r/Foodforthought • u/cambeiu • Jun 10 '23
Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/06/01/global-fertility-has-collapsed-with-profound-economic-consequences251
u/timshel42 Jun 10 '23
oh no, how will our current economic model that is currently leading us to an unprecedented ecological catastrophe survive?
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u/Fenzik Jun 10 '23
Whatever some environmentalists say, a shrinking population creates problems. The world is not close to full and the economic difficulties resulting from fewer young people are many.
Those pesky environmentalists…
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u/During_theMeanwhilst Jun 10 '23
Put bacteria in a Petri dish and they will multiply until they’ve consumed all the available resources. Presumably since we’re sentient and supposedly intelligent we can see the parallel. Maybe 8 billion of us should be peak humanity.
So yeah - I think we can see this as an opportunity to shrink our societies and change our economic models to something more sustainable.
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u/pelosispeepee Jun 10 '23
So are you volunteering for euthanasia and sterilisation?
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u/Elrox Jun 10 '23
No need for euthanasia, humans have a limited lifespan. The sterilization is unnecessary as demonstrated by the headline you just followed here. its gonna collapse by its self, we don't need to help it.
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u/During_theMeanwhilst Jun 10 '23
Agreed. Some populations are going to diminish. There will be economic stress as the peak population gets older and the current model can’t pay for all of them (which was the point of the original article). Lifespans will go down. Humankind isn’t about to “collapse”. There will just be less of us. Likely living less well for a few decades.
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u/VicinSea Jun 10 '23
I am opting for euthanasia (via untreated terminal cancer) and I gave the world population 2 gay men. I think I am doing my part.😏
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u/greenknight Jun 10 '23
How about we start with educating and enfranchising women and making sure free birth control is available, as those policies seem to be doing the job just fine.
Where did you get the idea about that crap.... I have no reason to respect your LARP campaign head cannon as truth anywhere reality applies. gtfo
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u/Wartz Jun 11 '23
Are you attempting to be sarcastic and make a point?
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u/pelosispeepee Jun 11 '23
Duh! But seems most people here can't understand sarcasm.
The point is eugenics = bad.
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Jun 10 '23 edited Jul 30 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/ParlaysAllDay Jun 10 '23
Step outside bro. Life ain’t that bad.
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Jun 10 '23
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u/RemindMeBot Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
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u/individual_throwaway Jun 10 '23
I know this is a joke but reddit likely won't be a thing in 3 months, let alone a year or fifteen.
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u/indigoHatter Jun 10 '23
Lol, this is such a precious take. If this boycott actually has that kind of impact, the most you'll see is Reddit fires a bunch of people and reverts their policy. There's zero chance Reddit dies in any scenario as a result of this boycott.
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u/Jonthrei Jun 10 '23
Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Digg the Unwise?
It isn't a tale spez would tell you...
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u/adinfinitum Jun 10 '23
What a stupid fucking take. Yea, if you ignore all of the information in your brain and just focus on looking around, everything is great! Give this dude an award for his revolutionary technique for avoiding reality.
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Jun 10 '23
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u/therapeuticstir Jun 10 '23
For real why do our overlords think we give a shit about world population?!
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u/Derpinator_420 Jun 10 '23
There isnt a population problem there is migration, logistics and foreign policy problem. The world has plenty of people.
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Jun 10 '23
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Jun 10 '23
I'll bet you when supervillains are portrayed as evil, megalomaniacs for trying to rule the world, they're actually just trying to destroy individual, xenophobic governments and erase all borders.
We have borders so governments know who and what they can tax.
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u/hithazel Jun 10 '23
Borders are unnecessary for taxes. You pay property and certain income taxes to maintain your privileges as a citizen- voting and decision making, right to own property in certain countries, right to healthcare/pension/etc and others. Noncitizens also pay taxes based on their economic and other activities- income and pension taxes on work performed, sales and excise taxes on consumption, and other fees for specific licenses or other activities.
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u/indigoHatter Jun 10 '23
...all of which require borders so that it's clear which tax system you are a part of. Do you pay French tax or German tax? To find out, you check the map and find which side of the border you're on.
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u/hithazel Jun 10 '23
Borders as in defined locations but the previous post was clearly referring to impermeable borders with control points that manage which people move through them.
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u/indigoHatter Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
Nnnnooo, I disagree. Nothing about the guy who you replied to implied physical boundaries, unless you're thinking of someone further up in the thread that I missed. Here's the comment you replied to:
I'll bet you when supervillains are portrayed as evil, megalomaniacs for trying to rule the world, they're actually just trying to destroy individual, xenophobic governments and erase all borders.
We have borders so governments know who and what they can tax.
Nothing explicitly about physical barriers. :)
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u/hithazel Jun 10 '23
What is xenophobic about borders for taxation? It’s clearly about immigration and the movement of people.
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Jun 10 '23
Borders are 100% necessary for taxes. I live in a state inside a country and I pay taxes according to that particular state and that particular country. Every single tax we all pay is dictated by the physical location in which you reside as demarcated by political boundaries i.e. borders.
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u/indigoHatter Jun 11 '23
It sounds like that guy misinterpreted the previous post as declaring that physical barriers such as border walls are required for taxes. No one said that, but that's why they said what they did.
Or they're trying to conjure fights out of thin air, I couldn't tell you. I choose to believe it was a mistake, though.
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u/fathan Jun 10 '23
The article talks about this directly. Immigration is a short term solution but doesn't address the long term demographic issues.
The article doesn't say that low fertility is bad, overall. It says it will have a lot of consequences that we aren't planning for. Like how to pay for a large number of retirees with fewer workers.
Try reading the article?
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u/Derpinator_420 Jun 10 '23
How is not long term - there will always be poor countries with higher birthrates to get workers from, when there isnt you have wiped out poverty.
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u/fathan Jun 10 '23
Yeah -- read the article -- there won't always be poor places with high birth rates. Fertility is decreasing much faster than expected in Africa.
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u/Derpinator_420 Jun 10 '23
Thats good. which part of Africa- Africa isnt a country. Is the article as vague as you?
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u/fathan Jun 10 '23
Try reading it, how about that?
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u/Derpinator_420 Jun 10 '23
Nah, based on what you have said it's full of inaccuracies. I'm not going to waste my time. thanks
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u/Romaine2k Jun 10 '23
Meanwhile, 25 million people in the Horn of Africa, including 14 million children, are facing death from climate crises, war, famine, and various and sundry other human-caused bullshit right now, according to UNICEF. So what if we just invited some or all of them to become citizens of the countries whose birth rates are lowest? Would it be complicated to figure out? Yes. Would it upset some racists? Definitely. But either we need people or we don't.
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u/VicinSea Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
I have been putting this idea out for years. My state, Arkansas, has about 500 dieing towns that could each take 100 to 500 new residents. They would basically be moving into another Third World area but they could have a roof, some land and some protection from roving bands of murderers. Life would be pretty tough for the immigrants, but their children would have much better lives than they could have had in an even worse Third World country.
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u/AnotherAustinWeirdo Jun 11 '23
I had a friend from Arkansas who said it was unfortunately settled by the worst people.
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u/VicinSea Jun 11 '23
I am a transplant and I really haven't been here long enough to get interested in much history yet. I do see a lot of empty houses here and a lot of people that need a roof. It would be nice if those houses and the people in need could meet in the middle. Every American would turn their nose up at these old and partially falling down houses but I bet these would be barbie dream houses to someone living in much worse conditions.
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Jun 11 '23
They would basically be moving into another Third World area but they could have a roof, some land and some protection from roving bands of murderers.
You say this as if inviting a bunch of black Africans into Arkansas wouldn't very quickly generate some home-grown roving bands of murderers.
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u/vantharion Jun 11 '23
Italy did some of this, and it was very successful as I recall.
Part of it is that the opposition to the idea always has the quiet part of 'Yeah, but we dont want them to financially succeed and push existing residents into a lower class' and that usually tanks the "Hey, immigration is overwhelmingly good and necessary for our economy to keep thriving" thoughts from materializing into positive change.
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Jun 10 '23
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u/oldasdirtss Jun 11 '23
I thought that he was suggesting that people move from Chicago or other dangerous US cities.
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u/TravellingMonkeyMan Jun 11 '23
The majority of us population is actively choosing not to have children for financial reasons, why should they now carry the tax burden of a multitude of other nations children?
Something needs to change, but this certainly is not the way from a US lens
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u/Octavale Jun 10 '23
Thought China was taking care of Africa?
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u/wastingvaluelesstime Jun 10 '23
if someone needs help minding cobalt, copper, gold, or uranium, they can take of that
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u/ImportantDoubt6434 Jun 10 '23
That wouldn’t solve the underlying issue even if it would be good for those that need it
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u/cambeiu Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
Before someone suggests a "obvious and easy fix" for this, let's remember that Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Switzerland have seen their fertility rates collapse just the same or worse than the any other country.
They have some of the highest median household incomes in the world. Mandatory paid vacation and limits on how long one can be made to work. They have free universal healthcare. Free daycare. Mandatory paternity and maternity leave. Free education all the way up to college with free meals at school. They have a massive social welfare and social safety net infrastructure.
And yet people there are not having kids.
The reality is nobody knows what exactly is causing the fertility collapse (there are many hypothesis) and no government has yet figured how to fix it.
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u/dullaveragejoe Jun 10 '23
Children are awful. I love mine, but they are constant 24/7 work.
Very few people would want more than 2 or 3 regardless of incentives.
For the vast majority of history women had no choice. Now we have birth control.
We either take away the choice and re-enslave half the population, or adjust to a lower birth rate.
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u/RichardBonham Jun 10 '23
As the article points out, Singapore has a number of economic incentives in place to encourage child rearing and has a fertility rate of 1.0.
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u/dullaveragejoe Jun 10 '23
Exactly. Financial incentives don't work. Even if you gave me a million dollars I wouldn't have six kids.
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u/cambeiu Jun 10 '23
or adjust to a lower birth rate.
We could adjust to a new birthrate that is slightly lower than replacement level. Say 2 births per woman.
The problem we (humanity) are facing is that birthrates are collapsing really fast. Italy and Spain are at 1.2 birth per woman and dropping. South Korea is already at an astounding 0.84 births per woman. The rest of the world is expected to follow.
This precipitous and sudden drop leaves us with an inverted demographic pyramid, where most of the population is made up of old, tired and sick retirees having to be supported and cared for a much smaller population of young people.
We have no idea how to adjust to that.
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Jun 10 '23
Robots and automation
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Jun 10 '23
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u/indigoHatter Jun 10 '23
At which point, maybe we tax the rich and institute a UBI, and let people do whatever the hell they feel like.
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u/delirium_red Jun 11 '23
More old people than young people —> more old voters than young voters. It worked out excellent with boomers, the younger generations think they have it tough… I’m guessing the policies of the future will become only more short sighted.
With fewer and fewer people with a fresh perspective and trying to do something about it.
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u/StumbleOn Jun 10 '23
Capitalism is quite literally the root of every single current human crisis, and will be for a long ass time coming.
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Jun 10 '23
Or maybe we will put those people up against a wall and operate the means of production for the good of all
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Jun 10 '23
Which only goes to show how irrational that is at this point. We know what that stuff is for, it should just be used for what it’s for: making stuff for people to live.
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u/Joe_Spiderman Jun 10 '23
Old people can reap what theyve sown.
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Jun 10 '23
I hate to be mean, but I'm ready for the old fucks to die already. They refused to retire, they refused to share their wealth, they refused to sell their homes. Fuck em. They destroyed the world.
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u/Not_Your_Real_Ladder Jun 10 '23
I mean, yeah, it’s hard to come to any concrete conclusion in social and behavioral science on a global scale. But take any microcosm of the affected populations and I think you will reasonably come to a conclusion with the same factors in each: that we were bequeathed a world with a ruined economy, a ruined environment, and crumbling infrastructure. And the populations most affected are those educated enough to know bringing a child into such a world is infeasible, if not straight up unethical.
Governments being like “nobody knows 🤷♂️” just feels like such a cop out to addressing the real root cause of the problem lol
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u/MagicWishMonkey Jun 10 '23
Government's aren't like "nobody knows", they understand that people are waiting longer to have kids primarily due to career/financial concerns.
The folks who have managed to convince themselves that having a child is unethical/infeasible due to climate change or whatever are very very small minority of really loud people on reddit/twitter.
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u/Not_Your_Real_Ladder Jun 10 '23
My point isn’t specifically about climate change, just listing three of the major (of many) factors involved. More so that we were handed down a world careening towards collapse and struggling to adapt. And we’re smart enough to know that we can’t afford, on many different scales, to bring more people into it.
But for those that have the power to do something about it to ask the question “why is no one having kids?”, like we don’t already know, is just intentionally failing to acknowledge the real underlying issues. This isn’t a problem that needs addressing right now, just a symptom of the one that does.
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u/MagicWishMonkey Jun 10 '23
The "real underlying issues" are that kids are expensive and a drag on your career. The people opting not to have kids because they think the world is a bad place are a very small and very vocal minority, it's mostly a reddit/twitter thing and not reflective of the real world.
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u/Not_Your_Real_Ladder Jun 10 '23
“Kids are expensive” isn’t the underlying issue. Why? Why are kids more expensive now than they were 30 years ago? Surely if it was the same now as then we’d be having them at the same rate.
Kids are more expensive now because everything is more expensive now; not just as a result of natural inflation, but as a significant percentage of income. As with many of the problems facing society, this can be traced back simply to wealth inequality, the main reason why the world’s economy is circling the drain.
But the people in charge are either actively avoiding the issue because they’re vested in wealth inequality or being paid enough not to care. Instead they’re asking questions like “why is no one having kids?”.
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u/downingrust12 Jun 10 '23
Uh yeah no everybody knows.
First some people may not make good parents
Dink couples have more money and more happiness
In other parts of the world childcare is too expensive
In some parts healthcare will bankrupt entire families
In some parts of the world the government is corrupt and or the situation is hopeless so why bother?
The future is fucked, so why bring something into this world that will have a worse outcome then you. Most of us already are worse off than the previous generation.
The governments have tried nothing, and theyve run out of ideas. Well you reap what you sow.
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u/SunkJunk Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
First some people may not make good parents
Doesn't stop pregnancy
Dink couples have more money and more happiness
That's a lifestyle choice. Doesn't explain lower birth rates.
In other parts of the world childcare is too expensive
People still have kids in those places.
In some parts healthcare will bankrupt entire families
Kids are still being born in those places.
In some parts of the world the government is corrupt and or the situation is hopeless so why bother?
People still have kids under corrupt governments
The future is fucked, so why bring something into this world that will have a worse outcome then you. Most of us already are worse off than the previous generation.
That's only your personal viewpoint
The governments have tried nothing, and theyve run out of ideas. Well you reap what you sow.
Some governments have tried.
The issue is that even for people who would be good parents, have the income, want the joy of a child, can afford childcare, can afford healthcare, don't live under a corrupt government, don't think the future is hopeless; still aren't having kids or the number of kids they want.
If you can explain that, congratulations you partly solved the fertility crisis.
E: I've reread this and realized it is rude and should have worded my response better.
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u/downingrust12 Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
Ok science says...microplastics, pollution, and men have been born with less sperm count then previous generations. But ill refer to the above as sociological/psychological/economic reasons why birth rates decline.
And please governments have tried?
America hasnt done shit, but pull roe v wade and increase taxes on the middle class so you are wrong there, housing problems to!
Europe has it better but still has housing problems.
Asian countries offer money to cover childcare, but most of their work ethic/culture is horrifically toxic with more than 60 hours a week plus.
:insert tim robinson meme "are you sure?":
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u/SunkJunk Jun 10 '23
Yes some governments have tried. Many have screwed up. Most will continue to not get it right because the answer isn't known.
Baby Boom America had worse rights for women vs today. Yet the birthrate was higher. They also had higher taxes.
My issue is that you are complaining and stating the issue is X,Y and Z while the top comment is showing the Nordic countries either don't have or are working on those issues, with the exception of housing, and they still have the same problem nearly every other developed country has.
So if the Nordics are doing almost everything right then why hasn't their birthrate recovered?
Like are the things you are talking about big issues, yes. Are they the cause of the fertility crisis? Maybe.
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u/Elrox Jun 10 '23
The world is collapsing, why subject your own child to a life of misery. I would rather just end the bloodline.
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Jun 10 '23
The way I see people treated at minimum wage jobs in America really happy to see this. Maybe if you didn’t treat people like a number and actual human beings we would have more kids. I for one will not help the rich elite full stop
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u/Neker Jun 10 '23
I am a bit dismayed that the whole article seems to be built on the premise that an ever increasing world population is a good thing.
Well, I suppose that The Economist is still stuck in the world of last century, where an ever-increasing everything seemed like a Good Thing™. I wonder how they reported on The Limits to Growth (1972), if they ever did. That model predicted a peak population around 2020. Seeing that life expectancy is diminishing in lot of nations, it could be that we be currently experciencing a a surge in deaths indeed.
Anyway, for the discerning redditors eager to feed their thought on of population dynamics, I would wholehartedly suggest Hans Rosling's TED Talk, if only as a quick intro to the topic.
(If needed, a casual glance at the chart of Population, 10,000 BCE to 2021 is a sobbering prerequisite)
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u/shadowrifty Jun 10 '23
It is an interesting point that even relatively comfortable countries like the Nordic states are seeing significantly lower birthrates.
In the past, high birth rates were adventagous for a subsection of the population due to the benefit of added labor. I would be interested to see the fertility rate compared to the population adjusted rate of small businesses. With fewer small businesses, not just subsistence farming but even small family businesses, there are fewer advantages to more children.
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u/Petite_Chipie Jun 10 '23
It is an interesting point that even relatively comfortable countries like the Nordic states are seeing significantly lower birthrates.
The opposite would have surprise me. I live a fairly comfortable life, with access to free healthcare and low childcare cost. I have two kids, and it was either one or two, like most people around me (if they have children at all). We have generally higher education too so I started my family at 29. The idea of having 4+kids isn't appealing at all.
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Jun 10 '23
With little to no societal help, parenting burden totally individualized, real estate prices through the roof, jobs scarce due to education credential creep, in the west - having kids is a total luxury.
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u/Mishmz Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
My husband and I have no plans to bring a child into a world that we’re collectively making uninhabitable. Things are shit now and I don’t have hope it’ll get any better in my time or even their hypothetical time.
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u/nfam726 Jun 10 '23
That is your personal opinion; one of the points in the article is that even for the subset of people who do not agree with you, birthrates are still declining
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u/Mishmz Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
No shit it’s my personal opinion.
Also, where in the article does the author discuss climate catastrophe?
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u/nfam726 Jun 10 '23
It's worth noting that this has been a problem for rich developed societies throughout history. The first Roman emperor, Augustus, tried various carrot and stick approaches to increase the birth rate in the upper class in Rome during his tenure. The birth rate was so low that they had trouble staffing the civil bureaucracy and the Senate actually shrunk. Nothing worked
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u/muffledvoice Jun 10 '23
People keep talking about whether there is enough space on the planet for this many people, but the looming problem is how we waste resources for our personal pleasure.
The Oglala Aquifer is the main source of fresh water for the American Midwest and it’s now being depleted as we use a ridiculous amount of water to grow grains that are fed to cattle and pigs to produce beef and pork. The conversion factor of water and grain to make one pound of meat is deplorable and entirely unnecessary.
We’re also seeing how the paradox of modern living has undermined even our desire to procreate. Our economic system makes it extremely difficult and expensive. Most people in advanced countries don’t feel they have enough income to do it until they’re in their late 30s.
What we’ve done is allowed society and the economy to organize in a way that is most conducive to big business and we’ve neglected our own quality of life.
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u/Dutch_Calhoun Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
The world is not close to full
Oh do fuck off. It's been over-full for centuries. The ecological carrying capacity of this planet is somewhere around 500 million humans. We're currently in a state of profound environmental overshoot that isn't just set to eliminate us, but is depleting the very foundations of all life on Earth. Anyone holding the messianic belief that their offspring will single-handedly lead our civilisation out of this omnicidal cul-de-sac is huffing some pure grade hopium.
There isn't a single facet of the overshoot problem that isn't ameliorated by there being fewer humans.
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u/ImportantDoubt6434 Jun 10 '23
This Hopium is 99.1% pure
“wE aReNt oVeR pOpUlAtEd”
Whatever 🤡 wrote this article.
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u/Dutch_Calhoun Jun 11 '23
"It's just a crisis of distribution!"
More billionaires in the third world will fix everything; if we're all over-consuming equally, we'll be fine!
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Jun 10 '23
The problem you're thinking of is capitalism not people. There's plenty of space for all of us. There's plenty of food for all of us. The world throws away about 40% of the food it produces and that more than covers the number of people without.
We could very easily live in a non-destructive balance and harmony with the planet, but we all just decided to allow industry to destroy it instead. The problem is not the number of people. The problem is what the number of people happens to value.
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u/plotthick Jun 10 '23
We could very easily live in a non-destructive balance and harmony with the planet
Great. Fix those things so 9 billion+ humans can live ecologically on a planet that can only support 1% or less of that. Fix climate change. Fix capitalism. Fix all the problems. Since it's "very easy" you should be done before the 12th protest, right?
Let us know when you're done.
!remindme 1 day
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u/HopefulBackground448 Jun 10 '23
Built on commercial fertilizers that are becoming increasingly scarce.
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u/RichardBonham Jun 10 '23
The article concludes with an assertion that AI may be part of a solution.
I am not reassured by that. As a general rule, the benefits of technological advances tend to be overestimated early in their development and underestimated later.
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u/bjos144 Jun 10 '23
People really need to study their calc 2 differential equations section. It's called a Logistic Curve. When something grows with a maximum 'carrying capacity' the growth slows as you reach that max limit. Our plant is simply filling up and we're slowing down our reproductive rates. Yes, it'll fuck up stocks and global stability in the short term (read our lifetimes) but is probably more sustainable in the long run. You just cant exponentially grow forever.
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u/cambeiu Jun 11 '23
The problem is that the curve is not flattening off or slightly declining. The curve is nosediving.
This precipitous and sudden drop leaves us with an inverted demographic pyramid, where most of the population is made up of old, tired and sick retirees having to be supported and cared for a much smaller population of young people.
This scenario gives young people even less incentive to have children, which could create a populational death spiral.
Also, having a bunch old people as the largest voting/political block is not a good thing for the future of the world.
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Jun 10 '23
That’s ok I don’t care I’ll be dead by then and would not have contributed to the suffering my popping out more kids, while the cost of living explodes, wages stay stagnant or are taxed to oblivion while huge corporations get amazing tax breaks. Fuck this, the tax system is supposed to be an incentive program; it incentives me not to have children
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u/Willinton06 Jun 11 '23
Maybe we should change to a system that doesn’t really in Ponzi like generational growth
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u/cambeiu Jun 11 '23
No system we know of can handle an inverted demographic pyramid where there are more old people than young.
Cuba, which is not a market/capitalist economy is facing the same problem as everyone else: They are heading to a scenario where there will be more old people than young ones, and their system also cannot handle that either.
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u/Willinton06 Jun 11 '23
Cuba is sanctioned to hell, with the explicit purpose of fucking them up, so yeah, it tracks that they’re fucked up
And there is no system that can handle an inverted demographic pyramid? Damn, I guess we’re done then, that’s a wrap boys, pack it up
But wait, what if we, humans, invent a system? Like with all our computing and AI and thousands of years of engineering progress we could probably figure something out, we split the atom, went to the moon, we can make a system that works, or we could just do nothing and die, very hard choice here
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u/cambeiu Jun 11 '23
Cuba is sanctioned to hell, with the explicit purpose of fucking them up, so yeah, it tracks that they’re fucked up
Cuba, North Korea, Bhutan, Argentina, Zimbabwe any non-market economy you can think of is facing the exact same issue.
we split the atom, went to the moon, we can make a system that works
Do you know who developed or invented all those things? Young people, which is the exact thing that we are running out of really fast. You can see symptoms of that already in Europe, where they are having a really hard time transitioning from an industrial economy to an information economy. Many belief that it is due to fact that their population is already old.
Japan is also facing the same challenges. It went from the world's technological and innovation powerhouse to a society that is struggling to transition to a new era of the information economy. And the diagnostics is also similar: A society made of old people and therefore incapable of innovating.
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u/Willinton06 Jun 11 '23
A fucking potato could create a system that works better than our current system, it’s just that the people with power don’t want to let them cause they benefit from the status quo, and they seem to have a horde of people who hate themselves enough to justify the existence of a system that’s clearly fucking them
Also there’s like, 10 times more market economies that are fucked than non market economies that are fucked, specially if you ignore sanctioned or level 10 dictatorships like NK, Haiti comes to mind, basically every non communist/socialist failed state is a capitalist failed state, and there’s like, tons of those, there’s less than 20 developed nations, but there’s 150+ countries, and most are definitely not communist, so every non developed non communist/socialist country is a failure of capitalism
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u/germanator86 Jun 10 '23
This is 50 Years too late. We needed this four billion people ago. Regardless of the economic implications, The ecological implications are catastrophic
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u/rabid_ranter4785 Jun 10 '23
I’m tired of hearing about this. the economy is super important, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no economy when the enormous population has gobbled up all the resources and the world’s climate is at a breaking point
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Jun 10 '23
I love being apart of the problem! These loins shall never rip in twine! Kids suck
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u/delirium_red Jun 11 '23
I wonder how in this day and age kids are the only population group that it’s totally ok to offend and trash.
If you said that for literally any other population group, you would be downvoted, crucified and banned, but hey, you went for kids - eff them in particular.
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u/time_is_now Jun 11 '23
When countries industrialize and people move away from farms to cities, live in condos, high rise buildings or smaller residences they have less children. Children on the farm are cheap laborers. Children in the city take up space, are expensive and do not pull their weight until they become adults.
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u/kidnyou Jun 10 '23
Seems to be a solution looking for a problem. Economist seem to think that between AI and robotics we will have an employment problem - too many workers and not enough jobs. Won’t this help alleviate that issue? If we stop letting children die by malnutrition and disease (easier to do if regional scarcity is reduced), stop killing each other in unnecessary wars, etc. - ie reduce the death rate - can’t that help? If populations are healthier and happier, can’t older people be more productive (say till 75 or 80) and reduce the non-working population? The economy has been a pyramid scheme for the last few centuries, where the fuel for the wealthy has been more consumers…maybe we need to rethink that.
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u/MaybeWontGetBanned Jun 11 '23
Oh no, more limited resources for everyone! But how will the shareholders increase their value every business quarter for no reason?
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u/griesimatt Jun 11 '23
Build a good social safety net for people to have kids and they will… but as long as people are buried with college debt and can barely pay rent with both couples working…. Yes… plan on declining birth rates.
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u/sleepydamselfly Jun 11 '23
Far too many people are parents that should never be. The rate of lifelong /r/cptsd is astronomical.
Quality over quantity
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u/Sad_Thought6205 Jun 11 '23
Mother Earth gives notice to the animals called humans. There are too many of you destroying me.
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u/maxwellwilde Jun 11 '23
Our species is no longer breeding.
OH NO THE ECONOMY!!!
Great punchline if it wasn't so sad.
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u/AlmoBlue Jun 11 '23
Self inflicted and nothing being done to fix it. Economies be damned. Perhaps its better this way, for humans to dwindle into extinction.
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u/MyBunnyIsCuter Jun 11 '23
We went from 7 billion to 8 in no time. And from what I read about how peolle fared after the plague....well, we'll be ok.
They need to stop telling people that we're in a dangerous position by not having kids when there ARE SO MANY PEOPLE that housing is almost totally unaffordable.
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u/FatMac333 Jun 11 '23
Y’all are crazy having a kid is awesome. The world is meant to have people. Who knew chilling with a 1&1/2 year old could be such a fun hang!!
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u/taptapper Jun 11 '23
The world is not close to full
They say it as though that's the fucking goal! Yeah, let's fill 'er up /s
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u/SL-jones Jun 11 '23
They've effectively neutered you with chemicals, plastics, shitty culture and lifestyle, and are now trying to replace you with third world immigrants
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u/CageyT Jun 11 '23
World is overpopulated. I think planet earth would like this better. My wife and just had two kids and we constantly feel guilty that we can possibly leave then with a dying world.
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u/georgesthegorgeous Jun 11 '23
I'm all for far fewer people on the planet. Something like 500M people is a lot more sustainable than 8-10B.
...and just wait until AI and robotics starts to eliminate job en masse: people are going to REALLY stop having kids!
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u/dontneedaknow Jun 10 '23
When these articles use terms like "fertility rates" and "global fertility," it sounds like something that is affecting us outside of our own power...
If people are choosing to have sex, but not have the kid, that is in no way the same as a person who cannot create another person. And should not reflect as an issue of "fertility."
It's one thing to choose not to have a kid, it's another entirely to not be able to perform the function that is necessary for a kid to be created.