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This is a rather serious issue but very few people care. It is at least as important as global warming. Media and politicians don't care at all.
by DeathArrow 3y ago
This is a rather serious issue but very few people care. It is at least as important as global warming.
Media and politicians don't care at all.
- croes 3y agoWhy is it serious?
- mo_42 3y agoBecause it's exponential decay: population_n = population_0 * 0.55^n (made-up exponent).
- awb 3y agoIn any oscillating trajectory you’d see exponents above and below 1. Tomorrow’s birth rate is not impacted by today’s. But the fear is that today’s birth rate will continue forever until societal collapse, which seems unlikely.
- nly 3y agoAging population, lower economic growth (less consumer demand for goods and services).
- zelos 3y agoLess pollution, less global warming, lower use of resources, less conflict.
- pyuser583 3y agoCounties with declining populations tend to become industrial catastrophes. Japan and Fukushima come to mind. Russia does too. Russia and Ukraine both have abysmal fertility rates. I don’t see less conflict there. Or between China and Taiwan.
- croes 3y agoI doubt that that's a causality. Japan isn't a catastrophe compared to any country with a rising birth rate. And Fukushima was an accident caused by a natural disaster and human errors. More babies wouldn't have prevented that.
- croes 3y agoAging population per se isn't a problem, because better hygiene, lower child mortality and enough food creates the same effect. Lower economic growth doesn't have to be. Fewer people means less supply on workforce means higher wages means higher purchasing power. The existing people would like to be more, but can't afford because of low wages. Fewer people will give them leverage.
- ehnto 3y agoHigher purchasing power per person not overall. That would increase the wealth inequality divide and the aging population would suffer as lower and middle class services struggle in favour of high wealth services. We are seeing that in clothing at the moment, high end clothing is doing really well but serves fewer people. Japan is a country to watch, it has an aging population but historically good support for middle class services through lots of small businesses. If that changes for them it is a bad sign for the West, as we generally have greater wealth divides to begin with.
- croes 3y agoI'm talking about workers, they are mostly middle and lower class. Your example of higher clothing, it's not the workers who do really well, it's the designers and labels. Wouldn't consider them as workers.
- sien 3y agoMost countries social security systems rely on workers today paying in. The dependency ratio of workers to people on pensions may get to the point where it breaks. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPPOPDPNDOLUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPPOPDPNDOLUSA
- DeathArrow 3y agoExtinction of peoples, nations, cultures and civilizations is not trivial. At least for normal people.
- croes 3y ago8 billion people isn't extinction of people and nations, cultures and civilizations went extinct even with and sometimes because of more people. Resources are limited and more people fighting over them leads to war which leads to extinction of nations, cultures, civilization and people.
- smoldesu 3y ago> It is at least as important as global warming. Global warming is irreversible, low birth rates are not.
- liquidise 3y ago"Irreversible" feels like an overstatement for a planet that has documented swings in both its temp and atmospheric composition. I'd agree the timescales of changing warming trends is certainly slower than birth rates, though.
- input_sh 3y agoFine, irreversible on a human scale. The last time the earth was this hot (known as the Eemian period) was back when humans just started migrating from northern Africa to the Arabian peninsula, ~125000 years ago. That's a whole lotta damage done in under 200 years since we industrialized.
- randunel 3y agoYet the world population keeps growing [0], the majority of the world's countries have increased the retirement age since the 2010s [1], and there's more measured productivity per worked hour than ever [2], correlated with people having to work less for the same wealth. The Gini index on a macro level hasn't changed much [3], either. I fail to see why this issue might be "at least as important as global warming". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_productivity [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg
- DeathArrow 3y ago>Yet the world population keeps growing [0], It's about the survival of peoples, nations, cultures and civilizations. I fail to see how it's not important. >I fail to see why this issue might be "at least as important as global warming". See the previous sentences.
- dustypotato 3y agoPeoples , nations, cultures, and civilizations existed with 1/5 of the population 100 years ago. Cultures should adapt to population, not the other way around
- pavlov 3y agoThey are connected though. I know many people under the age of 35 who choose not to have kids because they don't want to bring children into a world threatened by climate change. Here in Finland, a female child born today has a >50% chance to live to an age of 100. That means our new children will probably still be alive in 2123. The projections for worst-case climate change over that time span are terrifying. You can't blame people for not wanting that kind of future for their children. If you want people to have more kids in the West, doing something about climate change is part of the solution, not a separate issue.
- rklaehn 3y agoFor every single decade in the 20th century there was some kind of doom hanging over our head. Imagine deciding to have kids in the 80s where the two superpowers were pointing insane amounts of nuclear weapons at each oter. Or in the 70s when people feared a new ice age. Not to mention 1910 or 1930. You may say "but this time it is real". The nuclear threat in the 80s was very real as well. As was WW1 and WW2. Finland has done it's part against climate change. They built a large nuclear power plant, and can run the rest of the economy using PV and wind. Retire ICE vehicles, and then be proud of yourself and be more optimistic. Even in the worst case scenarios the climate in finland will be just fine...
- DeathArrow 3y ago> I know many people under the age of 35 who choose not to have kids because they don't want to bring children into a world threatened by climate change. Do you think the majority of people are into that ideology?
- pavlov 3y agoI didn't claim there's any kind of majority. It's a factor for people I know.
- aziaziazi 3y agoThis comparaison is very strange: less population means less consumption, which is highly correlated with GHG emissions. A drastic reduction could cause serious short term issues for humanity (not for any other form of life) but were not here at all, curves are stabilizing around 2kids. You shouldn't be afraid to let go of the gas pedal on the freeway, the car won't stop straight away. Especially if your speed is exponential for 300 years and everyone know keeping accelerating is gonna harm the majority life conditions. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population?time=1500..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population?time=1500..lat...
- DeathArrow 3y ago>This comparaison is very strange: less population means less consumption, which is highly correlated with GHG emissions So the operation succeeds but the patient is dead? The survival of people and cultures trumps GHG emissions. Unless you prefer an empty planet with no GHG emissions.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoWe’re at the highest the human population has ever been. Worrying about an “empty planet” seems extremely silly. The incentives will change as population decreases to where having kids is profitable at some point in the curve
- coffeebeqn 3y agoThe issue is that retirement systems are built on a certain assumption of the population pyramid. This will cause very serious political and societal strife as the retired will largely have more political and financial power and the few young will be (attempted) to be bled dry to maintain the system
- aziaziazi 3y ago> a certain assumption of the population pyramid What is this assumption? The pyramid should look like… a pyramid? Don’t you see the elephant in the room: the population can’t infinitely grow on a finite universe. GDP, dept, income… anything that is virtual can grow as long as you find a way to describe and write them. Ressources and space can be optimized within the boundary of what the known science let us do and what the humans tolerate. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a future with 100s Billions humans eating delicious and healthy meals made of pure fusion energy in a Saturn orbit cafè. Let’s find out solutions of the problems caused by the current demography before increasing it, otherwise it’s betting our descents future on the retirement system.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago[flagged]
- jemmyw 3y agoI think you may have taken to heart the talking points of those opposed to abortion etc. rather than reality. The pro-choice position held by the majority of people is "available, considered and rare". Abortion and sexual health services are also not aligned with population decline. If people can't access those services at all then I posit they might be more likely to never want to try for kids. Just a supposition.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoHuh, I must have read the Jaffe Memo wrong then. https://youtu.be/0ImRyPymRAM https://youtu.be/0ImRyPymRAM
- jemmyw 3y agoYeah I just read about it on wikipedia and it sounds like you did read it wrong. Doesn't mention homosexuality at all for a start. > in 1973, Jaffe stated that "the memorandum makes clear that neither I nor the Planned Parenthood Federation of America advocates any of the specific proposals embodied in the table which go beyond voluntary actions of individual couples to space and limit births."