
The Global Fertility Crash - montalbano
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-global-fertility-crash
======
gumby
I have mixed feelings about this: Julian Simon did a pretty good job of
supporting the anti-malthusian thesis, and that more people implies more
opportunities for creativity.

On the other hand he didn't disprove such a theory either -- we might have
been just moving up a curve towards a critical point, where hysteresis then
screws us.

But in general I'm pretty neutral: if people want more kids, great; if they
don't, that's great too. So this sentence right at the front of the article
really disturbs me:

> Population growth is vital for the world economy.

Most people seem to agree with this statement, which is the very definition of
a pyramid scheme (see my point about hysteresis above). We've defined the
goalposts such that this statement is in some sense tautologically true, but
it leaves me with a profound sense of "so what?"

If fewer people are born, ultimately fewer houses will be needed, but why
should that presume that less house construction will happen (perhaps there
will be lots of renovations, or removal and new construction, or house
builders will simply move to new fields as horsecart makers did).

We already know our growth metrics are crude and wrong, though we don't know
really how much and in what ways. But there are plenty of potential scenarios
where economic growth and human wellbeing does not require massive, or perhaps
any population increase.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
So if the population grows from 1 (in units of 8 billion, say) to (1 + A), and
the productivity per person goes from 1 to (1 + B), then the world economy
goes from 1 to (1 + A) * (1 + B). If the population _doesn 't_ grow, then the
economy only grows to (1 + B).

As you say, _so what?_ Is the world economy some kind of deity, that we are
here to serve its needs rather than our own? If each of us are the same (1 +
B) better off, why do we care whether the global economy grew more or less?

As Edward Abbey said, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the
cancer cell." If the growth actually leaves people better off, that's a
positive. But if it just makes bigger numbers on a page, what's the point?

~~~
t-h-e-chief
Exactly. This push for economic growth is a recent invention historically.
Let’s go back to not fucking over each other or the planet for money. We
should aim for 2 billion world population in the next few centuries.

~~~
dweekly
Recent? Genesis 9:7

~~~
chillwaves
If you want to quote the bible, then quote the bible. Not everyone can be
bothered to look it up.

~~~
anm89
Amen

------
montalbano
This article is interesting, which is why I submitted it. However, I do think
it ignores the elephant in the room which is that Earth only has finite
resources. As discussed for example in the oft posted 'exponential economist
vs finite physicist' post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20045380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20045380)

~~~
lurquer
> However, I do think it ignores the elephant in the room which is that Earth
> only has finite resources.

Are you sure about that? Without question, the Earth has a finite mass. But
'resource' in the sense you are using the term pertains to the various ways
humans can utilize the various finite components comprising the Earth. And
that may well indeed be infinite.

~~~
Asooka
I'm absolutely certain that the Earth has space for a finite number of humans.
I don't want to live in a pod and eat a protein slurry of crushed bugs. Note
also that human population was more or less flat for a long time of our
existence - explosive growth happened over the last 200 or so years. That has
been long enough that we structured our economy around it, but it's coming to
an end. The free lunch can't last forever. Quite similar to the end of Moore's
law and for much the same reason - people don't want to be packed too close
together and transistors can't really get much smaller. I see it as more of a
return to a norm than some catastrophic event. With proper sustainable
resource usage humanity, should last on Earth until the Sun kills us. Which is
a sort of tautological statement if you think about it - if our resource usage
is not sustainable, our population _will_ shrink eventually to the point where
it is.

~~~
loeg
Do you know how much empty space there is in the western US? Not to mention
the midwest? We're not remotely close to human population maximum density and
this "pods and bugs" dystopia you envision.

~~~
magduf
>Do you know how much empty space there is in the western US? Not to mention
the midwest?

Have you ever been to those places? There's a severe limit to the amount of
freshwater available in those places, and the weather is pretty lousy in many
parts. Not many people want to live in a place where the summer temperatures
are over 110F, or where the winter temperatures are around -40.

There's lots of unused space on this planet, sure. Antarctica is the prime
example of this: an entire _continent_ with almost no humans living there.
Would _you_ like to live there?

And finally, and time humans build and live on land that's in a nice,
temperate location, that means there's that much land that's now unavailable
for agriculture. We can't grow food in Antarctica.

------
burfog
It's a very temporary matter for evolution.

Our environment now includes birth control. Most people in the current
population do not feature traits to overcome birth control. There is a subset
of the population which does have the needed traits. This well-adapted
subpopulation will grow rapidly because birth control is a very strong
selection factor. From an evolutionary perspective, the correct use of birth
control is equivalent to the death of offspring.

Remember that evolution is not inherently slow. It is usually slow because the
existing population is typically well-adapted. A simple thought experiment
demonstrates that evolution can be fast: we would all have blue eyes if the
others were executed.

Given the severe selection caused by loss of offspring, evolution will rapidly
overcome birth control. Just a few generations might mostly do the job. Within
500 years, birth control will simply not be a factor in human population.

~~~
finnh
So your claim is that evolution will make _any form_ of birth control
impossible?

~~~
burfog
Birth control would go unused. People who crave huge families are going to win
out over those who would rather not have huge families.

There probably will be some reproductive organ changes to sometimes defeat
some forms of birth control, but mostly this will be brain changes. If people
actually want birth control they can invent things faster than we can evolve
past them, but if people just want kids then it doesn't matter how effective
birth control might be.

Non-voluntary measures are possible, but again the evolutionary winners will
be the ones who evade that. If the desire for kids is strong enough, people
will bribe their way out of mandatory birth control.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'm not sure that "craving huge families" is a genetic trait.

~~~
benjohnson
It could be cultural trait that survives from generation to generation.

I'm an example: I wanted a large amount of children, and taught my children
the joys of a larger family. So far, they think along the same lines.

~~~
souprock
Nice! I'm the same, with a dozen kids so far.

I don't think one can determine if the trait is or isn't cultural by guessing.
How could you possibly know the origin of your own mental preferences? Even
political affiliation, which sure looks cultural at first glance, has been
shown to be under genetic influence.

~~~
skissane
Some people with large families do so for religious reasons. (Not everyone,
obviously.)

There is evidence that there are certain genes which promote religiosity. They
don't guarantee it – somewhere out there, there is probably an atheist with
lots of religiosity promoting genes, and a devout believer with none of them –
but they do make religious belief more likely.

People who have large families for religious reasons will pass on both their
religious beliefs to their children, and also in many cases their genetic
predispositions to greater religiosity. Of course, there is no guarantee that
the child will stay in the parent's religion, but so long as the retention
rate is decent (say >= 70%) the religious belief (and the genetic
predisposition to adopt it) will be spread widely through the population.

Even though organised religion isn't looking very healthy at the moment (at
least in developed countries), this is reason to believe that its long-term
prospects are actually quite bright.

------
stared
Global birth rates going below replacement level (as in Europe, but not in
many other places in the world) would be the best news ever.

> While the world is expected to add more than 3 billion people by 2100,
> according to the United Nations, that’ll likely be the high point. Falling
> fertility rates and aging populations will mean serious challenges that will
> be felt more acutely in some places than others.

Right now, it is well beyond any sustainable level (CO2, habitat, pollution).
More people, and more living at higher standards (and it would be inhumane).
Sure, we can eat vegan, and have solar panels, but it is not enough (there is
a huge baseline consumption and waste generation).

How? Higher education for women and easy (free, educated, socially approved)
access to education, especially in poor countries.

Often I hear "oh, but in 1970s people were afraid that the current population
would be too much, and you see - they were wrong!". Sadly, in the last 50
years, we wiped most animals. And brought the plastic mayhem.

Vide:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-
wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds)

------
jxramos
One of the points about demographics that's been really haunting me lately is
the nonsubstitutableness of births. In other words births of human beings is
not a commodity that you can "catch up on" in any generational sense.
Generational cohorts are made in fixed time, and when made late will lag with
an offset that can never be backfilled later on. We can only produce infants,
never the 8 year old who was never born to fill the gap of missing 8 year olds
from folks who couldn't be bothered or weren't ready to have children 8 years
ago. Likewise for the absent 20 year olds and so on and so forth. We cannot
correct after the fact to rebalance our population pyramids from being so top
heavy.

There is a huge commitment either way, and that commitment/choice is
irreversible. One commits to new life or for voids of life, both are not
without consequence.

One other interesting thing to this is to watch the shifting median ages of
populations.

> China's median age was 22 in 1980. By 2018, it was 40. That will rise to 46
> in 2030 and 56 in 2050. In the US, the median age was 30 in 1980 and 38 in
> 2018. In 2030, it will be 40, and 44 in 2050. India, by comparison, had a
> median age of 20 in 1980 and 28 in 2018.
> [https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-
> opinion/asia/article/21...](https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-
> opinion/asia/article/2180421/worse-japan-how-chinas-looming-demographic-
> crisis-will)

That's always been fascinating to me to think of an entire graying population
and of all those civilizations of past eras who are no more. You can get a
distinct taste of that gravity by thinking of an entire genetic pool shrinking
in our lifetimes.

------
lucb1e
> Population growth is vital for the world economy [...] Governments will have
> to think creatively about ways to manage population, whether through state-
> sponsored benefits [...]

I actually have the impression that we're with quite a few too many people,
and while we can't really help that (you can hardly murder, like, everyone in
both Americas to get population down by ~15%), I expect that a decreased
growth would be super beneficial for everything from available resources to
waste management.

Sure, fewer working people on an aging population reduces growth in the short
term, but I can't see anything but benefits in the long term if we would have
a few generations with an average number of children just below 2. (For those
who are on the fence, like me, this reason can be a part of the decision not
to have kids.)

The article doesn't mention a single country below 1, so while being close to
1 is on the edge, every regional average you can make seems high enough. In
fact, the global average of 2.4 is still too high (but it will come down, as
per UN predictions, until it's only just above the replacement rate around the
year 2100).

~~~
journalctl
I agree. It’s vital if you’ve bought into the doctrine of infinite growth at
all costs forever, but there is a limit. And if we were perhaps better at
living sustainably, I’d be more supportive of having children. But either way,
this Ponzi scheme has an end date, and I fear it’s a lot closer than we’d
like.

------
ohazi
> At least two children per woman—that’s what’s _needed_ to ensure a stable
> population from generation to generation. In the 1960s, the fertility rate
> was five live births per woman. By 2017 it had fallen to 2.43, close to that
> critical threshold.

(emphasis mine)

> Population growth is vital for the world economy.

Fuck the world economy, then. We're not going back to '60s.

~~~
macspoofing
>Fuck the world economy, then.

You like your pension? Because pensions need an ever-growing population.

~~~
makerofspoons
The pension ponzi scheme has to end sometime. Whether the music stops when
it's my turn, yours, or today's children it simply isn't possible to grow the
number of people paying in forever.

~~~
zip1234
Same with unending growth of suburbs. Paving the world and less people to pay
for the pavement maintenance.

~~~
1-6
Immigrants pay for all of it, pensions and civil engineering.

~~~
AstralStorm
Not when there's no space for them to live in, or jobs to work. That's still
far in the future though.

------
notadoc
The "fertility crash" is only impacting the developed world.

As the article directly states, global population projections are set to grow
by another 3 billion. I would call that a fertility explosion, not a crash,
but most of that population growth will be happening in the undeveloped and
developing world rather than the developed world.

~~~
jxramos
think calculus for this one, growth continuing in the positive will mislead
when that growth is losing steam. Watch the animation near x=1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_derivative#Relation_to_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_derivative#Relation_to_the_graph).
The slope must decrease and reach flatline before it goes negative. It's all a
matter of rates not absolute figures. Like a ball thrown up in the air, it
goes up, and eventually reaches its peak, then begins its descent. We're
nearing the peak population wise which is what a lot of these articles are
getting at.

------
boyadjian
This article from bloomberg.com is perfectly absurd : High birth rates during
the last fifty years have lead to overpopulation, politic instability, general
poverty, global warming. And now, they complain that the birthrates are too
low ? Seven billion and a half for world population and it is not enough ?
Each day, 240 000 inhabitants more, is it too few ? The writer of this article
should be admitted in a psychiatric hospital.

------
quotemstr
It's _blindingly obvious_ that modernity is applying strong natural selection
to humanity and that, over time, the world will come to be dominated by the
kind of people who have children. In order for that not to be the case, you
have to imagine a world without inheritance of characteristics. It's not even
necessary to imagine genetic inheritance: even cultural transmission of
fecundity from generation to generation would suffice for shifting the
distribution of personality traits in the world's population away from
whatever depresses birthrate below replacement and towards whatever promotes
high birthrates. If you want to know what the world will look like in a few
generations, look at who's having kids now.

The "lol seven billion is enough" comments completely miss the point.
Fertility _will_ recover once inherited fecundity spreads through the
population. One way or another, we're going to hit the Earth's (or solar
system's) carrying capacity soon, probably in a few centuries at the longest.
Do you want that future era to be full of people like you? If so, you need to
figure out why people like you aren't reproducing now.

To imagine that fertility isn't heritable is to deny all of evolution. The
drive to reproduce is the oldest and strongest urge of all. It's ubiquitous in
the tree of life. It's really bizarre to me that people don't see this
dynamic. Of course evolution applies to people: have you ever met a parent and
a child?

~~~
iaabtpbtpnn
Why would I care whether the future is full of people like me or not? Is there
something inherently better about people like me, such that we should be
reproducing instead of the people who currently are?

~~~
sundbry
Evolution depends on the competitive aspect of genetic groups as a means of
specification. You can say resisting specification is somehow a morally
superior position, but really, it is just a sentimental one. Specification
will happen regardless and merging will also happen. When there is enough
competition for resources, usually only one species wins out. Being apathetic
about becoming a dead branch in the tree of evolution is probably going to
have that exact outcome.

------
spodek
Lower birthrates are our best hope for lowering our population from above what
the Earth can sustain without suffering and early deaths due to famine, war,
disease, and so on.

There are large uncertainties over the planet's carrying capacity, but the
numbers I find most believable say we're over it, which can work until we
exhaust non-renewables and perhaps destroy some renewables.

I find the most compelling understanding still comes from the book _Limits to
Growth_ and this 2014 research showing us tracking their business-as-usual
model pretty well, 40 years later
[https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...](https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI-
ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf).

Steady state economics has worked. "Population growth is vital for the world
economy" is a statement about a system approaching collapse.

Reading the book _Affluence Without Abundance_ I found of human societies
enduring hundreds of thousands of years without growth. I've since learned of
more. We don't know their level of happiness, but recent versions showed
happiness and health greater than ours. In any case, they didn't collapse the
entire planet's systems in a few hundreds years, so our systems don't stack
very well -- a few generations of wealthy few and destitute many followed by
collapse.

Thailand lowered its birth rate voluntarily and successfully
[https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer](https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer).

Lower birth rate is our best hope.

~~~
rmah
_We don 't know their level of happiness, but recent versions showed happiness
and health greater than ours. In any case, they didn't collapse the entire
planet's systems in a few hundreds years, so our systems don't stack very
well_

Prehistoric man may well have been happier than people today... while things
were good. When food was plentiful, the weather nice and the living' was easy,
it was all roses. Until your mate busted a leg ... and died. Until your kid
gets a toothache ... and then dies. Until the rains don't fall, the herds go
away... and your entire clan dies. They probably weren't so happy then.

This rose colored glasses view of the deep past ignores the extreme misery
people endured to get to the good times. It is, IMO, just absurd.

Finally, the idea that prehistoric folk lived in harmony with nature is just
silly. They routinely set huge wildfires to drive prey, they would chase
entire herds off cliffs and then harvest a handful of animals. Yes they
laughed, loved and wept tears of joy. But they also murdered, raped and wept
tears of sorrow. And experienced the latter _far_ more often than anyone
today. (For example, almost everyone who survived to adulthood wee half or
more of their children die. And I would be very very surprised if each child's
death was not felt as keenly as people do today).

~~~
droithomme
> They routinely ...

Did all prehistoric folk do all the bad things you enumerate? Or did you
cherry pick things from a multitude of regions and time periods which you
personally believe to have been engaged in unethical and outrageous behavior
based on your acceptance of the veracity of treatises written by western
academics who have no reliable source of data about what prehistoric people
were really doing or thinking?

Honestly I'm surprised and give you credit for not bringing up the old straws
of cannibalism and human sacrifice by the alleged primitive savages. So,
thanks.

But... on the topic of outrageous behavior, how do you feel about Mai Lai?
Treblinka? The Donner Party? Obama's Predator Drone policy in Yemen?

~~~
UnFleshedOne
I thought the point was that everybody was primitive savages. Academics do
have a good deal of reliable data on how people lived and died. Bones can tell
a lot.

------
leoh
Has anyone else noticed that there are simultaneously articles that talk about
the dangers of not enough people to produce goods and also articles about the
risk of AI/robotics being too efficient?

~~~
jxramos
Why not both, geriatric robots are coming right around the corner just as we
approach a frail old age with no strength of youth to change our bedpans and
sheets. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-ageing-robots-
wider...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-ageing-robots-widerimage-
idUSKBN1H33AB)

~~~
AstralStorm
Instead of the silly robots, why not exosuits. We're this close. Obvious
conclusion of Internet of things combined with wearables. Cyborg grandparent
is already a thing sometimes. Insulin pump? Why not. Other drug delivery
systems? Easy. Mobility, again better than piggybacking a robot, think
wheelchair on steroids. (Panasonic has the right idea but has not taken it far
enough yet. HAL is smart. Both are way too expensive yet. Even good
wheelchairs are quite expensive and we have trouble accommodating them - real
deal exosuit walker would be easier.)

You can get old timers to care for themselves the most they can, you win in
efficiency. The big one is mental decline. We can do little about it for now.
Yes, the exosuit can talk to you and override if you do something dangerous.
Maybe call for help.

Yes, I know people prefer to interact with people. Which is probably not easy
to fake without a robot.

Finally, just remember that getting old people socialized would still likely
be a job.

\--

By the way, the image of old people looking like astronauts is beyond funny.

~~~
jxramos
Wow that is a really intriguing thought, pretty awesome idea to use those to
extend agency with old folks in robot suits. Powerful, and funny too for sure.

------
blondie9x
I think less people sooner will help us lower greenhouse gas emissions. We
need to support efforts to educate people and help with family planning. We
should also encourage people to have less kids in an effort to stabilize our
ecosystem.

Less population could lead to a lower GDP or it might not. If worker
productivity and automation rise as population falls the GDP decline could be
offset. This is something we need to consider especially when considering the
initial statements of this article.

------
nitwit005
It's not stated anywhere, but this treats GDP as the only metric anyone should
bother to examine. I wish the world was so simple that we could boil down
economic progress to a single metric, but people have been pointing out
problems with that since the first attempts to measure national economies.

Sure, more people typically means global GDP will go up, but no one cares.
What we ultimately want is for per-capita measures, like income or poverty
rates, to improve.

------
chewz
How is it a bad thing?

The only way to deal with climate crisis is to lower the population of the
planet down to one billion. Possibly without wars and famines.

~~~
GhettoMaestro
> How is it a bad thing?

Because it conflicts with the internal human desire to reproduce. You
effectively are saying "Hey raise your hand if you want your group of people
to die out." I'm not shocked that people aren't wild about that.

~~~
gumby
> the internal human desire to reproduce.

It's pretty clear throughout recorded history that this is not a universal
desire. Huge numbers of people have not only chosen not to have kids, many of
whom have consciously traded off the opportunity to reproduce in exchange for
other opportunities.

~~~
notadoc
It's a biological urge for many, which makes sense from an evolutionary
standpoint. Sure some don't have it, and some control it, but that's clearly
not the majority of our species otherwise we wouldn't be so ubiquitous.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The biological urge for sex rather than the urge for procreation may explain
our ubiquity.

~~~
t34543
Especially considering birth control wasn’t available until recently.

------
asah
I just don't get it, there are so many examples where millions of more humans
doesn't materially improve growth and a handful of people do.

Consider: when Cartwright invented the power loom, he undoubtedly created
economic growth (more output) without the need for more humans. Ditto for
millions of inventions happening every day from software automation to
robotics.

Even more: another million uneducated humans doesn't provide anywhere near as
much growth as 1000 highly educated humans. As simple proof, you need
education to operate and maintain machines, let alone invent and improve them.

If anything, a fertility crash seems like a good thing because there's always
resources that are limited and fewer people helps allocate them - from fresh
water to brand new medicines/devices/techniques that haven't been commoditized
yet.

------
VladimirIvanov
The marginal cost per child has increased dramatically. In developing
economies an additional child can sometimes be an asset as they are free labor
for a family farm or business. In a developed economy(specifically the USA)
the cost per child is primarily driven by educational expenses. College
education and also private high school and elementary education. Despite what
people say it much more difficult to be successful without a college
education. The options for obtaining a college education without your parents
money and without student loans are slim. There are two possibilities;
military academy/ ROTC program or athletic/academic scholarships. The ROTC
military is the most likely one but not everyone is accepted. There are many
medical disqualifying conditions such as ADHD ect. So if you are a college
graduate and you want your children to have the same life opportunities that
you did, then there is a limit to how many children you can have based on your
income and net worth.

------
NeoBasilisk
I dunno man. I think 7 billion people might be enough.

------
buboard
Population is sensitive to discuss politically. You don't see a lot of ideas
that would help either. Here's a talk by Melinda Gates talking about how
family planning can help Africa avoid deterioration due to overpopulation

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOTS9GAjc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOTS9GAjc4)

------
VladimirIvanov
If you intend to send your child to college then the cost per child is very
high. If you don't then the marginal cost per child is very low. Another
consideration is whether the mother works and if it's possible for her to keep
taking time from work every few years to have additional children. One thing I
notice about large families is that they usually do not pay for their
children's college education. TLDR - marginal cost per child increases in
developed countries.

------
einpoklum
> Population growth is vital for the world economy.

At most you could argue that population growth is useful for some of the
world's economy.

But taking a larger view - ending population growth is vital for the world
economy. Probably for human civilization.

Now, I'm not saying that the Earth's carrying capacity is 7.7 Billion people
(or less). But in many respects we (= humans) are scratching the edges of that
capacity with wasteful use of natural resources, pollution, and skewed
distribution of products and services (e.g. of food - hundreds of Millions are
hungry but the food produced could feed everyone several times over). So, we
should work on that, and in the mean time, keep the population in check. When
we've "fixed" human society enough, growth may or may not become relevant
again.

> desperation is creeping into the search for ways to reverse the current
> trends

It is the desperation of large capitalists who want to avoid the necessary
transition into from permanent/exponential growth economies into other,
sustainable economic models. It's like they want to extend a pier further out
into the ocean because they're not willing to stop driving their car out onto
it and consider going someplace else. And of course - a political class which
lives on these people's donations.

One final point: It seems to me like the actual problem spots are countries
with massive growth (e.g. Nigeria in the story) which may need to bring it
down sooner than they would have, had they had it in the 19th century; and
countries with significant sub-replacement numbers. In the rest of the world
needs to adjust while the age pyramid changes.

------
dqpb
> _Population growth is vital for the world economy_

Is the world economy just a pyramid scheme?

------
Gatsky
The other transition is the bulge in the elderly population. This seems to me
to be the major economic issue in developed nations. In Australia at least,
government spending on the aged is the number one expenditure at $70 billion,
not including healthcare spending. That’s about $18k per person over 65. The
proportion of elderly will increase then plateau at about 1 in 4 over the next
50 years. I’m not sure the numbers add up... it probably only works with
ongoing population growth which will have to come from immigration.

------
tim333
>Population growth is vital for the world economy.

This is silly. As long as income per capita is good and people are happy does
it matter if there are few less?

------
4gt66y6
Here is a curious, but really debatable view on our population, that I've read
somewhere.

There are 60 billions people total, floating around and waiting for their turn
to "manifest" and live. Such a life is very tiring, so humans need a lot of
time to recharge: usually, 700-1200 years. Humans aren't created out of thin
air or of proteins: bodies can be replicated quickly, but "creating" an actual
human takes longer than the lifespan of an average solar system. With an
average lifetime of 70 years, we can't have more than 10 billion
"participants" living at the same time. We also can't just fix aging because
even with a perfect body, life is very tiring.

------
lowiqprogrammer
Immigration is definitely not the answer. What's the point of bringing in
immigrants that will replace the previous population? Should Japan bring in
millions of Europeans, which will change the culture and demographics, just to
keep the arbitrary GDP number up? Why does it matter if the population
decreases if we can keep the quality of life the same or higher?

~~~
linuxftw
As long as there are immigrants, there's an easily exploited working class.

~~~
einpoklum
I'll flip that one:

As long as the working class is dis-organized, and its members do not exhibit
solidarity across ethnic and national lines, immigrants are bound to have
poorer working conditions than locals, and capitalists are bound to try to
artificially bring in more immigrants than would otherwise arrive.

Also, as long as there is not enough concerted effort to uplift the peoples of
the more oppressed countries, to create stable, prosperous and self-sustaining
economies in them rather than objects of mass exploitation - you will always
feel threatened by the poor masses coming to take your job.

~~~
linuxftw
As long as economically prosperous countries and taking the best and brightest
from overseas, those countries will never get better. We're simply functioning
as a social-relief valve.

> As long as the working class is dis-organized

I think we'll see a resurgence of organization sometime soon.

------
hindsightbias
All the anti-population growth popularity here would seem at odds with the HN
population of outer space-expansionists.

Elon isn’t going to have enough settlers.

Perhaps another Great Filter candidate.

~~~
drak0n1c
True, population levels are no where near what is required to support
cyberpunk living density, let alone multi-planet colonization.

Perhaps if reproduction levels really fall off and there is a real lack of
families there will eventually be some kind of public, private, or religious
industry centered around creating new babies in vivo or in vitro, along with a
paid surrogate and child-raising infrastructure.

------
NTDF9
What a load of nonsense! The planet needs lesser people.

If economics is the problem, fix the damn econs, not the planet.

I'm not naive. I understand that the young will have to produce more per
capita to support the masses of elderly. But the solution to this is not
producing more kids. The solution is somewhere along the line of better
economic distribution

------
aldoushuxley001
It’s frankly shocking and disturbing how many people are celebrating the
collapse in fertility worldwide. This should be a sign that something we’re
doing is very very wrong.

Plus population is expected to plateau around 9 billion so we’re not actually
being threatened by overpopulation anytime soon.

I can’t help but be reminded of the movie Children of Men.

~~~
Geimfari
It's only a sign that we're doing something wrong if you assign a positive
value to procreation. Many of us don't, either for ethical reasons (life
includes suffering, and you have no right to inflict suffering on someone who
didn't ask for it) or environmental reasons.

And as the logical conclusion of that ethical value system, I do sincerely
hope we get a Children of Men scenario where we put an end to procreation
entirely. (I'm aware that that viewpoint is fringe)

~~~
ghemsley
Having heard very few people espouse that opinion (which I share), I
appreciate that you shared it. Somehow it seems very rare that parents
consider their children's capacity for suffering before insisting that they
exist without the chance to be asked if they actually want such an existence.
Everyone just rolls the dice without truly knowing what they're getting into
and assumes that "of course my kids will enjoy life, they're _mine_." It needs
to change, in my opinion.

------
mikelyons
Population growth is vital for colonization of Mars.

Earth will have to produce a lot of people to send to Mars in order to have
the genetic diversity for self-sustaining populations on Mars.

The people on Mars will then have to produce a lot of people to live and work
there to generate growth and produce generations of humans who maintain The
Light of Consciousness on Mars past any sort of otherwise human-extinction
cataclysm back on Earth.

This is also the only hope of eventually repopulating the Earth in this
scenario.

~~~
mikelyons
Is this not true? or is there some flaw with this point? Why do people
disagree?

