4 ms·

The world's economies depend on steady population growth, either through births or immigration.

A2017U1 8y ago
There's no other possible way for an economy to grow except through that? Population growth is the lazy, unsustainable way to get gdp growth.
chewz 8y ago
No, they are not. It is not that economy requires growing population, it is the Ponzi scheme of taxing population and diverging govt funds to buying votes. And paying back past debts. This is a man made conundrum not a law of physics.
devoply 8y ago
We have enough people. We need to utilize them better. Capitalists depend on exploiting population growth to these ends, but it's not in any way necessary. In fact when the black plague killed a large amount of population in Europe the salaries of the poor rose at least 3 times and caused good times for 100 years. The only thing I am advocating is people having fewer children. To point to the empirical historical fact to forward this is not advocacy of anything inhumane.
- ralusek 8y ago
  Easy there Thanos.
Skunkleton 8y ago
That's true, and it is a problem that needs to be fixed.
- irrational 8y ago
  I hope I'm not around when the fix comes due, because it is most likely going to be horrific.
  - tjr225 8y ago
    Any more horrific than resource depletion?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  It's definitely not entirely true. Western GDP depends on body count growth, but GDP per capita does not. Japan will lead the way in figuring out how fewer people can hopefully avoid deflationary debt-spirals. I think notion that growth is dependent on body count is very dangerous, and totally unsustainable, among other things. We need to look at growth, migration, and fertility as separate issues, each with a different set of consequences. Upping the fertility rate a little bit, normalization migration (by 'normal' I mean the kinds of migration that exist between equal countries, not mass migration), reconfiguring our dysfunctional social security systems (at least they are dysfunctional in terms of how they are paid for by future generations), changing what retirement means, addressing massive costs of later life healthcare, and changing some of our economic targets. This problem is as big as climate change in the sense that it affects everything and will require a re-think of some issues we haven't had to think about before. Japan has to face the issues head-on before the rest of us, thank god they are smart because I think we'll inevitably end up following their example on a bunch of these things. At least they'll be providing us the data points. The current globalist population redistribution policy, promoted by the UN, literally referred to as 'replacement migration' is going to be a staggeringly impossible thing to implement. [1] As for India: hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel. As for Pakistan and Nigeria: it will get much worse before it gets better, they have serious problems. [1] https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ageing/replacement-migration.asp https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicatio...
  - dashundchen 8y ago
    > The current globalist population redistribution policy, promoted by the UN, literally referred to as 'replacement migration' is going to be a staggeringly impossible thing to implement. [1] I thought this statement was a little outrageous so I clicked the link and read a few segments of the report. I didn't see any section promoting specific global migration policy. The report appears to just be a "what-if" paper modeling different levels of migration to countries projected to shrink, and how it would impact population size, age distribution, retirement age and working age/dependent ratios through 2050. Levels modeled included no migration, an extrapolation of 90's migration trends, and levels needed to maintain varying working age population ratios. No surprises or policy plans there.

A2017U1 8y ago

There's no other possible way for an economy to grow except through that? Population growth is the lazy, unsustainable way to get gdp growth.

chewz 8y ago

No, they are not. It is not that economy requires growing population, it is the Ponzi scheme of taxing population and diverging govt funds to buying votes. And paying back past debts. This is a man made conundrum not a law of physics.

devoply 8y ago

We have enough people. We need to utilize them better. Capitalists depend on exploiting population growth to these ends, but it's not in any way necessary. In fact when the black plague killed a large amount of population in Europe the salaries of the poor rose at least 3 times and caused good times for 100 years. The only thing I am advocating is people having fewer children. To point to the empirical historical fact to forward this is not advocacy of anything inhumane.

ralusek 8y ago
Easy there Thanos.

Skunkleton 8y ago

That's true, and it is a problem that needs to be fixed.

irrational 8y ago
I hope I'm not around when the fix comes due, because it is most likely going to be horrific.
- tjr225 8y ago
  Any more horrific than resource depletion?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
It's definitely not entirely true. Western GDP depends on body count growth, but GDP per capita does not. Japan will lead the way in figuring out how fewer people can hopefully avoid deflationary debt-spirals. I think notion that growth is dependent on body count is very dangerous, and totally unsustainable, among other things. We need to look at growth, migration, and fertility as separate issues, each with a different set of consequences. Upping the fertility rate a little bit, normalization migration (by 'normal' I mean the kinds of migration that exist between equal countries, not mass migration), reconfiguring our dysfunctional social security systems (at least they are dysfunctional in terms of how they are paid for by future generations), changing what retirement means, addressing massive costs of later life healthcare, and changing some of our economic targets. This problem is as big as climate change in the sense that it affects everything and will require a re-think of some issues we haven't had to think about before. Japan has to face the issues head-on before the rest of us, thank god they are smart because I think we'll inevitably end up following their example on a bunch of these things. At least they'll be providing us the data points. The current globalist population redistribution policy, promoted by the UN, literally referred to as 'replacement migration' is going to be a staggeringly impossible thing to implement. [1] As for India: hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel. As for Pakistan and Nigeria: it will get much worse before it gets better, they have serious problems. [1] https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ageing/replacement-migration.asp https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicatio...
- dashundchen 8y ago
  > The current globalist population redistribution policy, promoted by the UN, literally referred to as 'replacement migration' is going to be a staggeringly impossible thing to implement. [1] I thought this statement was a little outrageous so I clicked the link and read a few segments of the report. I didn't see any section promoting specific global migration policy. The report appears to just be a "what-if" paper modeling different levels of migration to countries projected to shrink, and how it would impact population size, age distribution, retirement age and working age/dependent ratios through 2050. Levels modeled included no migration, an extrapolation of 90's migration trends, and levels needed to maintain varying working age population ratios. No surprises or policy plans there.