
The world might run out of people - tombot
https://www.wired.com/story/the-world-might-actually-run-out-of-people/
======
adrianN
That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the
education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models,
especially in Africa.

This graphs shows it

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-
attain...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attainment-
vs-fertility)

For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few
years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other
countries like Uganda or Zambia the effect is much smaller. The original
source where I first heard this (which I sadly can't find again) claimed this
was due women wanting almost as many children as men in these countries.

~~~
pasta
That's because it has to do with the death rate of children.

On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will
get more (average of 6 around 1800).

The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less
babies are born.

So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women
will still have more babies than two.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they
> will get more (average of 6 around 1800).

I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got
social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.

~~~
dmitriid
Cultures have nothing to do with it.

See Hans Rosling's talk on this [1] or see it yourself in data [2]. As soon as
education, medicine, economic situation improves, you get a drop to ~2
children per woman across all cultures.

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=b&strail=false&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
While I see that there is a definite trend, if culture had nothing to do with
it, why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more
children? And I see a ton of groups there that have the highest life
expectancy and < 2 children, all Asian countries. That seems to indicate that
2 is not in fact a magic number at all.

~~~
pixl97
>why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more
children?

Most likely answer, religion. Successful religions grow one of two ways, and
generally have encodings for both. That is they tend to have means to convert
the non-religious, and secondly, and importantly in this case, have 'strong'
rules on having kids. For example, in the old testament Onan was killed for
'spilling his seed' and not impregnating his dead brothers wife.

That said, even in ancient times it appeared that birthrates did go down, as
in Greces case, their city state succeeded. This left them open from attack
and cultural take over by outside nations and ideals with higher birthrates.

In the modern world we are coming to the point where human labor is not as
necessary and has been supplanted by machine labor. Also machine protection,
in our weapons of war. This could allow a nation/culture to shrink
dramatically while still being able to defend against outside threats. If such
a shrinking culture were one that 'grew' by spreading its message to other
cultures it may succede to grow and shrink the entire worlds population at the
same time. These ideas of disappearing utopia cultures are often touched by
science fiction.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Oh, I understand all that, but the two arguments made earlier was that culture
had nothing to do with it (I'd say religion is in fact part of culture), and
that societies move towards having two kids, which doesn't seem to be the
case, it would appear that it actually goes lower, much lower.

------
whack
Our economy and intellectual progress is massively predicated on
specialisation of labor. When I consider any single aspect of our life, even
something as "simple" as how elevators work, it's astounding the amount of
complexity that goes into it. Complexity that we can handle because we divvy
it up amongst many many people who are completely specialized in understanding
and fulfilling that task.

Gradual increases in population don't really scare me. Technological progress
has always scaled with population, and technology can free us of natural
resource constraints. But in a world of shrinking population, entire fields of
practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever.

~~~
detcader
Can you give an example of why this is bad? What more do we really need in
terms of technology, to survive as nations and be happy? Could this point in
our achievement be enough?

Maybe a drought of elevator specialists decreases the amount of elevators we
can have. We have to walk up stairs more often. Not ideal. But maybe more
people spend less time having and raising kids and more time working on
themselves. Mental health improves and people are more compassionate toward
themselves and others. I would choose that world, not actively fight against
it.

~~~
pixl97
>What more do we really need in terms of technology, to survive as nations and
be happy?

What timeline are we talking about.

> Could this point in our achievement be enough?

To ensure eventual extinction, yes.

Modern technology is wholly dependant on a great number of unstable and
unsustainable systems. Fossil fuels are the best example of a great
technological boost that is destroying our atmosphere. Renewables, while so
much better, are not without their drawbacks at a world civilization size.
Still, it could create a nice, clean, and happy __doomed __world.

Below us vast volcanoes, things not seen for tens of thousands of years, wait
to explode below us threatening to blot out the sun for a decade (hope you
don't depend on solar panels). Above us rocks the size of mountains race
through the blackness of space at insane speeds waiting to find a gravity well
and vaporize what is at the bottom of it. There exists threats, ones we've
only come to realize exist in the past century, that can wipe mankind off
earth in the blink of an eye. The solution to most of these is making sure we
just aren't on earth, and become a spacefaring civilization. For that we will
need technology far beyond what we have now.

~~~
detcader
It's almost as if we are in Omelas, our worldwide festival of novelty and
technology relying on a hidden destruction of the environment we do not pay
attention to except once in a while (not to mention the countries.)

I don't believe space travel is worth it if we get there through war,
interpersonal alienation and violence required by the only current system
poised to do it. Sometimes we have to entertain the idea of letting go of
preventing every possible bad outcome and focus on what is needed in the
current moment. Regrettably I'm not the most persuasive philosopher; Gil
Scott-Heron has a song called "Whitey on the Moon" if one wants to think more
poetically about it.

------
sametmax
I haven't heard of a specie disapearing primarily because it didn't have
enough babies.

Even the giant panda, before arriving to this situation, had seen their
forests devasted by us.

So at best, I expect our specie to mess up in some big ways, then maybe, the
finish blow will be reproduction.

Yet I doubt it.

First, other threats have a way higher likelyhood. India has no water,
terrible social tension, instable border situations and the nuclear bomb. We
killed 60% of the insects. There are microparticules of plastic everywhere in
the oceans. Not to mention climat change, our mad scientist attitude towards
everything, and the systematic conversion of limited natural assets into short
term cash machines.

Second, fertility is something we have been working on for some time now, and
our mad, but smart, scientists are pretty good at it.

Lastly, I even doubt that natural fertility will ever be a permanent problem.
Nature has cycles to regular species population, and may impose on us some
drastic mesure, but like all cycles, it goes back to where it was.

~~~
Nav_Panel
Calhoun's "Beautiful Ones" study from the 1960s is the just-so story here. A
rat environment is built, becomes overpopulated, and eventually the children
stop breeding and the colony dies out. However, it's of dubious predictive
value.

~~~
Analemma_
As much as the Internet loves the Rat Park study, it’s important to note that
it has never replicated; several groups tried and failed. Until more
information comes along, it should be considered another victim of the
replication crisis and not taken too seriously.

------
pjc50
Sigh. Someone has a book to sell by going against conventional wisdom, and the
classic approach of taking a small trend and drawing a huge long straight line
through it. It's not really surprising that this has happened, given the
extent of efforts to reduce birth rates as a way out of poverty.

~~~
Robotbeat
This is the same argument that has been used for decades and centuries to
worry about population explosion, though. Was that mere book selling? We've
now seen a trend of below replacement in places like Japan lasting for decades
now, and they've luckily been able to change their society to be more
welcoming to immigrants in order to compensate, but that only works if there
are countries with higher birth rates to compensate.

~~~
EGreg
Or climate change? (Ducks)

 _PS: I realize now that people downvote not based on the content of the post
or the argument but based on whether they don’t think the argument should be
made because they dont like the conclusion_.

~~~
Robotbeat
No, climate change was predicted well before a temperature change was observed
(i.e. over 100 years ago), and it was based on the fact that the world burns
enormous amounts of coal and the fact that CO2 has a certain infrared
absorption spectrum. It was a prediction based on basic physics before an
empirical observation of the global result was seen.

But there is something analogous: look at birthrates, and you have a pretty
good idea about which direction the population will trend to within a few
decades. It's a pretty straightforward, fundamental relationship.

~~~
EGreg
Right, but like all things it ignores other variables, such as for example the
sun going into a cooler period or the gulfstream or el nino changing.

Obviously the former is global while the latter likely won’t counteract the
warming effect much. But it’s extrapolating based on the assumption that we
know there won’t be any other mechanisms — feedback, collapse, new phenomena
being activated by this like the growing of new phytoplankton-like organisms
or trees outside human habitats which automatically sequester trillions of
tons of carbon back)

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-
gl...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-globe-
greener/article26147272/)

[https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-
less-c...](https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-
into-atmosphere-than-expected)

We can’t do it ourselves:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-
trees-c...](https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant-
save-
us-2017-5?utm_content=buffer367e0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-
biuk&r=UK&IR=T)

And

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.htm)

I happen to think that the extrapolation is going to closely approximate what
will actually happen, but I could be wrong.

~~~
ggggtez
I think your understand of the issue is a bit fuzzy.

For example, the business insider article seems to imply that we can't "plant
our way out" using trees. But you interpret this to mean "we can't do it
ourselves". But no one ever said planting trees is the only thing we can do to
stop climate change. We can also: change our crop and animal yields, use less
fossil fuels, etc.

Same thing with the arizona article about dead forests releasing less CO2 than
expected. That isn't to say that they don't release any. And it also isn't to
say that live ones release more (live trees consume CO2 and produce O2, if you
recall). That article is from 2013, so any climate scientist is going to
already be using those findings in their models, so it's ridiculous to assume
that a 6 year old article with a minor tweak to a variable means that today's
cutting edge scientists are uninformed.

[edit] I'm not even gonna touch the thing about the "cold sun" conspiracy.
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-
na...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-nasa-data-
conspiracy-theory-and-the-cold-sun/)

~~~
EGreg
I’m saying climate scientists were missing a lot 6 years ago and 30 years ago,
and it’s unreasonable to expect that exactly now they finally are “totally
informed”. There are tons of external factors and it’s hubris to think the map
is the territory when it comes to such a complex system as the entire planet!

Or how about the entire solar system... I am not talking any conspiracies. I
am saying our global warming may in useful and actually happen to coincide
with a cooling period by the sun:

[https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-
affairs...](https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-
affairs/story/sun-is-likely-to-cool-down-causing-a-mini-ice-age-on-
earth-1167580-2018-02-12)

[https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-
warming...](https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming.html)

Stop assuming the worst of your discussion partners :)

And of course the above headlines ard also hubris because we don’t even know
if the sun dimmed a lot or if that was the main cause of the little ice age:

 _Foukal emphasized this dimming might not have been the only or even main
cause of the cooling seen during the little ice age. "There were also strong
volcanic effects involved — something like 17 huge volcanic eruptions then,"
he said._

I prefer to talk about CO2 pollution as a pollution problem, to avoid exactly
this argument about temperature predictions.

------
vages
Analogy: If someone on a diet keeps losing weight, they will disappear too.
But outside pressures and incentives change, and there's also internal
regulation. Your weight will stabilize sooner or later. I think the same goes
for populations. When people become scarce, making more of them will be
rewarded in some way or another.

I'm not sure the authors believe humanity will celibate itself out of
existence. But I'm sure they'll sell more books with "extinction" rather than
"stabilization" as a headline.

------
lisper
> “In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline,”
> they write. “Once that decline begins, it will never end.”

I'll give you very long odds against.

~~~
simplicio
Yea, the debate about the UN's demographic projections are interesting, but
the framing that the world is going to _run out of people_ is dump, and kinda
distracts from the interesting parts.

8 billion people is still a pretty crazy number of people.

------
rainworld
Quoting Spandrell:

At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a
fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent
and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates
below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve
said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that
code for high intelligence go to get shredded in the corporate and
bureaucratic rat-race, depriving humanity of the biological building blocks
for a better future.

~~~
magduf
This doesn't fully explain why humans don't want to have a lot of kids. Have
you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if
they're boys. (For instance, as a single guy, I'm _far_ more likely to be
interested in dating a single mother with girls than one with boys; little
boys are just too destructive and disobedient.)

Smart people aren't having so many kids now because they don't have to. If
they don't have a religion telling them they need to, and they have a good
career and a very comfortable lifestyle that affords, why would they want to
go to all the trouble that raising a lot of kids requires?

In addition to that, kids are very costly in today's society, and with adults
not living near their families so much, you don't get any help with your kids
when you need it, so that makes it even more unattractive.

Having a lot of kids made sense back in the days when you needed the help on
your farm, and your whole extended family (or village) lived together and
could collectively share the burdens of child-rearing. Now, it just doesn't.

The answer to me is simple: we need to outsource child-rearing to the State,
as shown in the novel "Brave New World" where children were made in factories
and then raised by trained professionals.

~~~
bantunes
> Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially
> if they're boys.

Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats
order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to
have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

~~~
magduf
>That's part of being an adult.

As countless adults these days have proven, no, it's not. You can just opt out
of the whole thing.

~~~
martin1b
Which is why we have the problem at hand.

~~~
auiya
> problem at hand

Is it a problem? I would submit it is a solution.

~~~
magduf
It's a problem if you don't want your economy to collapse because of too many
elderly people who can't work and not enough young people to keep things going
for them all.

------
matt4077
I’m somewhat surprised by the tone of surprise in this article/interview.

While I still frequently see references to “out-of-control population growth”
among laypeople here on HN or on Twitter, often in reference to Africa, I have
long gotten the impression that the scientific and political communities have
turned to models showing drastically lower birth rates coinciding with
increased development.

Lower infant mortality, access to birth control, and social safety nets that
do not rely on immediate family are obvious factors here.

This is umabigoulsy good news, unless you posit a harm from not being born. In
any case, it’s unlikely that humanity is going to disappear of its own
choosing.

~~~
Robotbeat
The slowing of the birthrate to manageable levels is very good, but too much
of that (i.e. below replacement) leads to an inverted age pyramid, which is
NOT unambiguously good.

The fact that birthrates are falling and many countries will be left with a
huge number of elderly folk without enough young folk to take care of them is
not unambiguously good, particularly when it happens everywhere so there's
nowhere to import young immigrants from.

~~~
EGreg
An inverted age pyramid can be just fine if automation picks up the slack and
causes productivity per capita to soar. The great thing about automation is
that it’s always improving, never going back (except when old equipment gets
retired). Once Tesla improves feature X it’s rolled out to all cars at once,
for instance.

~~~
pixl97
> if automation picks up the slack and causes productivity per capita

This is only true _if_ the income disparity is not out of control. Current
trends show us that income disparity is increasing where the super rich gain
everything, and the poor are screwed without some kind of income
redistribution (high wealth taxes for example).

~~~
EGreg
That’s why I’d like to see us move in the direction of:

    
    
      UBI
      Automation
      Open Source Software
    

And I am putting my money where my mouth is, for 7 years:

[https://qbix.com](https://qbix.com)

[https://intercoin.org](https://intercoin.org)

------
thomasahle
I didn't know this was controversial? The UN numbers referred to show that
this is a likely outcome already on page 2.

At most the author seems to disagree with UN about ~1 billion people. Well
within the uncertainty.

[https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_Key...](https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFindings.pdf)

------
Symmetry
In the long run more agreeable (in a Big 5 sense) people have more children
and agreeableness is fairly heritable so don't expect the decline in birth
rates to last forever.

[https://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2018/05/falling-
fer...](https://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2018/05/falling-fertility-
rates-shouldnt-be.html)

------
stevehawk
I've always kind of felt that man kind would go the way of the Mice Utopia
experiment - [https://www.returnofkings.com/36915/what-humans-can-learn-
fr...](https://www.returnofkings.com/36915/what-humans-can-learn-from-the-
mice-utopia-experiment)

------
arthurcamara
The article makes it sound like a journalist traveled around 26 countries
(~10% of countries), interviewed only a handful of people in each (the ones
they could reach), and concluded that UN's demographic projections -
formulated with tons of data, academic methodologies, and carefully crafted by
statisticians and global development experts - are wrong

The article and book sound pretty biased and clickbaity from what I can tell
so far.

I'll stick with the UN for now ;)

------
phkahler
That ended rather abruptly, and never even mentioned decline or running out.

------
fallingfrog
In the short term, this is good news. Sub-replacement fertility is not zero;
if the world population were to reduce by 1% per year for a few decades, it
would reduce the pressure on the Earth's ecosystems and make some space for a
better life for the remaining people. The population can always increase
again.

------
est31
This is indeed the leading theory about where the world will be heading over
the next couple of decades. But I think the answer really depends on the
culture of subpopulations.

In the USA for example, republican ruled states have more babies than democrat
ruled states [1]. Or in israel, the fertility rate of the orthodox haredi
minority is very high with 6.9 children per woman in 2017 (children not
childbirths) compared to the non-haredi per-woman value of 2.4 [2].

So where will this lead us to? I think we'll experience growing percentages of
conservatives/orthodox populations across the world while the liberal
populations will shrink. Overall there will be a shrinkage but the
conservative population growth might eat up that shrinkage and one day we
might have overall growth again. But predicting the future is hard of course.
For example, you could have the conversion of the conservative mindset towards
liberalism which is happening in the entire world since maybe 100 years or
such eat up every population increase of the conservative minorities.

Or you could have sci-fi tech that influences population infertility quite
much, e.g. with artificial uteruses. With them, minorities that value large
amounts of children might grow quicker and governments could want to influence
how many children are being grown to fight population declines.

Or it might be figured out how to prevent/reverse aging and the number of
"natural" deaths will sink to zero. Then your population will start growing
again even without the contribution from conservative/orthodox minorities as
the number of babies would still be larger than the (low) number of deaths due
to accidents, crimes, etc.

[1]: [https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/republicans-have-
mor...](https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/republicans-have-more-
children/) [2]:
[https://en.idi.org.il/articles/20439](https://en.idi.org.il/articles/20439)

~~~
matthewdgreen
One might point out that orthodox-religious and Republican children are a
major source of liberals.

~~~
est31
Exactly, that's what I've meant with "conversion of the conservative mindset
towards liberalism". Liberal groups have high capabilities of converting
conservative people towards them while conservative groups have high
capabilities of reproducing.

I don't worry about liberals for that reason: the more conservatives, the
larger the pool of people they can convert to their ways. Liberalism
originated in a world that was far more conservative than the conservatives we
have today, and they still managed to get where we are now. I'm definitely not
worried.

------
lamename
What I didn't see mentioned in the article is the 3rd possibility: that the
population will grow but eventually reach a stable plateau. I don't know the
number (<12 bil maybe) but this was argued by Hans Rosling.

Can any demographers weigh in?

~~~
naravara
IIRC the UN estimates in the early 2000s said it was going to top out at 11 to
12 billion and plateau there. This article is a much rosier estimate and
expects us to top out at 9 billion or so before rapidly declining.

------
jelliclesfarm
Optimal carrying capacity would be 1 billion.

We were half a billion in 1600s.

If everyone had 1/2 surviving child, we will start coming down in about 200
years. Would love it if someone smarter than me can do that mathematical
projection?

We need everyone to have 1/2 child so we have genetic diversity.

------
bparsons
Important to note that these two authors wrote another book in 2013, claiming
that Canada would never elect a Liberal government again, because of
demographics or something.

This was 18 months before the Liberals won a massive majority.

[https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Shift-Canadian-Politics-
Business/d...](https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Shift-Canadian-Politics-
Business/dp/1443416452)

------
TheBeardKing
Better data from Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-
replacement_fertility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-
replacement_fertility)

------
Balgair
I've not read the book yet (it only came out yesterday), but I think there are
a few issues with the piece:

First, we should look at the authors of the book. Again, I've NOT read it, so
this is based on a bit of internet sleuthing, and nothing more. The authors
are primarily writers and news commentators in Canada. John Ibbitson writes
for _The Glode and Mail_ and is a political commentator[0]. Dr. Darrell
Bricker is a pollster, political commentator, and author of a few books
focusing on Canadian current events and issues[1]. I cannot speak for their
personal knowledge on Earth's population nor the accuracy of a book that I
have not read. However, based on their Wikipedia bios, I can conclude that
they are not career professionals in global demographics. Speaking personally,
they give me a Robert Reich/Thomas Friedman vibe more than anything.

Now, specifically about the _Wired_ interview, there are some things that
stand out:

> And then I saw one woman reach in and pull out a smartphone, look at it, and
> put it back. And I realized, here we are in a slum in Delhi, and all these
> women have smartphones. Who can read. Who have data packages. And I was
> thinking, they have all of human knowledge in their hands now.

Depending on the time and place that the authors were in Delhi, this may be
incorrect. _Free Basics_ was recently shot down in 2016, so if they were there
after that decision, they are correct [2]. If they were there before that
ruling, then it is highly likely that these women were only able to access
Facebook and not the internet at large. In addition, though the _Wired_
interview was very short, they may not have had anything other than basic
phone functionality. I would love to know more about the actual data on how
internet penetration occurs in the lower castes/classes of India.

> The UN says they’re already baked into the numbers. But when I went and
> interviewed ... Wolfgang Lutz in Vienna, ... he walked me through his
> projections, ... All he was doing was adding one new variable to the
> forecast: the level of improvement in female education. And he comes up with
> a much lower number ..., somewhere between 8 billion and 9 billion.

Based on some quick googling of Dr. Lutz, I would be a fool to disagree with
his expert assessments [3]. He holds two doctorates, one in Demographics from
U. Penn, and one in Statistics from U. Vienna and has been working in global
demographics issues since 1985. I've not researched him in depth, but he seems
like a level-headed person without much of an 'agenda'. He is a recent editor
of a 1000+ page tome titled "World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-
First Century"[4]. So, if Dr. Lutz's believes that just adding in female
education will drop the world population by ~two billion babies, then I would
be loathe to argue with him.

> In the Philippines, for example, fertility rates dropped from 3.7 percent to
> 2.7 percent from 2003 to 2018. That's a whole kid in 15 years.

I'm not certain what 3.7 _percent_ fertility means. I believe that there may
be a mis-transcription here. What I think the authors mean is that the
Philippines had a _birth rate_ of 3.7 children per woman. For reference, Yemen
is an even more extreme example:. In 1986, the fertility rate was _over 9_.
Today it stands at 4; so 5 children in 30 years.

Overall, the _Wired_ article stands as a good promotion for the recently
released book. However, I feel that listening from Dr. Lutz himself may be a
better and more productive use of time [5][6].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ibbitson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ibbitson)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Bricker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Bricker)

[2] [https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-
basics/](https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-basics/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Lutz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Lutz)

[4] [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/world-population-
and...](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/world-population-and-human-
capital-in-the-twenty-first-century-9780198703167?cc=us&lang=en&#)

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeDuJPJ5J5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeDuJPJ5J5c)

[6]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQJ7EApyi-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQJ7EApyi-A)

------
foolsgold
I was expecting a link to the National Inquirer, and not Wired.

Utter nonsense

------
alecco
A world with declining population. Full of old people due to population
pyramid inverted. Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots,
as those are the only groups with fertility rates above replacement level.

~~~
pqokdwpokqp
>Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots,

They are so stupid, yet everyone else let themselves be out-bred by them? I
think if that happens in the long-term, it more or less suggests "religious
zealots" have adapted better.

~~~
magduf
It's not stupid to be "out-bred": you're enjoying your own personal life more
by keeping more resources for yourself, rather than sacrificing your time and
resources on kids with the goal of continuing your family line. Your kids,
grandkids, and descendants aren't likely to be of much help after you're dead.

This is an individual vs. society issue: having few kids is better at the
individual level, but for society it's not sustainable unless we can figure
out how to significantly extend lifespans (i.e., reduce the death rate in-line
with the reduction of the birthrate).

~~~
jpetso
One may argue that if you expand "for society" to a worldwide "for humankind",
it's perfectly sustainable not to have kids at the current population level.

I think it's a safe assumption that those with religious dogma and those in
regions of high child mortality will continue to have many kids, one way or
another. The "educated" non-religious class is probably the only one that has
a real choice to make. If they keep up reproducing at 2.1x replacement level
while everyone else exceeds that level, the worldwide population is just going
to continue to grow and _then_ we're in real trouble.

I'm perfectly happy to let "my society" be taken over by "the other kind" who
out-reproduced me and my peers. One way or another, we'll have to stop growing
as a species, and one group's excesses have to balanced out by another group's
shortfalls.

~~~
magduf
The only problem with that (if you care about what happens to humanity after
you die) is that it will likely result in a major collapse of society. The
religious nuts and those in regions of high child mortality (which means
they're all poor and uneducated) aren't going to be able to maintain or
advance a technological society. They can breed, but that's not enough to know
how to keep complex systems running, and things will collapse just like
Ancient Rome, with technology being lost and everyone going back to being
feudal serfs, or worse.

Personally, I just don't see a way to avoid some kind of major collapse of
society due to one or more of the many factors facing us. For this issue, I
think greatly improving human longevity is absolutely necessary, and if we
don't do that, we're going to have another Dark Ages of some kind.

