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Deaths are projected to exceed births in 2031
- delecti 1y agoImportantly, in the US, and before counting immigration. Still a significant milestone though.
- Trowter 1y ago[flagged]
- shadowgovt 1y agoIn what sense?
- happytoexplain 1y agoIt's a sarcastic way of saying "there is a lot of Indian immigration".
- LAC-Tech 1y agoFertility rate of India is below replacement. Western countries are trying to prevent super aged societies via mass migration. Of course 1) Most of the source countries are themselves low fertility and 2) the more mass migration you have the less attractive the target country becomes. It's just kicking the can down the road. inb4 "wHaT aBoUt AfRiCa"? West Africa is about what the western world was post war, and is on the exact same trajectory - declining every year.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 - August 2025 (400 comments)
- dhosek 1y ago[flagged]
- didgetmaster 1y agoThe US has one of the most generous LEGAL immigration policies in the world and there never seems to be a lack of people around the world who are willing to fill available slots. The current administration is trying to make it so fewer people will want to violate our laws and sneak into our country. Those two things actually have very little to do with each other. That is why some of the biggest supporters of border enforcement are those who came here through legal channels.
- happytoexplain 1y agoI think it's worth keeping in mind that immigration is arguably the reason an administration this repugnant was able to get into power democratically. It's the one issue on which a small but critical mass of liberals have similar negative experiences as compared to most conservatives.
- geodel 1y agoI think lot of people will keep wanting but will be not be able to if current regime continues.
- whatever1 1y agoWhat kind of weird equilibrium is this. We know that better living conditions (health, income, education etc) lead to lower fertility. In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering. Wtf.
- MangoToupe 1y agoCan you expound on this? It makes sense to me that global wealth inequality would drive conflict.
- arcticbull 1y ago> In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering. I think that's the wrong read. All sorts of animal population follow a sigmoidal growth pattern where there's exponential growth, some degree of overshoot and then a return to a steady level somewhat below that peak. I think it's more likely, drawing from biology, that we end up at a stable global population level without having to worry about moving backwards along the metrics of education, income or contraceptive access. Remember it was just a few years ago everyone was absolutely terrified that we would grow to the point where the world simply couldn't hold us all and we'd die off -- and now we're terrified the population will zero out. In reality, neither is very likely. We're probably just going to chill around 8 billion or so until/if we go multi-planetary.
- spwa4 1y agoActually growth patterns of animals vary wildly. There's a whole set of animals that get "unstable" growth - Cats are famous for this, for example. That means that cat numbers in specific areas actually grow to the point that cats die out in the next generation, destabilizing the entire food chain in the process (happened in Australia, for example) The problem with this instability is that the numbers bounce around wildly. Up and down, by a lot, in as little as 2 or 3 generations. But there's a process that stops the bouncing: hitting zero.
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- robotnikman 1y agoPerfect timing with AI and Robots soon slated to take over most jobs. Not sure if I should add a /s to this.
- jeffrallen 1y agoPretty sure not sure equals, "sure!"
- Yoric 1y agoIf you don't, how will our Friend the Computer know that you're being sarcastic? Might wish to add it in ultraviolet, though.
- cpursley 1y agoThis right here, not sure about "most jobs", but I'm optimistic that this will bring things into balance.
- evanwolf 1y agoBeyond demography, Much of this depends on public policy and execution. Will more of us live in conditions that prevent a oidable death or injury? Or another way?
- mullingitover 1y agoIt's taken as gospel that the Brave New World automated human gestation centers would be A Bad Thing, but frankly the number of problems that would be solved with this scheme are huge. I think the first country to do it will be scolded heavily, but only until everyone else figures out how they did it and are able to copy them.
- godsinhisheaven 1y agoIf human gestation centers are ever proposed in a country, I would hope the countries of the world would declare war on that country for the sole purpose of stopping it
- fires10 1y agoWhy? I don't understand why they would be bad? Some people can't naturally have children. It is a risk to a woman to be pregnant.
- etrautmann 1y agoWho raises these farmed embryos? What is the thought here beyond just more infants?
- dylan604 1y agoCopper top batteries would be one use even if that's a different story line
- shadowgovt 1y agoWith 8 billion people on the planet, we are at no risk of running out any time soon.
- edflsafoiewq 1y agoRunning what are functionally massive orphanages seems like it'd be harder than the purely technical problem of automated gestation.
- gregw134 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument Statistically, we're most likely to be born when the world population is at its peak.
- ForHackernews 1y agoI'll worry about depopulation the very instant my rent ever goes down.
- j-bos 1y agoDoes that mean employers will value their employees again?
- klysm 1y agoNo
- NoPicklez 1y agoI've been hearing for a long time in Australia that we have an enormous aging population. It could be that birth rates hadn't kept up with previous birth rates, or it could be that birth rates have sort've normalised. Either way, we supposedly have a large aging population and as such death rates are going to increase due to old age etc