
‘Remarkable’ global decline in the number of children women are having - maxwell
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103
======
chiefalchemist
Not to get too off topic, but higher birth rates equal more economic growth,
or at least the potential for it.

That is, what's currently being passed off as an immigration issue - in the
USA, and Europe (e.g., Germany) - is ultimately an economic growth issue. With
"native" births flat (or less), growth has to come from somewhere. The quick
and simple solution is immigration. But, obviously, that's coming with
baggage, at least for the proles. The economic elites continue to cash in.

Put another way, no one wants to be the next Japan. Capable but ultimately
stagnant.

Note: Yes, I'm generalizing but the bottom line is, immigration in many
countries is often a proxy for economic growth.

~~~
snowwrestler
> higher birth rates equal more economic growth

The empirical data doesn't support this. The nations with the strongest
economies are also the nations with among the lowest birth rates, and it has
been that way for decades. To highlight one specific example, China's birth
rate fell even as its economy took off over the past 30 years. And they did
not experience high rates of immigration either.

~~~
munificent
I don't think we have enough longitudinal data for a claim like this.

It's probably a short-term good to zero out your birthrate. That way you have
tons of working age people who aren't busy being parents and can do
economically useful labor.

But in forty years when those people get too old to work and there's no
younger generation to replace them (and take care of them), you're gonna have
a really bad time.

My hunch is that contraception is still new enough that countries like the US
haven't quite reached the "have a really bad time" side of that curve, but we
are fast approaching it. It's going to be rough in the US when all the Boomers
retire and start consuming healthcare while there aren't enough young people
paying into Social Security to support it.

~~~
redahs
Paying for Social Security using payroll taxes as we are currently doing seems
like national suicidal, because younger families gain a greater share of their
total income from working, rather than from holding land and investments.

Payroll taxes increase the effective tax burden on younger working families in
their prime reproductive years, which means they can no longer afford to have
the same number of kids, or to have kids as early. When younger workers are
taxed, the less affordable it is to create new generations of younger workers,
and fertility rates decrease.

The best thing the United States could do to address this would be to
eliminate FICA \ self-employment taxes and fund social security out of a
general income tax which taxed capital gains and dividends at the same rate as
labor income. An even better solution would be fund it via a national real-
estate property tax or national land value tax, and not to raise it from taxes
on earnings at all, as Thomas Paine originally proposed in Agrarian Justice.

~~~
snowwrestler
Social Security is funded from payroll for the same reason 401k's are funded
from payroll: because it is a retirement program that people invest in while
working, and draw down when retired.

Now, I know and you probably know that it is actually run like a transfer
program, where the payroll taxes from working people in 2018 are turned right
around and sent out as checks to retired people in 2018.

But here's the thing: so are 401k's. The money you spend to buy investments in
2018 doesn't go into a vault; it is transferred to people who are selling
investments... people like current retirees who are drawing down their 401k.
And then when you're retired in 2048 (or whenever), and you're drawing down
your 401k, you'll be getting your money transferred from people who are buying
investments... people like younger workers building their nest egg.

Retirement programs are just collections of promises... that's all a financial
asset is, a claim against future income. Social Security is a different kind
of asset, but it still works fundamentally the same way; you pay into it while
working, to create a claim against future payroll tax income when you're
retired.

------
dqpb
> _The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things
> that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility. Instead it is being
> put down to three key factors:

\- Fewer deaths in childhood meaning women have fewer babies

\- Greater access to contraception

\- More women in education and work

In many ways, falling fertility rates are a success story._

~~~
raverbashing
It's funny how both the "left" and the "right" love higher birth rates (they
sell it as noble worries but it's usually for furthering their cause) when it
doesn't make sense anymore in modern societies.

There are too many people on the planet already, and most of them don't have a
good quality of life. And more importantly, there isn't a way of significantly
improving it (with today's technology and social/ethics understanding)

~~~
chronid
> There are too many people on the planet already

I feel the reaction many people have about population decline in NA and EU is
understandable (one may or may not share the concern though, that's personal):
your tribe is making less children, the others do no seem to care. And they
_will_ replace your tribe in the future if you don't make children, it's a
game of numbers in the end.

NA and EU count very little in the great scheme of things from a population
perspective [1] anyway - there are 5+ billion people in Asia and Africa (many
in places that will be devastated by global warming), and those people aren't
going to stop making babies any time soon. Are we going to force them to stop?
How?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:Population_Growth_by_World_Bank_continental_division.png)

~~~
raverbashing
> and those people aren't going to stop making babies any time soon

Actually, in Asia they are mostly stopping
[https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-
rate](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate) India is 2.5ish already,
China is below 2

Yes, there is reason to worry about decline and population replacement, at the
same time, numbers are not all there is (especially when people are unhappy).

------
cagenut
This is old (2017) but still fantastic news w/r/t global warming. In a
simplified model of:

(Population x Consumption x Efficiency) / Resources

We can either all consume far less, or there can be less of us. I would rather
have half as many people living a 2x more efficient and 4x more luxiourous
lifestyle in 2100 than twice as many people fighting for water and arable
land.

~~~
turc1656
Agreed. I've always wondered why everyone freaks out at information like that
contained in the article. Controlled, natural decline in my mind is good
because there is simply too many people on the planet. The options for
addressing that can be lumped into either 1) having society formally or
informally agree to depopulate through choices, culture, law, etc. or 2)
killing people.

No sane person wants #2. So if there is a natural/cultural shift that is
moving toward depopulation that's a huge win because the other options are
doing something similar to China's previous one child policy or some other
method of forcing or providing incentives to have fewer children.

As long as society is aware of the trend we can plan accordingly.
Demographically, we'll be looking more like Japan, but I don't necessarily see
the intrinsic harm in that. The planet has a fixed mass and fixed resources.
We can't keep playing this game of "infinite growth forever!" in every aspect
of the economy. As the saying goes, "that which cannot continue, will not
continue."

~~~
shoo
i think there is a bit of fear of how to stably operate a society that has
negative population growth, and/or negative economic growth (not that both of
those things are necessarily coupled).

we've had a bit of practise over the past handful of decades since the
industrial revolution of trying to figure out how to have a roughly stable
society under conditions of economic and population growth, perhaps a lot of
those rules of thumb need to be thrown-out and rethought

------
yogthos
I'm really struggling how this is a bad thing to be honest. The planet is
already overpopulated, and each new person introduces a huge carbon footprint.

~~~
dgudkov
For all know biological species the size of population is a primary indication
of health and well-being. Shrinking population indicates inability to adapt or
some kind of malaise.

Personally, I don't believe there is such thing as overpopulation. There is
ineffective utilization of resources and poor management which can be viewed
as inability to adapt. Ancient cities couldn't grow beyond 100K population
because they didn't have sewers. Once sewers became widespread, major cities
hit 1 mln in just a few centuries. I believe the Earth can host many more
people than it does now if resources and space are utilized efficiently and
human morale is high.

~~~
dbcurtis
> Personally, I don't believe there is such thing as overpopulation.

Do you not believe the planet has a finite size? Because those two things go
together.

~~~
dgudkov
That's a good point. Of course there is a physical limit of placing many
humans in a limited space (if we assume that there will be no low orbit
habitats which may not be the case). However, it would rather be economical
reasons to leave overpopulated areas (e.g. move to LEO/Mars/Moon) rather than
fertility related. For instance, people may leave New York because it feels
too crammed, but nobody in their right mind would say "it would be great if
fertility of New Yorkers went down as low as possible".

So my point stands -- the problem of overpopulation is not real as long as
humans can adapt technologically, environmentally, and socially. The Earth is
a limited space only as long as humans don't have the technology to expand
habitable space above (and below) the surface. And above the surface only the
sky is the limit. Literally :)

~~~
EForEndeavour
Space colonization cannot and will never relieve overpopulation, and it's time
for that notion to die. The USA alone sees roughly 4 million births per year.
That's 11 _thousand_ births per day. It is completely delusional to expect our
species to lift enough people out of our gravity well to put a dent in
population growth.

------
buboard
The survey they reference (Global Burden of Disease 17) is a lot more
alarming:

[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(18\)32858-7/fulltext)

> GBD 2017 is disturbing. Not only do the amalgamated global figures show a
> worrying slowdown in progress but the more granular data unearths exactly
> how patchy progress has been. GBD 2017 is a reminder that, without vigilance
> and constant effort, progress can easily be reversed. But the GBD is also an
> encouragement to think differently in this time of crisis. By cataloguing
> inequalities in health-care delivery and patterns of disease geography, this
> iteration of the GBD presents an opportunity to move away from the generic
> application of UHC and towards a more tailored precision approach to UHC.
> GBD 2017 should be an electric shock, galvanising national governments and
> international agencies not only to redouble their efforts to avoid the
> imminent loss of hard-won gains but also to adopt a fresh approach to
> growing threats.

------
Animats
Where we're headed is pretty clear. Two big trends will drive this century -
declining birth rates and rising temperatures.

The world hit "peak baby" this year. The number of babies born per year
worldwide is now declining. The US hit peak baby in 2016. Japan hit peak baby
in 1981. Japan, outside of Tokyo and Osaka, is emptying out.

On the rising temperature front, some areas of the world are becoming
uninhabitable. Some of those areas near the equator have a lot of people in
them.

~~~
naasking
It's almost ironic that progressives may one day become a minority while
conservatives will become a majority again, purely because traditional gender
roles ensure the continuation of those values to future generations. We're not
yet at the point where we can beat nature on this matter.

~~~
mercutio2
This intergenerational memetic strategy only works if your offspring adopt
your values.

~~~
naasking
It should be clear that a non-zero percentage will do so, and those that do
not will fall victim to the same diminishing population, therefore the trend
holds.

~~~
mercutio2
A non-zero percentage, sure. But greater than 50%? That doesn’t seem obvious
at all.

~~~
naasking
Conservatives in the west have 60% more children than liberals. Conservativism
is also linked to specific brain structures [1]. These are arguably somewhat
heritable, but of course also shaped by environment. Most children of
conservatives are conservative until they reach college, where the strong
liberal bias in academia changes some of their minds [2].

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-
be...](https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-
conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2#being-scared-can-make-you-more-
conservative-1)

[2] This bias is well known by the way, this is not a conservative talking
point. See Jonathan Haidt's talks on this point, and why this bias is bad for
society.

~~~
Animats
It's even more extreme based on religion. Globally, the birth rate for Muslims
is 2.9 children/woman.[1] (But it used to be above 4.) Haredi Jews are at 6.9
per woman, down from 7.5.[2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth)
[2] [https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Haredi-population-tops-
one...](https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Haredi-population-tops-one-
million-521515)

------
rmykhajliw
As always winning factors play key roles: contraception (especially
condoms/pills) and education. Contraception protects women from unwanted
pregnancies and education forces them to choose career instead of staying at
home with children. You can't get both high fertility rate and high education
level.

~~~
analog31
This is one of the reasons why educating girls and women is one of the most
potent weapons against poverty.

------
RickJWagner
This brings hope for planet Earth.

Fewer people means fewer pollutants. (Maybe the single biggest factor.) There
will be other ramifications (like economic change), but for the planet it's
got to be a positive.

~~~
toasterlovin
It’s temporary. The humans of the future will be the descendants of the people
having lots of kids right now. You should basically never extrapolate out any
trends that are driven by people with below replacement fertility rates.

~~~
jpatokal
No, it's not temporary. The trend is global and will see the world's fertility
go below replacement level soon enough. Of course there are various hotspots,
but they'll be smoothed out eventually by emigration or less pleasant means
(famine, war, disease).

~~~
toasterlovin
The three necessary and sufficient ingredients for evolution are: 1)
Inheritance, 2) Variation, and 3) Selection.

Let’s consider fertility using this lens:

1) Fertility rate is heritable, 2) Fertility rates vary from person to person,
and 3) People with higher fertility have higher reproductive success (it’s
almost a tautology).

I’ll let you work out the implications.

~~~
htns
That struggles to explain how fertility rates have ever dropped. For higher
fertility you would need stronger biologic instincts, the present lack of
which suggests they would conflict with something else important for
viability, a high "materialist profit" from having having children, which the
man's child protection services will catch on to if your group grows big
enough, or a "sense of duty", which again seems increasingly hard to maintain
as the group grows for an array of reasons.

~~~
toasterlovin
> That struggles to explain how fertility rates have ever dropped.

No, it doesn’t. The environment we inhabit has changed drastically in the last
150 years. We were well adapted to the environment we lived in 150 years ago.
We are poorly adapted to the environment which we live in now. That will
change as evolution does its thing.

For a glance into the future, take a look at the habits and lifestyles of
people with lots of children. There is an interesting bi-mods distribution,
btw.

------
vezycash
Child Protection Laws:

Societal criminalization of sex with people less than 18 or 17 of old has
definitely reduced birth rates.

8 year olds used to find gainful employment. By 15 or 16, these "children"
were relatively self sufficient. Now, such jobs are called child labor.

Compulsory mass schooling has also pushed the average child bearing age to
30s.

Health:

Slashing infantile mortality rates has also stopped people from hedging with 5
or more children.

I don't how people perceived contraceptives in the past. However, the lowly
condom has prevented lots of pregnancy.

Financial:

Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed. Child birth cost is just crazy. Cost
of schooling / rearing - live time cost of a child is something people now
seriously debated before giving birth. And having to change houses, and cars
to accommodate the growing family is also a thing.

In undeveloped countries with poor health care, low education, child care...
high birth rates is still common.

Japan 2d partners:

What's up with that country? Seems like they just became uninterested in
actually having sex with actual human beings.

If having sex with animals is bestiality; having sex with dead people is
necrophilia; what is sex with 2d anime girls?

~~~
toasterlovin
> Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed.

No, the cost hasn’t risen much. People are just buying a standard of living
for their children that didn’t exist for any human alive 150 years ago. It’s
an important difference.

~~~
Spivak
Okay but in practice this really isn't meaningfully different than saying the
cost of raising children has increased. Social pressure/expectation is a fine
explanation for such an increase even if it isn't literally mandatory.

~~~
repolfx
What social pressure?

The article contains a random quote from some woman who claims she couldn't go
on holiday if she had a second child. That's clearly nonsense, of course they
could go on holiday if they had a second child. Maybe she'd have to stay in
the UK instead of going abroad, but that's still a holiday. Likewise her view
was that she wanted to buy her daughter anything she wanted and to never have
to say no: that's a choice and not even necessarily a good one.

~~~
eklavya
> Likewise her view was that she wanted to buy her daughter anything she
> wanted and to never have to say no

That’s just horrible parenting.

------
jnun
Another way to read this headline is “Unwanted Pregnancies Plummet Thanks to
Science.”

We have plenty of babies! The 3rd world is pumping them out like an assembly
line.

If you want more taxpayers, just import those people who want to move into
your nation and give them citizenship.

Perfect storm for economic development by the numbers:

* Higher birth rate * Overpopulation * War

Nothing improves employment stats like a draft!

This is why people who govern based on economic metrics like this are
dangerous fools and should be booted from any office with authority.

------
DoreenMichele
I think this is mostly scary because as we live longer, we see more health
issues and more need to be taken care of, etc, plus we have an expectation of
retiring at some point.

If the human norm was to be fit as a fiddle until age 85 and then suddenly
drop dead for some reason, then an aging population isn't anything to worry
about. This worries people because it means people need to keep working even
as their health and energy levels are expected to decline, it's problematic
for a shrinking workforce to service the obligation of Social Security and
similar programs, etc.

If we don't successfully plan for the consequences, those consequences are
more likely to turn into drama, such as government bankruptcy or suddenly de-
funding (or reducing funding for) certain programs for people ill-equipped to
adapt (because they are old and their health is failing), etc.

------
jplayer01
I'd say this is why automation will grow in importance in the medium term, but
it'll require a complete rework of Western economic principles (and companies
will have to pay far far more in taxes than they ever have in history).

------
alismayilov
I've just watched a documentary about the "Sex Robots". I wondering how this
will also influence marriages, in general relationships. In the long term, if
few people will have relationships, there will be also a few people who have
children. I think we will see the effect of the "Sex Robots" after 5-10 years.
What do you think?

~~~
mercutio2
A lot of people want to have lots of sex at times in their lives when they
don’t want to have kids.

I don’t think the desire for companionship and parenthood goes away if you
replace one form of sex-with-yourself with some other form of sex-with-
yourself.

I will admit that later in life childbearing has an effect on total fertility,
but I think that ship sailed with effective birth control.

------
austincheney
A dramatic fertility decline was predicted some time ago. The prediction
stated the around the late 20th century population would balloon to record
levels but it’s rate of growth would dramatically slow until reaching a near
steady state of about 9.2 billion about 2055.

------
matchagaucho
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention longer life span for Women since
1950.

Strong correlation.

------
buboard
western countries have 2 ways forward: a) invest in artificial wombs and b)
invest massively on longevity research

~~~
mjevans
I don't want a "Brave New World" future... but it really does seem like we're
hurtling towards that book + 1984 at this rate.

Can we please have a full-tilt space race to get an out of solar system
backup.

~~~
buboard
then you would need the wombs even more

------
onetimemanytime
Maybe it's be but I started to think that post WWII inventions have causes a
drop in sperm count or something...and than read that people want to have less
kids.

~~~
buboard
Now, sperm counts are indeed falling dramatically, but this isn't about that.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-
count-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-count-
falling-sharply-in-developed-world-researchers-say-idUSKBN1AA28K)

------
yters
If we have too many people then we may have wars and famine. If we have too
few people the human race could go extinct.

Both are bad, but the second seems worse.

~~~
shoo
this isn't a particularly clear way to frame things -- there is likely some
middle ground between "too many" and "too few" that is better than both of
those extremes. i suspect human population could decline by 1 or 2 orders of
magnitude without getting into "too few" territory, provided it was declining
towards a steady state, not crashing uncontrollably

~~~
yters
One can hope.

------
phendrenad2
Remarkable. I never wanted to have kids, because the economics don't make
sense. But at this point the government may have to pay people to have kids,
just to keep the wheels of capitalism turning.

~~~
tempestn
That and allow more immigration, as the article says. If one consequence of
this is greater openness to immigrants, that's probably a positive for the
world.

------
iotb
You make things wildly unaffordable. You make the most basic need of a human
being (a roof over their head a ponzi scheme speculative investment) You
destroy the middle class. You plunge everyone into debt with over-
financialization. You play divisive social games to cement power structures
finalizing in men vs. women politics. You destroy the family unit. You
undermine men. You push male guilt. You push social trends for women to party
through their most fertile years You convince women that long term monogamous
relationships are prison... You turn everyone on to Tinder and glorify
transient lifestyles... All because such lifestyles make various corporations
richer via higher consumption.. society be damned. Optimal profit at the
expense of broader society... Up until broader societal conditions drag down
corporations that made it so.

The cause and effect are obvious to anyone w/ two brain cells.

And just to show its all for the almighty dollar, millions of dollars are
pumped into studies/research of this phenomenon only to avoid the elephants in
the room. We call this modern society where we pretend to not know why things
are the way they are. Society optimizes for certain things like profit above
all else and there are a slew of negative outcomes or things that are harmed
as a result.

Why would someone have a kid in the current environment? This process is
pushed out to someone who either is quite wealthy and has no impact or is
quite poor and is uncaring of the impact. The middle is hallowed out. It's why
from anywhere from the first world EU to the US there is a big push for
immigration. That too is steeped in economic factors and has little to do w/ a
genuine interest in helping people. Instead of fixing core societal problems,
the powers that be deem it easier to just pave over the domestic populous with
new-comers who would willingly tolerate such conditions and birth new workers
into the fold. The middle core of the population deems it ridiculous to have
kids. The number crunchers see this as an impact to their precious economic
models... and thus comes the political push to import people from places in
the world who have kids in far more impoverished conditions and see 1st world
countries as a step up.

Not sure how this comment will go here but that's just the plain reality. A
reality people like to play pretend they don't know exists. A reality people
make hordes of money to ignore and further. Humanity will pay a hefty price in
the years to come for these stupid games we play. Historically, various
reckonings have occurred when civilizations and empires play these stupid
games. Then the cycle resets and is born again only to arrive at the same
juncture when people stray far enough from sound principals.

~~~
dunpeal
You are pointing out some real problems, but your attempt to pin them all on
capitalism ("the almighty dollar") is incoherent and fallacious.

It's not "capitalism" turning young people to Tinder, which is dirt cheap.
Capitalism as a system would much rather them start families and have lots of
babies. Raising one kid yields far more purchases than a Tinder Plus
subscription and a pack of prophylactics.

It is certainly not the "capitalism" strawman pushing aggressive gender
politics. Most of these are based on Marxist studies, and closely associated
with socialist and Marxist views and movements, that is - the opposite of
capitalism.

In short, you invoked a bunch of very different problems with current American
culture, bundled them together and strapped the collective label "capitalism"
onto them, so now you have a single throat to cut to cure all that is ill with
society. Unfortunately, it's not a single problem, and certainly does not have
a single cause.

You're also ignoring agency completely. Nobody "pushed" people to use Tinder.
They could keep dating seriously and getting married at 23 like they did in
the 50s. They don't do that because they don't want to.

~~~
iotb
I don't recall pinning them all on capitalism. That is a typical false
classification someone engages in who wants to dismiss any real world analysis
of the underlying causes. Then you go on to argue from this basis for the
remainder of your commentary. I won't engage you further because you have
misclassified my framing on purpose I could imagine and are falsely arguing
against something I never stated. I detailed a range of different reasons why
Birth rates are down. If you want to accurately refute any particular point
you're more than welcome. But I will not engage your falsely framed retort in
the least.

> You are pointing out some real problems

And yet.. you're trying to falsely refute them. Meanwhile, you present nothing
but 'Yeah you pointed out some real problems ... but dude.. it's totally
nothing"

Agency is framed by social context. Does someone have the same Agency in
America as Canada, Europe, Sweden, Japan, China? Do they express the same
cultural/social trends? What happens when a country like China bans certain
social activity? What about your agency then? What happens when China bans
certain apps that have no social value whatsoever and will lead to a more
impoverished state? What happens when a country is steeped in nonsensical
divisive idiocy vs a mature country that doesn't tolerate it socially? Agency
means nothing without context. Cultures are pushed through mainstream media in
the west. If you deny that, you have something cognitively wrong. Agency means
nothing when you don't exercise it and live your life based on populist trends
which is what the majority of people do. Thus the term :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_ideology)

You began with : > You are pointing out some real problems

And went off to lala land. I'm not a Marxist. I'm not an anti-capitalist. I'm
a realist. Reply with something better.

~~~
dunpeal
> Reply with something better.

Nah, I'd rather engage with someone less rude and toxic. Good luck to you.

------
amelius
Fertility means " _ability_ to have offspring", but the article says that the
declining number of childbirths is mostly because of choice. I think we need a
better word then.

~~~
ashelmire
Birth rate. I don't know why this article is using fertility here.

~~~
compiler-guy
"Fertility rate" and "birth rate" are related, but used to mean different
things.

Observe that the first thing wikipedia says in the entries for both topics is,
"Not to be confused with" the other.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate)

------
maxwell
I'm not sure why the HN admins now have such a propensity for changing
informative article titles that contain actual numbers into vague click-bait
original titles. I've been here for over ten years, and only noticed it
happening over the past few months.

The title I submitted contains information: "Human fertility rates have fallen
nearly 50% since 1950".

The weak original title ("'Remarkable' decline in fertility rates") contains
no information.

~~~
stochastic_monk
I agree with your arguments. I’m not sure on enforcement, but it does state
that one should post the original title in the guidelines. This may be worth a
larger discussion elsewhere.

~~~
maxwell
"Otherwise please use the original title, _unless it is misleading or
linkbait_ ; don't editorialize."

------
OpenBSD-reich
This is not good.

Africa is going to explode by a billion this century while Native Europeans
worldwide continue to decline, having been since the '80s.

------
Mikeb85
Well the 1950's were the post-WWII baby boom, as well as coinciding with the
start of the green revolution. Not surprising that birth rates are going to
fall off now, given how over-populated the Earth is.

~~~
pitaj
Overpopulation is a myth

Edit: People are asking for proof of this. Unfortunately, I can't prove a
negative. It's impossible. I will say this, though:

There is a long history of people claiming that overpopulation will happen,
resulting in mass starvation and shortages across the globe. It never
happened.

If you predict overpopulation will happen, then name a number. Whether it be
global population or the a year in the future, make an estimate. We'll see if
you fair better than those in the past.

~~~
izzydata
Every environment has a carrying capacity for any particular species. This is
well observed and not a myth.

~~~
civility
Please make a prediction about what you think the current carrying capacity
is. Then, assuming you live 40 more years, it'll be long enough for you to see
you were wrong.

People love their doom and gloom, but truthfully there is a lot of room left
for human growth on this planet.

So maybe "carrying capacity" is not a myth, but "human overpopulation now" of
the planet as a whole certainly is.

~~~
iotb
There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read
comments like this. Every system has a limit, if you don't believe this is the
case, you'll likely hit it in catastrophic fashion.

In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits
and inquiries about the Universe than just a joy ride from life to death and a
maximization driven social trend to see how much money you can make and spend
in a lifetime.

Anytime prior civilizations have forgotten about the fundamentals or
considered themselves to be so technologically advanced to be beyond the
impact of nature, there usually is a reckoning and that reckoning usually
occurs at the peak of society when resources are being improperly dedicated to
vanity and idiocy. There's a reason the hallmark structures of past
civilizations are erected pretty close to their demise.

The Sun goes through cycles we have yet to fully understand. That alone could
cause significant effects to the earth and its something we have zero control
over. I'd think it would be a far better social culture to be focused on
dedicating resources to exploring and studying the universe and fundamental
nature therein than mining clown coins via bit flipping wasting
energy/computing resources on a ponzi scheme. However, look how many billions
are involved with this.. In a so called modern highly educated society.

As far as population goes, why does a human being feel entitled to have kids?
Why are there so many poor individuals having kids? Why should we try to test
the limit of nature's carrying capacity? Why do we continue to push the world
population higher? We did we create economic models that depend on population
growth? Again, a different kind of life from just popping out kids and enjoy
the rides of life. A life of inquiry and the pursuit of understanding....

> There's a lot more room left for human growth on this planet

Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for
what the results are.

~~~
civility
> There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I
> read comments like this.

You're making my case for me. I'm sure there was some doom sayer in ancient
Rome who predicted the world could never support more than 10 million people
tops. Yet here we are at 7.7 billion and counting.

> In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher
> pursuits [...]

You've clearly got some other agenda that you're trying to argue against. Feel
free to try and tell everyone how they should live, but I'm not really
interested. I was responding to claims of "overpopulation".

> Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history
> for what the results are.

Again, you're making my case for me. Sure plagues happened... I wouldn't be
surprised if in 2200 some historian will look at the archives of messages like
this and snicker you thought 7.7 billion was a lot. It also wouldn't shock me
if once all the third world countries have birth control and health care that
we find a natural equilibrium at 20-50 billion.

