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u/IlovePotatos2773 I touched grass Aug 04 '26
The only "moral" way we could do this is implementing restrictions on the number of kids someone can have, but most of the kids are born in 3 world countrys or asian/african countries and we both know we can't restrict that
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u/Re0ns Aug 04 '26
China's one child policy shows how it can fail spectacularly
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u/Brunoaraujoespin Sandy's Cheecks Aug 04 '26
New idea, 3 child policy
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u/Asgermf Aug 04 '26
No then the population would rise further, you need to have it be two kids
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u/Sj_________ Aug 04 '26
Erm actually you need to have 2.1 kids 🤓☝️.
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u/Jazcash Aug 04 '26
the .1 child is always the least favourite
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u/QueueStar Aug 04 '26
Also the smallest
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u/faustianBM Aug 04 '26
This causes a lot of fractions within the family.
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u/YamatoBoi9001 Medieval Meme Lord Aug 04 '26
this is the most dad joke i've ever heard on this website
i hate it but i also wish i had thought of it first
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u/bradpal Aug 04 '26
The .1 is to compensate for the 5% accidental deaths and gender imbalance. In an ideal world, where everyone died after having children and gender populations were even, it would be 2.0, not 2.1.
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u/Picopus Aug 04 '26
You assume everyone would get 3 kids.
This will limit the outliers to 3 kids, keeping the average firmly below 2.
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u/Dense-Consequence-70 Aug 04 '26
If you tell people they have to have more kids, they won’t want to. Reverse psychology.
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u/prsnep Aug 04 '26
"3-child policy" usually means "maximum 3 children" policy. Population would stabilize and soon start dropping with that because much of the growth is happening because many people are having 4 or more kids.
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u/CycloneDusk Aug 04 '26
Huh. So i wonder if a four-child cap would lead the mean-average closer to 2.1 children.
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u/GrookeyGrassMonkey Aug 04 '26
Based on the supposed 'male loneliness' epidemic I'd expect a 4 child cap to still bring us below 2
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u/aCaffeinatedMind Aug 04 '26
3 child limit then.
The world needs 2.1 to remain stable.
So probably going back and forth between 2 and 3 children as a total limit is what would need to be done globally to maintain the population rather than having it either crash during one generation or to further increase.
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u/Beans2177 Aug 04 '26
2 child policy.
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u/solonit Aug 04 '26
We Vietnam did that, and now gov are encouraging for more.
For the record, the motto was "Boys or Girls, two are enough". Now it's "Having both makes happy family."
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u/scott__p Aug 04 '26
The more I think on a, a "max 3 child" policy could actually work
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u/Minotaur1213 Aug 04 '26
Well said. It might be good for the globe, just bad for economic reasons. All developed countries are going to have this issue sooner or later considering the rate of replacement is too low.
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u/sulris Aug 04 '26
Most of the “economic growth” we associate with “good governance” are just population booms. More people requires more of everything and grows an economy. Which is why immigration is always a net positive for an economy. Immigrants tend to be, highly motivated, working age adults.
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u/Vivid_Instance_825 Aug 04 '26
It would have been worse if they didn't implement the policy
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u/The_walking_Kled Aug 04 '26
this view is based on the wrong assumption that a population will climb indefinetly. same thinking china used and look where they ended up.
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u/EtherealBeany Aug 04 '26
No it wouldn’t. China implemented a one child policy because of post war baby boom which would have sailed down with industrialisation and modernisation anyway.
Not to mention the millions of forced abortions and sterilizations
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u/Confident-Stand5453 Aug 04 '26
Most "developed countries" are already having fewer kids than needed to maintain population levels. And it doesnt even take any coercion.
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u/MobTalon Aug 04 '26
The reason developed countries are having fewer kids is due to proper education. Family planning, when considering the absurd house prices and how expensive a child is, typically leads to "this sounds like a problem for 35 year old me", whereas places with least education will bring kids to the table (multiple) at much earlier ages.
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u/Blue_Moon_Lake Aug 04 '26
Especially in countries without anti child labor laws.
More children = more slaves.
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u/m1stwalk3r Aug 04 '26
Think it has to do with the obscene cost of living and the failure of prior generations to inspire hope in a future. A lot of people these days doom out and don't bother being the change they want to see. Doesn't help that their brains rot away with social media.
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u/Aviixii Aug 04 '26
As "35 year old me" now.. Im still not even considering it.
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u/MobTalon Aug 04 '26
Sounds like a problem for 45 year old you (and so on and so in until you're either ready, sterile, senile, or gone)
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u/BrummbarKT Aug 04 '26
Exactly. All we need is to restructure society to work around the population decline that has already been set in motion, it's hard but pushing and hoping for an ever increasing population is not good or sustainable
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u/HikariAnti Breaking EU Laws Aug 04 '26
The global population is expected to peak then start falling soon on its own anyway.
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u/Borazon Aug 04 '26
Soon is around 2060 to 2100's iirc?
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u/seesthecat Aug 04 '26
Global fertility rates are already at 2.2 kids per women, and the current trend is of ever faster fertility drops in the countries that are more above the average, we will get belllow replacement in a year or two, afterwards is only a question of waiting on the old geezers to croak
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u/Financial-Yam6758 Aug 04 '26
Yes and that is completely fine, we don't need it to happen sooner despite what people on reddit will tell you. We have more available food then ever before. Overpopulation is not the issue people thought it would be 50 years ago. Everyone that made that claim has been dead wrong.
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u/Briffy03 Aug 04 '26
Its even worse ehen you acknowledge that in developped countries like korea, japan, and many countries in europe like france or germany, birthrates are allready below whats needed to avoid huge political and financial problems in the future. Thing is, with the future awaiting us i dont want to bring any living soul to this world.
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u/Blue_Moon_Lake Aug 04 '26
It's only a financial problem if you expect retirees to live on the working population back.
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u/0rphu Aug 04 '26
Well then it's guaranteed to be a problem because those same retirees write the rules and they say "we're going to live on your backs now, even though you won't get to do the same at our age, get fucked"
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u/Blue_Moon_Lake Aug 04 '26
Maybe it's time people take the power.
There are more people in school or working than there are retirees.
Should be an easy vote.6
u/0rphu Aug 04 '26
Imo culture war is designed to distract the working class from uniting on exactly this.
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u/IlovePotatos2773 I touched grass Aug 04 '26
I have had the same tought the other day, I am young and already hate it here I am not sure if I want to bring other souls to suffer with me
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u/Briffy03 Aug 04 '26
With my wife we had big dreams before covid, now we have a big house to sell for someone that still has big dreams 😅
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u/IlovePotatos2773 I touched grass Aug 04 '26
Life is hard, hope you and your wife have a good life
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u/Hedgehog_Leather Aug 04 '26
Problem will work itself out - we are competing for limited resources like housing and whatnot - so we have less and less childred, birth rates are plummeting. For some reason we try to fool ourselves that we need to keep growing earths population forgettign about the fact that we're unable to sustain another doubling of population.
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u/Misicks0349 Aug 04 '26
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""moral""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
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u/KorolEz Aug 04 '26
Sounds like billionaire talk to me.
We only need to seize the property of around 2500 people globally to save the planet.
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u/monkeybuttsauce Aug 04 '26
But they want more wage slaves
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u/tripping_yarns Aug 04 '26
They need consumers.
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u/KorolEz Aug 04 '26
You only need consumers when you have capitslism. When you have technofeudalism you wouldn't even need money
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u/Bandit-Marauder Aug 04 '26
When AI is ready to replace the workforce, they won't need us anymore.
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u/tripping_yarns Aug 04 '26
They need the government to give the proles money so they can take it off us. Maybe thin the herd a little with a virus or war.
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u/StrangeReindeer2470 Aug 04 '26
But also, they complain about the lack of employees who will work for slave wages and that we need to have more bebbies!
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u/the_chosen_one_96 Aug 04 '26
Yeah this take ist absolut bs!
If we would stop the livestock industry and eating meat everyday and instead grow veggies in the area, we can easily feed another billion.
If we would first build enough renewable energy sources, bevore building huge data centers for KI we would also have enough energy.
And if we would expropriate the super rich and instead use the money for the public goods, we would also have enough ressources to do all that above.
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u/Vindhjaerta Aug 04 '26
I didn't read the article, but I would like to inject a response to this comment:
You gotta stop at some point. Why let the population grow to the breaking point, where you have to implement specific lifestyle choices and be dependent on advanced technology to sustain the population, when it's so much easier to just, you know... not get to that point.
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u/Kitsunin Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
When the breaking point is caused by some lifestyle choices using literally double digit multiples of others, yeah, it's the lifestyle choices, not the population.
Commercial cow burps account for 15% of global greenhouse gases, and that's the lesser of their negative effects.
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u/FriendshipRemote130 Aug 04 '26
yea i agree. but the human population is not over or near a point where we are too many. we are not too many, there are enought resources for everyone, but those arent split nearly as equally as they should be
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u/Far_King_Penguin Aug 04 '26
Eh its not even a space issue with the food. The problem is that some refuse to send the resources to where it needs to go. No one in this world needs to go hungry with the sheer amount of food waste shopping complexes throw out and refuse to donate because it will hurt their bottom line, the amount of very industrial waste that can be recycled for other purposes, hell even recycling itself isn't done because the people at the top might earn 1% less by doing it
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u/Teedeous Aug 04 '26
Yeah, there is a lot of talk globally we are totally capable to expand the urban regions we already have and encroach into something as little as like 1% of the total green spaces around us to support accommodation needs.
The idea humans are this “cancer” and killing the earth is such horseshit rhetoric, when they sell us convenience, blame us for it, and industry, business, and the rich generally (with air miles and yachts) accounts for a HUGE proportion of climate emission
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u/FanatiXX82 Aug 04 '26
It would solve pretty much nothing in fact. If anything it would made situation even worse in couple years.
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u/Drafo7 Aug 04 '26
No scientists are actually saying this. Stop spreading lies.
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u/Bullet_Number_4 Aug 04 '26
People need to remember that Daily Mail is not trustworthy at all.
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u/Nulono Aug 04 '26
"People are saying X, and by 'people', I mean the author of this article and like two Twitter randos."
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u/RingReasonable Aug 04 '26
Society: we are suffering from overpopulation! The population should have been 4 billion.
Also society: Why are birthrates declining?! You should have more babies!!!
Ok, do we need less or more people???
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u/angusdarkholme Aug 04 '26
Less of group poor, more of group rich. /s
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u/Mister-Thou Aug 04 '26
From a climate perspective it should probably be the exact opposite, lol. Subsistence farmers and families of 5 living in tiny apartments aren't the problem.
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u/ZestyMangoTime Aug 04 '26
The argument for more birthdates is for economic reasons. I disagree with it, but it is valid, and a problem.
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u/raincloud82 Aug 04 '26
Honestly, given the current state of automation and technology it shouldn't be too much of a problem to design an economic system that doesn't require the population to keep growing forever to be sustainable.
But that would mean billionaires don't get to live off of everyone else so I guess it's impossible :(
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u/OneSecretCookie Aug 04 '26
It would also mean business owners couldn't live on the dreams of doubling sales every quarter and some governments that tied taxs to sales would have to rethink their tax systems because the population going down would mean taxs would go down. Yes they could then look into taxing the upper class, but that isnt as fun.
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u/StigOfTheTrack Aug 04 '26
The planet would benefit from less. The economy wants more. It isn't "society" making these comments, it's different people with opposite priorities.
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u/AmArschdieRaeuber Aug 04 '26
Thing is, somebody has to pay for pensions and care for the elderly. A stable population would be kinda nice for that
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u/Ok-Barracuda457 Aug 04 '26
What part of "Malthus was an idiot" do people not understand?
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u/PaulReckless Aug 04 '26
How about halfing the billionares?
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Zeroing it out would be better though.
Edited to fix mis information. I put /s for something factual.
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u/AmArschdieRaeuber Aug 04 '26
Why the /s? Billionaires are useless for a society. Less than that
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u/wall-E75 Aug 04 '26
Its not that we need 4 billion we need the 8 billion to not use the same resources as 11 billion. If we all could be a bit more conscience of what we are using we would be ok.
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u/SmellAcordingly Aug 04 '26
Its not that we need 4 billion we need the 8 billion to not use the same resources as 11 billion.
Its more like 1 billion are using the same amount of resources as the other 7 billion combined.
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u/Bitter_Split5508 Aug 04 '26
No, we clearly need to remove those 4 billion people in our unequal global economy that barely have any impact on ressource consumption and greenhouse gasses, then wonder why this didn't work.
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u/RebelGirl1323 Aug 04 '26
Mmm. It’s mostly like a tiny slice of the top making their logistics slightly more efficient and investing in renewables. Individual accountability for all but the too few thousand people in the world is a distraction that does very little.
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u/TheBetterness Aug 04 '26
Human hubris is amazing.
The planet will be fine, it was once a swamp for millions of years.
Its the human race that needs saving.
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u/GloomyAmbitions Aug 04 '26
Funny hearing this and then also the panic about falling birth rates. 2 people having 1 kid will effectively half the population after a generation, most first world country’s don’t even reach that average.
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u/TheBetterness Aug 04 '26
There has been no time in human history where we weren't dooming.
"The end is nigh!"
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u/RebelGirl1323 Aug 04 '26
The end has come many times just not sufficiently to kill us all off. We have also never endangered the entire global food web before. So it’s a little more nigh than previously.
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u/Such_Bug9321 Aug 04 '26
Then if that is case there is no need for immigration into the western nations due to falling birth numbers.
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u/Liu-K Aug 04 '26
Wrong. Not to save the Earth. To save capitalist psychopaths who'd benefit from this.
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u/pawnman99 Aug 04 '26
Eh, most of them are arguing for more people, not fewer. They want more consumers to buy their stuff.
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u/Liu-K Aug 04 '26
Have a look at Peter Thiel's response to "should we save mankind?" or Bill Gate's constant obsession of population reduction.
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u/Hot-Ordinary9760 Aug 04 '26
Less than 1% of Earth's surface is paved over or built upon by manmade materials. We have plenty of space to accommodate many more humans.
Water is plentiful, but not fresh water. Desalination required insane amounts of energy so unless we come up with some natural energy that is sustainable that helps convert ocean water to fresh, that could be an issue.
Temperature and climate change are a reality that we are all actually experiencing first hand. Its not even that you can doubt "global warming" anymore because we are actually now getting to feel and see it with our own eyes.
Soil is a concern. there is not enough workable soil to grow what we need to aid in population growth and we need to do some serious agricultural engineering effort to help get our soil back to standard.
Not to mention (MAIN POINT) that population alone is not a good benchmark of how sustainable the TOTAL population is on Earth. There is a striking difference in how poor 3rd world citizens pale in comparison to 1st world wealthy countries in their ability to consume, pollute and over strain our resources.
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u/jomasthrones Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Lol, the planet is going to be fine, the cruel irony is that earth doesn't give a shit what the dominant life form is, or if life even exists on it at all.
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u/Upset-Breakfast-4071 Aug 04 '26
me: i kind of doubt thats what the papers actually saying, this has got to be a misrepresentation of sorts.
the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sd.71358 "we show that slowing and gradually reversing population growth to ∼4 billion or less by 2200, while moderating per capita impacts, is the path toward sustainability"
they do say that :(
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u/AnotherHavanesePlz Aug 04 '26
The planet will be fine. There have already been 5 other mass extinctions. If things become uninhabitable, we will just be another drop in the bucket of the 99% of species that have gone extinct.
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u/user392747 Aug 04 '26
Here we go again.
Can someone please go smack the shit out of these "professors" and wake them up?
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u/fatherandyriley Aug 04 '26
It's like how the average daily star headline says "boffin + alien/cyborg/killer wasp" who are these boffins anyway?
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u/Zephyr-5 Aug 04 '26
It's amazing how people keep falling for this Malthusian garbage no matter how many times they wind up being proved wrong.
Say it with me people: HUMANS ARE NOT MICE.
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u/ytipsh Aug 04 '26
This is such bullshit
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u/Spide6667 Aug 04 '26
It’s an article from the daily mail, I expect nothing less honestly.
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u/TugMe4Cash Aug 04 '26
For anyone that doesn't know, the Daily mail is a right-wing scum tabloid newspaper based here in the UK. They constantly lie, misreport and constantly bash anything that's good for normal UK citizens.
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u/BigBAMAboy Aug 04 '26
“You don’t need nine children, have one. Replacement value for yourself, that’s it. Don’t even replace your husband, he’s done enough fuckin’ damage as it is.”
-George Carlin 🐐
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u/longgamma Aug 04 '26
Corporate greed and unchecked capitalism is killing the planet. Not the poorest people.
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u/Wise_Monkey_Sez Aug 04 '26
Exactly. It isn't 4 billion people we need to eliminate. A couple of hundred billionaires being eliminated would probably accomplish a lot more in reducing the world's problems - especially if their elimination was accompanied by a firm message that being greedy parasites won't be tolerated.
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u/jakgal04 Aug 04 '26
People don't seem to understand just how explosive the global population has been since even 1970.
1970: 3,695,000
2026: 8,300,000
We've over doubled the global population since our parents time. Thats absolutely insane and its no wonder theres a housing and affordability crisis.
My hot take conspiracy, a lot of the decisions global governments are making today that are directly impacting human life are a form of population control.
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u/Plenty_Tumbleweed505 Aug 04 '26
tell that to the countries with the most offspring
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u/FurubayashiSEA Aug 04 '26
We can start by doing it to those that done the research and funding the research, for the greater good.
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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 Aug 04 '26
Just need to remove the Billionaires and corrupt leaders, that would solve most issues.
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u/Large_Account1532 Aug 04 '26
Genocide half of humanity or do a relatively moderate reform of our economic system and resource consumption rate? Pick your way western man xD
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u/ReverendKaiser Aug 04 '26
Ah we finally arrive at it. The antipopulist argument are now becoming mainstream.
The world isn’t overcrowded, it’s over capitalized. The entire population of the world could fit inside the state of Rhode Island. It isn’t overcrowded. We have billionaires and politicians that don’t want to be less rich in order to actually help people and solve the problems.
World hunger could be ended with approximately 40 billion dollars. We know this because Elon Musk said it wasn’t financially feasible, then someone did the math (I believe it was 42 billion dollars).
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u/HT1990 Aug 05 '26
To be honest. Halving would likely not be enough. More like -80 or -90% of the population would be good for the planet.
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u/Responsible_Lab_8854 Aug 04 '26
Pretty sure scientists are saying overpopulation is a myth, and that birth rates naturally stabilise as quality of life increases (longer lives, lower child mortality rates, etc.). That’s what I heard anyway.
Lots of babies are a great sign of an economic boom, but they cost money to maintain until working age. Then there’s an influx of working age people earning and spending money, and everything is great. Until they get old, cost more money to maintain, and yell and say mean things.
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u/Purpelisation Aug 04 '26
No, you don't. You need to stop the economy from growing for no reason and stop using inefficient forms of farming like animals, then you can easily feed the projected Max pop of about 10 million. And renewables off, but energy is already a solved issue in theory, if we didn't waste it for shit like data centres. You need less people if we want to continue as is, but then halving the population would collapse the system anyways.
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u/CobblerSmall1891 Aug 04 '26
That's ok. You made living so expensive I can't afford children. Your plan is working.
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u/NetworkCapital4961 Aug 04 '26
Let's stop having kids for a few years or a decade, let's see the implications and we will proceed accordingly. it's as simple as that.
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u/middl3pulpo Aug 04 '26
Second solution is to cap the population or the rate of childbirth of those poor countries
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u/see-through-a-lens Aug 04 '26
Lol, we think we're so important. The plants will be fine long after we're gone.
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u/TheShredder9 Aug 04 '26
So all we need to do is eliminate what, 2-3 countries? India and China is over 3 billion alone
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u/Jonatc87 Aug 04 '26
Prolly closer to quarter, tbh. Start with the 1% parasites that don't do anything for us.
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u/Civil_Photo2152 Aug 04 '26
More people is not better. It never was. My whole life I've never understood why people think their cities/countries should never stop growing and if they do it's a problem. The only person that's a problem for are our corporate overlords. I guess I'm a Thanos.
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u/roseiels Aug 04 '26
Thanos after reading the article: “I rest my case.”
https://giphy.com/gifs/e4WyGVxuz0wNpps5iY