The rich in this case == old people. People over 55 own 73% of the US. Billionaires don't come close to the wealth of boomers. In countries with national pensions they just do it via taxation, in the US it's via retirement funds invested in the companies abusing workers.
People don't seem to get that everything has a cost in human labor to it and if you want people to continue enjoying the benefits of what is actually a pretty good economy all things considered, there need to be enough workers. If there are not enough workers, you can't have retirement anymore. In fact, a few decades from now we'll have to get rid of retirement as a concept unless we want actual slavery.
People forget how much was going right in the 90s, especially in the states. Boomers were in their prime working years, paying into Social Security instead of collecting it. Women’s participation in the workforce had hugely expanded. Also a decade of strong economic growth and job creation meant more people working, lower unemployment, and more money going into the system. It allowed the US to briefly reverse the decades-long decline in the number of workers supporting each Social Security beneficiary, and then kept that ratio stable for a while. Obviously some of that was demographic luck, but the Clinton economy was actually putting people to work.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 16:44)
Ya know, I have vague memories of reading an argument somewhere that the black plague killed off so many peasants that the surviving ones had materially less shitty conditions for a little while, due to scarcity and all that.
Specifically, the peasants had more bargaining power for better conditions because the absolute decrease in their number made each of them more valuable to the ruling class as individuals. There was an increase in peasant revolts and concessions to the peasantry following the black death partly for this reason.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 14:51)
The people that want higher birth rates don't care about higher wages, the environment, or people's safety.
They just need workers they can milk them until they can't work anymore. They need these workers to spend all their money so they have to keep working.
Population decline isn't inherently a problem (unless you're a racist worried about "your people" losing power). Too rapid population decline is a big problem. We're already seeing the effects: When the sum of birth rates and working-age immigration fall fast enough, the ratio of working-age people to care-needing people also falls. I don't think I need to explain why it's a problem that every able-bodied working age adult will be responsible (directly or indirectly) for taking care of more people. It puts more pressure on everyone, and impacts societies ability to care for those in need of it.
A controlled, slow, population decline would probably just be a good thing at this point. However, that's not what prognoses are pointing towards, and that's why (non-racist) people are worried.
I’ll acknowledge that saying it’s a dog whistle every time was slightly hyperbolic.
However, I’d argue that the claim that the global human population is declining too rapidly is actually pretty hotly contested. The world's population is still growing — around 8.2 billion now, heading toward a peak near 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
That being said, in some countries there will be a surplus of retirees and not enough workers to fund them through the existing tax structure, which is a legitimate problem. But it's a problem best remedied through better social safety nets, not by popping out more babies.
The biggest contention I have with the concern over population decline is that population decline doesn’t matter at all if we don’t adequately address climate change within the next decade. If someone’s house is actively on fire and they express concern to me that their roof should be re-shingled, I’m not going to give a shit about their roof shingles until I’m certain their roof will survi
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I’ll acknowledge that saying it’s a dog whistle every time was slightly hyperbolic.
However, I’d argue that the claim that the global human population is declining too rapidly is actually pretty hotly contested. The world's population is still growing — around 8.2 billion now, heading toward a peak near 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
That being said, in some countries there will be a surplus of retirees and not enough workers to fund them through the existing tax structure, which is a legitimate problem. But it's a problem best remedied through better social safety nets, not by popping out more babies.
The biggest contention I have with the concern over population decline is that population decline doesn’t matter at all if we don’t adequately address climate change within the next decade. If someone’s house is actively on fire and they express concern to me that their roof should be re-shingled, I’m not going to give a shit about their roof shingles until I’m certain their roof will survive the fire.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 23:53)
Thanks, that was a much more nuanced take that I have a much easier time agreeing with :)
I think the population problem has some in common with food distribution: There's enough food in the world, it's just distributed in such a way that some places have obesity as a societal-level issue, while other places people are dying of malnourishment.
Similarly, the global population is increasing, however it's increasing far more rapidly that sustainable in some places, while declining more rapidly than sustainable in others.
There's only so much you can do by redistributing wealth in a better way (which I think we should, regardless). It doesn't help to tax the rich if there isn't any manpower you can buy with that tax income to actually do the work that needs doing. I think that's the scary part about a rapid population decline: We're heading towards a situation (in some places) where the ratio of capable workers to people needing care approaches 2:1, which means a far larger fraction of the population will need to spend their entire working career as direct care prov
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Thanks, that was a much more nuanced take that I have a much easier time agreeing with :)
I think the population problem has some in common with food distribution: There's enough food in the world, it's just distributed in such a way that some places have obesity as a societal-level issue, while other places people are dying of malnourishment.
Similarly, the global population is increasing, however it's increasing far more rapidly that sustainable in some places, while declining more rapidly than sustainable in others.
There's only so much you can do by redistributing wealth in a better way (which I think we should, regardless). It doesn't help to tax the rich if there isn't any manpower you can buy with that tax income to actually do the work that needs doing. I think that's the scary part about a rapid population decline: We're heading towards a situation (in some places) where the ratio of capable workers to people needing care approaches 2:1, which means a far larger fraction of the population will need to spend their entire working career as direct care providers than is currently the case. You can't really alleviate a manpower shortage with just money.
Worry about population decline isn't about wanting more people. It's about wanting there to be enough working-age people to cover the retirement and medical payments of the ones no longer working. We know exactly how many 30-year-olds we'll have in 20 years and it's simply not enough. Something has to give and usually the first to go is the benefits for the people who most need them.
I highly doubt that would be anywhere near enough even if the issue was only limited to the country with the highest number of ultra wealthy people which it isn't.
Sort of depend on perspective, hunger only exists because there's no political will to remove it.
We produce more food globally than we consume, and we can multiply it several times with the same cost of space by swapping more meat for vegan crops.
We have plenty of space for everyone to have shelter, the problem is largely due to the issue that most people want to live in a metropolitan area. So the price for living in a highly sought out location increases to unmanageable levels.
A key factor is the big difference between the kinds of jobs you can get in a more rural location compared to the bigger urban centers. Everyone are forced to move to urban locations to study, causing most people to form their first adult social and professional circles around whichever urban location they studied at.
There's a lot of minor things that needs to be done, what exactly differs by country. But making the rural regions more accessible to live in should be considered across most countries. One simple first step, would be to make remote capable jobs offer their workers
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Sort of depend on perspective, hunger only exists because there's no political will to remove it.
We produce more food globally than we consume, and we can multiply it several times with the same cost of space by swapping more meat for vegan crops.
We have plenty of space for everyone to have shelter, the problem is largely due to the issue that most people want to live in a metropolitan area. So the price for living in a highly sought out location increases to unmanageable levels.
A key factor is the big difference between the kinds of jobs you can get in a more rural location compared to the bigger urban centers. Everyone are forced to move to urban locations to study, causing most people to form their first adult social and professional circles around whichever urban location they studied at.
There's a lot of minor things that needs to be done, what exactly differs by country. But making the rural regions more accessible to live in should be considered across most countries. One simple first step, would be to make remote capable jobs offer their workers to do it all remotely. Government office workers, could quite easily spearhead such an initiative; I bet some people would move closer to nature, if they could hold onto their bread
Elon Musk could end world hunger. Full stop. He wouldn’t even notice the dip in his finances. (He offered once, claiming if someone gave him a concrete number, he would pay it, and a nonprofit took him up on it. Surprise, surprise, the whiny little snit backed out.)
They totally could fix the problem. But to those rich shitheads, it’s not a problem. It’s a feature.
The problem with calling it a ponzi scheme is that this would apply in all contexts, even in very basic economies without money. If you have a tribe of hunter gathers and suddenly they have a sharp decrease in their birth rate, they too would have a hard time taking care of their elderly/children.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 17:51)
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Why the obsession with only retirees? What matters is the dependency ratio.
The dependency ratio counts the total number of dependents, not just the retirees the eugenicists like to focus on. By the end of the century, globally we'll have a dependency ratio similar to the level it was in the mid-20th century.
Literally the opposite of what's being talked about? The issue is people aren't having enough kids and our economic system is predicated on there being enough people working to support those who don't work (kids, retirees, disabled people). Over the coming decades, we won't have enough people for all the people who need to be supported.
Scroll down that page a bit and you'll find the "Rate of Growth" chart where you can see a clear decline in birth rate increase globally since the 1960s and it'll only be another decade or so with current trends before we are in genuine negative population growth. And that's also assuming there are no more pandemics and/or global scale ecologocial catastrophes likely to happen in that time (there almost certainly will be).
That’s not what the given website says. The given source predicts a continuous growth until at least 2100, while the growth rate slowly grinds to a halt but doesn’t go negative. Obviously this is only one possible forecast, others give different outcomes
The slowing down of population growth is real though. Trend of fewer children is across the board not just developed countries. Current trajectory estimates population to peak out in 2050-2080 and then decline, for some in their youth in next 30 or 50 years may not be that too far to completely dismiss.
There are real challenges to population decline, especially rapid decline like Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, russia, and China are facing.
The US and Great Britain are not looking at that rapid decline. For us, it's a problem to be managed. Every generation of schoolchildren is 75% the size of the preceeding generation.
That's manageable. No promises that we will do anything to manage it, but it's not crisis level. Other countries will have greater problems. JApan has been doing Allright.
Japan has not been doing all right. Their economy has long stagnated, working conditions have been maintained rough with very long working hours and recently they have pivoted on their isolationism bordering on racism to accept workers for outside Japan.
Wages will go up as will competition over labor which will mean less businesses and a shrink in the economy. Do we want to live in a world where small business cant hire anyone?
We don't need a "bigger" economy. We probably need a "smaller" economy. It needs to be redesigned and rebuilt, so that the people who do the work are the ones that reap the benefits.
The right wing family values rural living types seem awfully strange when they are unhappy about the suggestion that we return to 1960s population levels
you all going to say bullshit about retirement, like if fascist around the globe don't want to take it from you already, no amount of canon fodders you spawn for billionaires won't change that
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 8:44)
When the population was predicted to explode into the 21st century, the news said this was a big problem. Now the population is expected to gradually decline. The news is saying this is a big problem.
Not all news, per se, but I do recall seeing reporting on how a good handful of countries are trying to combat falling birth rates. Like in Far East and Far North countries.
Booms have market opportunity, and busts have market opportunity.
That said, having too many people to do the work is a lot less dangerous than not enough people to do the work.
The bust comes with a high risk of a total economic collapse. Those houses get cheap, but food, sanitary, and energy security are at risk. Living in a rotting infrastructure is very different than living in an expanding but underdeveloped infrastructure.
Leveling out or a slow population decline would be good in some scenarios. If we're going from 2.5:1 down to 0.25:1, you'll end up with another boomer wave, pissed off at the government, ripe for scenarios that make today's problems seem like an annoying party.
What happens in the rural areas when the need for grocery stores halves, all the walmarts pull out, we have to re-invent logistics. I expect people will either have to go back to making everything themselves, or they'll have to bunch back together around resources.
Yeah. But people won't change willingly. A lot of the suburbs around my city are pretty rich areas. I don't expect those people to willingly move to the denser inner city anytime soon. More likely they'll petition city hall to keep their subdivisions running until the city goes bankrupt from the financial burden of supporting a subdivision that does not bring in enough property taxes to support itself
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 12:27)
"Nicer" cities are growing in almost all parts of the world, right? If anything, rural infrastructure will dwindle as people move to the cities for opportunities and amenities.
Who's gonna build that real estate with fewer people around? Where would money for higher salary come from with fewer customers? Pollution argument is a "carbon footprint" type of bullshit to shift responsibility to general population from companies that actually do most of pollution, and violently defend their right to do so. Communities become less highly knit because of third spaces dying, phones colonising spare time, and algorithms pushing people to have worse view of world and each other.
Increase population should increase efficiency (economies of scale, many products of intellectual labor being infinitely replicatable) - and efficiency did increase at the same time as population. It's just that salaries didn't.
Mental gymnastic to make worsening conditions of ordinary people somehow fault of other ordinary people.
How do you account for buildings decaying with time? Let's look at shorter term too while we're at it. Luckily, we don't have to speculate - in Japan a lot of towns depopulate, locally due to people moving to big cities, as well as generally due to population decline. They have increased bear attacks, car brigdes use of which is banned because they are old, but municipalities don't even have money to demolish them, healthcare less available
We'll make do. We're very good at making do. Might even say the best at making do.
If our civilization is propped up on the next generation supplying us with an ever increasing population for the meat grinder, what we have is actually a planet wide ponzi scheme. We would do well to make do with less.
But I don't see good arguments that we're overpopulated and need downsizing in the post.
Downsizing will not increase quality of life/solve economic challenges we have. Yes, if we have to, we can "make do" with a wide range of conditions. Why do we have to? Maybe sustainability? Population was half of it's current in 1974 and we were already changing the climate and polluting. Sticking it to those who exploit us, so they'd have fewer people to exploit? Maybe having to (metaphorically) downsize their yachts will be personal tragedies for them, but I don't see it as a huge win.
But yes, all the points in the post look so apparently easily refuted (except for "tightly knit communities", "crime" there is some space for argument there), that I must misunderstand it somehow. It's honestly not intentional.
If it's not too much trouble, please tell me?? I'd like to see compelling version of the argument.
Just because toxic algorithms are making people worse doesn’t mean they’re inherently good, nothing that person said implied that. But also, buddy, you seem kinda depressed, and I’m sorry for that. Most people are basically good most of the time. The vast majority of everyone wants what is best for everyone else, we just have really shitty information about each other.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 14:58)
Raising wages fucks the people trying to retire because their stock holdings lose value. It'll have to be slavery if you want to continue having retirement as a thing. Ideally colonialism + slavery, just import slaves from countries still experiencing population growth, such as many African ones...
Wait I think something about this idea might be problematic
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 15:47)
Okay, but retirement is based off there being more people working than not, so in countries with national pensions we'll have to significantly raise taxes, and in countries without such a system, retirees who are invested into index funds, need publicly traded corporations to start underpaying their employees even more (it's really eye-opening when you realize people over 55 own 73% of all the resources of the US, from money to stocks to real estate).
Sounds to me like we'll have to do a communism, i.e banding together to help each other out more, to allow people to retire in comfort. The horror!
(Just in case it seems like I'm dismissing anything you said, I'm not, and thank you for your analysis. My main takeaway is that it seems an unavoidable problem)
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 16:28)
This is not about communism vs capitalism, its about the ratios. If there are 5 old people for every young person then how are we supposed to take care of all the old people? There’s just not enough manpower.
Population decline is a global phenomenon. You can't offset this loss with immigration when the countries people are coming from are also experiencing a population decline. We (in the West) are currently using immigration to offset this loss now, but when the population decline really starts hitting other parts of the globe (as it is projected to do within the next few decades) then that will no longer be a solution.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 18:24)
Actually it is a communism vs capitalism thing. The problem arises in both, but the solutions available depend on the system. I reccomend you look up how China is handling its massive elderly population. For example the elderly there have huge public parks and get outside moving and socializing a lot. In big cities it's common for them to have mid day slow dance meetings in the parks. This is only possible because the government's priority is not producing profit for billionaires but caring for its people. So it maintains these things and the public transport required to get the elderly there, and the assistance to keep them fed and healthy.
When people stay active and a part of their community into their old age instead of sitting in their huge houses alone or in a nursing home they require much less support to keep living.
Username checks out... I am not particularly happy about many of the things china does, and I don't think "but they are not the US" is an excuse for authoritarianism and imperialism, they got a way better culture of how to deal with old people than the west, both in traditions and in institutions.
If I had praised the the EU for their open border policy and talked about how freedom of movement has had multiple positive impacts on the nations in it would you have felt the need to jump in and be angry and start bringing up french neo-colonialism in west africa, and german munitions support for israel, and their mistreatment of immigrants/rising far-right movements? I don't think you would have. Maybe you should do a bit of introspection and try to figure out why seeing China mentioned in a positive light causes you to have such a reaction?
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 16:52)
No, it's about the scale of society and how we support ourselves in retirement, though. See, if retirement funds rely on, as the guy above me says 1. Companies underpaying their employees and 2. Governments taxing a group of more people in the below generations than there are to support in the top - then those are unsustainable sources of retirement comfort.
So what would be sustainable? Well historically, and in some countries today, old people need family to support them into old age. You would need either your own kid, with their own house big enough for you, or a rich little nephew with a house big enough for all you and your siblings to live in while retired.
Or... We just do the decent thing and take care of non-relatives. To ease the load on, say, retirement homes, we'd need to agree across society to bring the old people into communities of younger adults, and those younger adults would need to check on them regularly.
Sice this requires a community binding together, you might call it "communism." Though it isn't necessarily Marxism.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 18:52)
We should be in a situation where people need to take in like 5 non-relative old people into their homes and provide them constant care (which they cannot do if they are at work). It's not sustainable no matter your economic system.
Also the ratio is a lot higher in nursing homes. Yes you might have a ratio of x nurses to y old people, but you also need to consider the people indirectly contributing. Like the trades people who built the building, or the people who pay for the care through taxes or otherwise, the people working to route electricity, the pharmacists making all those medications that the old people need, etc.
Also, we need people to do jobs other than working in nursing homes. We can't have all our workforce caring for the elderly.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 9 de octubre de 2026, 22:16)
Why do you care about the ratio of workers to old people? What matters is the ratio of dependents to workers. We have more retirees, but we also have fewer children. This isn't that hard. If we could manage the Baby Boom of the 50s, we can manage this.
That's an interesting point but I'm not sure if the numbers really add up. As I understand it, the number of dependents will be greater from population decline (primarily due to an aging population) than it was during the baby boom
What matters even more is total productivity per citizen. It does not matter if a house is built by 20 builders with shovels or 5 builders with excavators. What matters is the house being built. And productivity per worker has massively risen and is, in my opinion, going to rise further.
Hogwash. You forgot the other half of the equation. We don't have as many children to support. Notice how people obsessed over birth rate always focus on the retiree:worker ratio rather than the dependent:worker ratio? The problem disappears once you realize we can simply take money that we were spending on childcare and shift it to eldercare.
It broke the back of the Catholic church and feudalism. Peasants got their first pay raise... ever.
You're missing maybe the most important part of this: ...eventually. It was at least 40 years after the plague hit, and probably more like 70-100, depending how exactly you're counting. AKA after we're all dead
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 21:01)
Birth rates are already decreasing and are below replacement rate in many places already. Fertility rates are at an all time low. They naturally decrease as income and quality of life increases.
The global fertility rate is 2.2 births per woman. Which is just barely above replacement. In most developed nations, that rate is down in the 1.6 range, well below replacement.
Total Human population is excepted to peak within 50 years and then begun naturally declining, but many countries are already there. China has seen several consecutive years of population decline. India is seeing a leveling off of population growth and will soon decline. The US is increasing solely off of immigration. Japan has a decreasing population. Same with Korea. 8 EU countries have seen population declines over the last 20 years.
If you wanted to see population decline in the US specifically, banning immigration would do it and we’d see a decline in the next census.
People can also just stop breeding. Seems to be happening in a lot of developed countries. Might be slower but I bet the population will level off eventually. Or plummet dramatically from climate change/right wing political policies.
Also the financial ponzi schemes break all at once pissing off old people who vote in mecha-hitler to enslave everyone under 40 so their house prices and pensions stay high.
I mean, this is a pretty silly response. Is there a hidden population of Martians I'm not aware of, eager to immigrate to Earth to work our low skill jobs?
Huh? Global population is still growing. (More slowly now, but the slope is still strongly positive.) We haven't hit peak human population yet and won't any time soon. That means if the population of the US declines, we can just import more USians.
We're talking about a global phenomenon here. It's pretty racist to assume that other groups of human beings are somehow fundamentally different from your own. It's pretty xenophobic to believe that the countries with high birth rates will just maintain them forever.
The problem isn't the US running out of workers. The problem is the entire world running out of workers.
They are fundamentally different; the west is looting their country for resources and cheap labor, they will maintain high birthrates so long as neocolonialism prevents them from developing their own means of production.
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 0:56)
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You're trying to move the goalposts. We're talking about the future and how birth rates are trending. Now you're trying to change the conversation to the present, "Are you suggesting that birthrates don’t remain high in the global south?" Obviously they're higher in some countries, but those rates are collapsing like they are everywhere else. And there isn't a good match between those countries and what is usually described as the global south.
We're talking about the future need for workers, not the present. So please don't try to move the goalposts by asking the obvious question of are birth rates still higher in the SOME PARTS of the
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You're trying to move the goalposts. We're talking about the future and how birth rates are trending. Now you're trying to change the conversation to the present, "Are you suggesting that birthrates don’t remain high in the global south?" Obviously they're higher in some countries, but those rates are collapsing like they are everywhere else. And there isn't a good match between those countries and what is usually described as the global south.
We're talking about the future need for workers, not the present. So please don't try to move the goalposts by asking the obvious question of are birth rates still higher in the SOME PARTS of the global south relative to the north.
But there's a very clear trend here. Every single country undergoes a decline in birth rates as it industrializes. The global south is not an infinite source of labor you can rely on forever.
You need to let go of this myopic North/South, Imperialist/Colonized framework you seem to be trying to shoehorn into every problem. Here are the countries that have above replacement fertility rates (in green):
There's no real connection here between these countries and "the global south." Counties such as India, most of South America, Iran, SE Asia, etc are all below replacement rates.
Here's what fertility rates are currently projected to look like in 2100:
We're on track to have less than a handful of countries around the world with above-replacement fertility rates. The global south doesn't have elevated fertility rates, the specific regions of Subsaharan Africa and Central Asia do. Even Somalia will barely be above the replacement rate.
You're too lost in a surface-level understanding of "theory" (read: socialist memes) that it's clouding your judgment. Within a generation, countries all over the world, including countries in the global south, will be fighting each other to attract immigrants.
The total fertility rate of the world has dropped from around 5 children per woman in 1950, to 2.2 children per woman in 2025, which means that women today are having fewer than half the number of children that women did 75 years ago.
Thanks for actually bringing the receipts, that is sadly rare even here.
The future is uncertain and the end is always near. 2100 is a long way to go, if we make it there without a global war, mass death due to land becoming inhabitable with climate change, and good ol' empires violently collapsing, that would be something already.
Many of the countries that experience lower fertility rates are way below what they should realistically carry. India for example, a country with lots of poverty that is already struggling to feed its population after just a little bit of fuel price jumping, has no business being at what, 1.4 billion? Why should we continue to grow even further beyond the limits of a country?
There’s no real connection here between these countries and “the global south.”
Well, there is, if you don't use a binary indicator of above/below replacement rate, and don't just take "south" as geographically south, but rather as "poor, exploited countries, usually (but not always and exclusively) in the south".
India for example, a country with lots of poverty that is already struggling to feed its population after just a little bit of fuel price jumping, has no business being at what, 1.4 billion? Why should we continue to grow even further beyond the limits of a country?
India is already below replacement rate.
Well, there is, if you don’t use a binary indicator of above/below replacement rate, and don’t just take “south” as geographically south, but rather as “poor, exploited countries, usually (but not always and exclusively) in the south”.
You're missing the point. This isn't about geography. This is about the actual countries that get labeled as the global south. That includes India, China, Southeast Asia, South America, etc. These are the countries that experienced the worst of colonialism. And they're all heading straight towards population decline, just like the global north.
Even the fears about the economy and government spending are bullshit. Notice the folks obsessing over birthrates always quote the retiree to worker ratio. They don't talk about the dependent to worker ratio, and that's what really matters. Yes, our populations are aging, and yes that means relatively more old people to take care of. But we in turn also have far fewer children to take care of. If we can adapt to the Baby Boom era, we can adapt to an aging population.
Further afield, fears about human extinction are total bullshit. No country is a monolith; every nation has groups within it with higher and lower relative birth rates. If the birth rate stays low and never recovers among the mainstream society, eventually the smaller groups end up composing most of the population, and then the birth rate recovers. The Amish inherit the Earth.
Or, if even that fails, ultimately technology loss alone stabilizes your birthrates. Eventually your population falls so low that you just can't physically manufacture reliable birth control anymore. That's a product of industrial pr
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Even the fears about the economy and government spending are bullshit. Notice the folks obsessing over birthrates always quote the retiree to worker ratio. They don't talk about the dependent to worker ratio, and that's what really matters. Yes, our populations are aging, and yes that means relatively more old people to take care of. But we in turn also have far fewer children to take care of. If we can adapt to the Baby Boom era, we can adapt to an aging population.
Further afield, fears about human extinction are total bullshit. No country is a monolith; every nation has groups within it with higher and lower relative birth rates. If the birth rate stays low and never recovers among the mainstream society, eventually the smaller groups end up composing most of the population, and then the birth rate recovers. The Amish inherit the Earth.
Or, if even that fails, ultimately technology loss alone stabilizes your birthrates. Eventually your population falls so low that you just can't physically manufacture reliable birth control anymore. That's a product of industrial production. It requires a certain minimum population size to run a factory. Below that and we just regress to earlier technological eras. Eventually we end up back in a mostly agrarian state, and suddenly having kids is once again economically beneficial.
Japan is a whole other mess caused by the exotic monetary policy used to cushion the real estate crash and a risk adverse corporate culture unwilling to properly make use of it, causing investment to stagnate.
Considering how people struggle with the comparatively small hiccup that is the current Iran-US war, I find it hard to believe that all commenters here would be fine when global trade dwindles.
I however am built different and would simply survive economic and societal collapse.
If society is constantly getting richer every single year and has for decades... Why are people still struggling? Either poor people are unreasonable/irrational, we don't actually care about reducing cost of basic necessities,or the wealth increases are being siphoned out elsewhere.
Population decline would be a non-issue in a functioning economy, because a small shrinkage of the economy would be a non-issue.
I always hate it when someone says that we would need to reduce our standard of living to remain sustainable. It's 100% bullshit predicted on using a definition of "standard of living" that nobody understands (roughly speaking I think it's only used to compare two different persons or groups in an idealized snapshot in time). We waste so much food. Some of it's necessary, but, 40%??
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 10:13)
Society is going to collapse anyway, the question is, how hard and how badly. The whole idea behind "not sustainable" is that it is not possible to sustain something. I personally rather hit the brakes than accelerate before hitting the wall.
The whole idea behind “not sustainable” is that it is not possible to sustain something.
-1 That is not "the idea!", that is the definition. A recursive one at that. -2 That doesn't really follow from either your or OPs comments. What is not sustainable? The economy, society, global trade? Did you delete a sentence?
I think your comment makes more sense if I was arguing for people to counteract population decline. I am not. I was simply pointing out that it won't be sunshine and rainbows as OP and many commenters here seem to believe.
Population decline is fine. It’s the population boom driven by World War II panic that was the oddity instead.
In a matter of time, we might return to population levels from the 17th century, and if we do, then so what? A single individual will become all the more valuable, similar to how European nations valued labour more after the Black Death occurred. History likes to repeat itself, even if not necessarily by events like the plague.
Who will pay to care for the aging population? Welp, whether you live in a socialised care country or the United hellscapes of America, the answer is: you will. Or your kids will, or whatever generation we're talking about here.
Even if you do live in the US and have no elderly relatives, the insurance companies will have to hike the shit out of their premiums to remain profitable.
The fewer working age people there are compared to people past working age, the worse it will be.
Yep. There's a big bowl of shit, and some day it must be eaten. The choice becomes: do you eat the shit, or do you add a little squirt and pass it to your kids?
I would imagine that the most cost-effective (realistic) way of solving it would be through some sort of culling.
Nothing flashy like forced euthanasia. But a reduction in avalable healthcare here, a drop in funding for elderly services there, some dead weight propaganda, and life expectancy would sink like a brick; all the while these policies would be presented as unavoidable cost-cutting measures to keep up appearances.
Esta entrada fue editada (domingo, 11 de octubre de 2026, 9:26)
Yeah but that's just a pyramid scheme. We can't just keep growing the human population forever.
Started working at 15, figure I'll work till I'm 75. Or until I die, whatever. If I can. It's fine, not ideal but fine. I would have appreciated maternity leave more than retirement. The time then would have been a lot more valuable.
Except in practice living in the city no one ever steals from me and all the folks I know who live in rural areas are like “watch out for methheads, they’ll steal your shit”
Mostly just less anonymity. In a large community, you can remain more-or-less unknown. In a town where everyone knows each other, you're a known entity whether you like it or not.
Esta entrada fue editada (sábado, 10 de octubre de 2026, 20:57)
“I guess we’ll have to increase wages”. Doesn’t work when there aren’t enough working people to maintain critical infrastructure.
World wide population decline is going to cause some serious problems. The US will need to establish a strong immigration policy to absorb people fleeing failing countries/geographies while continuing to provide food, and the transportation of that food, to the rest of the us.
The US has a lot of space and a lot of farmland. Most countries don’t. As ocean transportation of food (amongst other resources) becomes less reliable due to lack of security, people will be fleeing their failed or failing country to one that’s more stable.
You’re right to think that the US has shit policies for immigration now but I think that will change once population decline starts affecting how much food is stocked at grocery stores.
I anticipate things being a lot worse than they are even now over the next 15 years. Multiple wars, state-sanctioned sea piracy, and a failure in the complex supply chain that creates advanced chipsets used for things like servers/workstations, satellites, weather prediction, stock markets, etc. leading to a mini-collapse as a best-case scenario.
People still illegally immigrate to the USA right now despite everything that is going on. The reason is also still the same and I see no reason why that should change in the next decades. I mean other than a civil war, but that is not going to happen even if Trump grabs power so...
We are humans and as such we have always adapted. We will adapt again. You can all live in fear re population decline if you like but I’m just getting on with it.
I'm not worried about population decline but regret to inform Anon that I was around when there were half as many people and it was not better. Sorry. There was terrible pollution and more crime.
The biggest problem is the aging population and the need to support them via social security, etc. As the population ages, the distribution becomes an inverted pyramid and we’ll need to pay for more and more people’s retirement. It’ll slowly become worse and worse as one person will eventually be responsible for the survival of 4-5 old people (and their family notwithstanding). Otherwise I think a declining population is fine.
This is the true purpose of religion: to maintain the conveyor belt of cheap workers through 'marriage', also the same reason religious folk universally agree on abortion.
Esta entrada fue editada (domingo, 11 de octubre de 2026, 3:25)
With fewer people more things will count as "too niche to be commercially viable". I lived in a village where I couldn't find a pencil 3b or softer at local stores.
I hope anon enjoys mainstream music ~more than i do~
Meh, the 70s had half the world population that we have now, and created much of the kick-ass music and arts that we still hold in high value. And, to be honest, a 3b pencil is really a luxury first world problem. Besides, the more important metric for that will be population density. In a city of 100000 or more, it makes sense to have a dedicated arts and crafts store, maybe even more. In a village of 1000, not so much.
Carlos Solís
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • •boonhet
in reply to Carlos Solís • • •The rich in this case == old people. People over 55 own 73% of the US. Billionaires don't come close to the wealth of boomers. In countries with national pensions they just do it via taxation, in the US it's via retirement funds invested in the companies abusing workers.
People don't seem to get that everything has a cost in human labor to it and if you want people to continue enjoying the benefits of what is actually a pretty good economy all things considered, there need to be enough workers. If there are not enough workers, you can't have retirement anymore. In fact, a few decades from now we'll have to get rid of retirement as a concept unless we want actual slavery.
Serinus
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •We just never get to retire.
By 2030 it's projected to be 2.0 workers per retiree.
Serinus
in reply to Serinus • • •Seems like it'd be a good place for the last 50 years of gains in efficiency to go.
Time to start taxing the rich instead of worrying about taxing per worker.
HerbGrower
in reply to Serinus • • •Build more housing so that houses are more affordable, bring on the 4 day work week.
Expensive houses just funnels more money into the hands of banks and landlords without providing any benefit to society.
jaybone
in reply to Serinus • • •WizardOfFrobozz
in reply to jaybone • • •limdaepl
in reply to Serinus • • •What those „retiree per worker“ graphs always fail to mention is how productivity increased over the same period.
Those two workers today produce about as much as 8 did in the 50s so supporting the retirees should in fact be easier today, not harder.
That it isn’t is because wages didn’t increase proportionately.
boonhet
in reply to limdaepl • • •Yes, because your wages go to said retirees. Who do you think owns all the companies not increasing your wages?
Wealth distribution by generation U.S. 2026| Statista
StatistaUltraGiGaGigantic
in reply to Serinus • • •boonhet
in reply to UltraGiGaGigantic • • •superduperpirate
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Varesti
in reply to superduperpirate • • •ladicius
in reply to Varesti • • •MutantTailThing
in reply to ladicius • • •abbadon420
in reply to MutantTailThing • • •GolfFoxtrotLima
in reply to Varesti • • •someguy3
in reply to superduperpirate • • •ComradeSharkfucker
in reply to superduperpirate • • •logos
in reply to ComradeSharkfucker • • •Triasha
in reply to superduperpirate • • •frog
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •The people that want higher birth rates don't care about higher wages, the environment, or people's safety.
They just need workers they can milk them until they can't work anymore. They need these workers to spend all their money so they have to keep working.
ladicius
in reply to frog • • •JeSuisUnHombre
in reply to ladicius • • •MalReynolds
in reply to JeSuisUnHombre • • •Midgame pretty much unions, now mostly a speed bump in the rearview mirror.
Perhaps that should change.
x00z
in reply to frog • • •They also want to make sure people with a different skill color do not have more babies than them.
I think that's actually the main reason.
Ginny [they/she]
in reply to x00z • • •x00z
in reply to Ginny [they/she] • • •BillionaireStew
in reply to x00z • • •And it never ever ever goes as planned because the bigots running the eugenics program are myopic twits.
yris.yira.org/essays/be-fruitful-and-multiply-the-role-of-israeli-pronatalist-policy-in-the-pursuit-…
“Be Fruitful And Multiply”: The Role Of Israeli Pronatalist Policy In The Pursuit Of Jewish Demographic Dominance In The Holy Land - The Yale Review Of International Studies
Devyn Rigsby (The Yale Review of International Studies)GonzoAtBarstow
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •8+ billion people on the planet and people complain about not enough people.
Ponzi schemes aren't sustainable.
whalesnrainbows
in reply to GonzoAtBarstow • • •Yeah, people worried about “population decline” are actually concerned about their preferred race/religion losing political & cultural power.
It’s a dog whistle every time
deadbeef79000
in reply to whalesnrainbows • • •Hegemony is the word you're looking for.
Yeah, always a dog whistle.
HerbGrower
in reply to whalesnrainbows • • •porous_grey_matter
in reply to HerbGrower • • •thebestaquaman
in reply to whalesnrainbows • • •Population decline isn't inherently a problem (unless you're a racist worried about "your people" losing power). Too rapid population decline is a big problem. We're already seeing the effects: When the sum of birth rates and working-age immigration fall fast enough, the ratio of working-age people to care-needing people also falls. I don't think I need to explain why it's a problem that every able-bodied working age adult will be responsible (directly or indirectly) for taking care of more people. It puts more pressure on everyone, and impacts societies ability to care for those in need of it.
A controlled, slow, population decline would probably just be a good thing at this point. However, that's not what prognoses are pointing towards, and that's why (non-racist) people are worried.
TheTetrapod
in reply to thebestaquaman • • •whalesnrainbows
in reply to thebestaquaman • • •I’ll acknowledge that saying it’s a dog whistle every time was slightly hyperbolic.
However, I’d argue that the claim that the global human population is declining too rapidly is actually pretty hotly contested. The world's population is still growing — around 8.2 billion now, heading toward a peak near 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
That being said, in some countries there will be a surplus of retirees and not enough workers to fund them through the existing tax structure, which is a legitimate problem. But it's a problem best remedied through better social safety nets, not by popping out more babies.
The biggest contention I have with the concern over population decline is that population decline doesn’t matter at all if we don’t adequately address climate change within the next decade. If someone’s house is actively on fire and they express concern to me that their roof should be re-shingled, I’m not going to give a shit about their roof shingles until I’m certain their roof will survi
... Mostrar másI’ll acknowledge that saying it’s a dog whistle every time was slightly hyperbolic.
However, I’d argue that the claim that the global human population is declining too rapidly is actually pretty hotly contested. The world's population is still growing — around 8.2 billion now, heading toward a peak near 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
That being said, in some countries there will be a surplus of retirees and not enough workers to fund them through the existing tax structure, which is a legitimate problem. But it's a problem best remedied through better social safety nets, not by popping out more babies.
The biggest contention I have with the concern over population decline is that population decline doesn’t matter at all if we don’t adequately address climate change within the next decade. If someone’s house is actively on fire and they express concern to me that their roof should be re-shingled, I’m not going to give a shit about their roof shingles until I’m certain their roof will survive the fire.
thebestaquaman
in reply to whalesnrainbows • • •Thanks, that was a much more nuanced take that I have a much easier time agreeing with :)
I think the population problem has some in common with food distribution: There's enough food in the world, it's just distributed in such a way that some places have obesity as a societal-level issue, while other places people are dying of malnourishment.
Similarly, the global population is increasing, however it's increasing far more rapidly that sustainable in some places, while declining more rapidly than sustainable in others.
There's only so much you can do by redistributing wealth in a better way (which I think we should, regardless). It doesn't help to tax the rich if there isn't any manpower you can buy with that tax income to actually do the work that needs doing. I think that's the scary part about a rapid population decline: We're heading towards a situation (in some places) where the ratio of capable workers to people needing care approaches 2:1, which means a far larger fraction of the population will need to spend their entire working career as direct care prov
... Mostrar másThanks, that was a much more nuanced take that I have a much easier time agreeing with :)
I think the population problem has some in common with food distribution: There's enough food in the world, it's just distributed in such a way that some places have obesity as a societal-level issue, while other places people are dying of malnourishment.
Similarly, the global population is increasing, however it's increasing far more rapidly that sustainable in some places, while declining more rapidly than sustainable in others.
There's only so much you can do by redistributing wealth in a better way (which I think we should, regardless). It doesn't help to tax the rich if there isn't any manpower you can buy with that tax income to actually do the work that needs doing. I think that's the scary part about a rapid population decline: We're heading towards a situation (in some places) where the ratio of capable workers to people needing care approaches 2:1, which means a far larger fraction of the population will need to spend their entire working career as direct care providers than is currently the case. You can't really alleviate a manpower shortage with just money.
Psionicsickness
in reply to thebestaquaman • • •Boomer Humor Doomergod
in reply to Psionicsickness • • •This is mostly a joke, but I do foresee a time when a very authoritarian government just kills a bunch of old people.
For example, during the One Child Policy the Chinese government did hundreds of thousands of forced abortions.
MalReynolds
in reply to GonzoAtBarstow • • •Fallibilist
in reply to GonzoAtBarstow • • •666dollarfootlong
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Fallibilist
in reply to 666dollarfootlong • • •BlaestEgnen
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Sort of depend on perspective, hunger only exists because there's no political will to remove it.
We produce more food globally than we consume, and we can multiply it several times with the same cost of space by swapping more meat for vegan crops.
We have plenty of space for everyone to have shelter, the problem is largely due to the issue that most people want to live in a metropolitan area. So the price for living in a highly sought out location increases to unmanageable levels.
A key factor is the big difference between the kinds of jobs you can get in a more rural location compared to the bigger urban centers. Everyone are forced to move to urban locations to study, causing most people to form their first adult social and professional circles around whichever urban location they studied at.
There's a lot of minor things that needs to be done, what exactly differs by country. But making the rural regions more accessible to live in should be considered across most countries. One simple first step, would be to make remote capable jobs offer their workers
... Mostrar másSort of depend on perspective, hunger only exists because there's no political will to remove it.
We produce more food globally than we consume, and we can multiply it several times with the same cost of space by swapping more meat for vegan crops.
We have plenty of space for everyone to have shelter, the problem is largely due to the issue that most people want to live in a metropolitan area. So the price for living in a highly sought out location increases to unmanageable levels.
A key factor is the big difference between the kinds of jobs you can get in a more rural location compared to the bigger urban centers. Everyone are forced to move to urban locations to study, causing most people to form their first adult social and professional circles around whichever urban location they studied at.
There's a lot of minor things that needs to be done, what exactly differs by country. But making the rural regions more accessible to live in should be considered across most countries. One simple first step, would be to make remote capable jobs offer their workers to do it all remotely. Government office workers, could quite easily spearhead such an initiative; I bet some people would move closer to nature, if they could hold onto their bread
Seleni
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Elon Musk could end world hunger. Full stop. He wouldn’t even notice the dip in his finances. (He offered once, claiming if someone gave him a concrete number, he would pay it, and a nonprofit took him up on it. Surprise, surprise, the whiny little snit backed out.)
They totally could fix the problem. But to those rich shitheads, it’s not a problem. It’s a feature.
UltraGiGaGigantic
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Then this way of life is not worth saving.
GonzoAtBarstow
in reply to Fallibilist • • •That falls back to "ponzi schemes aren't sustainable"
It's broken.
ageedizzle
in reply to GonzoAtBarstow • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Why the obsession with only retirees? What matters is the dependency ratio.
The dependency ratio counts the total number of dependents, not just the retirees the eugenicists like to focus on. By the end of the century, globally we'll have a dependency ratio similar to the level it was in the mid-20th century.
Dependency ratio - Wikipedia
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Kairos
in reply to Fallibilist • • •Fallibilist
in reply to Kairos • • •Literally says right there.
Kairos
in reply to Fallibilist • • •cadekat
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •EmilieEasie
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •abbadon420
in reply to EmilieEasie • • •EmilieEasie
in reply to abbadon420 • • •Law Abiding VPN User
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •what the hell is this WEF UN propaganda? ...Oh wait...the EU talks about depopulating too.
But they stop short of saying what they actually want, which is to cull half of humanity
boonhet
in reply to Law Abiding VPN User • • •chunes
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •The population isn't declining, though. See for yourself: worldometers.info/world-population/
Edit: Granted, it is in some countries: China, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea to name a few.
World Population Clock: 8.3 Billion People (LIVE, 2026) - Worldometer
WorldometerDenjin
in reply to chunes • • •Eq0
in reply to Denjin • • •inconel
in reply to chunes • • •jaybone
in reply to inconel • • •Depending on how climate change goes, population might decline by many billions. Hopefully I’ll be dead by then.
whyNotSquirrel
in reply to chunes • • •PixeIOrange
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Triasha
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •There are real challenges to population decline, especially rapid decline like Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, russia, and China are facing.
The US and Great Britain are not looking at that rapid decline. For us, it's a problem to be managed. Every generation of schoolchildren is 75% the size of the preceeding generation.
That's manageable. No promises that we will do anything to manage it, but it's not crisis level. Other countries will have greater problems. JApan has been doing Allright.
Eq0
in reply to Triasha • • •Japan has not been doing all right. Their economy has long stagnated, working conditions have been maintained rough with very long working hours and recently they have pivoted on their isolationism bordering on racism to accept workers for outside Japan.
It’s not horrible, but it’s not all right either
Triasha
in reply to Eq0 • • •A falling population with a stagnant economy sounds bad but that's a rising standard of living.
Long hours are not captured in GDP but Japan had that problem long before the population pyramid inverted.
boonhet
in reply to Triasha • • •Fizz
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •LH0ezVT
in reply to Fizz • • •UltraGiGaGigantic
in reply to Fizz • • •Yes. Fuck your tiny dictatorship.
Fizz
in reply to UltraGiGaGigantic • • •dubs
in reply to Fizz • • •LH0ezVT
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •khaleer
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •OctopusNemeses
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •SkaveRat
in reply to OctopusNemeses • • •[deleted]
in reply to OctopusNemeses • • •SippyCup
in reply to [deleted] • • •onionguy
in reply to OctopusNemeses • • •lessthanluigi
in reply to onionguy • • •onionguy
in reply to lessthanluigi • • •qarbone
in reply to onionguy • • •rumba
in reply to OctopusNemeses • • •Booms have market opportunity, and busts have market opportunity.
That said, having too many people to do the work is a lot less dangerous than not enough people to do the work.
The bust comes with a high risk of a total economic collapse. Those houses get cheap, but food, sanitary, and energy security are at risk. Living in a rotting infrastructure is very different than living in an expanding but underdeveloped infrastructure.
Leveling out or a slow population decline would be good in some scenarios. If we're going from 2.5:1 down to 0.25:1, you'll end up with another boomer wave, pissed off at the government, ripe for scenarios that make today's problems seem like an annoying party.
ageedizzle
in reply to rumba • • •rumba
in reply to ageedizzle • • •ageedizzle
in reply to rumba • • •LH0ezVT
in reply to ageedizzle • • •FavouriteShapes
in reply to OctopusNemeses • • •meaansel
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Who's gonna build that real estate with fewer people around? Where would money for higher salary come from with fewer customers?
Pollution argument is a "carbon footprint" type of bullshit to shift responsibility to general population from companies that actually do most of pollution, and violently defend their right to do so.
Communities become less highly knit because of third spaces dying, phones colonising spare time, and algorithms pushing people to have worse view of world and each other.
Increase population should increase efficiency (economies of scale, many products of intellectual labor being infinitely replicatable) - and efficiency did increase at the same time as population. It's just that salaries didn't.
Mental gymnastic to make worsening conditions of ordinary people somehow fault of other ordinary people.
lessthanluigi
in reply to meaansel • • •SippyCup
in reply to meaansel • • •meaansel
in reply to SippyCup • • •Let's look at shorter term too while we're at it.
Luckily, we don't have to speculate - in Japan a lot of towns depopulate, locally due to people moving to big cities, as well as generally due to population decline.
They have increased bear attacks, car brigdes use of which is banned because they are old, but municipalities don't even have money to demolish them, healthcare less available
SippyCup
in reply to meaansel • • •We'll make do. We're very good at making do. Might even say the best at making do.
If our civilization is propped up on the next generation supplying us with an ever increasing population for the meat grinder, what we have is actually a planet wide ponzi scheme. We would do well to make do with less.
meaansel
in reply to SippyCup • • •I'm not advocating for infinite growth.
But I don't see good arguments that we're overpopulated and need downsizing in the post.
Downsizing will not increase quality of life/solve economic challenges we have. Yes, if we have to, we can "make do" with a wide range of conditions. Why do we have to?
Maybe sustainability? Population was half of it's current in 1974 and we were already changing the climate and polluting.
Sticking it to those who exploit us, so they'd have fewer people to exploit? Maybe having to (metaphorically) downsize their yachts will be personal tragedies for them, but I don't see it as a huge win.
SippyCup
in reply to meaansel • • •meaansel
in reply to SippyCup • • •I wish you specified which point you meant.
But yes, all the points in the post look so apparently easily refuted (except for "tightly knit communities", "crime" there is some space for argument there), that I must misunderstand it somehow. It's honestly not intentional.
If it's not too much trouble, please tell me?? I'd like to see compelling version of the argument.
UltraGiGaGigantic
in reply to meaansel • • •You got a source for your bold claim that humans and the world are good?
kestrel7_7
in reply to UltraGiGaGigantic • • •prole
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Hahahaha oh. That's cute.
Funkt4st1c
in reply to prole • • •If theres a shortage in the labor market, you either fill it with slavery or raise wages.
Americans track record seems to indicate the former waaayyyy before the latter
Couldbealeotard
in reply to Funkt4st1c • • •boonhet
in reply to Funkt4st1c • • •Raising wages fucks the people trying to retire because their stock holdings lose value. It'll have to be slavery if you want to continue having retirement as a thing. Ideally colonialism + slavery, just import slaves from countries still experiencing population growth, such as many African ones...
Wait I think something about this idea might be problematic
Randelung
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •boonhet
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •FavouriteShapes
in reply to boonhet • • •Sounds to me like we'll have to do a communism, i.e banding together to help each other out more, to allow people to retire in comfort. The horror!
(Just in case it seems like I'm dismissing anything you said, I'm not, and thank you for your analysis. My main takeaway is that it seems an unavoidable problem)
ageedizzle
in reply to FavouriteShapes • • •Jax
in reply to ageedizzle • • •Immigration!
Oh...
ageedizzle
in reply to Jax • • •Foreigner
in reply to ageedizzle • • •XiJinpingStanAccount
in reply to ageedizzle • • •Actually it is a communism vs capitalism thing. The problem arises in both, but the solutions available depend on the system. I reccomend you look up how China is handling its massive elderly population. For example the elderly there have huge public parks and get outside moving and socializing a lot. In big cities it's common for them to have mid day slow dance meetings in the parks. This is only possible because the government's priority is not producing profit for billionaires but caring for its people. So it maintains these things and the public transport required to get the elderly there, and the assistance to keep them fed and healthy.
This video is 15 years old: youtu.be/SvmV7GRRPq0
When people stay active and a part of their community into their old age instead of sitting in their huge houses alone or in a nursing home they require much less support to keep living.
SvmV7GRRPq0
youtu.beXiJinpingStanAccount
in reply to XiJinpingStanAccount • • •RnCCY2YtVX0
youtu.beLH0ezVT
in reply to XiJinpingStanAccount • • •XiJinpingStanAccount
in reply to LH0ezVT • • •FavouriteShapes
in reply to ageedizzle • • •No, it's about the scale of society and how we support ourselves in retirement, though. See, if retirement funds rely on, as the guy above me says 1. Companies underpaying their employees and 2. Governments taxing a group of more people in the below generations than there are to support in the top - then those are unsustainable sources of retirement comfort.
So what would be sustainable? Well historically, and in some countries today, old people need family to support them into old age. You would need either your own kid, with their own house big enough for you, or a rich little nephew with a house big enough for all you and your siblings to live in while retired.
Or... We just do the decent thing and take care of non-relatives. To ease the load on, say, retirement homes, we'd need to agree across society to bring the old people into communities of younger adults, and those younger adults would need to check on them regularly.
Sice this requires a community binding together, you might call it "communism." Though it isn't necessarily Marxism.
ageedizzle
in reply to FavouriteShapes • • •fyzzlefry
in reply to ageedizzle • • •locahosr443
in reply to fyzzlefry • • •ageedizzle
in reply to locahosr443 • • •Also the ratio is a lot higher in nursing homes. Yes you might have a ratio of x nurses to y old people, but you also need to consider the people indirectly contributing. Like the trades people who built the building, or the people who pay for the care through taxes or otherwise, the people working to route electricity, the pharmacists making all those medications that the old people need, etc.
Also, we need people to do jobs other than working in nursing homes. We can't have all our workforce caring for the elderly.
isleepinahammock
in reply to ageedizzle • • •ageedizzle
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •LH0ezVT
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •Kairos
in reply to boonhet • • •jumping redditor [they/them]
in reply to boonhet • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to boonhet • • •majster
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •Children live with parents. If retirement becomes burden of your offspring this will have interesting consequences.
Re resource shift: in my country we managed to increase total employment in education while birthrates continue to dwindle
Mulligrubs
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Look what happened after the plague, 50% of the population was gone.
It broke the back of the Catholic church and feudalism. Peasants got their first pay raise... ever.
nullspace
in reply to Mulligrubs • • •majster
in reply to Mulligrubs • • •Ledivin
in reply to Mulligrubs • • •You're missing maybe the most important part of this: ...eventually. It was at least 40 years after the plague hit, and probably more like 70-100, depending how exactly you're counting. AKA after we're all dead
Talcosis
in reply to Ledivin • • •That seems...obvious?
Why would the effects of reduced population happen before the population is reduced?
FavouriteShapes
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •NotAnOtter
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Lower population is generally better for almost all sectors.
But lowering the population means killing people or restricting birthing rights.
nforminvasion
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •Earthwormjim91
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •Well no. That’s a wildly incorrect take.
Birth rates are already decreasing and are below replacement rate in many places already. Fertility rates are at an all time low. They naturally decrease as income and quality of life increases.
The global fertility rate is 2.2 births per woman. Which is just barely above replacement. In most developed nations, that rate is down in the 1.6 range, well below replacement.
Total Human population is excepted to peak within 50 years and then begun naturally declining, but many countries are already there. China has seen several consecutive years of population decline. India is seeing a leveling off of population growth and will soon decline. The US is increasing solely off of immigration. Japan has a decreasing population. Same with Korea. 8 EU countries have seen population declines over the last 20 years.
If you wanted to see population decline in the US specifically, banning immigration would do it and we’d see a decline in the next census.
Damage
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •fyzzlefry
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •lightnsfw
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •Tattorack
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •daddycool
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •jumping redditor [they/them]
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •mindbleach
in reply to NotAnOtter • • •The same people having the same offspring, but later, would lower the population.
So long as people die like regular you can stuff all those dreadful fantasies. Unfortunately, malice is not required for this number to go down.
Chick0nPlayz
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Immigrants usually
iocase
in reply to Chick0nPlayz • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to Chick0nPlayz • • •adjectivenoun
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to adjectivenoun • • •We're talking about a global phenomenon here. It's pretty racist to assume that other groups of human beings are somehow fundamentally different from your own. It's pretty xenophobic to believe that the countries with high birth rates will just maintain them forever.
The problem isn't the US running out of workers. The problem is the entire world running out of workers.
alcoholicorn
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to alcoholicorn • • •alcoholicorn
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to alcoholicorn • • •You're trying to move the goalposts. We're talking about the future and how birth rates are trending. Now you're trying to change the conversation to the present, "Are you suggesting that birthrates don’t remain high in the global south?" Obviously they're higher in some countries, but those rates are collapsing like they are everywhere else. And there isn't a good match between those countries and what is usually described as the global south.
Since you're too lazy, I did your homework for you:
statista.com/statistics/1034075/fertility-rate-world-continents-1950-2020/
You can look up more information here:
birthrate.io/fertility
We're talking about the future need for workers, not the present. So please don't try to move the goalposts by asking the obvious question of are birth rates still higher in the SOME PARTS of the
... Mostrar másYou're trying to move the goalposts. We're talking about the future and how birth rates are trending. Now you're trying to change the conversation to the present, "Are you suggesting that birthrates don’t remain high in the global south?" Obviously they're higher in some countries, but those rates are collapsing like they are everywhere else. And there isn't a good match between those countries and what is usually described as the global south.
Since you're too lazy, I did your homework for you:
statista.com/statistics/1034075/fertility-rate-world-continents-1950-2020/
You can look up more information here:
birthrate.io/fertility
We're talking about the future need for workers, not the present. So please don't try to move the goalposts by asking the obvious question of are birth rates still higher in the SOME PARTS of the global south relative to the north.
But there's a very clear trend here. Every single country undergoes a decline in birth rates as it industrializes. The global south is not an infinite source of labor you can rely on forever.
You need to let go of this myopic North/South, Imperialist/Colonized framework you seem to be trying to shoehorn into every problem. Here are the countries that have above replacement fertility rates (in green):
There's no real connection here between these countries and "the global south." Counties such as India, most of South America, Iran, SE Asia, etc are all below replacement rates.
Here's what fertility rates are currently projected to look like in 2100:
We're on track to have less than a handful of countries around the world with above-replacement fertility rates. The global south doesn't have elevated fertility rates, the specific regions of Subsaharan Africa and Central Asia do. Even Somalia will barely be above the replacement rate.
You're too lost in a surface-level understanding of "theory" (read: socialist memes) that it's clouding your judgment. Within a generation, countries all over the world, including countries in the global south, will be fighting each other to attract immigrants.
Total fertility rate globally and by continent 1950-2050| Statista
StatistaLH0ezVT
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •Thanks for actually bringing the receipts, that is sadly rare even here.
The future is uncertain and the end is always near. 2100 is a long way to go, if we make it there without a global war, mass death due to land becoming inhabitable with climate change, and good ol' empires violently collapsing, that would be something already.
Many of the countries that experience lower fertility rates are way below what they should realistically carry. India for example, a country with lots of poverty that is already struggling to feed its population after just a little bit of fuel price jumping, has no business being at what, 1.4 billion? Why should we continue to grow even further beyond the limits of a country?
Well, there is, if you don't use a binary indicator of above/below replacement rate, and don't just take "south" as geographically south, but rather as "poor, exploited countries, usually (but not always and exclusively) in the south".
isleepinahammock
in reply to LH0ezVT • • •India is already below replacement rate.
You're missing the point. This isn't about geography. This is about the actual countries that get labeled as the global south. That includes India, China, Southeast Asia, South America, etc. These are the countries that experienced the worst of colonialism. And they're all heading straight towards population decline, just like the global north.
isleepinahammock
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Even the fears about the economy and government spending are bullshit. Notice the folks obsessing over birthrates always quote the retiree to worker ratio. They don't talk about the dependent to worker ratio, and that's what really matters. Yes, our populations are aging, and yes that means relatively more old people to take care of. But we in turn also have far fewer children to take care of. If we can adapt to the Baby Boom era, we can adapt to an aging population.
Further afield, fears about human extinction are total bullshit. No country is a monolith; every nation has groups within it with higher and lower relative birth rates. If the birth rate stays low and never recovers among the mainstream society, eventually the smaller groups end up composing most of the population, and then the birth rate recovers. The Amish inherit the Earth.
Or, if even that fails, ultimately technology loss alone stabilizes your birthrates. Eventually your population falls so low that you just can't physically manufacture reliable birth control anymore. That's a product of industrial pr
... Mostrar másEven the fears about the economy and government spending are bullshit. Notice the folks obsessing over birthrates always quote the retiree to worker ratio. They don't talk about the dependent to worker ratio, and that's what really matters. Yes, our populations are aging, and yes that means relatively more old people to take care of. But we in turn also have far fewer children to take care of. If we can adapt to the Baby Boom era, we can adapt to an aging population.
Further afield, fears about human extinction are total bullshit. No country is a monolith; every nation has groups within it with higher and lower relative birth rates. If the birth rate stays low and never recovers among the mainstream society, eventually the smaller groups end up composing most of the population, and then the birth rate recovers. The Amish inherit the Earth.
Or, if even that fails, ultimately technology loss alone stabilizes your birthrates. Eventually your population falls so low that you just can't physically manufacture reliable birth control anymore. That's a product of industrial production. It requires a certain minimum population size to run a factory. Below that and we just regress to earlier technological eras. Eventually we end up back in a mostly agrarian state, and suddenly having kids is once again economically beneficial.
Sam_Bass
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Rusty
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •BetaDoggo_
in reply to Rusty • • •Tudsamfa
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Considering how people struggle with the comparatively small hiccup that is the current Iran-US war, I find it hard to believe that all commenters here would be fine when global trade dwindles.
I however am built different and would simply survive economic and societal collapse.
PuddleOfKittens
in reply to Tudsamfa • • •If society is constantly getting richer every single year and has for decades... Why are people still struggling? Either poor people are unreasonable/irrational, we don't actually care about reducing cost of basic necessities,or the wealth increases are being siphoned out elsewhere.
Population decline would be a non-issue in a functioning economy, because a small shrinkage of the economy would be a non-issue.
Kairos
in reply to PuddleOfKittens • • •kestrel7_7
in reply to Kairos • • •LH0ezVT
in reply to Tudsamfa • • •Tudsamfa
in reply to LH0ezVT • • •-1 That is not "the idea!", that is the definition. A recursive one at that.
-2 That doesn't really follow from either your or OPs comments. What is not sustainable? The economy, society, global trade? Did you delete a sentence?
I think your comment makes more sense if I was arguing for people to counteract population decline. I am not. I was simply pointing out that it won't be sunshine and rainbows as OP and many commenters here seem to believe.
Ashrakal
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Population decline is fine. It’s the population boom driven by World War II panic that was the oddity instead.
In a matter of time, we might return to population levels from the 17th century, and if we do, then so what? A single individual will become all the more valuable, similar to how European nations valued labour more after the Black Death occurred. History likes to repeat itself, even if not necessarily by events like the plague.
Juice
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •kestrel7_7
in reply to Juice • • •Juice
in reply to kestrel7_7 • • •rizzothesmall
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •Who will pay to care for the aging population? Welp, whether you live in a socialised care country or the United hellscapes of America, the answer is: you will. Or your kids will, or whatever generation we're talking about here.
Even if you do live in the US and have no elderly relatives, the insurance companies will have to hike the shit out of their premiums to remain profitable.
The fewer working age people there are compared to people past working age, the worse it will be.
birdwing
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •Talcosis
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •Shayeta
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •I would imagine that the most cost-effective (realistic) way of solving it would be through some sort of culling.
Nothing flashy like forced euthanasia. But a reduction in avalable healthcare here, a drop in funding for elderly services there, some dead weight propaganda, and life expectancy would sink like a brick; all the while these policies would be presented as unavoidable cost-cutting measures to keep up appearances.
RBWells
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •Yeah but that's just a pyramid scheme. We can't just keep growing the human population forever.
Started working at 15, figure I'll work till I'm 75. Or until I die, whatever. If I can. It's fine, not ideal but fine. I would have appreciated maternity leave more than retirement. The time then would have been a lot more valuable.
Fluffy Kitty Cat
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •14th_cylon
in reply to Fluffy Kitty Cat • • •kestrel7_7
in reply to 14th_cylon • • •Fluffy Kitty Cat
in reply to kestrel7_7 • • •Ledivin
in reply to Fluffy Kitty Cat • • •Brkdncr
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •“I guess we’ll have to increase wages”. Doesn’t work when there aren’t enough working people to maintain critical infrastructure.
World wide population decline is going to cause some serious problems. The US will need to establish a strong immigration policy to absorb people fleeing failing countries/geographies while continuing to provide food, and the transportation of that food, to the rest of the us.
Ledivin
in reply to Brkdncr • • •Brkdncr
in reply to Ledivin • • •The US has a lot of space and a lot of farmland. Most countries don’t. As ocean transportation of food (amongst other resources) becomes less reliable due to lack of security, people will be fleeing their failed or failing country to one that’s more stable.
You’re right to think that the US has shit policies for immigration now but I think that will change once population decline starts affecting how much food is stocked at grocery stores.
I anticipate things being a lot worse than they are even now over the next 15 years. Multiple wars, state-sanctioned sea piracy, and a failure in the complex supply chain that creates advanced chipsets used for things like servers/workstations, satellites, weather prediction, stock markets, etc. leading to a mini-collapse as a best-case scenario.
Eheran
in reply to Ledivin • • •PragmaticOne
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •SitD
in reply to PragmaticOne • • •j5y7
in reply to PragmaticOne • • •RBWells
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •42yeah
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •queermunist she/her
in reply to 42yeah • • •mHtt
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •meaansel
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •With fewer people more things will count as "too niche to be commercially viable". I lived in a village where I couldn't find a pencil 3b or softer at local stores.
I hope anon enjoys mainstream music ~more than i do~
LH0ezVT
in reply to meaansel • • •sit
in reply to 🍹Early to RISA 🧉 • • •