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There's a certain strain of environmentalist that sees deindustrialization, technological regression, and human population decline as the solution to the world'

There's a certain strain of environmentalist that sees deindustrialization, technological regression, and human population decline as the solution to the world's problem. This perspective misses the mark, I think.

adrianN 11y ago
Human population decline would solve a lot of our environmental problems and is not necessarily tied to technological regression. In many developed countries it happens by itself and it could rather easily be helped along with some financial incentives, say, a tax on children.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  The last thing we need is a tax on children in societies with sub-replacement fertility. A world without growth is a terrible place. (Before you object: yes, economic growth isn't the same as population growth. But to get economic growth with a declining population, you need productivity to grow faster than the population declines, and we're already having trouble keeping productivity growth up.) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining-a-world-without-growth.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining...
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    why does productivity need to go up if the population is declining? what about the unemployed?
    - rewqfdsa 11y ago
      Unemployment is on a long-term upward trend because as technology advances, it becomes economical to replace an increasing number of jobs with machines, starting with the lowest-skilled jobs first. Without eugenics, population decline will not increase the smart fraction in society, so to achieve economic growth, you constantly need fewer people to do more work. That is, the more technology we have, the larger the portion of the population that is "zero marginal product" --- that is, the portion of the population that isn't profitable to employ at any wage. Improved education is no help, since most people do not have the intrinsic mental capacity to take full advantage of it. Intelligence is largely genetic and immutable.
      - RobertoG 11y ago
        Unemployment is a policy choice that we do as a society. http://heteconomist.com/unemployment-is-a-government-policy-choice/ http://heteconomist.com/unemployment-is-a-government-policy-...

adrianN 11y ago

Human population decline would solve a lot of our environmental problems and is not necessarily tied to technological regression. In many developed countries it happens by itself and it could rather easily be helped along with some financial incentives, say, a tax on children.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
The last thing we need is a tax on children in societies with sub-replacement fertility. A world without growth is a terrible place. (Before you object: yes, economic growth isn't the same as population growth. But to get economic growth with a declining population, you need productivity to grow faster than the population declines, and we're already having trouble keeping productivity growth up.) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining-a-world-without-growth.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining...
- psykovsky 11y ago
  why does productivity need to go up if the population is declining? what about the unemployed?
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    Unemployment is on a long-term upward trend because as technology advances, it becomes economical to replace an increasing number of jobs with machines, starting with the lowest-skilled jobs first. Without eugenics, population decline will not increase the smart fraction in society, so to achieve economic growth, you constantly need fewer people to do more work. That is, the more technology we have, the larger the portion of the population that is "zero marginal product" --- that is, the portion of the population that isn't profitable to employ at any wage. Improved education is no help, since most people do not have the intrinsic mental capacity to take full advantage of it. Intelligence is largely genetic and immutable.
    - RobertoG 11y ago
      Unemployment is a policy choice that we do as a society. http://heteconomist.com/unemployment-is-a-government-policy-choice/ http://heteconomist.com/unemployment-is-a-government-policy-...