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Are they really that bad? There are 8 billion people on the planet. We can support more, but it makes more vulnerable to catastrophe. Japan has had these dem

Are they really that bad? There are 8 billion people on the planet. We can support more, but it makes more vulnerable to catastrophe. Japan has had these demographics for a while now but it doesn't seem like they are falling apart. Someone will say-- oh but there economy isn't growing! Better a stagnant economy than a famine or a plague.

hnbad 4y ago
Most research I've seen indicates that human population will likely max out at 12 billion and then decline until it reaches a stable level. Except for a few fringe Malthusians, that is. The problem with population decline is that most countries are built around the naive assumption of perpetual growth, especially when it comes to social security and welfare systems. Of course most of this can easily be fixed by raising taxes but that would fly in the face of the general trend to give tax breaks to higher incomes, abolish wealth taxes and prefer flat tax rates over progressive ones to prevent "wealth flight".
- skissane 4y ago
  > Most research I've seen indicates that human population will likely max out at 12 billion and then decline until it reaches a stable level. That kind of research is based on the assumption that the social/cultural trends encouraging people to have less kids continue unabated. Humans often overcompensate. It is conceivable that a country's population may decline to the point that the threat that poses to its future becomes impossible to ignore – the threat may motivate the general population to change their behaviour, and may lead to the government introducing major incentives to encourage more children. That may lead to the population decline being reversed; but, it may then be difficult to "turn off the tap" of the new culture/policies to stop the population booming again. There are also countercultural minorities (mostly ultra-conservative religious sects) who stubbornly continue to have lots of kids in spite of the social/cultural forces which discourage mainstream society from doing so. That kind of analysis generally ignores those minorities, because they are so small – true, but if they don't change their ways, eventually they will grow to become the majority, and then we'll be back to population boom again. Will they eventually change their ways? That is possible, not inevitable. Many of them have been successfully resisting pressure to change their ways for decades; if they haven't succumbed to that pressure yet, why assume it is inevitable that they eventually will? If one considers that there are multiple such countercultural minorities, even if some of them do end up changing course, all it takes is for one to stubbornly resist doing so, for it to eventually become the demographic majority.
ben_w 4y ago
The reality is complicated. But as a toy model, imagine: everyone has one kid, at exactly 40 years old; everyone finishes education at 20; everyone retires at 60, everyone dies at 80. Every 40 years, the population halves. As each pair of parents retire, their one child enters the workforce, and their labour is used to cover their parents’ pensions — taxes for state pension, and whatever share of the wealth they generate that ends up as corporate profit for private pension. I don’t know about South Korea, or indeed the statistics of the incidence rate and duration, but from experience I know that late-stage dementia care in the UK costs about twice the average UK earner’s headline salary. I think this may at least show the way it could go wrong, given this is all just an illustration.
silisili 4y ago
Bad mainly because countries have been running a pyramid scheme like social security.
- Klinky 4y ago
  Did you mean ponzi scheme? That would make more sense, while not being entirely accurate.
  - silisili 4y ago
    Yep, I absolutely did. Oops.

hnbad 4y ago

Most research I've seen indicates that human population will likely max out at 12 billion and then decline until it reaches a stable level. Except for a few fringe Malthusians, that is. The problem with population decline is that most countries are built around the naive assumption of perpetual growth, especially when it comes to social security and welfare systems. Of course most of this can easily be fixed by raising taxes but that would fly in the face of the general trend to give tax breaks to higher incomes, abolish wealth taxes and prefer flat tax rates over progressive ones to prevent "wealth flight".

skissane 4y ago
> Most research I've seen indicates that human population will likely max out at 12 billion and then decline until it reaches a stable level. That kind of research is based on the assumption that the social/cultural trends encouraging people to have less kids continue unabated. Humans often overcompensate. It is conceivable that a country's population may decline to the point that the threat that poses to its future becomes impossible to ignore – the threat may motivate the general population to change their behaviour, and may lead to the government introducing major incentives to encourage more children. That may lead to the population decline being reversed; but, it may then be difficult to "turn off the tap" of the new culture/policies to stop the population booming again. There are also countercultural minorities (mostly ultra-conservative religious sects) who stubbornly continue to have lots of kids in spite of the social/cultural forces which discourage mainstream society from doing so. That kind of analysis generally ignores those minorities, because they are so small – true, but if they don't change their ways, eventually they will grow to become the majority, and then we'll be back to population boom again. Will they eventually change their ways? That is possible, not inevitable. Many of them have been successfully resisting pressure to change their ways for decades; if they haven't succumbed to that pressure yet, why assume it is inevitable that they eventually will? If one considers that there are multiple such countercultural minorities, even if some of them do end up changing course, all it takes is for one to stubbornly resist doing so, for it to eventually become the demographic majority.

ben_w 4y ago

The reality is complicated. But as a toy model, imagine: everyone has one kid, at exactly 40 years old; everyone finishes education at 20; everyone retires at 60, everyone dies at 80. Every 40 years, the population halves. As each pair of parents retire, their one child enters the workforce, and their labour is used to cover their parents’ pensions — taxes for state pension, and whatever share of the wealth they generate that ends up as corporate profit for private pension. I don’t know about South Korea, or indeed the statistics of the incidence rate and duration, but from experience I know that late-stage dementia care in the UK costs about twice the average UK earner’s headline salary. I think this may at least show the way it could go wrong, given this is all just an illustration.

silisili 4y ago

Bad mainly because countries have been running a pyramid scheme like social security.

Klinky 4y ago
Did you mean ponzi scheme? That would make more sense, while not being entirely accurate.
- silisili 4y ago
  Yep, I absolutely did. Oops.