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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 fri

by 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.

by hnbad 4y ago

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.