> maximalist outlook that population must grow I don't, I'd be perfectly happy with a stable population too. Infinite growth is a dumb goal and I don't support

> maximalist outlook that population must grow I don't, I'd be perfectly happy with a stable population too. Infinite growth is a dumb goal and I don't support it as a goal (at least until someone demonstrates space colonization). But a society where generations get dramatically smaller is screwed. You need a balanced (or better) ratio of workers to retirees, mainly. If you took the US and teleported a representative (by age) sample of 80 million people by age to another planet, our society here wouldn't collapse, everything would be pretty ok, we would still have the same basic economy, and the fewer kids and elders to take care of, the reduced consumption, would balance out the loss of the workers. But if they took 80 million people between 30 and 65 instead (that's probably most of that age group), things would go really badly for us, because there aren't enough 20-somethings and 65+ workers to do all the things that keep the kids and retirees fed. If we simply wait 30 or 40 years, China (among others) will be in a situation like that. US is not much better and I can certainly imagine it getting much worse in the US. And I can confidently predict a maximum number of 30 year olds we'll have in 30 years because every one of them has already been born. Even extreme measures can at best only make more 2055 29-year-olds. > how is China doing better or worse than its peers? As I stated, China has one of the worst birth rates -- numerically it's doing worse. I don't have a beef with China. I hope they and the rest of the West can figure out how to improve the birth rates soon.