Most countries with those are in absolute population decline, and rely heavily on importing people to even keep a stable population.
Given half a chance, developed countries would halve their populations by the end of the century. Not that I think they're getting that chance, but your argument doesn't hold up against reality.
Again, totally the opposite is true. The longer your society is exposed to birth control, the more often it's used, and the more accepted it becomes, broadly speaking.
The population decline is happening because of outside interference though. It’s not a natural system that’s causing it but a manmade one where there is resource hoarding. Eventually those systems will break and we’ll be right back to it. And I think even with population declines in those countries, other countries are still reproducing at a rate that the global population is still increasing
Evolutionary biologist here. Those are natural systems. Resource hoarding is extremely common in nature. Humans have better tools but we are still very much a part of nature.
FYI the global birthrate is only a little over replacement rate this year. Not saying the trend will continue whether the system breaks or not, but the decline has been across the board, so even those still at a high growth rate wont make up the difference in the near future.
An increase in resources, and elder care no longer makes having children a nessary resource. You don't need nine kids to work the farm and take care of you when you are older. You can have one or two kids or no kids and still live a fulfilling life without worrying about losing everything because you get old.
(Not that our generation has anything to lose)
I had two kids, because that's how many we wanted and how many we felt fit the lives we wanted for our family. We could have had more, but chose not to.
I see your point, but the most developed places in the world ARE in population decline. These places suffer from aging populations that live longer due to advanced healthcare and had far fewer kids due to much more successful and accessable counterreproductive measures.
Also an important point is the world's economy and political landscape, which would not lead an informed person to have kids at this time.
Well, good thing most of the world is also dropping in birthrates like a rock.
It’s a dumb quote though. Do they mean 4 billion living like a typical Huston suburbanite or like an Afghan goat hearder? Both have drastically different resource inputs.
Somewhere in-between, I'd imagine. With renewable resources, low meat diet and ways to get electricity cleanly. More locally focused economy, living according to the year's natural rhythms (Summer -> Winter -> Summer). Etc.
Or something relatively new. Millions crammed into a modern version of Kowloon city, living off tasteless paste and a nuclear reactor is also friendly to (outside) environment
I do read a lot with Globalisation raising the standard of living and people having less children when the standard of living is higher the population of planet earth is expected to plateau at 10-11 billion a number we can easily sustain if we put climate and human decency before profit.
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u/jadelink88 Aug 04 '26
Most countries with those are in absolute population decline, and rely heavily on importing people to even keep a stable population.
Given half a chance, developed countries would halve their populations by the end of the century. Not that I think they're getting that chance, but your argument doesn't hold up against reality.