7 ms·

There is some discussion about population decrease trends, and I actually had a question about it yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207457#38212

by kredd 3y ago

There is some discussion about population decrease trends, and I actually had a question about it yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207457#38212649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207457#38212649)! I guess, I’ll ask here again — is there anyone working on preparing for a potential bad case scenario in developed world? As in, we would end up with extremely high average age, and not enough young people to support the elderly or the economy in 30-40 years. That’s, obviously, if we fail to reverse the trend of falling birth rates.

BowBun 3y ago
All developed nations got there by exploiting cheap/free labor from immigrants, slaves, and oppressed minorities. There's plenty of extremely poor people left in the world, so I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Already, Japan depends primarily on foreign seasonal labor for their agricultural industry. I predict the same will continue for hundreds of years to come (if we survive that long.
- rangestransform 3y ago
  Robotics will be ready well before then
  - hef19898 3y ago
    We just have to put underpaid workers in fancy StarTrek knock-off spandex costumes, like Tesla did.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
No one is working on this in a serious way. Some are aware of it, the terms "demographic implosion" and "demographic time bomb" are used when discussing it. It's generally considered a right-wing talking point, and those who discuss it are lumped in with white supremacists and other similar kooks and villains. Inasmuch there is a solution, some say that we can replace the missing citizens with immigrants. The trouble there being that they too will soon stop showing up (Africa's fertility rates are dropping too). It is unlikely that the trend is reversible. The social environment of low fertility normalizes the idea of low fertility in children and young people, who then not only practice and reinforce it in their generation, but amplify it for the next.
- kredd 3y ago
  Wait, "generally considered a right-wing talking point" is this real? Like it's even a bigger problem in Asia than in North America. Looking at demographics, as you mentioned, it's going to be a problem in Africa as well. I'm fairly pro-immigration, but I assumed everyone understands it's a bandaid solution that won't last once everyone experiences population decrease? I think I mentioned it in my other comments as well, that I could see a case where they start limiting emigration from countries where young people would be fleeing to other developed countries. Regarding normalizing low fertility - I mean, it's not my place to tell anyone whether to have kids or not. I am not planning to have one anytime soon either for myriad of reasons, but this reverse "tragedy of commons" problem itself is also one of the reasons. But yeah, was hoping I could find more reading where real work is being done to see how we will sustain ourselves with aged population.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > Wait, "generally considered a right-wing talking point" is this real? Yes, at least within the US and the UK. In the US, it's definitely an issue that, if talked about at all, is 100% within the realm of the GOP, and in the UK (as far as I can follow its politics) a Tory thing. The issue is big in Japan and South Korea (China too), and I don't know how it maps to their politics. Would be easier to tell in places like Germany where they have a well-defined "right-wing", but language barriers make it difficult for me to determine. > but I assumed everyone understands it's a bandaid solution that won't last once everyone experiences population decrease? Have a conversation about it sometime. Here on Hackernews, elsewhere. Everyone is in either some strange form of denial or maybe ignorance about it, and refuse to acknowledge it. Apparently there is this magical, infinite well of people that we can just import to make up the difference that will never, ever go away, and if it does go away... aw well shucks, that's not so bad. And if it is bad, I'm glad the human race is going extinct anyway, they've harmed the planet. > Regarding normalizing low fertility - I mean, it's not my place to tell anyone whether to have kids or not. I'm a father. It is my place to say this, and I have. Since the very first day, well before they understood what the words were saying. I don't just love my children, I like them. I want them to go out and make little half-clones of themselves someday. And anyone telling them they shouldn't is a monster. > But yeah, was hoping I could find more reading where real work is being done There are some instinctive reactions to this at the collective level. Various groups are withdrawing from society as much as possible to (in my hypothesis) quarantine their families from the contagion of these ideas. Homeschoolers, those trying to get away from cities and run off to the wilderness. I do not think they'll find much success. The biggest culprit, electronics, can't be easily taken away from children without crippling their economic success in adulthood, which is necessary if they are to become particularly fertile. This is a complete shitshow. It's a slow motion train wreck that is, somehow, still too fast to escape. I do not know if it is a human extinction thing, or if we just end up reverting to some pre-tehchnological subsistence thing, but if they're still around your descendants 1000 years from now might look like cavemen.
ActorNightly 3y ago
>we would end up with extremely high average age, and not enough young people to support the elderly or the economy in 30-40 years. Thats the best case scenario, because economies would dictate massive adoption of AI assisted technologies. At which point you won't have issues like kids being born out of selfishness because you need someone to take care of you in later years.
- missedthecue 3y ago
  AI can't pour concrete
  - ponector 3y ago
    AI can control robots which can pour concrete. There are 3d printed houses already available.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    "What is PALM-2 Robot model"
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > At which point you won't have issues like kids being born out of selfishness because you need someone to take care of you in later years. I want humans to exist 200 years from now, 1000 years from now. This means it's selfish if I have them for that reason too. If people (on average) can't have children for that reason, then humanity will become extinct. It's not as if people have them for the reason of "aren't you supposed to have them!?" anymore. Which, if you think about it, makes the "you're selfish to have kids" a sort of species-wide suicidal ideation. But then, non-suicidal people are sort of selfish, wanting to continue to keep living.
  - CelestialTeapot 3y ago
    >Which, if you think about it, makes the "you're selfish to have kids" a sort of species-wide suicidal ideation. But then, non-suicidal people are sort of selfish, wanting to continue to keep living. You do know that you will continue living if you don't have kids, right? I'm glad to hear you're not selfish, however you do seem inappropriately judgy. What have you done to ensure "humans exist 200 years from now?" Have you done anything to minimize your carbon footprint? Do you walk/bike/take the bus to work instead of drive a petrol/diesel vehicle? Have you petitioned your government to stop using fossil fuels and demand they spend money on green infrastructure and science to improve current technology? What have you done to stop senseless wars? Do you help out at food banks? Do you support government programs to ensure that children get adequate nutrition, you know, programs like SNAP, WIC, or free school lunches/breakfasts? Since you are so invested in the species, I'm sure you're also in favor of national health service to ensure every person, documented or not, receives adequate health care. I applaud your efforts supporting these things and am curious what other things you think will ensure the human species is not endangered by climate change, natural disasters, wars, infertility, and so forth.
starttoaster 3y ago
> That’s, obviously, if we fail to reverse the trend of falling birth rates. Make it cheaper to have babies and people will have babies. Of course, that hits everyone's bottom lines by a little or a lot, including the healthcare industry, daycare industry, baby food and supply industries. Make housing more affordable, nobody wants to live in a 1 bedroom apartment that doesn't even accept pets and raise a newborn. The list goes on and on. We won't address all that in time, and it's going to hit us where it hurts later.
- kredd 3y ago
  From what I've read so far, the data doesn't really support that argument. Even in my circles, the richer the couple, the less likely they have kids and so on. I don't think it's just "if you have money you'll have babies" scenario anymore. All the countries that have tried to be super-pro-baby, so far, have failed to reverse the trend as well.
  - starttoaster 3y ago
    "The data" doesn't really mean much to me, especially without context. By all metrics, I'm pretty well off now. 3 bedroom house, stable job with better income than anyone in my family ever dreamt of. But I spent the last 10-12 years digging myself out of poverty from homelessness. My wife and I don't have kids because we see them as a potential anchor back into poverty and the scare of going back literally haunts us. So I'm curious about your data, but I'm an anecdotal example of someone with money that is not having kids due to the cost. Besides that, haven't you ever heard before that the richer you get, the more parsimonious you become?
    - kredd 3y ago
      Fair enough. My point was, in developed world, if you’re poor you might not have kids because of its costs. If you’re rich, why would you have a kid if they might experience extreme problems in the near future? And it’s also hard for me to imagine to have ~3 kids, even though that’s needed to sustain the population. But yeah, might be a big problem in the future, appreciate your input.
kube-system 3y ago
When push comes to shove, developed countries without enough workers will open up immigration and open their wallets.
- kredd 3y ago
  But when every country (we are going towards it right now) is going below replacement birth rates, what is the solution then? It's just hard to imagine how the society and infrastructure would function when any countries median age is around 50s/60s, making it physically unfit for a significant amount of mission-critical jobs.
  - ponector 3y ago
    That will be a problem only for poor countries with old people. Rich countries could easily import people from all over the world.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    The solution is still what I said above: spend money and change policies. Birth rates can be changed given the political and economic will to do so. If things really become bad, people will demand it.
- missedthecue 3y ago
  Very few countries have positive birth rates anymore. Literally all of South East Asia was below replacement in terms of birth rates in 2022. All of Latin America was below replacement in 2022. For the first time, there are countries in Africa that have now fallen below replacement.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
hef19898 3y ago
The answer is simple, but rather unpopular: immigration.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Unfortunately this answer is not simple... Or I should say, it's only a short term solution. What happens when the places that are making lots of people now, stop? Us: "Hey India, send me some more people" India: "Sorry dude, we're out" India currently is at 2.05 fertility rate, which is replacement rate. Now for quite some time they will have excess population in relation to their wealth, but I don't expect that to last forever.
- ryan93 3y ago
  Most immigrant groups don't generate engineers and scientists at the same rate that western countries.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  If there aren't enough young people to take care of the old, this is directly the fault of the prior generations. Importing labor to take care of them (indirectly) would be a ridiculous overvaluation of their interests over the younger generations' interests. Permanent change to solve a fundamentally temporary problem.
_ZeD_ 3y ago
like - what is italy today?
benlivengood 3y ago
Automation of most jobs basically solves the problem with progressive UBI or social welfare policies.

by kredd 3y ago

BowBun 3y ago

All developed nations got there by exploiting cheap/free labor from immigrants, slaves, and oppressed minorities. There's plenty of extremely poor people left in the world, so I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Already, Japan depends primarily on foreign seasonal labor for their agricultural industry. I predict the same will continue for hundreds of years to come (if we survive that long.

rangestransform 3y ago
Robotics will be ready well before then
- hef19898 3y ago
  We just have to put underpaid workers in fancy StarTrek knock-off spandex costumes, like Tesla did.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

No one is working on this in a serious way. Some are aware of it, the terms "demographic implosion" and "demographic time bomb" are used when discussing it. It's generally considered a right-wing talking point, and those who discuss it are lumped in with white supremacists and other similar kooks and villains. Inasmuch there is a solution, some say that we can replace the missing citizens with immigrants. The trouble there being that they too will soon stop showing up (Africa's fertility rates are dropping too). It is unlikely that the trend is reversible. The social environment of low fertility normalizes the idea of low fertility in children and young people, who then not only practice and reinforce it in their generation, but amplify it for the next.

kredd 3y ago
Wait, "generally considered a right-wing talking point" is this real? Like it's even a bigger problem in Asia than in North America. Looking at demographics, as you mentioned, it's going to be a problem in Africa as well. I'm fairly pro-immigration, but I assumed everyone understands it's a bandaid solution that won't last once everyone experiences population decrease? I think I mentioned it in my other comments as well, that I could see a case where they start limiting emigration from countries where young people would be fleeing to other developed countries. Regarding normalizing low fertility - I mean, it's not my place to tell anyone whether to have kids or not. I am not planning to have one anytime soon either for myriad of reasons, but this reverse "tragedy of commons" problem itself is also one of the reasons. But yeah, was hoping I could find more reading where real work is being done to see how we will sustain ourselves with aged population.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > Wait, "generally considered a right-wing talking point" is this real? Yes, at least within the US and the UK. In the US, it's definitely an issue that, if talked about at all, is 100% within the realm of the GOP, and in the UK (as far as I can follow its politics) a Tory thing. The issue is big in Japan and South Korea (China too), and I don't know how it maps to their politics. Would be easier to tell in places like Germany where they have a well-defined "right-wing", but language barriers make it difficult for me to determine. > but I assumed everyone understands it's a bandaid solution that won't last once everyone experiences population decrease? Have a conversation about it sometime. Here on Hackernews, elsewhere. Everyone is in either some strange form of denial or maybe ignorance about it, and refuse to acknowledge it. Apparently there is this magical, infinite well of people that we can just import to make up the difference that will never, ever go away, and if it does go away... aw well shucks, that's not so bad. And if it is bad, I'm glad the human race is going extinct anyway, they've harmed the planet. > Regarding normalizing low fertility - I mean, it's not my place to tell anyone whether to have kids or not. I'm a father. It is my place to say this, and I have. Since the very first day, well before they understood what the words were saying. I don't just love my children, I like them. I want them to go out and make little half-clones of themselves someday. And anyone telling them they shouldn't is a monster. > But yeah, was hoping I could find more reading where real work is being done There are some instinctive reactions to this at the collective level. Various groups are withdrawing from society as much as possible to (in my hypothesis) quarantine their families from the contagion of these ideas. Homeschoolers, those trying to get away from cities and run off to the wilderness. I do not think they'll find much success. The biggest culprit, electronics, can't be easily taken away from children without crippling their economic success in adulthood, which is necessary if they are to become particularly fertile. This is a complete shitshow. It's a slow motion train wreck that is, somehow, still too fast to escape. I do not know if it is a human extinction thing, or if we just end up reverting to some pre-tehchnological subsistence thing, but if they're still around your descendants 1000 years from now might look like cavemen.

ActorNightly 3y ago

>we would end up with extremely high average age, and not enough young people to support the elderly or the economy in 30-40 years. Thats the best case scenario, because economies would dictate massive adoption of AI assisted technologies. At which point you won't have issues like kids being born out of selfishness because you need someone to take care of you in later years.

missedthecue 3y ago
AI can't pour concrete
- ponector 3y ago
  AI can control robots which can pour concrete. There are 3d printed houses already available.
- pixl97 3y ago
  "What is PALM-2 Robot model"
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> At which point you won't have issues like kids being born out of selfishness because you need someone to take care of you in later years. I want humans to exist 200 years from now, 1000 years from now. This means it's selfish if I have them for that reason too. If people (on average) can't have children for that reason, then humanity will become extinct. It's not as if people have them for the reason of "aren't you supposed to have them!?" anymore. Which, if you think about it, makes the "you're selfish to have kids" a sort of species-wide suicidal ideation. But then, non-suicidal people are sort of selfish, wanting to continue to keep living.
- CelestialTeapot 3y ago
  >Which, if you think about it, makes the "you're selfish to have kids" a sort of species-wide suicidal ideation. But then, non-suicidal people are sort of selfish, wanting to continue to keep living. You do know that you will continue living if you don't have kids, right? I'm glad to hear you're not selfish, however you do seem inappropriately judgy. What have you done to ensure "humans exist 200 years from now?" Have you done anything to minimize your carbon footprint? Do you walk/bike/take the bus to work instead of drive a petrol/diesel vehicle? Have you petitioned your government to stop using fossil fuels and demand they spend money on green infrastructure and science to improve current technology? What have you done to stop senseless wars? Do you help out at food banks? Do you support government programs to ensure that children get adequate nutrition, you know, programs like SNAP, WIC, or free school lunches/breakfasts? Since you are so invested in the species, I'm sure you're also in favor of national health service to ensure every person, documented or not, receives adequate health care. I applaud your efforts supporting these things and am curious what other things you think will ensure the human species is not endangered by climate change, natural disasters, wars, infertility, and so forth.

starttoaster 3y ago

> That’s, obviously, if we fail to reverse the trend of falling birth rates. Make it cheaper to have babies and people will have babies. Of course, that hits everyone's bottom lines by a little or a lot, including the healthcare industry, daycare industry, baby food and supply industries. Make housing more affordable, nobody wants to live in a 1 bedroom apartment that doesn't even accept pets and raise a newborn. The list goes on and on. We won't address all that in time, and it's going to hit us where it hurts later.

kredd 3y ago
From what I've read so far, the data doesn't really support that argument. Even in my circles, the richer the couple, the less likely they have kids and so on. I don't think it's just "if you have money you'll have babies" scenario anymore. All the countries that have tried to be super-pro-baby, so far, have failed to reverse the trend as well.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  "The data" doesn't really mean much to me, especially without context. By all metrics, I'm pretty well off now. 3 bedroom house, stable job with better income than anyone in my family ever dreamt of. But I spent the last 10-12 years digging myself out of poverty from homelessness. My wife and I don't have kids because we see them as a potential anchor back into poverty and the scare of going back literally haunts us. So I'm curious about your data, but I'm an anecdotal example of someone with money that is not having kids due to the cost. Besides that, haven't you ever heard before that the richer you get, the more parsimonious you become?
  - kredd 3y ago
    Fair enough. My point was, in developed world, if you’re poor you might not have kids because of its costs. If you’re rich, why would you have a kid if they might experience extreme problems in the near future? And it’s also hard for me to imagine to have ~3 kids, even though that’s needed to sustain the population. But yeah, might be a big problem in the future, appreciate your input.

kube-system 3y ago

When push comes to shove, developed countries without enough workers will open up immigration and open their wallets.

kredd 3y ago
But when every country (we are going towards it right now) is going below replacement birth rates, what is the solution then? It's just hard to imagine how the society and infrastructure would function when any countries median age is around 50s/60s, making it physically unfit for a significant amount of mission-critical jobs.
- ponector 3y ago
  That will be a problem only for poor countries with old people. Rich countries could easily import people from all over the world.
- kube-system 3y ago
  The solution is still what I said above: spend money and change policies. Birth rates can be changed given the political and economic will to do so. If things really become bad, people will demand it.
missedthecue 3y ago
Very few countries have positive birth rates anymore. Literally all of South East Asia was below replacement in terms of birth rates in 2022. All of Latin America was below replacement in 2022. For the first time, there are countries in Africa that have now fallen below replacement.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

hef19898 3y ago

The answer is simple, but rather unpopular: immigration.

pixl97 3y ago
Unfortunately this answer is not simple... Or I should say, it's only a short term solution. What happens when the places that are making lots of people now, stop? Us: "Hey India, send me some more people" India: "Sorry dude, we're out" India currently is at 2.05 fertility rate, which is replacement rate. Now for quite some time they will have excess population in relation to their wealth, but I don't expect that to last forever.
ryan93 3y ago
Most immigrant groups don't generate engineers and scientists at the same rate that western countries.
pfannkuchen 3y ago
If there aren't enough young people to take care of the old, this is directly the fault of the prior generations. Importing labor to take care of them (indirectly) would be a ridiculous overvaluation of their interests over the younger generations' interests. Permanent change to solve a fundamentally temporary problem.

_ZeD_ 3y ago

like - what is italy today?

benlivengood 3y ago

Automation of most jobs basically solves the problem with progressive UBI or social welfare policies.