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Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billi

Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billion humans on this planet?

lotsofpulp 2y ago
The concern is increasing taxation of the young, productive population to sustain the old, non productive population causing political turmoil and decreasing national competitiveness on the global scale.
- nasmorn 2y ago
  Clearly the old people of the future(us) will fight for their pensions in the thunderdome. Which also perfectly explains a lot of the ads I got recently about very muscular old guys
  - missedthecue 2y ago
    Really, they will fight in the voting booth. Imagine US politics right now, but the boomer generation is 3x as big. That is going to be reality in most democracies in the next 20-40 years.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  Good point, young people just out of college who have lived off of their parents and the government for a quarter of a century might get upset about having to support non-productive people.
  - ncruces 2y ago
    People will finally figure out that they're only productive for about a half their lives, and that it's not just the last quarter that they need help with, it's also the first. The real problem is the transition period where there are more unproductive people than not, because the stock of existing people is still here. That's why a crashing population is bad.
    - jackcosgrove 2y ago
      The question is if the complex society we have built actually requires growth to maintain it. In other words, our society requires 0.6 lives of work rather than 0.5. If this is the case, even a steady state would mean a lowered standard of living. It's hard to know, as our societies have decided to reduce costs on the front end (lowered birth rate) rather than on the back end (decreased longevity). That's understandable as someone who is never born doesn't suffer, but it's the worse solution from a social maintenance standpoint.
faeriechangling 2y ago
The impact won't just be after we're dead, we're simply going to have less warm bodies to provide us care when we're seniors and retired than exist today. Schemes like social security, pensions, etc which are financed by new entrants into the system will also become fiscally unviable and benefits WILL be reduced.

Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billion humans on this planet?

lotsofpulp 2y ago

The concern is increasing taxation of the young, productive population to sustain the old, non productive population causing political turmoil and decreasing national competitiveness on the global scale.

nasmorn 2y ago
Clearly the old people of the future(us) will fight for their pensions in the thunderdome. Which also perfectly explains a lot of the ads I got recently about very muscular old guys
- missedthecue 2y ago
  Really, they will fight in the voting booth. Imagine US politics right now, but the boomer generation is 3x as big. That is going to be reality in most democracies in the next 20-40 years.
rufus_foreman 2y ago
Good point, young people just out of college who have lived off of their parents and the government for a quarter of a century might get upset about having to support non-productive people.
- ncruces 2y ago
  People will finally figure out that they're only productive for about a half their lives, and that it's not just the last quarter that they need help with, it's also the first. The real problem is the transition period where there are more unproductive people than not, because the stock of existing people is still here. That's why a crashing population is bad.
  - jackcosgrove 2y ago
    The question is if the complex society we have built actually requires growth to maintain it. In other words, our society requires 0.6 lives of work rather than 0.5. If this is the case, even a steady state would mean a lowered standard of living. It's hard to know, as our societies have decided to reduce costs on the front end (lowered birth rate) rather than on the back end (decreased longevity). That's understandable as someone who is never born doesn't suffer, but it's the worse solution from a social maintenance standpoint.

faeriechangling 2y ago

The impact won't just be after we're dead, we're simply going to have less warm bodies to provide us care when we're seniors and retired than exist today. Schemes like social security, pensions, etc which are financed by new entrants into the system will also become fiscally unviable and benefits WILL be reduced.