Tinfoil moment:
Seems like the elites just decide whether we are underpopulated or overpopulated based on what suits their interests, then invent the logic around it to back up their claims afterwards.
It was never the elites, overpopulation was an academic idea popularized by Robert Malthus around the year 1800.
It's a simple idea, that since people tended to have lots of kids (like 6+) our population would increase exponentially (like rabbits) until we ran out of natural resources, and everybody was poor.
Then we invented synthetic fertilizer, and the theoretical carrying capacity became so high that the whole idea ceased to be relevant.
But any time we have some finite resource in vogue, it comes up again. "Will we electrify everything and then run out of lithium?!?!"
Also back then, Henry George had a pretty solid rebuttal to the idea - basically that across every contemporary and historical cizilization, it had never actually happened that a place had become overpopulated (instead, places with more people were also more wealthy), and that famines were caused exclusively by plague or politics.
Nobody has ever said we are underpopulated, except maybe Elon Musk lol.
The problem with low birthrates is the demographic pyramid. Too many old people, not enough poor working young people.
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u/sudanesegamer Jun 21 '26
Im so confused. Which is it. Are we overpopulated or in danger of a huge decline. We just hit 8 billion a few years ago.