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If society doesn't need more babies, we should not encourage people to have more babies. Of course, this is not true today. I am talking about a situation where

If society doesn't need more babies, we should not encourage people to have more babies. Of course, this is not true today. I am talking about a situation where economic activity (and growth) does not depend on ever increasing human consumption. My assumptions are likely flawed (please don't take my words at face value). As your sibling comment suggests, I am about to watch a ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen/ https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_... My unverified, unscientific thoughts: My ideal is we move beyond this ideal of 2.4 children per couple. I want us to go even beyond one child policy. I want it to be socially acceptable for couples to choose to not have children. More than that, I want it to be sustainable for people to have -- on average -- fewer than one child. Now, it seems we are already moving in that direction. It seems as of 2012, we are already at 1.88 in the US, 1.66 in China PR, and 1.41 in Japan. https://www.google.com/search?q=total+fertility+rate+usa https://www.google.com/search?q=total+fertility+rate+usa I'd say we can do better and drive it further down all over the world but we cannot promote this until we have some kind of assurance that doing so will not cause the global economy to stagnate, or worse, contract. If people live longer and are productive for longer, we can safely transition into a more automated future with fewer humans than we have today.

eru 11y ago
What do you mean by `society needing (or not needing) babies'? Society _is_ babies plus time. What goals would be served by having babies (or not having them)? And whose goals are these? For any finite human life span, you need two babies on average per woman to keep population stable. Transitioning into a lower population number via below replacement fertility works great for a while (children are expensive), but causes problems once you have more pensioners than working people. Japan and various European are about to experience that soon, China a bit later. > I'd say we can do better and drive it further down all over the world but we cannot promote this until we have some kind of assurance that doing so will not cause the global economy to stagnate, or worse, contract. Per capita, or absolute? And why care about the global economy so much? (If you do, there are some easy policies to drive up global GDP like crazy: full free trade, free movement of people, simplify urban real estate development (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-inequality http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-i...), and transition to a less distorting tax system (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val... and perhaps carbon tax).

eru 11y ago

What do you mean by `society needing (or not needing) babies'? Society _is_ babies plus time. What goals would be served by having babies (or not having them)? And whose goals are these? For any finite human life span, you need two babies on average per woman to keep population stable. Transitioning into a lower population number via below replacement fertility works great for a while (children are expensive), but causes problems once you have more pensioners than working people. Japan and various European are about to experience that soon, China a bit later. > I'd say we can do better and drive it further down all over the world but we cannot promote this until we have some kind of assurance that doing so will not cause the global economy to stagnate, or worse, contract. Per capita, or absolute? And why care about the global economy so much? (If you do, there are some easy policies to drive up global GDP like crazy: full free trade, free movement of people, simplify urban real estate development (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-inequality http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-i...), and transition to a less distorting tax system (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val... and perhaps carbon tax).