[HN Gopher] India defuses its population bomb: Fertility falls t...
___________________________________________________________________
India defuses its population bomb: Fertility falls to two children
per woman
Author : rustoo
Score : 229 points
Date : 2021-12-16 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| nathias wrote:
| why would anyone think global population declining translates
| into a better quality of life?
| adultSwim wrote:
| Too much population growth rhetoric is thinly veiled eugenics.
| arkj wrote:
| > But religion is a small factor in fertility today, Muttreja
| says. "Hindus in Uttar Pradesh, for example, have a much higher
| fertility than Muslims in Kerala. There is no Hindu fertility or
| Muslim fertility."
|
| This is really strange he could have compared fertility rate of
| Muslims vs Hindus in Utter Pradeep and the same in Kerala.
| Instead he compares Muslims in Kerala vs Hindus in Utter Pranesh.
| Kerala is the least poor and most educated state in India and
| Utter Pradesh is one among the poorest and least educated states.
| gopalv wrote:
| > is the least poor and most educated state
|
| I think this is the opposite of a "corrected for X factor" we
| usually see in studies - this is suggesting that economic
| situation is a bigger factor in fertility than religious
| practices.
|
| That should be a "duh", but having more resources resulting in
| fewer kids is the opposite of the malthusian hypothesis that
| this is limited by resources/mortality & is driven by personal
| choice to have kids (and kids do better when parents explicitly
| choose to have them).
|
| They're saying it is a small factor, not that it does not
| influence it, because if you correct for economic climate,
| there are definite differences that you can measure, because
| personal choice is definitely influenced by how many kids your
| social circle have.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am of the opinion that high birthrates are almost entirely
| a function of women's financial independence.
| Childbirth/breastfeeding is such a costly experience for most
| women that I doubt many would opt for it more than 2 or 3
| times if they had an option by not being dependent on men
| and/or access to easy and effective birth control.
| naravara wrote:
| I don't actually think women mind those costs as much. Once
| you have your first, assuming no complications, many women
| aren't so spooked by it.
|
| I think what really happens is women with careers, hobbies,
| etc. have more opportunities for self-actualization that
| the demands of motherhood, especially of small children,
| get in the way of. So if women have the education and
| resources to pursue vocations outside the home, the
| opportunity costs of spending more months of your life
| getting sleep in 2 hour chunks are much higher. If, on the
| other hand, motherhood and the rearing of children is the
| only sort of legacy they can pursue because the glass
| ceiling is so low, they'll be willing to put more into it.
| bo1024 wrote:
| If you reread the previous paragraph, the background is that
| some people focus on the difference in fertility across
| religions. The point being made is that socioeconomic
| conditions are more important.
| jobu wrote:
| According to the article, education (particularly for women)
| seems to be the biggest factor:
|
| > _The strikingly different fertility rates in different
| regions of India reflect the role of education, says EM Sreejit
| of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in South
| Asia. Kerala in the south, which has the country's highest
| literacy rate, achieved replacement fertility back in 1988.
| Bihar in the east, with the lowest literacy rate, won't get
| there until 2039_
| bluesmoon wrote:
| When I was a child about 40 years ago there was a slogan "hm do,
| hmaare do" which translates to "We are a couple, we will have two
| children". Then in my teens it turned to "hm do hmaare ek", ie,
| "We are a couple, we will have one child". It was on TV, in print
| ads, on the sides of buses, everywhere. There was also a huge
| move to make contraception easily available to every woman in the
| country. Then in the 90s TV was privatized and it all
| disappeared.
| paxys wrote:
| It wasn't privatization that caused the disappearance of these
| ads, but the fact that the government decided to take a step
| back from pushing family planing after the disastrous efforts
| of the Indira Gandhi government.
|
| Resources/education/contraceptives/abortion are still easily
| available to people, just without the dystopian ads or forced
| sterilization campaigns.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Taking this as an opportunity to plug the Voluntary Human
| Extinction Movement (VHEMT). Pay no attention to the tongue-in-
| cheek name, it has nothing to do with mass suicide or genocide,
| and merely advocates for us to stop breeding.
|
| From https://www.vhemt.org/:
|
| > Phasing out the human species by voluntarily ceasing to breed
| will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded
| conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less
| dense.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| You'll just naturally select yourself out of the gene pool...
| zionic wrote:
| Exactly. Would that be such a bad thing? Spend some time on
| /r/childfree. It's probably for the best that the people
| filling those comment sections don't multiply.
| pilom wrote:
| I wish the US had some of the options for male
| sterilization/contraception that are available in India. I've
| asked my doctor for years about some of the options available in
| other countries and am always given a blank stare of ignorance.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| I feel more people should know about "heat-based contraception"
| for men. Literally, taking very hot baths can cause temporary
| reversible sterility.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-based_contraception
| bananabernhard wrote:
| Am I the only one who thinks having to hold your testicles
| into hot water every single day is more trouble than using a
| condom?
| dougmwne wrote:
| What options are you talking about? I am only aware of
| vasectomies.
| mitigating wrote:
| What about vasectomies? They seem to be widely known
| mywittyname wrote:
| These can be difficult to get for younger, childless men.
| Even younger men (<40) with children receive push back from
| physicians in getting the procedure because it can be
| difficult to reverse.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Then you can assume alternatives would also be difficult to
| get approval for. I can't imagine some chemical option
| would be preferable to a physical disconnection anyway.
| beeboop wrote:
| I think the point is other options (vasogel or something
| for example) are easily reversed and are non-surgical
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Urbanization and education have been among the two greatest
| downward pressures on population growth.
| beeboop wrote:
| Cynicism is a massive contributing factor to my vasectomy.
| Don't underestimate doom and gloom :)
| zionic wrote:
| What if we find out it's not actually urbanization/education,
| but a correlating exposure that happens when societies
| industrialize and there's no way out?
|
| Education doesn't explain male sperm counts being down 50% in
| 50 years.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Yes, definitely industrialization is probably the deeper
| cause. Industrialization made possible the kind of
| urbanization and demand for education that we have today.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| 2 children per woman isn't defusing a bomb, it's replacing it
| with an implosion device.
| dadjoker wrote:
| So sad to see this happen. Paul Ehrlich made a similar
| prognostication that never came to pass. There are many places in
| the world that did a similar thing and had to work to reverse it
| (S. Korea, Russia), by actually paying families to have children,
| and China recently reversed its draconian one child policy
| because they have seen first hand the problems it creates.
|
| Hopefully India doesn't run into the same problem down the road,
| because one a population starts to decline, history has shown
| that it is not reversible.
| s17n wrote:
| Population growth clearly can't continue forever; we may as
| well get it to zero now instead of kicking the can down the
| road.
| 202112162234 wrote:
| Someone will need to replace the socio-feminist countries,
| why not India?
| balaji1 wrote:
| Exactly. But how much effort was and is being put to control
| the psyche of the masses to achieve the population control? How
| much of this effort was original and far-sighted with good
| intentions?
| nikkinana wrote:
| Everyone here should just stop fornicating and jump off a bridge.
| sildur wrote:
| > When famine struck, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson initially
| refused to deliver food aid, citing the country's high birth
| rate.
|
| I hope there is more context with that statement, because it
| sounds downright evil.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Here is what I've heard argued from that ideological
| standpoint.
|
| One off famines should be remedied with relief efforts which
| mandate the recipient country increase its food storage to be
| able to absorb the next one.
|
| Chronic food shortages are a symptoms of overpopulation of the
| area, either because of lack of farming technology, terrain,
| etc. Supplying food aid only compounds the problem by
| increasing an unsustainable population. The remedy is to remove
| the mismanagement and relocate, and reducate the willing
| population and let nature take its course for those unwilling
| to adapt.
|
| Sounds harsh but a famine of 1 million people being supplied
| with aid turns to 1.2 million the next time and 2 million the
| time after. A net increase in misery and suffering.
|
| In reality faced with a starving person face to face, I believe
| most people would feed the hungry.
| ffwszgf wrote:
| He might have said as much publicly but the reality is that
| India was a lot closer to the USSR so LBJ thought it was
| despicable that they were coming to the US asking THEM for help
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| Read Robert Caro's excellent volumes about LBJ. You wouldn't
| think so, but they are real page turners. And yes, they will
| leave you with the impression that LBJ was not a wonderful
| person.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Almost as if no word leaders are "wonderful people". There
| are a few exceptions, like Jimmy Carter and APJ Abdul Kalam.
| jwmhjwmh wrote:
| Jimmy Carter did some bad stuff too. From his Wikipedia
| page:
|
| > During Carter's presidency, the U.S. continued to support
| Indonesia as a cold war ally, in spite of human rights
| violations in East Timor. The violations followed
| Indonesia's December 1975 invasion and occupation of East
| Timor. It did so even though antithetical to Carter's
| stated policy "of not selling weapons if it would
| exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world."
| paxys wrote:
| Wait till you read up on Churchill's involvement with India.
| Some of it puts the Nazis he famously fought to shame.
| ridiculous_leke wrote:
| Well, India was pro-USSR during the cold war and openly opposed
| US's involvement in Vietnam war.
| kumarm wrote:
| Indian fertility rate also varies by state. Poor states 2+ and
| rich prosperous states under 2.
| https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1464197969016614915
| pradn wrote:
| The major states with higher fertility rates have a population
| of 330 million, roughly 1/4th of India's population. Uttar
| Pradesh: 200 million, Bihar: 100 million, Jharkhand: 30
| million. Uttar Pradesh itself is roughly as populous as Nigeria
| or Bangladesh.
|
| It's notable that most areas of the country are below
| replacement rates of fertility, which is around 2.2 children
| per woman.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The "population bomb" is the invention of eugenicists trying
| remake themselves into demographers in a bid to stay relevant.
|
| The very same people who funded "sterilisation vans" in Asia were
| rooting for abortion bans in the West, and promoting "traditional
| family," in other words plain, old HITLERITES.
| the_doctah wrote:
| You've made a similar comment twice in the same thread now. You
| seem to think overpopulation is a myth.
| naruvimama wrote:
| I do not think the OP meant that, OP could have meant that
| there is a motivated group speaking with a forked tongue.
| zionic wrote:
| >You seem to think overpopulation is a myth.
|
| Not OP but I'm certainly leaning this way now after
| previously being concerned about it. Seemingly all/most of
| our advanced societies have negative population growth.
|
| I'm not sure why this is considered ok.
| jeofken wrote:
| If economic prosperity results in 2 kids per woman, would
| evolution not favour genes that make it unlike a family is
| economically prosperous? Having 6 kids with different baby mamas
| and being an absent father is evolutionary success
| naruvimama wrote:
| A society that allows that will collapse when too many people
| are bad players.
|
| It it also true with societies where men aspire to have 4 wives
| each. These are societies with too many single men, and a
| tendency to be violent.
| bhouston wrote:
| Short term maybe. Long-term absence of fathers leads to
| increased jail time and other negative outcomes, which could
| affect long-term success:
|
| https://www.mnpsych.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_dailyplanet...
|
| Promiscuity isn't a novel invention, thus it likely isn't
| beneficial overall if it isn't widespread right now.
| ffwszgf wrote:
| You are getting downvoted but in 2021 that's precisely who is
| having the most children in developed countries. If you look up
| birth rates by income bracket the trend is clear: poor people
| and broken homes birth more children than wealthier
| professionals
| nepeckman wrote:
| Having children with multiple partners has always been and will
| always be the quickest way to spread genetic material. That is
| true regardless if women are having 2 kids or 5. Speculating
| that lower birth rates will somehow increase absentee fathers
| is baseless, that evolutionary pressure has been present since
| before we were human.
| sgt101 wrote:
| I wonder what a world of 2bn and falling will look like in 250
| years time?
| bhouston wrote:
| In the 1960s we looked ahead and worried about the population
| bomb, what would happened with unfettered population growth:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-world...
|
| Those worst case scenarios didn't end up happening because of
| changes that occurred.
|
| Now we are looking ahead and seeing the opposite. That will
| motivate change as well -- but we need to have change.
| hersko wrote:
| "That motivated change and things adjusted and we avoided the
| worst outcomes." or the book was just wildly wrong about its
| predictions.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| We struggle greatly to actually understand population numbers in
| many countries. Consider Afghanistan, where the numbers were in
| part made up until recently[0]. I really wish we could see more
| background on these numbers.
|
| [0]https://youtu.be/WF3Rkt42wPY?t=266
| selimthegrim wrote:
| So they actually won't hit 40m in a few decades? That's hopeful
| ffwszgf wrote:
| I've read that Nigerian census data is straight up made up
| since there's a demographic war between the north and south and
| more population = more political power so there's a strong
| incentive to "find" people
| twobitshifter wrote:
| They didn't mention the last two years as possibly contributing
| to less childbirth. There could be counteracting effects there,
| stuck together with nothing to do, vs nobody to meet and nothing
| to do - but it at least deserves a mention. This 2019-2021 drop
| could bounce right back up if people chose to delay childbirth.
| Retric wrote:
| India has had falling birth rates for decades and it was
| already close to replacement rate in 2019, so a bounce back is
| going to have a negligible impact on demographics.
| https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/india-s-falling-fertilit...
| gromitss wrote:
| That's not it. Most of South Asia has been seeing a drastic
| drop in birthdate over the last few decades.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| I know more Indian couples who has only 1 child vs 3. In my
| family (my generation), not a single couple has more than 2
| child. My family's replacement rate is below 2. From my dads
| side, we are 12 cousins. We only have 18 kids. My village in
| India has roughly 440 people. Not a single couple that got
| married in last 20 years has more than 2 kids.
|
| Before Covid, we had a middle school reunion. Every single one
| of us had 1-2 kids.
|
| I have 8 best friends (Married for 15+ years). Only one of my
| friend and I have 2 kids. Everyone else has only 1 kid.
|
| Pretty much all states except a couple are below replacement
| rate of 2.1. And some are way below 2.1.
| kshacker wrote:
| Great anecdotes but situation varies from state to state.
| Fertility rates vary from 1.1 to 2.4 and 3.0. Why did I
| mention 2.4 AND 3.0 because these 2 states account for a
| quarter if not more of the Indian population.
|
| This is not to say your anecdotes are wrong but there exist
| different Indias and some of them have not seen the modern
| light.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| > the first national family planning program
|
| An odd euphemism for a program that, in practice, involved forced
| sterilizations and eugenics: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
| india-30040790
|
| According to Vox: "In 1975, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
| ordered the declaration of a national emergency. She seized
| dictatorial powers, imprisoned her political rivals, and
| embarked, with the help of her son Sanjay, on a mass, compulsory
| sterilization program that registers as one of the most
| disturbing and vast human rights violations in the country's
| modern history." Source: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/future-
| perfect/2019/6/5/186...
|
| Of course, as the OP notes, America is partly to blame. The exact
| quote from Johnson was...a bit more direct:
|
| > When an adviser asked the president if he wanted to promise
| [Indira] Gandhi more food aid during her visit, he exploded: "Are
| you out of your fucking mind? ... I'm not going to piss away
| foreign aid in nations where they refuse to deal with their own
| population problems."
|
| Source: https://qz.com/india/1414774/the-legacy-of-indias-quest-
| to-s...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| If America can change the entire fertility of a country merely
| by the president getting frustrated, imagine what we could do
| when the entire legislature is upset!
|
| Or the one comment is just used to defray blame, America does
| not have cosmic superpowers and India is in fact capable of
| making their own national decisions, seeing that they are a
| state.
|
| Sanger like most historical characters is imperfect (so was
| LBJ) but it is a gross simplification of history to pitch them
| as the root cause.
| kderbyma wrote:
| yeah....I'm getting tired of people praising her...she was a
| psychopath and horrible horrible person.
| rep_movsd wrote:
| The Gandhi family was all about total control and megalomania
|
| Sikh genocide in 1984
|
| Putting the opposition in jail and declaring an emergency
|
| Ass kissing USSR and adopting "socialist" ideals - in the 60s
| you needed licenses to own things like radios and bicycles -
| till the 1990s there were only 3 to 4 brands of cars you could
| buy in India without being a millionaire
|
| The Congress party was so hated for so many decades, which is
| why the nationalist right-wing party of Modi keeps winning even
| though he is also over the top.
| no1lives4ever wrote:
| So you have replaced one over the top megalomaniac with
| another?
| jpgvm wrote:
| Increasing political polarisation seems to be a worldwide
| problem at this point. Precious few regions seem
| (currently) exempt from this most dangerous path.
| seshagiric wrote:
| We two, ours two. This is forever etched into our brains :)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| If lifespans increases then the population will still grow for
| some time. And it's increased steadily for the past 70 years.
| manojlds wrote:
| Rural India wasn't affected at all by covid, and main period
| was April-May 2021.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I was just making a pedantic statistical observation. E.g. if
| people lived for 01000 years then even a tiny amount of
| births and population still increases. If people live
| forever, population grows forever.
|
| For every increment in lifespan, population grows until death
| rate matches whatever birth rate has been achieved.
| random314 wrote:
| This is 100% false
|
| https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/s.
| ..
| [deleted]
| lostlogin wrote:
| That's not what I have read at all. Rural India seems to have
| less healthcare, more poverty and plenty of covid in the
| reports I have read. Limited testing has reduced its
| visibility, but there have been some really dark news reports
| on how rural India is faring.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-reports-daily-
| rise...
| stefan_ wrote:
| It's affected by Covid like the poor parts of Africa are:
| there are like ten other, more basic things to worry about
| before you ever get to Covid.
| conjecTech wrote:
| Even if lifespans don't increase the population will probably
| continue to expand for about 25 years since the cohorts already
| born are larger than they ones they are replacing. Population
| only plateaus once we've been at replacement rate for the same
| number of years as mean age of mothers at birth.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Average lifespan has increased because of changes on the low
| end. Fewer people are dying young. There has been very little
| movement on the upper end of lifespan. The current trend of
| improvement has a natural wall at about 100-110 average
| lifespan.
|
| Having said that, I suspect that once we crack aging, we may
| blow past the current limit and see a relativly sudden jump in
| lifespan
| f6v wrote:
| Cancer therapies might result in significant gains. We
| already see CAR T to be very effective. Hopefully we'll
| finally crack Alzheimer's and the likes as well.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yeah. Living longer, but spending more of the time senile
| is... not exactly a win.
| [deleted]
| hersko wrote:
| A really interesting video by Isaac Arthur discussing the
| potential population ceiling of earth.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJJ_QqIVnc&t=711s
| [deleted]
| bhouston wrote:
| This is good to a degree.
|
| But it does mean India joins much of the rest of the world with
| sub-replacement fertility with just a few outliers.
|
| The challenge now switches to how to move from sub-replacement to
| sustainable fertility.
|
| Japan and South Korea are leaders in sub-replacement fertility
| with not that much success in finding a path towards sustainable
| population. Both I believe are still dropping.
|
| This is the grand social engineering challenge of the next 20 to
| 40 years I figure.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I don't believe it is possible during the natural development
| of a free country to get back to having lots of children.
|
| You can do things like ban childhood vacinations so lots of
| children die, but that isn't exactly going to make you very
| popular.
| bhouston wrote:
| > I don't believe it is possible during the natural
| development of a free country to get back to having lots of
| children.
|
| 50 to 100 years ago we probably didn't think it was natural
| to have humans willingly limit their population growth - it
| was viewed as completely unnatural, but it has basically
| happened nearly everywhere.
|
| I think you can do it via government rewards to those having
| larger families and starting them earlier. Housing discounts.
| Rebates. Tax credits.
|
| I believe Israel does this in combination with being
| religiously conservative, discouraging/banning most
| abortions, combined with a lot of government incentives,
| discounts -- in fact many of the people moving into the
| occupied territories are people starting families as the
| government discounts the housing there.
| naravara wrote:
| > Japan and South Korea are leaders in sub-replacement
| fertility with not that much success in finding a path towards
| sustainable population. Both I believe are still dropping.
|
| Straight line extrapolations of demographic trends based on
| current rates aren't super reliable. The system is sort of self
| correcting. Once population gets low enough people will
| eventually start birthing more. The only place it gets to be an
| issue is geo-strategic, like small populations can just get
| overwhelmed by larger ones either culturally, economically, or
| militarily.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Is there a need to a sustainable population rate?
|
| There are about 8 billion humans on the planet. We can sustain
| a sub replacement birthrate for generations.
|
| There is a good chance we can sustain it for long enough to
| solve aging; or at least significantly push back the ~100 year
| limit to human life. Once we do that, we will need generations
| of sub replacement fertility just to compensate for having more
| generations being alive.
| bhouston wrote:
| > Is there a need to a sustainable population rate?
|
| At some point yes we do.
|
| > There are about 8 billion humans on the planet. We can
| sustain a sub replacement birthrate for generations.
|
| For sure. But at some point there won't be enough humans to
| run an advanced society.
|
| > here is a good chance we can sustain it for long enough to
| solve aging; or at least significantly push back the ~100
| year limit to human life. Once we do that, we will need
| generations of sub replacement fertility just to compensate
| for having more generations being alive.
|
| I think generational change is a major driver of innovation.
| Old people get stuck in their ways, more so then we are
| likely to ever admit -- but maybe we can solve brain
| plasticity as well? I think if we solve aging completely, we
| become a rigid oligarchic society.
| pradn wrote:
| If more people are able to have healthier lives and be
| productive in their chosen niche (if they choose to), there
| might be other benefits, too. For example, many fields
| benefit from long expertise, like mathematics.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > For sure. But at some point there won't be enough humans
| to run an advanced society.
|
| How can we acknowledge that we need a lot of people to run
| the sort of society we ended up with today without also
| reasoning that the more advanced society we might achieve
| in 100 years might need a lot more people?
|
| There's nothing special about 10 billion people. People
| have been throwing out numbers as "overpopulation tipping
| points" for hundreds of years, and we've passed all of
| them. And now we acknowledge that it's important that we
| passed them, because we can't even keep our advanced
| version of "the lights on" without having done so.
| bhouston wrote:
| Humans are resources in a general sense. More humans
| means more resources which you can throw at various
| challenges, problems. So you are right. More humans has
| benefits.
|
| But unfettered growth isn't sustainable, this has been
| proved again and again. So what we need is controlled
| growth or at least sustainable levels. Right now we are
| switching into a decrease which will be very jarring and
| not sustainable.
|
| We've never truly has controlled population growth, we
| just had unfettered growth, which now has slowed down
| into a decrease. What is next is for us to increase it
| again and then have control over this. It is basically
| getting us to the next level of human development.
|
| We just have to be careful about those that want to
| exercise differential growth/decrease rates based on
| people's memberships in ideological, religious or racial
| groups.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > But unfettered growth isn't sustainable, this has been
| proved again and again.
|
| This is vague, and assumes the conclusion. All we've ever
| known is unfettered growth, and it's been accompanied by
| people "proving" that it's "not sustainable" for a long
| time. So far we have not only sustained it, but thrived
| while sustaining it. More importantly, we have come to
| rely on it: We're pretty sure we couldn't have a society
| like this one without hundreds of millions of people.
| 8note wrote:
| We've never had unfettered growth. People are limited in
| how many children they can have, and how many they want
| to have. We can trust parents to know how many children
| they want. We don't need a bureaucrat telling us when we
| can have sex and when we're required to have sex
| michael1999 wrote:
| We entered the 20c with ~1.5Bp, and didn't hit 3 until we
| were ready to land on the moon. We have a loooong way to go
| before we run out of people to run an advanced economy.
|
| As for the grey-aristocracy: it's already here, just
| unevenly distributed. Bruce Sterling described it vividly
| in Holy Fire (1996).
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/359390.Holy_Fire
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| If the entire world had south Korean levels of fertility
| it would take... 70 or 80 years to end up with a couple
| billion people again.
|
| In reality the problem right now is we are adding about
| 100m people living on two dollars or less a day every
| year but nobody has any real solutions for getting them
| above the poverty line or slowing the growth of that
| segment.
| teej wrote:
| > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
| opponents and making them see the light, but rather because
| its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up
| that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific
| innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over
| and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul
| becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents
| gradually die out, and that the growing generation is
| familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another
| instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
|
| -- Max Planck
| mpol wrote:
| > [...] enough humans to run an advanced society. [...] I
| think generational change is a major driver of innovation
| [...]
|
| That is a good point, and I would like to add that
| currently most young people on this planet are not part of
| innovation. They have to make sure they get food and
| shelter. If in the future we solved poverty and everyone
| has access to good education and a relative safe life, many
| more young people can be innovative. One can dream ;)
| rayiner wrote:
| Only if humans in different places are fungible, which they
| are not, and only if young people are willing to shoulder
| increasingly high burdens to take care of old people, which
| is debatable.
|
| And the "solution to aging" stuff is pretty optimistic.
| Modern medical technology has barely pushed the boundaries of
| healthy life at the top end. The first five American
| presidents died at 67, 83, 90, 85, and 73. The two that
| didn't make it to their 80s died of a viral disease that
| still affects us today (influenza) and a bacterial disease
| that we do have a treatment for today (TB).
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| It depends what you mean by 'need'.
|
| From the perspective of eudaemonia, yes, the surviving
| population needs goods and services to continue. With a sub-
| replacement birthrate, there are fewer 'new' people to
| provide the goods and services for the remaining. This
| creates inflationary pressure and deprivation.
|
| From the perspective of 'will the world end?' no- the Earth
| will continue to exist even without any people at all.
| virgilp wrote:
| > the Earth will continue to exist even without any people
| at all.
|
| Nobody cares about that perspective; it's an obvious and
| not particularly interesting observation... yeah universe
| existed without humans and can obviously continue to exist
| without humans too. When people talk about "world end" they
| talk about the humanity, not the physical world around us.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I agree and that's why it was a footnote- that's the
| point I was making. But on much of the Internet you'll
| find people eager to misunderstand this very point, so
| some defensive writing is justified.
| paxys wrote:
| Just by simple numbers - no, you don't need a sustainable
| population rate. We were perfectly fine as a species when the
| population was half or a tenth or hundredth of what it is
| now, and will still thrive if it gets to that again. The
| problem is the demographic breakdown. If the rate of growth
| is decreasing it means that when your current population ages
| and exits the labor pool there won't be enough young people
| to replace them. And with better medical care and increased
| life expectancy these old people will still hang around and
| need care.
|
| This is a problem that every large, developed country faces
| today, and they generally solve it through immigration. But
| what happens when _every_ country is in the same situation?
| cute_boi wrote:
| do we need that labor pool considering we are progressing
| in technology? 100 years ago there were no factories we see
| today etc. But day by day with technological advancement we
| are automating lot of things. So I really don't think we
| need that much labor we required yesterday.
|
| Is population problem really a big deal considering we
| already have a big elephant in room already like climate
| change, scarcity of resources, poverty, water crisis?
| paxys wrote:
| While technology has definitely made things better over
| the last few decades, we are still very, very far from
| the post-scarcity society that we like to envision. The
| majority of people on the planet today are still doing
| back breaking labor in order to survive.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I always thought that when our western governments talk
| about this problem, they are not concerned with the back
| breaking work that needs doing, but the amount of tax
| being paid by younger generations not enough to cover
| pensions and all the expensive medical conditions old
| people have.
|
| I think its mostly a financial problem, not a physical
| labor problem.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| why did my dental technician (low paid service job with minimal
| requirements) happily tell me she has five children? their
| father "lost his green card" and left.. she was happy, it was
| one of the first things she told me.. I did not ask about
| that..
|
| meanwhile, people from my own similar background are not
| getting married, not having children, and even more extreme
| things like that.. yet the average education in my group is a
| Master degree from a good college
|
| handwaving about "leaders in whatever" and "the answer is more
| education" are just wishful thinking and denial, in my direct
| experience
| cute_boi wrote:
| doesn't matter to be honest. We are already overpopulated and
| those who says it isn't just doesn't know how many people live
| under poverty and are simply privileged. I understand if we
| manage resources properly we have very high carrying capacity but
| it is not pragmatic to solve all those problems. Human greed,
| corruption has no bounds and will always hinder and there is no
| solution, is there? Rules, laws are generally made by elites even
| in democracy. Further, Nature makes us inherently greedy (selfish
| genes perhaps?) and many of us can't deny it, can we?
|
| I think people like Elon always says declining fertility is huge
| problem but i simply don't see it as a problem. People like him
| will never suffer due to money problems and will live luxurious
| life. But only people working 996 realize how much exploited we
| are. And old age is not that big deal because of technology. One
| person can manage hundreds of people. We can scale a lot.
| hersko wrote:
| I disagree with just about everything you said. "We are already
| overpopulated and those who says it isn't just doesn't know how
| many people live under poverty and are simply privileged." This
| makes no sense. As the global population has grown, less people
| live in extreme poverty [1].
|
| Your entire comment is basically saying life is hard so people
| should not be born? This is absolutely the best time to ever be
| alive in history.
|
| "One person can manage hundreds of people." Have you ever been
| to a nursing home? This seems insanely optimistic.
|
| [1]https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
| cute_boi wrote:
| You source [1] doesn't disprove it to be honest. It is not
| because of population growth that less people live in extreme
| poverty. It is because of technological achievement and
| progress in society. Basically its the time (considering we
| progress) that is eradicating extreme poverty not the
| population growth. You are linking wrong data to prove me
| wrong. In fact, overpopulation means more pressure on
| resource which we already can't mine due to various reason.
|
| You connected nursing home with wrong thing again. The
| problem with less fertility is that when there are lot of old
| people many people can't go to factory and old people can't
| work. But with technological advances one people can manage a
| lot of machines due to automation. Anyway, nursing home is
| easier to manage today than it was 100 years ago.
|
| Your entire comment is basically saying life is hard so
| people should not be born? This is absolutely the best time
| to ever be alive in history. Is it really? Your source
| clearly says "Most people in the world live in poverty. 85%
| of the world live on less than $30 per day, two-thirds live
| on less than $10 per day, and every tenth person lives on
| less than $1.90 per day"
|
| Would you like to be that 85% who wants to live on less than
| $30 per day? So, you are trying to conceal the difficulty
| saying life is hard but in fact it is extremely hard for many
| people.
| zionic wrote:
| The US is massively under-populated.
| cute_boi wrote:
| this article is about India not US so I am taking from that
| perspective. And India is over populated...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Has anyone stepped back and critically considered the axioms a
| worldview that celebrates depopulation of a people? You would
| have to believe it's technically not genocide if you aren't
| pulling a physical lever, and because you have been party to
| "managing" it with incentives, you haven't terminated entire
| genetic lineages using what is essentially deception - which
| further implies those lives and lineages have no intrinsic value.
| One would also have to believe in the primacy of their own genes
| and themselves as the effect, which if someone said it out loud
| they would be laughed out of the room for their racism.
|
| While I am personally inclined to misanthropy as a kind of social
| filter, the Malthusian horror of this article celebrating
| infertility in India strikes me as pretending that an active
| genocide is somehow more acceptable when you frame it as a kind
| of cultural euthenasia. Are they saying the quiet part out loud?
| gromitss wrote:
| Yes I can. A child unborn is not a child killed so it doesn't
| fit your classification of "genocide". We need about a tenth of
| the humans we currently have on the planet unless we figure out
| interplanetary colonization. This is a way that is almost
| entirely painless and can be achieved with almost no coercion.
| It's a panacea we desperately need.
| adolph wrote:
| > We need about a tenth of the humans we currently have on
| the planet
|
| Which tenth?
| gromitss wrote:
| And evenly distributed slice is my answer to your troll
| post Adolph.
| motohagiography wrote:
| There are some indiginous populations who would probably like
| a word about this reasoning.
|
| It's like advocates of these policies don't think they're
| engaged in defacto genocide because of some abstract legalism
| around their imagined distance from it. I'd say so-called
| progressives should really examine whether they are the
| baddies, but it seems to come back to just being nihilists.
|
| The only thing you seem to care about is that you think you
| aren't getting caught.
| Callmenorm wrote:
| Isn't this going to create another problem. Where the country
| gets old before it gets rich?
| renewiltord wrote:
| There is no amount of wealth that will help. Increasing
| societal wealth leads to increasing power to the old, who will
| use it to transform the young into a slave class.
|
| This is most visible in America's response to COVID but also in
| Prop 13 etc.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Why is the goal to get rich? That seems lame and shortsighted
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You're probably rich by global standards.
|
| Look at how the poor in India live. "Getting rich" does not
| mean becoming multimillionaire, it just means reaching a
| developed country's standard of living.
| zhte415 wrote:
| Not having health care, savings and social blanket,
| education, being able to buy stuff, choice, gets pretty lame
| pretty quickly.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Ah yes, who will buy the plastic products! The world needs
| more shit to throw in the bin.
|
| How about having the goals of developing healthcare instead
| of "being rich"
| f00zz wrote:
| Because being poor sucks?
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Yeah, screw social mobility. Stay poor!
| whatever1 wrote:
| Mobility != GDP
| BobbyJo wrote:
| GDP == The room available for mobility.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Technically, social mobility is just relative income
| position changes over time, which applies to zero sum
| games. It does not imply that you can significantly
| increase your income. Social mobility is also an indirect
| measure of income distribution, and by proxy geographic
| compactness -- you can double your income and still have
| low mobility if the distribution is wide.
|
| A country can be "highly mobile" with flat GDP and
| limited income growth opportunity for the individual.
| That is just how the math works out. Social mobility is a
| term-of-art that does not mean what most people intuit it
| to mean.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I think it's more apt to consider mobility in absolute
| terms in this context as opposed to relative. Having a
| country with super high mobility but extremely low GDP is
| obviously not favorable.
| eropple wrote:
| This is a novel argument to me; a state with a high Gini
| coefficient has plenty of room for mobility even if GDP
| remains static.
|
| Mobility is, in the modern world, as much a political
| argument as an economic one.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| If the country does not get richer faster than it gets older,
| the increasingly older population will suffer, having to work
| till they're older and getting less financial support
| (healthcare, pensions etc) because there would be
| proportionally fewer healthy young people to pay in to the
| system.
| coding123 wrote:
| Nah - that's more of a system of control. You can
| definitely have a poor country where people are not slaves
| to mortgages. It's called building your own house. Many
| countries allow that.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I'm not talking about mortgages though...
|
| Consider healthcare, usually older people need it more
| than younger people. If you have a higher proportion of
| older people in a population compared to younger people,
| you have a larger proportion of the associated costs
| being carried by a smaller proportion of the population,
| this means decreasing healthcare quality, increasing the
| pool of people paying in by increasing retirement age or
| increasing taxes. None of which are particularly good.
| coding123 wrote:
| Mortgages are the number one cost associated with
| "working til you are very old".
|
| By far in poor countries healthcare is much more
| affordable than in rich countries. I think one of the
| main outcomes of rich countries is just increased costs
| for everything.
| soperj wrote:
| I keep seeing this, but then I look at how rich countries
| treat their old people, and generally it's stuff them in
| retirement homes, which seem like awful places.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I agree, but that isn't much of a counter-point, if
| anything a population that is majority old people will
| only make that worse since the increased burden on the
| young would breed more resentment towards older people.
|
| Would you rather old people be dying of starvation/due to
| lack of healthcare because the country isn't rich enough
| to support them fully than living in old age homes?
| soperj wrote:
| They're going to die regardless. Is it better to die
| younger from lack of health care than die older with
| dementia and bed sores? I've only witnessed the latter.
| Doesn't seem like something I'd like to go through.
| refurb wrote:
| Who needs healthcare and social services?
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| For all the people down voting: I urge you to consider a
| different perspective where the hoarding of resources is a
| bad thing for humanity and life at large. The US, along with
| other countries, have done this for too long. We should have
| "having lots of money and resources" as a primary goal.
| Resources are tools to accomplish other things, not an end in
| itself. This is why I say its lame and shortsighted.
| teraku wrote:
| This. China faces it right now, where they are rich, but not
| rich enough yet
| jetsetgo wrote:
| That's true for majority of countries across the world. Not
| just China.
| [deleted]
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| What is 'rich enough'? Looking at elderly issues in UK, noone
| ever is
| Retric wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by rich. India's per capita income is
| more than 3 times what it was 30 years ago. So it can easily
| support significant social programs for the elderly, though not
| to western standards.
|
| On top of this western productivity is linked to low birth
| rates enabling a larger percentage of the population to work.
| So low birth rates may be required for a wealthy country rather
| than being just the result of a wealthy country.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| There is A LOT of slack in a population of that size. Most
| women don't even work yet. Even if population declines, the
| labor force will continue to rise for a long time.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Yeah I'm fairly sure they work their asses off already. Maybe
| not that gets measured in GDP thought.
| tharne wrote:
| I was going to say this. We have this weird habit in the
| West of trivializing raising one's own children, as if
| that's not "real work". A lot folks would rather raise
| their children instead of outsourcing it to strangers just
| to work a job they hate.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Evidently, a lot of people would like to have financial
| freedom and accept the costs of outsourcing some portion
| of child rearing.
| MandieD wrote:
| Many of us (and by "us," I mean "mothers") see it as a
| balance: I am outsourcing part of my child's upbringing
| in order to maintain a career I like well enough that's
| capable of supporting us both should life throw some
| curveballs at us. Say "life insurance" all you like, and
| my response is "unpredictable inflation".
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't think anyone is trivializing it... but the
| government can't tax homemakers to pay for medicare,
| pensions, and other social services which is the relevant
| point of the discussion.
| f6v wrote:
| It's outsourced to strangers anyway once children to to
| school.
| 8note wrote:
| Raising children might not be what people are best at,
| and it's more efficient to work a job that can pay for
| this stranger, and to have money left over.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Something that's more efficient can be disastrous to
| society. I was shocked in the us by how common it is for
| people to estrange their parents over trivial things and
| essentially leave them alone in old age to work at
| Walmart to be able to afford a place to die in
| jessaustin wrote:
| There aren't many qualities that disqualify a person from
| humanity, but being so bad at caring for one's own
| children that an employee would do a better job might be
| an example.
| sterlind wrote:
| you can't pay someone to love your child. only you and
| your partner can love your child. love is nearly as
| important as food to them. and you have to show that love
| in the attention you give them - tucking them into bed at
| night isn't enough.
| ashwinm wrote:
| indian median age is still 28, so there is still time to get
| relative "rich" ($8-10k per capita as china today) in the next
| 20-25 years.
| naruvimama wrote:
| The cost of living in India is going to be pretty low compared
| to colder countries, so it shouldn't cost a lot to provide a
| decent lifestyle.
|
| With accelerating automation, most people are going to have to
| depend on a much smaller set of people/industries. A shrinking
| population is not bad given we make plans for the future.
| paxys wrote:
| Cost of living in India is low _because_ of the large
| population. A generation or two from now things will look
| very different when there 's no more dirt cheap labor to go
| around.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I am very suspicious of that supposed relationship. There are
| tons of productivity gains to be had, and nothing like a
| tightening labor market to force them.
| f00zz wrote:
| Yes, happened to Brazil. When you've squandered your
| demographic dividend without escaping poverty it's basically
| game over.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Reference? (What are you talking about?)
| f00zz wrote:
| Many developing countries go through a phase when
| fertility/mortality rates start to decline, and for a while
| they'll get an economic boost while the working-age
| population grows at a faster rate than the non-working-age
| population. That's when East Asian countries laid the
| foundation for their economic growth.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend
| manojlds wrote:
| Which is what the article concludes with
| zpeti wrote:
| Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn.
|
| I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the
| apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new
| problem. Here's my shot at a few:
|
| - Even with better quality of life its going to be hard to make
| people who are over 70 work productively. But without children
| less and less people will need to take care of this large old age
| group. And they will need a bigger and bigger slice of the
| economy to survive.
|
| - Wealth inequality will rise just from the fact that there are
| less productive people and people with wealth will live longer.
|
| - Immigration won't be the solution for western nations that it
| used to be. And poor nations with insane birth rates don't have
| them any more. Already eastern europe, india, phillipines etc are
| becoming rich enough that much much less people want to
| emmigrate. Africas next. Cheap labour for corporations will
| basically dry up.
|
| I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than population
| expansion ever did.
| mpol wrote:
| The dark horse in this race will be climate changes. These
| predictions look natural, as extrapolation from the current
| situation with decreasing growth in population.
|
| I hope we (the politicians) don't hold tight to a strict plan,
| because if and when climate changes start to have a big impact,
| millions of people might have to move to different countries.
| These two things combined, decreasing population and massive
| movements of people, are hard to predict and will require a new
| way of dealing with these issues.
| zpeti wrote:
| Climate changes are way exaggerated. Almost all official
| predictions by IPCC etc, which aren't addicted to clickbait,
| say that over the next few decades we will lose some GDP
| growth due to climate change. But world GDP will still grow.
| There won't be starvation, or famine, etc.
|
| This is not the world ending apocalyptic scenario that's
| thrown around in the media.
|
| Perhaps a few countries will become uninhabitable, but I find
| that unlikely too. The current cases of countries that
| because uninhabitable dealt with the issues (eg Netherlands)
| and are still thriving.
| mpol wrote:
| Two decades, sure, but two centuries? If sea level is about
| to rise 1 or 2 or 3 meters, things will surely change more
| than what we see now. I live in the Netherlands, I am not
| worried about myself. But the world for our children might
| look different in this regard than ours. And we should not
| fall into the trap that it only exists when it touches us,
| then it will be way too late.
| danuker wrote:
| > but two centuries?
|
| I believe the sea level rise will indeed affect the
| Netherlands. I hope technology will progress so as to
| allow cheap relocation, or conversion of buildings to
| seasteads.
|
| I'm pretty sure two centuries from now there will also be
| completely unforeseeable problems, but also solutions. If
| you look at old predictions, we feared lots of things
| that did not turn out to happen: alien invasions, meteor
| strikes, nuclear war, a disease killing most of the
| population (COVID-19 has only killed <0.07% so far).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stories_set_in_a_fu
| tur...
| valenceelectron wrote:
| The Netherlands are already affected by sea level rise
| for some time. However, it seems to me they also plan and
| act accordingly for quite some time: https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlan...
|
| "The sea defenses are continuously being strengthened and
| raised to meet the safety norm of a flood chance of once
| every 10,000 years for the west, which is the economic
| heart and most densely populated part of the Netherlands,
| and once every 4,000 years for less densely populated
| areas. [...]
|
| The Second Delta Committee [...] expects a sea level rise
| of 65 to 130 cm by the year 2100."
| otikik wrote:
| I wish I could share your optimism.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > There won't be starvation, or famine, etc.
|
| There will absolutely be major climate-change-related
| droughts and famines in the next half-century. They might
| be limited to the third world, but they will still lead to
| geopolitical unrest and mass migrations.
| gromitss wrote:
| As cheap labor goes down, we are going to be forced into
| massive automation. There are plenty of challenges around this
| but the primary problem is going to be the massive
| concentration of wealth into a few hands. There has to be some
| form of redistribution that plays well with game theory and
| doesn't sour a powerful segment of the population into being
| against it.
| otikik wrote:
| "is going to be"?
| gromitss wrote:
| Yes, we are nowhere near what it is going to take.
| gavin_gee wrote:
| one hope is innovation in creating virtual worlds will
| distract the population from what is already happening.
|
| the question is whether these worlds are a mirror or a
| replacement for the physical reality
| xxpor wrote:
| Or productivity goes up, since we don't need a massive
| population doing menial tasks. Just like every time someone
| has said this for the last 300 years.
|
| Won't someone think of the people picking the seeds out of
| cotton?
| addsidewalk wrote:
| I predict that commercial profit will dry up as ML ends
| consumer media creation, re-shoring via high tech manufacturing
| implodes shipping and retail as on demand production rises to
| combat the environmental destruction of factories on 24/7.
|
| 20-30 year olds now will begin to call the shots politically in
| 10+, pushing GenX aside where they belong. GenX as a group is
| pre-info economy and sycophants to inheritance and will have
| few answers.
|
| 20-30 something's see no future for themselves in this system,
| and are currently normalizing their platform via the internet.
|
| As it spends its time now making itself irrelevant to the kids,
| progress elsewhere will give them alternatives and once in
| power, having spent their lives discussing each other's
| inherent value collectively all their lives, they'll finally
| just change the fucking rules and police the violent as usual.
|
| Artists can grow flowers to make paint and dig clay out of the
| ground. We will accept human expression must exist without the
| industrial convenience applied to all contexts or we risk the
| species.
| bhouston wrote:
| > I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than
| population expansion ever did.
|
| I think that unfettered population growth would have caused
| massive issues -- you could say that global warming is one of
| its legacies. But there will be a whole host of new issues as
| we face this new challenge of moving towards sustainable
| fertility.
|
| I suspect we will see a lot of government intervention with
| incentives towards larger families (increases bonuses as you
| have more children) and starting families earlier (rather than
| delaying to to their 30s.)
| soperj wrote:
| >you could say that global warming is one of its legacies
|
| Considering that the majority of emissions came from a select
| few countries(over half from the EU & USA) that don't make up
| the majority of the population, and they majority of those
| emissions have happened while there's been smaller population
| growth, I don't think it's unfettered population growth
| that's the problem.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume people not consuming as much as the people in the
| EU and USA have a goal of consuming as much as the people
| in the EU and USA.
| closeparen wrote:
| Prices show that people in the US have a goal of living
| lower-footprint lifestyles in walkable urban areas.
|
| We can't always get what we want. But which goals are
| attainable depends on policy choices.
| rhacker wrote:
| You're definitely in a filter bubble.
| closeparen wrote:
| I recognize it's a filter bubble that talks about these
| things a lot on the internet, but $1000+/sqft for NY and
| SF condos aren't lying. People want these things, badly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I suspect many of the people who want those $1k/sq ft
| condos in NYC and SF would not appreciate a fossil fuel
| tax sufficiently high to curb air travel such that even
| annual vacations to tropical destinations are not
| possible.
| [deleted]
| glitchc wrote:
| They very much show the opposite over the past couple of
| years, ever since the pandemic.
|
| Housing prices in suburban and rural areas have exploded
| across North America. People seem to want their own slice
| of land distant from others.
| closeparen wrote:
| On the margins, sure, there suburbs are gaining a little
| relative to the city. On the whole, though, cities are
| vastly more in demand than suburbs.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Also, the most popular vehicles are pick up trucks.
| baybal2 wrote:
| They very much do, but now they have to pay "carbon tax"
| invented by people who were responsible for most of the
| pollution until China
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| History isn't fair but this resentment is going to
| destroy humanity.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Well, no, it wouldn't be the resentment destroying
| humanity, it would be the people who caused all the
| emissions destroying humanity.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I think it's the "Screw you, I got mine" race-to-the-
| bottom attitude will destroy us faster. Pointing out this
| ongoing problem is not resentment - no one wants to talk
| about per-capita carbon footprint, or have binding
| targets, because everyone is selfish.
| newfriend wrote:
| Also responsible for basically all technological
| innovation which makes it even possible to have viable
| "green energy".
| Maarten88 wrote:
| Carbon Tax money is not thrown out of the window. It will
| mostly stay in the same country, and it will create jobs
| and wealth for people who are part of the solution, not
| part of the problem.
| jevoten wrote:
| But they also have access to solar, wind, and nuclear
| technology that were far less developed when the
| countries you are blaming were industrializing.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| As countries get wealthier, their CO2 emissions have also
| trended upwards. The world is clearly trending toward
| catching up to the wealthy countries. If everyone trends
| toward similar emissions per-person, then the raw number of
| people will be what matters most.
| somethoughts wrote:
| It'd also be interesting to know what assumptions the
| climate change models themselves are constructed around.
| Do they assume by 2050 that less developed countries will
| continue at the same population trajectory there on today
| and then multiply that number by the annual carbon output
| of a person in a developed country today?
| mastax wrote:
| Many European countries have extremely generous benefits for
| raising children, but it has been broadly ineffective at
| raising birth rates - with the possible exception of the
| Czech Republic. I agree though that governments are going to
| try, and they may find a way to do it.
|
| There was a good episode of The Weeds podcast, "Baby making
| vibes," which talked about this. Some of it is focused on the
| American political lens of Liberal vs Conservative birth
| rates, but much is broadly applicable discussion of policy
| and the more "vibes focused" angle that conservatives tend to
| take with the issue.
| nradov wrote:
| The incentives in France have also been somewhat effective
| relative to peer countries, however they're still below
| replacement rate.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Isn't the simple explanation for child birth falling so
| rapidly being the participation of women in the workforce?
| I didn't do any research but I just always assumed that it
| is.
| akudha wrote:
| Today we are at over 7 Billion. Suppose the population
| falls to say, 2 Billion or something like that. Is that a
| big problem? Like, what is the optimal number of people
| that this planet can support, without wreaking havoc on
| other species that also live here? 2 Billion is still a
| very large number...
|
| This might sound cruel, but the less humans the better.
| curtainsforus wrote:
| >Suppose the population falls to say, 2 Billion or
| something like that. Is that a big problem?
|
| There are problems with that, yes. That's fewer geniuses,
| who are in short supply. I like humans. The more humans,
| the better, quality of life being equal.
| neutronicus wrote:
| There's always an incentive to make more young people to
| dump grunt work onto.
|
| So without environmental pressure populations are going
| to grow
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Through what mechanism?
| rowanG077 wrote:
| It seems you answered your own question with:
|
| > This might sound cruel, but the less humans the better.
|
| Honestly any species will ALWAYS displace some other
| species. Nature doesn't just let usable energy lay around
| on long timescales.
| vidarh wrote:
| The issue is not the number. The issue is the rate of
| change.
| pzo wrote:
| I would stay both: rate of change (up or down) and
| overall size of population - there has to be a ceiling
| somewhere - if you start filling your bucket with water
| even slowly at one point it will start overflowing.
| vidarh wrote:
| There has to be some sort of ceiling, sure, but the point
| of focusing on a rate of change is that the ceiling is
| constantly moving too, no matter what you consider the
| "ceiling".
|
| There are _many_ ceilings. E.g. there 's the carrying
| capacity of earth. But that carrying capacity changes
| with technological improvements. There's the carrying
| capacity of the solar system that changes as we get the
| technology to settle more and more other planets. There's
| the number of housing units _currently available_ , and
| the amount of food _currently produced_ , and so on.
|
| But a lot of these current ceilings are highly malleable
| given time to address them, which is why what matters is
| the rate of change.
|
| Even if one assumes there is a hard ceiling on capacity
| for earth that no technological advance can overcome, as
| long as the _rate of change_ is low enough we can bypass
| that by building off-earth colonies fast enough .
|
| So ultimately, while you're right there are ceilings,
| it's still the rate of change that matters: We can build
| or obtain more buckets to move water to, but we need
| enough time to do so.
| ako wrote:
| European countries may have generous benefits for raising
| children, but they're not even close to covering the costs
| of children. I doubt there are many people who will decide
| to have children based on these benefits.
| distances wrote:
| I agree, I wouldn't talk of extremely generous before the
| benefits cover a larger apartment to house the kids, and
| other indirect expenses. Unlikely to happen!
| Beaver117 wrote:
| I'm sure some people are happy to move to the countryside
| for cheap larger housing if the government pays them
| [deleted]
| praptak wrote:
| Are these benefits generous enough to make one feel safe
| with the crappy job market and the raising costs of living?
| [deleted]
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Many European countries have extremely generous benefits
| for raising children, but it has been broadly ineffective
| at raising birth rates
|
| Yeah because even in Germany the Kindergeld of ~220EUR per
| child per month isn't _nearly_ enough to cover the extra
| cost in rent, much less the actual expenses that a child
| brings with it.
|
| When most people below 30 struggle to make rent, even
| without children, and actual ownership of a decent sized
| home is even more unrealistic, they won't have children.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am curious what the market rate for pregnancy, giving
| birth, and breastfeeding will end up being.
|
| After seeing what it is like, if I was a woman, even the
| best current European benefits would not be enough.
| bhouston wrote:
| In Hungary, if you do it four times you are exempt from
| paying taxes for the rest of your life:
|
| "Hungarian women with four children or more will be
| exempted for life from paying income tax, the prime
| minister has said, unveiling plans designed to boost the
| number of babies being born."
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612
| jimbob45 wrote:
| This is super interesting and everyone I've showed it to
| at work agrees. I suggest you make this a new post here
| on HN.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's a pretty great incentive. From your article:
|
| "As part of the measures, young couples will be offered
| interest-free loans of 10m forint (PS27,400; $36,000), to
| be cancelled once they have three children."
|
| The average household income in Hungary appears to be
| $7,100. So essentially they can get a potential 5 years
| of income for having kids. Massive incentive.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > So essentially they can get a potential 5 years of
| income for having kids. Massive incentive.
|
| Depends how you look at it. If you're nursing, it takes 5
| years to have three kids anyway.
| criddell wrote:
| Perhaps the incentives will lead to a drop in
| breastfeeding rates.
| ativzzz wrote:
| Women with four children will most likely be full time
| moms for the majority of their productive lives so that's
| a pointless benefit, unless this policy manages to
| somehow reverse gender roles as well.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Even if said lady only rejoins the workforce for 20
| years, the savings are fairly significant.
|
| Also, knowing Hungary, this is probably intended as a
| subtle disincentive for the local Roma ghetto population.
| All the Central and Eastern European states fiddle with
| their welfare systems not to incentivize higher
| birthrates among the Roma ghetto population, even if they
| do not want to state this aloud. That is why the benefits
| target taxes, which you only pay if you actually work.
| akudha wrote:
| Not familiar with Roma, whats wrong with them?
| baskethead wrote:
| They are gypsies, aren't they?
| bboreham wrote:
| "Gypsies [is] pejorative due to its connotations of
| illegality and irregularity as well as its historical use
| as a racial slur."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Recently (1940s-1950s) forcibly settled former nomads
| whose culture hasn't yet made the necessary switch. To be
| fair, it took our Neolithic ancestors much longer than a
| few generations to adapt, too.
|
| Basically, not enough education and a lot of crime in the
| community. Combined with enormous brain drain, because
| whoever manages to succeed a bit, moves away and marries
| into the majority population, thus disappearing as a
| potential positive influence.
|
| This is one of the notorious ghettos in Slovakia, a
| neighbourhood called Lunik IX:
| https://goo.gl/maps/KPnGTyBtX3NDTpdP6
| akudha wrote:
| Thank you. That is one scary looking building!
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| The other side of that same building looks even worse:
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/awS5Khbe17tqS18m9
| woodruffw wrote:
| Given Orban's other political proclivities, enforcing
| traditional gender roles is likely an intentional outcome
| of this policy.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| What? This policy should _incentivize_ stay-at-home
| mothers to re-enter the workforce after their children
| are grown, because no income tax is essentially a pay
| raise compared to people who aren 't eligible.
| woodruffw wrote:
| An incentive that is _completely_ offset by the
| professional and career consequences of leaving one 's
| industry for nearly two decades. Many women struggle to
| resume their careers after just a year or two of absence
| -- are we supposed to seriously believe that Hungarian
| employers will shrug off an entire child's development
| worth of absence?
|
| There is _always_ an incentive to re-enter the workforce,
| in the sense that you (hopefully) get paid to work. But
| the existence of an incentive doesn 't mean that
| incentive is sufficient. In the absence of other
| incentives _and_ the presence of Orban 's reactionary
| social politics, it's unlikely that this one is
| sufficient.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Better than stay-at-home mothers not re-entering the
| workforce. Which is the alternative.
| woodruffw wrote:
| No, that isn't the alternative. The alternative is having
| an incentive for having a _sufficient_ number of children
| to prevent population decline, combined with separate
| subsidies for child support (professional childcare,
| etc.). Even better, drop the emphasis on mothers: allow
| _either_ parent to claim the tax deduction, or devise a
| structure in the deduction is graduated with a return to
| the workforce.
|
| There are plenty of reasonable ways to incentivize people
| to have children, nearly all of which are applied
| elsewhere in Europe while also helping (if not outright
| avoiding) attrition in the workforce. Hungary's approach
| represents the significant deviation here.
| decremental wrote:
| I don't get why mothers not being at home is seen as bad.
| As though it's a greater good for society that instead
| they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a
| widget factory. Sounds to me like the only winner there
| is the widget factory. It didn't used to have to be this
| way and maybe we should figure out why it has to be that
| way now, then fix that.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >As though it's a greater good for society that instead
| they're punching in numbers into a spreadsheet at a
| widget factory.
|
| It might not be the greater good for society, but it is
| good for women who want to be self sufficient.
|
| >It didn't used to have to be this way and maybe we
| should figure out why it has to be that way now, then fix
| that.
|
| It turns out that many women want to have financial
| freedom (i.e. freedom), and are willing to sacrifice a
| lot on the homemaking front to have it.
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's not seen as bad. There's nothing wrong with mothers
| being at home, if they want to be. The observation is
| that women, like all beings with agency, don't always
| want to be at-home mothers and we (modern, liberal
| societies) broadly agree that people shouldn't be forced
| or economically coerced into doing things they don't want
| to do.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I agree with this.
| naravara wrote:
| Wealth inequality is one of the drivers of reducing family
| size. As well-compensated, high-status professions require
| either high up-front costs in education and socialization or
| high risk early investment the rationale shifts from "needing
| a lot of hands to keep the family firm going" to "needing to
| dedicate a lot of resources to set the kids up for success."
|
| In other words, the economic incentives today are to "go
| tall" rather than "go wide" with your kids if family wealth
| and status is the aim. If inequality is high this becomes
| more pronounced because the top of the heap will be more
| desirable and more competitive.
|
| Really I think it'll depend on how good the robots end up
| being. If they're very good at replacing humans then labor
| won't be able to bid up its pay rates. If the robots are
| shitty, though, it might work out okay.
| pokstad wrote:
| Not sure this makes sense. The biggest driver of family
| size seems to be lack of birth control or religious
| beliefs. Wealthy people avoid having children because they
| either expect too much for their kids or are enjoying their
| child free lifestyles. Meanwhile, in the US many children
| are born to the poorest portion of the population.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Massive population is causing massive issues.
|
| The root cause of all current environmental issues is the
| massive population growth we've been experiencing.
|
| Even topping out at 9-10 billion seems very challenging.
| Ideally, in order to protect the climate, environment at
| large, and quality of life we should aim to bring population
| down by a few billions...
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| It will be much easier to meet carbon emission targets when
| your population is shrinking rapidly. :)
| godelski wrote:
| A lot of these problems can go away if we can get automation
| right and done soon enough (though it comes with other problems
| itself). With automation Western nations need not rely on
| immigrants as much for labor as their own populations decline
| and age. Some services can also become a lot cheaper, like food
| delivery and even the food itself.
|
| I often think we frame things poorly. Wealth inequality is a
| problem the same way coal is a problem. It's the effects. The
| problem with global warming is the amount of infrared sensitive
| gases in the air. A coal fired plant that had zero net
| emissions (ccs) wouldn't be an issue. Similarly the problem
| with wealth is that if it is pooled up capitalism doesn't work
| because it needs a flow and exchange of goods to operate
| efficiently. Personally I don't care about the wealth gap and
| the top earners, I care about the bottom. If we can make all
| the essentials cheap enough it makes money far less valuable in
| the first place (solving the same problem but with different
| framing).
| whatshisface wrote:
| In a world that already has Teslas running around the roads
| and solar farms being built for profit, but that doesn't
| already have economical carbon capture, it turns out that
| renewables are actually the _conservative_ way out.
| godelski wrote:
| I mean to solve climate change we need a lot of things.
| More that solar and wind. Frankly we need to be carbon
| negative, which will require some ccs, reforestation, land
| management, fixing the reefs, and more. It's a complex
| problem that if you treat it as being simple you're taking
| steps backwards.
| AlanSE wrote:
| The simple part is that we need to stop gathering
| geologically sequestered hydrocarbons and putting them in
| the atmosphere.
|
| I have made an effort to understand climate science.
| Personally, I think the deference to simulations and
| experts has been hugely detrimental. The important
| questions seem to not need either PhDs or simulations.
| Very rudimentary education for anyone who has a science
| background suffices. Know the sun's rough temperature and
| the Earth's rough temperature, plus black-body ration,
| and you know the mechanism of heating. Know a weather-
| channel level of humidity temperature dependence, and you
| can know the water vapor feedback.
|
| So yes, cows, concrete, and steel are going to be
| problems if we solve fossil fuels. But this seems
| intentionally misleading. Oil comes from a mile
| underground and we put it in the atmosphere. We've got to
| stop doing that fast, before we're locked into future
| effects, like crop productivity declines.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| > apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this
|
| The media did not invent the worry about "population bombs".
| That was thanks to what environmentalism was at the time &
| trotting out the same tired Malthusianism
| lr4444lr wrote:
| The transition will be hard for the possible reasons toy give,
| but long term we should again return to a normal age/population
| pyramid. The tricky part is managing the shift.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| All of these issues are functions of a growing population.
|
| You know that our species has a problem when the solution to
| issues becomes "we need to shit out more babies." This modus
| operandi is no different than that of a replicating virus or
| locust swarm. When you are part of the swarm, it's easy to
| justify your actions as a means for survival, but from an
| outside perspective, one sees nothing but chaos, environmental
| devastation, and widespread suffering.
|
| We need to stop the rampant breeding and plug the hole in this
| sinking ship known as planet Earth.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > But without children less and less people will need to take
| care of this large old age group. And they will need a bigger
| and bigger slice of the economy to survive.
|
| Covid was fixing this, but then some renegade scientists came
| up with the vaccines and ruined everything. Again.
| pradn wrote:
| There's certainly better opportunities for well-trained
| professionals in developing countries, but there's still a
| large pay differential. On top of that, immigrants to wealthier
| Western countries seek the low levels of day-to-day corruption,
| well-maintained infrastructure, good air quality, safety from
| violent crimes and theft, and access to leading universities
| and companies, where cutting-edge research and product
| development is done. In the US at least, there's plenty of
| gloom for our decline, some relative and some absolute, in many
| of these categories. But there's still a clear and stark
| difference for someone coming from India or Brazil.
| rzanella wrote:
| Yep, I had a pretty comfortable salary and life back in
| Brazil, fear of violence around every corner made me leave.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > I look forward to the problems we will face then, and the
| apocalyptic narratives the media will invent about this new
| problem.
|
| It's not the media inventing this, but a multi-generational
| lobby group in the West, which started as "eugenic science"
| movement in thirties in the West.
|
| German Nazis were given a noose in 1945, and their shit
| "science" was all busted, so this group which came to huge
| prominence in Western elites had to find a new raison d'etre,
| so they rebranded themselves as "demographers," and
| "segregationists," inventing other pretense quasi-scientific
| reasons to legitimise their existence, and claims to power.
|
| Antivaxers, and AntiGMO are their new "iteration" after their
| previous workhorse "counterterrorism" kicked the bucket.
|
| Sounds like a 1000% conspiracy theory, but unfortunately it's
| more than true. Population council, planned parenthood,
| Rockefeller, Ford, and Milbank foundations all have very deep
| roots in the eugenicist movement which are for everybody to see
| after few minutes googling.
| newsclues wrote:
| No, the old Nazis became the leaders of western Germany and
| their science was rolled into planned parenthood and other
| groups, and the pro vaccine crowd are the Nazis
| Angostura wrote:
| > I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than
| population expansion ever did.
|
| You need to factor in the problems that population expansion
| _would_ cause in the future.
| jtbayly wrote:
| The ones predicted by Malthus, that never happened and never
| will?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Malthus wasn't completely wrong, but international trade
| mitigates the problem. This, of course, requires large
| surpluses in the exporting countries _and_ fully
| operational supply chains, which we tended to take for
| granted until now.
|
| An example: Egypt, a former granary of the Mediterranean,
| is now a net food importer and a sudden swing in world
| commodity prices could very well topple the ruling junta.
|
| This wouldn't have happened if the Egyptian population
| growth leveled off at more reasonable numbers (say, only 30
| million people crammed into the narrow Nile delta instead
| of 100 million).
| jessaustin wrote:
| Egypt's grain imports were caused by bad governance and
| theft, not by population. Mubarak instituted a bizarre
| form of reverse land reform in which he stole land from
| families who had farmed it for ten generations and gave
| it to cronies who attempted to grow fruit and flowers for
| Europe. The cronies were not farmers, their crops failed,
| the desert rolled in. Truly, the apex of capitalism.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2011/12/12/sustainability/foo
| d-9...
| baskire wrote:
| It'll be the golden age of automation through software,
| electronics, and robotics. Self checkout machines are the
| perfect example. The cost has stayed flat if not gone down over
| time. Meanwhile labor costs have risen. This leads to the ROI
| for self checkout getting better each year. And now we have
| self checkout everywhere including fast food chains.
|
| I expect this trend to continue with automation allowing us to
| consume more with less labor. Letting the capitalism growth to
| continue
| tsycho wrote:
| On the other side, unfettered population growth for the
| purposes of maintaining a sufficiently large proportion of
| young people (in a world where people are living longer as
| well) is basically a Ponzi scheme. We'll have to eventually
| stabilize to a sustainable demographic distribution; the
| earlier the better.
| odiroot wrote:
| > Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn.
|
| > I look forward to the problems we will face then [..]
|
| Hey, that's a great untapped market for ad targetting. Facebook
| and Google must be ecstatic.
| rmk wrote:
| Unless there are more pandemics and wars that intervene. This
| pandemic has killed an estimated 10-12 million people,
| according to the Economist. I think we are perhaps 80% of the
| way to an endemic with successive mutations becoming less and
| less lethal, so perhaps the true death toll is in the 15-20
| million range. Any large scale war between nation-states can
| have a pretty high death toll if things escalate out of
| control. How much could that be? And how would that affect
| future population growth?
|
| This is without taking into account decreasing sperm counts of
| men in developed countries and excess deaths due to air
| pollution in developing countries.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >This pandemic has killed an estimated 10-12 million people,
| according to the Economist.
|
| Every time I see such claims, I still cringe at the thought
| of figuring out what it _actually_ means. The details are
| gory, and can be summarized simplistically by saying "death
| with COVID [?] death from COVID". In other words, figuring
| out true disease toll is a rather ambiguous problem, as
| stated.
|
| Can someone point me to a reference where this subject is
| rigorously treated, without skipping over the gore, but is
| still accessible to a non-expert (say, to someone who has
| undergrad-level understanding of health stats)? Could be a
| paper, a meta study, a blog post, whatever.
|
| Like with this estimate, for example, I'd want to know if
| it's 10-12 million people who died within X days of a
| positive PCR test for COVID, or something less naive.
| zuminator wrote:
| It has nothing to do with PCR tests. The Economist based
| their estimate on a ML analysis based on excess mortality
| estimates.
|
| [0] https://github.com/TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-
| globa...
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
| munificent wrote:
| The easy way to get a rough answer here is simply to
| compare the death rate from the same time of year a couple
| of years back. Assuming no other events that would cause a
| large swing in death rate, most of the variance can likely
| be explained by COVID.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Assuming no other events that would cause a large swing
| in death rate_
|
| It's not obvious this is a tenable assumption, though.
| Depression and isolation can also increase mortality for
| things not directly related to depression and isolation,
| for example.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| I'm fairly certain they use excess deaths, not necessary
| "deaths with COVID".
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > "death with COVID [?] death from COVID"
|
| My favourite take on this: "I have Type 1
| diabetes. I am healthy enough to run ultramarathons.
| If I get attacked by a bear & the ICU has trouble managing
| my blood sugar while caring for my bear attack wounds...and
| I die... the bear is the cause of my death. "[1]
|
| But it's irrelevant since these meta studies always use
| excess deaths over average because of reportings issues
| (both logistical and political).
|
| Start here https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-
| covid
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/cadiulus/status/1300408867717812231
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > But it's irrelevant since these meta studies always use
| excess deaths over average because of reportings issues
| (both logistical and political).
|
| Exactly, deciding the cause of a single death is a messy
| complex task that doesn't have correct answers. Deciding
| the number of deaths due to a cause is much simpler and
| can be done most of the times.
| [deleted]
| foolinaround wrote:
| > This pandemic has killed an estimated 10-12 million people,
| according to the Economist.
|
| A more accurate way to state would be "This pandemic and the
| varying response to it by different nations has killed an
| estimated 10-12 million people, according to the Economist."
| newobj wrote:
| Why does it top out there?
| JPKab wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Think about the fact that the result of a low birth-rate with
| better medical tech keeping older people from dying when they
| otherwise would have. The result will be a far higher
| percentage of voters in democracies will be beneficiaries of
| the work of people younger than them. They will increasingly
| vote to expand the benefits they receive, at the expense of the
| younger folks who have to pay higher taxes to fund them.
|
| Perhaps one of the most distinct, and deliberately obfuscated,
| characteristics of COVID is its steep risk stratification by
| age. According to the US CDC data here:
| https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics Roughly
| 94% of all COVID deaths were in people age 50 and up. 28.2% of
| deaths were in people over the age of 85, 7 years past the
| average US life expectancy (for men). If you look at the
| response to COVID in western nations, you can see that the
| cost/benefit analysis wasn't being evaluated in the context of
| the vast majority of people dying (and therefore benefiting)
| were past retirement age, and the vast majority of people
| bearing the cost of these policies were younger, lower risk
| people who were put out of work. The government programs that
| used debt-financed payments to alleviate these issues for the
| young generated debt that, again, will hurt the younger
| generations far more than the older.
|
| Even before covid, the USA has universal health care for people
| over 65, but not for younger people or kids in working class
| families who aren't broke enough to qualify for Medicaid. I'm
| 40, so I'm no spring chicken, but western democracies routinely
| fuck over young people to help the old. It's going to get far
| worse until it hits an unsustainable level.
|
| I've paid Social Security and Medicare taxes for 25 years,
| since my first paycheck, and it's not likely I'll ever receive
| anything from these programs based on current projections.
| omegaworks wrote:
| >I've paid Social Security and Medicare taxes for 25 years,
| since my first paycheck, and it's not likely I'll ever
| receive anything from these programs based on current
| projections.
|
| This is a purely political decision. When Paul Ryan made this
| assertion in Congress to justify privatizing the system Alan
| Greenspan shot him down[1]. The government chooses how many
| dollars to allocate to Social Security and Medicare. Whether
| those dollars come from taxes elsewhere is almost entirely
| irrelevant.
|
| The only factor is whether seniors will get enough from the
| program to buy what they need to live. This has as much to do
| with the _prices of goods_ as it does with the size of the
| benefit itself. We will need to ensure we have the production
| we need to meet the demand by investing in sustainable,
| productivity amplifying technologies. The reality is with
| population aging or stagnating we will need one worker to be
| able to produce what two or more was able to to keep prices
| stable.
|
| I think the pressure to do this is already being felt by
| workers here in the US. It's one of the main reasons why
| there is so much apathy from the ruling classes when it comes
| to ensuring workers can earn a living wage from one job. The
| people in charge would rather we keep the conditions such
| that one worker must work three jobs to scrape by than make
| the costly investments to increase productivity.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNCZHAQnfGU
| reducesuffering wrote:
| That won't end until young people actually show up to polls
| just as significantly. Politicians cater to their voting
| constituents and the elderly show up to vote stronger. Some
| of this is due to our suspect "you have this 1 Tuesday to do
| it" voting day. But what young people can do is make it
| socially unacceptable to not vote like the elderly do to each
| other.
| naravara wrote:
| Young people don't vote as much partly due to lack of
| habit, but also due to their jobs having less flexible
| scheduling and voter registration rolls being tied to where
| you live. Old people live in places longer, young people
| move more. It's simply a much bigger paperwork hurdle to
| get registered, find your polling place, etc. And that's
| assuming you can take time off and politicians have
| actually bothered trying to engage you where you're at
| rather than spending $50 Million on ad time in the evening
| news.
| dcist wrote:
| It's ridiculously easy to vote and with early voting
| being extended for WEEKS and mail-in voting also an
| option, there is no excuse other than apathy, ignorance,
| or laziness. If you can submit a tax return, you can
| vote.
| greedo wrote:
| This is not the case for many voters in the US. Not all
| states offer early or mail-in voting.
| volkl48 wrote:
| Where you live, perhaps. Not every state functions that
| way.
|
| My state (NH) has no early voting, and absentee/mail-in
| voting is only allowed for a few specific reasons. (in
| 2020, COVID was an acceptable reason, but it is not
| expected to be in future elections).
| nradov wrote:
| Most states have some form of early voting, although access
| can still sometimes be a challenge.
| z3t4 wrote:
| When the cost of human labor goes up, the inequality will go
| down. One question is if cities will keep growing, or if we
| will see decentralization. The corona pandemic has proved that
| many jobs can be decentralized using modern communication
| technology. While the average population gets older, we are
| also more healthy at higher ages, so we might not need as much
| care.
| nradov wrote:
| In the US and some other developed countries we are not more
| healthy at higher ages. Life expectancy has flattened out of
| even declined. Obesity rates are rising.
| rafiki6 wrote:
| I feel you might be conflating decentralization with location
| dependency. I actually expect things to centralize and
| concentrate further in a fully location independent world.
| wyager wrote:
| > Global population will basically top out at 9-10bn.
|
| There's a lot of hubris behind predictions like these.
| powerapple wrote:
| I am hoping that machine will finally be the new slave so
| humans can really be free! Maybe western countries population
| problem won't be a real issue before developing countries can
| be wealthy.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Already eastern europe are becoming rich enough that much
| much less people want to emmigrate.
|
| Oh dear I wish it was true, but it isn't. Eastern Europe is
| facing a dramatic brain drain and it isn't slowing down. For
| instance, Romania has lost 15% of its population in the past 30
| years (3.5M people!), most of the loss coming after 2000 and
| the decline being pretty much constant between 2000 and today.
| Czech Republic and Slovakia are the only country in the region
| with a growing population (a few percent in 30 years, even the
| aging Germany looks dynamic by comparison), and Poland is
| stagnating. Evey other country is losing population every
| year.[1] This is an ongoing demographic catastrophe for these
| countries.
|
| [1]: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/fractures-est-
| ouest (In French, and the infographics is paywalled, but you
| can access an animated gif by right clicking on the image and
| opening it in a new tab)
| dominotw wrote:
| > Already eastern europe, india, phillipines etc are becoming
| rich enough that much much less people want to emmigrate.
|
| i am not quite sure what the timeframe of this prediction but
| at the moment all my street in india will pack their bags and
| relocate without a second thought to USA if given a choice. And
| this is an upper middle class neighborhood.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue
| it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and
| over every living creature that moves on the ground" [1]
|
| From the above portion of scripture, I wonder why we humans, are
| so concerned about population growth. Children are a blessing
| from God, have as many as you'd like.
|
| 1. https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-28.htm
| paxys wrote:
| > From the above portion of scripture, I wonder why we humans,
| are so concerned about population growth
|
| Maybe because most of the ~8 billion people on the planet don't
| care about a random passage in the Bible, or even know that it
| exists?
| nynx wrote:
| Most people have a completely different mental framework than
| you and have more evidence-based ways of deciding whether
| something is good or not.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| So much trust in mortals.....nah, I'll pass
| nynx wrote:
| I'm not sure what else you could trust in. Even if a
| christian god exists, the bible was written by humans,
| copied over and over by humans, and translated by humans.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Adding to this that many of the scriptures were censored
| from the Christian Bible. Emperor Constantine and his
| council left out some notable scriptures such as the Book
| of Enoch. That is a fairly significant redaction in my
| opinion. I would suggest reading up on it if anyone has
| the time.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| "We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime
| philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the
| Bible than in any profane history whatever."
|
| -Isaac Newton
|
| "Almighty God, Who hast created man in Thine own image,
| and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee,
| and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to study
| the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue the earth to
| our use, and strengthen the reason for Thy service"
|
| -James Clerk Maxwell
|
| Two, really great minds, on whose work we depend on daily
| nynx wrote:
| This isn't really convincing. Newton and Maxwell were
| incredibly important, but they also lived quite a while
| ago. Religion has a different role in society these days.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| I agree, although I don't look at Christianity as
| religion, from my understanding of the new
| testament..Christ was crucified basically because he
| didn't follow "the law of their fathers"..religion
| essentially.
|
| The aim is not to convince though, but to raise the
| question, why does our generation think that anything
| scriptural cannot be treated as fact. Why are newtons
| laws fact, but not his convictions? Are we so taken up by
| being "scientific" in our own eyes, that we forget the
| very premise on which science is based, God?
| nynx wrote:
| There is an obvious answer to that: Newton's laws match
| our observations of reality, ignoring relativistic
| effects. Scripture is written by someone to reflect their
| opinions. They often have truths in them, but they're
| just a story. They don't reflect reality any more than
| Harry Potter does.
|
| To answer your second question: science is not based on a
| god or gods. Scientific thinking often branched out of
| religion, but they're separate now and have been for
| hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And science
| branched off from many different religions, just not the
| Christian one you seem to believe in.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| aa..cool. But then, very few people actually get to
| "prove" or consciously "observe" newtons laws, but a
| principle is a principle whether you believe it or not.
| In fact, at lower levels of education, you simply read
| and believe these, as fact, from those that have written
| about them, and proved them. Can't we say the same about
| Christianity?
|
| PS: Note that I avoid the word religion, as it dilutes
| Christianity, The Gospel of the New Testament.
| soperj wrote:
| Newton's laws are not fact, but scientific theory that's
| been tested through experiment and observation over
| hundreds of years. His convictions are just opinion.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| For me, the problem is the double standard that is
| applied to historical writings; Mention Scripture, "Oh,
| those are just someone's words", Mention a scientific
| manuscript from the same time "Oh, my, what a genius"!
|
| How many of us actually get to prove newtons laws for
| ourselves? How many of us consciously wake up and say,
| today I will test out gravity? But isn't the law of
| Gravity real, yes it is!
|
| Thing is, most of what we know, we have read from what
| others have done or experienced, more in the scientific
| field. Why can't we apply the same standard to scripture?
| Maybe if we study deep we can prove the things written
| therein
| soperj wrote:
| Anyone can test it though, and if it's proven wrong, it
| will overturn the science. There's no double standard
| there, just because you choose not to test it doesn't
| mean others don't. They have tested newton's laws, a very
| large number of times, in a variety of different ways.
|
| How do you prove scripture, especially when they
| contradict each other?
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| https://biblehub.com/galatians/5-12.htm
| ElectronShak wrote:
| quoted out of context
| gwd wrote:
| It says "fill the earth"; so one could argue that once the
| earth is "filled" (meaning, has as many people living on it as
| it can reasonably support), then the "increase in number"
| directive will no longer be active; and that the mission will
| switch to _maintaining_ a healthy population.
| [deleted]
| Hernanpm wrote:
| I agree it is happening globally, I'm from South America and
| there are statistics of birthrate fall as well in my country. As
| personal experience in my company ~90% are single childless and
| we are in ours 30s 40s.
| ffwszgf wrote:
| Latin Americans are a lot more receptive to birth control and
| sterilization compared to Africans/Arabs/central Asians
| ridiculous_leke wrote:
| Has anyone studied the reasons behind this?
| wavefunction wrote:
| My "modest proposal" for humane population reduction is: every
| individual is born with the right to have one child. A couple
| then, can have two children, which is below the natural
| replacement rate of 2.1 leading to a gradual reduction in human
| population naturally. People who don't want to have kids or can't
| for whatever reason could sell their right to others who want to
| have more than their normal allotment while maintaining the
| lower-than-natural replacement rate. There are other complexities
| that would need to be considered and managed but it seems to me
| to be the most ethical way to reduce population, if that is
| desired.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Does not work. Education and access to medicine does.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Well I agree that those work as well. I am afraid your post
| is too pithy about "does not work" to credit that bit though.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| As we have seen in China, if you limit the number of
| children people become selective about them. In this case
| in regards to gender, which will develop into a large
| problem for the country in the future because they now have
| very unbalanced demographics. This will doom a lot of
| people to have no partner.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| China's birth rate is arguably declining because basic
| needs (housing) and child needs (education and child
| care) became expensive, applying back pressure on
| fertility (which is why the CCP and Xi is pushing "common
| prosperity" hard). People are selective on children
| already, which I don't see a problem with; this is a
| natural result of a free society with healthcare where
| you can selectively terminate pregnancies you don't want.
| During IVF, we were offered the option to sequence the
| genome of candidate embryos and pick which we wanted
| based on traits. The future is now.
|
| If this creates cohorts without the ability to partner
| up, them the breaks of free will and socioeconomic
| forces. Population ballooned, and it will be painful as
| it contracts. Humanity ran up the credit card of
| population growth, and it will have to be paid back
| (socioeconomically speaking, with unrest and economic
| contraction) .
| raxxorrax wrote:
| People did abort girls more than boys so that there now
| are about 30% more boys than girls. Aborting girls was
| mainly done due to cultural and financial issues. This is
| nothing short of a catastrophe for the younger
| generation.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| "What is the future owed?" is a complex issue. It's an
| intergenerational compact, and the scope boundary is
| going to be fuzzy. I would argue future generations are
| owed robust human rights, a reasonably clean and non
| polluted environment, and the opportunity to live a
| purposeful life with dignity. Ensuring someone has a
| partner would fall out of scope.
|
| I admit we've sort of painted ourselves into a corner and
| the deleveraging is going to be a bit wild over the next
| few decades.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| You don't need a modest proposal for human population
| reduction. As soon as having a lot of children stop being a
| necessity for survival in old age, population naturally seems
| to stop at an average of two children simply because for most
| it's not enjoyable to have more.
| kiba wrote:
| I don't see why I want to reduce human population.
|
| The real problem isn't population but our insane demand and
| energy intensive process needed to support the lifestyle of the
| global wealthy.
|
| Put it this way: Cars required insurance, road infrastructure,
| gasoline or battery, steel, electronics, etc to make car a
| viable transportation option both for logistics and to drive
| people around in general.
|
| Whereas we could have invested in rails which required less of
| everything to do the same thing. Even better if we use bicycles
| more, which is the most efficient form of transportation.
|
| A car is a luxury that we made into a requirement pretty much
| everywhere in north America, which in turn makes our lifestyle
| more expensive than it needed to be.
|
| So, in short, we should reduce the demand of unnecessary
| products(like cars). Then we can think about to make stuff in a
| more efficient manner and more green manner, or find more
| efficient products, such as using heat pumps.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > A car is a luxury that we made into a requirement pretty
| much everywhere in north America, which in turn makes our
| lifestyle more expensive than it needed to be. So, in short,
| we should reduce the demand of unnecessary products(like
| cars).
|
| This is a nice halfpinion, but the entire country can't
| essentially be some monolithic ecumenopolis like Mega-City
| One or Coruscant. I'd think most people here would love to
| see a few more efficient transportation options, more
| walkable suburbs, and other things you're describing, but
| there's certain infrastructure that can't really work in a
| suburban or rural setting. Cars, or something very much like
| them, are a necessity in areas where food is grown and
| everything is spread out.
|
| Personally speaking, I'm not worried about the general theme
| of overpopulation/climate change because nuclear energy has
| already solved human needs.
| drivebycomment wrote:
| You think this is ethical? Clearly you have a very different
| ethics that I do. Also, this propsal is unnecessary and shows
| complete lack of demographic transition - we already know how
| to stop population growth in an ethical way and that is to
| improve healthcare, education (especially women), and general
| economic welfare. No other solutions necessary, nor have proven
| to be effective.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The enforcement of this ends up treating all the corner cases
| in really inhumane ways. And in order to even _get there_ you
| need to go through the more progressive stage of actually
| making sure that contraception and abortion are available.
| omk wrote:
| You lost me at "selling their right". It is important to
| understand that "selling" and "right" should not appear in the
| same sentence when the said right is being addressed as a basic
| right. It opens room for abuse even in well administered
| jurisdictions.
| tedivm wrote:
| I hope by "modest proposal" you mean "satirical take meant to
| show how awful people are being", which is the whole point of
| the original modest proposal.
|
| The big issue isn't the number of people, but the amount of
| energy and resources they require. The carbon emissions per
| 1000 people in India is 0.922 metric tons a year. For the
| United States that number is 19.86 metric tons a year. That's a
| difference of over 21 times. To put it another way, preventing
| a single US birth is the equivalent of preventing 21 births in
| India.
|
| Focusing on the raw population is, and always has been, a
| distraction that high consuming countries use to ignore their
| own role in our current environment. This isn't to say that
| populations should rise forever, but it's pretty common for
| countries that reach higher levels of developments to have
| their population growth level off. Reducing poverty is by far
| the best and most ethical way to combat booming population
| growth.
| [deleted]
| xornox wrote:
| True. My modest proposal is that we increase population at
| least to 100 billion (= 100 000 000 000) - or even more!
|
| Number of people does not matter.
| klyrs wrote:
| What's your proposal for handling births that exceed allotment?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| The Chinese had effective ways of dealing with excess births
| during the 1 child policy era.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Stew, probably.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| That's a really weird idea of 'ethics'. How would you enforce
| this policy? You can't ethically take away 'extra' kids, you
| can't reasonably fine them, nor can you prevent extra kids from
| being born.
|
| Any system capable of enforcing any of the above methods would
| inevitably be a severe ethical violation of some form.
| coding123 wrote:
| I actually don't think overpopulation is the problem. It's the
| way we're going about resource usage that's the problem. If
| people stayed home more, grow food and instead of focus on
| society feeding them, they feed themselves we wouldn't be
| inundated with non-stop scale issues. As insane as it sounds
| distributed technologies seem to be saving tech - it can save
| humanity too. We just don't train people to be like that.
| Instead we teach greed and outperforming the next guy.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Overpopulation is not a problem because the current
| population is under the limit of the amount of people the
| Earth can feed and most models think the current trend will
| reverse before we pass that point. For the rest, you have it
| backward. The only reason we can feed that many people is the
| green revolution. Subsistence farming is simply not
| productive enough. It would have led to famine as soon as
| sixty years ago.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Have you just described what went on in China?
|
| It was an equal system. But you've just missed out the bit on
| what options are available to those that are a bit more equal
| and what happens to those that violate the rule.
| adultSwim wrote:
| "India defuses its population bomb"
|
| "When famine struck, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson initially
| refused to deliver food aid, citing the country's high birth
| rate."
|
| This moralistic Western framing is concerning.
| ffwszgf wrote:
| It has little to do with birth rates and more to do with the
| Indian governments closeness to the USSR. LBJ thought it was
| ridiculous that India would vote against American interests in
| the UN and then turn around and beg for food
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