be a better sci-fi system to adopt.
Right now it’s still birth rate, to be clear. Life expectancy as gone up by mere years over the decades, while births per adult woman is still double digit in a few select countries.
Biology is a field that’s growing explosively these days, though, and I fully expect aging to settle down suddenly. I’ll have to look up what Logan’s Run is.
Edit: 30 is definitely too low for a maximum age, lol. People commonly work into their 60s. I expect that decline in age will slow down as well, so that helps offset things, and then if there’s still a population crunch geezers like me should start doing “lotteries”. Maybe literal Russian roulette, for the style factor.
Maybe we need more fucking and less babies. Fucking makes people happy for nearly free, just the price of condoms. To continuously depopulate, we would want to have deathbed parties for old fucks, or parties at the morg.
Maybe another pandemic? And we just ignore all we learned and we go around spitting on every door knob?
Putting aside economical aspect, western civilisation in order to sustain itself, requires on average little above 2 children per household (can’t find the link to the study). Such number would provide enough “man power” to replace aging work force and would keep society going forward. This is the perfect world scenario. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world and there’s nothing current governments can do to change it. It would require a lot of work, money and time and no government will risk long term investment because it won’t give much votes.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/11/global-birthrates-dropping
Maybe we don’t need more people in the world?
the US has already implemented policy changes to combat the problem
🤡
is it enough though. Are we properly inspecting non pregnant womens vaginas to make sure they are keeping them filled with cum?
Removed by mod
Yeah but at least we no longer let them have control of their own bodies.
Somebody has to breed the next generation of wage slaves and these bitches haven’t been doing their mother fucking job!!!
The depopulation plan it’s going smooth…
fuck
Well, this would increase birthrates ! /joke
Governments will not turn the tide because the u official policy is to work current population to death which inherently will lead to low birth rates.
They are not changing this policy, fuck you peasants!
Any shortage will be made with migrant labour who are pliable anyway… Lower wages, less talking back.
So while conservatives are clowns with the replacement theory bullshit… Rhreee brown bad, white good angle is beyond retarded.
The facts are facts. Indigenous populations are in unable to sustain capitalist machine and the regime has no problem bring in to make the difference.
If you really think that government is going to address fertility issues with proper social policy…
Then you are just playing into their hand. They are front running the issue with some limp dicm response to maintain the status quo.
Is an high birthrate actually a good thing?
For the planet? No. For capitalism, yes.
Hard to have infinite growth without infinite growth.
Governments needs more slaves and army conscripts, hurry up and have more children
This exactly.
I don’t know. Do we really need to replace another 8.2 billion people, does that line really need to go up?
No, but we also don’t want that line to suddenly plummet either.
Think of it this way: birth rate of one is half replacement value and most developed countries are there. We’re already having half the children we need to stay level but it’s not obvious because of the larger generations still living. In 20 years, that half population will half yet again, one quarter the children to level off. Then those older generations age out, and you get larger generations replaced by multiple halvings. For example if you live three generations, then at the end of your life, the population is only 1/8 what it was. Obviously it won’t be this simple and many things could affect birthrate but I find this trend frightening for humanity’s future. We’re not talking lower population but facing the possibility of a crashing population
The birthrate BS is already being used as reasons for controlling women. The only down fall is Religious nut bags and Republican assholes losing control over the other sex.
A better way of life automatically equals the natural number of children. There’s no need for another 9 billion people. There is a very strong need of a better life for 8 billion of us.
There’s no need for another 9 billion people. There is a very strong need of a better life for 8 billion of us.
Agreed, but there are many possibilities for where this trend heads and when it levels out.
- there’s no need for a chaotic, disrupted life for 5 billion of us
- there’s no need for widespread societal collapse as we no longer have the population to afford the infrastructure we’ve built out
- there’s no need to live in a dystopia of limitation with collapsing hope and vision, dying innovation and arts, ever constriction g, ever decreasing
If we try to tweak the birth rate starting now, we’re more likely to land at a sweet spot like “ a better life for 8 billion of us.”
And no, controlling women is not the way. Being evil always seems the faster and easier path, but where do you end up? Evil
They could they’re just not willing to do what would be required.
2 billion was perfect. Let’s get back to that and stay there.
Oh, someone else who read ‘The Ministry for the Future’?
mmmm smells like something that quickly leads to eugenics. the amount of people currently alive isn’t an issue. declining birth rates are. we can’t rely on an expanding population forever, but until we can declining birth rates will be an issue.
We don’t need a higher birth rate … we need a better quality of life for everyone.
Yeah, Hans Rossling had a cool tes talk about the direct correlation between family sizes and access to healthcare. If the life expectancy goes up, family sizes go down. The talk
Now we have reached a point where the system in a lot of countries works against the forever growth as people need to work work work and don’t see a future for themselves, let alone for a family.
It’s almost like if people had free time, a positive outlook on life, and resources to live comfortably that babies would be a natural outcome.
