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A gradual decline in human population is surely a good thing? The change in demographics will cause problems. But significantly less than the problems caused by

A gradual decline in human population is surely a good thing? The change in demographics will cause problems. But significantly less than the problems caused by unending population growth, which could lead to rampant climate change, environmental collapse, mass migration and war. Also different countries are in different situations. The rich, ageing countries can allow immigration from poorer countries whose populations are still growing.

bpodgursky 6y ago
A 25% decline in the human population is completely irrelevant compared to the economic growth which is raising 6 billion people from a near-subsistence existence into the middle class. Losing a few million British people is completely irrelevant as Nigeria and its 150mm people enter the developed, high-energy, economy. The solution to climate change is a technological restructuring of human carbon usage patterns. Not fewer humans.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  A 25% decline in population across all the richest countries would be highly significant. But it won't be enough if people in developing countries start consuming more and more. Hopefully their populations will also start to level off and then decline as they become richer.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    For the most part they already are. Nigeria has gone from 7 to 5 since 1980, and Ethiopia from 7 to 4. Which is not declining, but certainly progress. India went from 5.5 to 2.2, nearly replacement. Bangladesh went from above 6 to 2.04. The Phillipines in particular shows a dramatic decline from 7.15 in 1960 to 2.58 today.
    - hermitcrab 6y ago
      Is that annual % population growth?
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        That's TFR. More comprehensive definition available here: https://populationeducation.org/what-total-fertility-rate/ https://populationeducation.org/what-total-fertility-rate/ Replacement rate for TFR (so, the one that would result in stable population) is considered to be 2.1 by the UN.
Analemma_ 6y ago
Things can be good on net but still have severe downsides you can't just ignore, and I think that's the case here. You're brushing a whole lot under the carpet with "will cause problems": falling populations mean that everything which relies on a demographic pyramid-- pensions, socialized health care, saving for retirement via the stock market, spending on municipal infrastructure-- falls apart. You can't just brush that off.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  I think that is quite manageable, if the decline is gradual. Especially if there people in other, less demographically challenged countries, that are willing to emigrate.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Yes, and technology will be able to do a lot more good in the world once we have the labor shortages to justify further automation. Increasingly over the last 40 years in the developed world, in a general labor and supply glut, the only reason to automate is to fuck over your precarious workforce more than your competitor. That sucks for the regular workers and automaters alike, and I can't wait for it to change.
    - hermitcrab 6y ago
      When the black death killed swathes of Europe's peasants, the survivors were able to demand much better working conditions from their overlords. But I guess that is only going to happen with a declining population if there are enough jobs that robots and AI can't do.
      - Ericson2314 6y ago
        Well the key is fighting underconsumption. Automation is a somewhat negative feedback loop in that excess labor reduces the demand for further automation. This is why anything shirt of general A.I.—which economically is automation that spills over from jobs one tries to automate to a significant portion of others—is not revolutionary. So a declining working age population could shrink the economy, and this would be the orthodox economist position which doesn't recognize a structural underconsumption problem. And with underconsumption I think it's a not of a toss-up, but if the underconsumption is prevented, I don't the the demographics will get in the way. tl;dr lock in your UBI before the population peaks.
Gibbon1 6y ago
I have one friend who has a PhD in Future Studies. He said there are benefits to a slow population decline and the downsides are completely manageable. It's very hard to convince leaders of that though. You'll notice the conclusory comment in the FA, 'Falling fertility rates have been a problem in the world’s wealthiest nations – notably in Japan and Germany – for some time.' Most will skip right past that nodding their head despite the author providing zero evidence or support for that. I think part of that is people associate population decline with places that suffered some economic insult and lost sustainability. Mill closed everyone scattered to the winds kind of thing. That's not the same thing as declining fertility.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  It's a problem for governments because it will expose the ponzi-scheme nature of their social welfare programs.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    When I look at projections for Japan what I see is over the next 20 years the percentage of people over 65 goes from 28% to 38%. And then just stays there. So the end point is 1 out of 2.5 people are retirement age or more likely doing light work. And one out eight are children or teenagers. If you go back to the high population growth years you can probably swap the percentages of children vs elderly. Leaving you with 50% of the population in the workforce. Society certainly didn't exactly fall apart then.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    The fundamental problem is that your savings are worthless if no is one offering their labor for money. You need to maintain a working population to take care of the elderly.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  There seems to be a lot of people in government to whom the idea of having less people under their control is palatable. Every time the subject of jurisdiction splitting comes up these people come out in force.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
No, it’s not a good thing. Humans are apparently the only species capable of observing itself or the universe. The more people, the better, we just need to ramp up space exploration.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  I would think 5 billion people living in some sort of balance with the environment would better be able to explore space than 50 billion people living in some sort of environmental/climate hellscape.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  Also it is so energy intensive to get someone off the planet that space exploration is not going to be a viable way to control the earth's population any time soon.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Space exploration is merely a matter of time. Some space missions take decades to execute. If your civilization dies out before that there is no point.

bpodgursky 6y ago

A 25% decline in the human population is completely irrelevant compared to the economic growth which is raising 6 billion people from a near-subsistence existence into the middle class. Losing a few million British people is completely irrelevant as Nigeria and its 150mm people enter the developed, high-energy, economy. The solution to climate change is a technological restructuring of human carbon usage patterns. Not fewer humans.

hermitcrab 6y ago
A 25% decline in population across all the richest countries would be highly significant. But it won't be enough if people in developing countries start consuming more and more. Hopefully their populations will also start to level off and then decline as they become richer.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  For the most part they already are. Nigeria has gone from 7 to 5 since 1980, and Ethiopia from 7 to 4. Which is not declining, but certainly progress. India went from 5.5 to 2.2, nearly replacement. Bangladesh went from above 6 to 2.04. The Phillipines in particular shows a dramatic decline from 7.15 in 1960 to 2.58 today.
  - hermitcrab 6y ago
    Is that annual % population growth?
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      That's TFR. More comprehensive definition available here: https://populationeducation.org/what-total-fertility-rate/ https://populationeducation.org/what-total-fertility-rate/ Replacement rate for TFR (so, the one that would result in stable population) is considered to be 2.1 by the UN.

Analemma_ 6y ago

Things can be good on net but still have severe downsides you can't just ignore, and I think that's the case here. You're brushing a whole lot under the carpet with "will cause problems": falling populations mean that everything which relies on a demographic pyramid-- pensions, socialized health care, saving for retirement via the stock market, spending on municipal infrastructure-- falls apart. You can't just brush that off.

hermitcrab 6y ago
I think that is quite manageable, if the decline is gradual. Especially if there people in other, less demographically challenged countries, that are willing to emigrate.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yes, and technology will be able to do a lot more good in the world once we have the labor shortages to justify further automation. Increasingly over the last 40 years in the developed world, in a general labor and supply glut, the only reason to automate is to fuck over your precarious workforce more than your competitor. That sucks for the regular workers and automaters alike, and I can't wait for it to change.
  - hermitcrab 6y ago
    When the black death killed swathes of Europe's peasants, the survivors were able to demand much better working conditions from their overlords. But I guess that is only going to happen with a declining population if there are enough jobs that robots and AI can't do.
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      Well the key is fighting underconsumption. Automation is a somewhat negative feedback loop in that excess labor reduces the demand for further automation. This is why anything shirt of general A.I.—which economically is automation that spills over from jobs one tries to automate to a significant portion of others—is not revolutionary. So a declining working age population could shrink the economy, and this would be the orthodox economist position which doesn't recognize a structural underconsumption problem. And with underconsumption I think it's a not of a toss-up, but if the underconsumption is prevented, I don't the the demographics will get in the way. tl;dr lock in your UBI before the population peaks.

Gibbon1 6y ago

I have one friend who has a PhD in Future Studies. He said there are benefits to a slow population decline and the downsides are completely manageable. It's very hard to convince leaders of that though. You'll notice the conclusory comment in the FA, 'Falling fertility rates have been a problem in the world’s wealthiest nations – notably in Japan and Germany – for some time.' Most will skip right past that nodding their head despite the author providing zero evidence or support for that. I think part of that is people associate population decline with places that suffered some economic insult and lost sustainability. Mill closed everyone scattered to the winds kind of thing. That's not the same thing as declining fertility.

throwawayboise 6y ago
It's a problem for governments because it will expose the ponzi-scheme nature of their social welfare programs.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  When I look at projections for Japan what I see is over the next 20 years the percentage of people over 65 goes from 28% to 38%. And then just stays there. So the end point is 1 out of 2.5 people are retirement age or more likely doing light work. And one out eight are children or teenagers. If you go back to the high population growth years you can probably swap the percentages of children vs elderly. Leaving you with 50% of the population in the workforce. Society certainly didn't exactly fall apart then.
- imtringued 6y ago
  The fundamental problem is that your savings are worthless if no is one offering their labor for money. You need to maintain a working population to take care of the elderly.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
There seems to be a lot of people in government to whom the idea of having less people under their control is palatable. Every time the subject of jurisdiction splitting comes up these people come out in force.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

No, it’s not a good thing. Humans are apparently the only species capable of observing itself or the universe. The more people, the better, we just need to ramp up space exploration.

hermitcrab 6y ago
I would think 5 billion people living in some sort of balance with the environment would better be able to explore space than 50 billion people living in some sort of environmental/climate hellscape.
hermitcrab 6y ago
Also it is so energy intensive to get someone off the planet that space exploration is not going to be a viable way to control the earth's population any time soon.
imtringued 6y ago
Space exploration is merely a matter of time. Some space missions take decades to execute. If your civilization dies out before that there is no point.