Birthrates are plummeting worldwide. Can governments turn the tide?
Birthrates are plummeting worldwide. Can governments turn the tide?
Nations are deploying baby bonuses, subsidised childcare and parental leave to try to reverse a rapidly declining fertility rate – largely to no avail
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Hopefully not.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say that as long as global population is going up, we're having too many, not too few. Once it levels off we may have to think about whether we want to degrow the population or just leave it.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if by the 2080s, "peak human" according to the quoted estimate, Brave New World baby factories are an option should we need them.
The main driver of population growth is people living longer. The problem with less babies being born means less young labourers for all the old fucks to exploit. Logan's Run would be a better sci-fi system to adopt.
Right now it's still birth rate, to be clear. Life expectancy as gone up by mere years over the decades, while births per adult woman is still double digit in a few select countries.
Biology is a field that's growing explosively these days, though, and I fully expect aging to settle down suddenly. I'll have to look up what Logan's Run is.
Edit: 30 is definitely too low for a maximum age, lol. People commonly work into their 60s. I expect that decline in age will slow down as well, so that helps offset things, and then if there's still a population crunch geezers like me should start doing "lotteries". Maybe literal Russian roulette, for the style factor.
The issue is growth rates are wildly different among different areas and cultures. The population in some places is dropping precipitously which will cause economic problems, especially around elder care.
While I agree that a gradual population reduction would be beneficial, rapid declines will increase human suffering and should be avoided.
different areas and cultures
It's really more wealth and education based. Muslim Kazakhstan has a birth rate near replacement, neighboring Tajikistan has a big one, and Afghanistan a couple of stans down has one sky high. Further south yet, India still has a very family-centric culture, but they've dropped below replacement now.
All problems right now, when there's a global surplus, are due to lack of immigration. I say we work on that.
Once it levels off we may have to think about whether we want to degrow the population
The problem is this is one of those long term things that people have a hard time understanding. By the time you see it level off, it’s decades too late to change things. Let’s not make the same mistake as we continue to do with climate: instead of putting it off until it becomes a crisis let’s make small changes now so the crisis doesn’t happen.
We definitely can’t grow population forever and are likely beyond a sustainable population already, but let’s try for a smooth leveling off and soft landing rather than flying off a cliff and crashing into the rocks
Hmm. So how should we go about that today? Trying to raise population growth in developed countries, besides having proven very hard to do ethically, makes the problem with a high peak population worse.
It being hard to do is all the more reason to start now. We certainly don’t want to step back in human rights or healthcare so perhaps our only choice is incentives or assistance. Yes, that has proven not very effective so far but our only choice is to try. Perhaps assistance and incentives need to go a bit farther. I know I found a lot more challenges to being a parent than just the cost. Perhaps there’s some social statuses that need to be changed but are subject to generational inertia: when does being a parent confer status or respect, or at least not stunt your career?
Yeah, if it works we're back to worrying about overpopulation, which is far worse. It's a moral hazard. I was hoping you had a third option. Otherwise, no, let the birth rate collapse.
Doubt we even need them unless its for organs. Companies are always trying to do more with less. It's better to just not hire more staff that retired or left than laying off some. Smaller well educated population is better than bloated useless one.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and guess that 1 or 2 billion is enough long-term to retain all the diversity of lifestyle we've come to love, and then each person will be able to safely consume many times more.
that is the level I think the world could handle and recover year to year (well if it was not overtaxed to begin with) and allow folks to have a modern type of lifestyle with our current don't try crappy way of doing things.
I read 10k was minimum for space colony to keep good biodiversity. We can lose pops for a while. So long as automation keeps up.
Yeah. I'm guessing technologies would start to get lost if we went below a million without careful planning, but even then we have centuries of exponential decrease to go before we're really in trouble.
Even without automation, less people means less consumers, so the only pain is short term as there's a ton of decrepit old people (like me if I'm still around) for the youth to care for. Some large projects might lose economy of scale, but then again anything finite like land will get way cheaper.
Lost knowlege has precedent in history. That's when 40k style Standard Template Construct come into effect. Which We already started with chat gpt and such. Just need to optimize it. Bigger issue is if humanity will progress In technology or remain stagnate.
People keep saying we need to worry about elderly but realistically if there is less manufacturing or service jobs from automation and people don't want robot carer's then technically there would be more care jobs open. Seems like will sort itself out in the end.
Bigger issue is if humanity will progress In technology or remain stagnate.
That's also a good point. There is a quote, "society progresses one funeral at a time". That goes for social progress, and to a degree for scientific progress as well.
I'm going to go ahead and say I don't want today's old people in charge forever.
Seems like will sort itself out in the end.
Yeah, I'm not terribly worried about everything else; we got lucky inventing mass contraception when we did.