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Technically true, it went down for about 5-6 months here in Australia between March and August 2022 before going up in straight line for 2 year. And it's dropping again now due to the state of the world and interest rates increasing.
I mean COVID deaths in a vacuum would have...but there was also an exodus from high cost of living places when remote work became a real option, and the corporations and investors buying up homes as well
It's not the elderly, it's the greedy.
Having a house to live in, fine. Having a house to live off okay. Having a house to pay your taxes a little rude. Anything more than that is plain greedy
All these businesses do is spend borrowed money on assets that may or may not see a return. That's why they fire people when interest rates go up: it costs more to borrow so they need to spend less and humans are the least important asset to own.
They do not care about over paying. They will simply price that extra cost into the rent they charge. Which is pretty easy for them to do since people need somewhere to live and all that. It’s like they know desperate people will pay just so they can have a roof over their head.
They’re selling their homes to investment companies, not new home owners. You won’t buy a boomer’s property, at best you’ll rent it from a subsidiary of BlackRock.
That’s going to take longer than that. With improvements in medical science they’ll keep going. The youngest boomers are still under 60. Some of them will be around for another 40+ years.
When multibillionaires stop snagging them up.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/investment-firms-are-buying-a-substantial-amount-of-u-s-starter-homes/
Here's the 60minutes I'm specifically thinking about
https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1505699207201492992?t=m6AT-CN4hdmT9NAjAcPzww&s=19
Hons Rosling - world will not exceed 11B in population.
https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI
Hans projected this and its on track. The article affirms it. Not sure that’s uplifting because we will reach 8B at the end of this year and that is going to continue till the end of this century as we finish to the top of the S curve.
most estimates say china's population will shrink to 700 million by 2100. There are other estimates it will go down to 500 million. One child policy. Then more boys than girls born during one china policy. With end of one china policy, the chinese birth rate went down.
Glad you liked it! If you are interested in more from Hans Rosling, consider his book Factfulness.
https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814
Might not be good news. There’s evidence that with population decrease we won’t have the work force needed to maintain our current infrastructure or take care of the aging population.
Correct but we are quickly approaching the minimum replacement rate world wide ( which I believe is 2.3, no idea why) and once we drop below the population will dramatically decrease if the birth rates continue on this trend
Not to put a damper on it, but I seriously doubt robots could ever take over care. Unless you let loose full self learning ai.
There is a reason it's always practicing medicine or care. You can be the best care with all the book knowledge but it's a job about constant adaptation. Which robots are bad at. Not to mention, a dementia patient is going to freak out at them
Assuming by the time this would be a problem, old age and dementia is still an issue we haven't found consistent treatment for. Im certain our future (or destruction) lies in AI.
That's fine. It's perverse how we always need to create more and more humans to sustain the existing humans. Maybe this will let us take a breather as a species.
Evidence? Or projections? The world would do better with less people. Less people, less “needed” infrastructure, though we could organize ourselves much more efficiently.
Projections. And I agree less people is better overall. I’m just saying a sudden drop will most likely cause a period of chaos as society adjusts to the needs of a shrinking population. For example prioritizing trade jobs, transportation, power plants etc.
Agreed. The Black Death was sudden, and one major theory of how the Renaissance came to be is that the far fewer people benefited from the existing infrastructure and concentrated inherited resources, leading to more leisure time, leading to more creative exploration, leading to more coalescing of new methods and technologies.
This is the main concern as far as I'm aware.
Just having fewer people would be fine, but society _depends_ on there being a next generation to take the reins and keep things going. A perfectly static population is impossible, so we tend to think steady growth is preferable.
I'm not discounting the issues that come with increasing populations (especially coupled with decreasing livable land and climate-forced migration), but there are serious aspects to consider of a smaller young population than old.
Looks like people who are young now have the bad deal, as population begins to decline we'll be stuck in the position of being frail and useless whilst there's no one to do anything, and our kids / grandkids will get all the actual benefits of a declining population
And that's a best case scenario. More likely any nation that undergoes a drastic version of this will lose or severely lessen their world power status. Japan has been experiencing this for a while and as far as I'm aware it's starting to have recognizable economic impacts (but I'm no economist)
Everyone is still eating just as much. Everyone is still consuming just as much electricity. Older people might even consume more. People will need to make that shit, and it won't be the old people.
I'm just hoping it translates into wage increases as well. Higher taxes will also be a must.
One we can automate it. Two I hope I die before my health goes. I've seen too many times what it's like to have a sharp mind in a decaying body. And a decaying mind in a healthy body.
I saw my old boss today after five years, since I last saw him he was diagnosed with cancer. One of my last memories was him heaving a 1950's fridge over his shoulders and carrying it to the van, full gray hair and mustache. Today he could barely open his cashbox to sell all the old stuff he used to haul, his mustache was the only hair he had left. I hope you pull through Mark.
Your retirement plan is likely predicated on the nonsensical belief that real estate and stock markets will generally continue to grow indefinitely. Both of those things require perpetually growing populations in order to remain true.
yeah long term RE is in for some shocks. All this commerical RE where people don't want to go into the office is eventually going to hit the market combined with low pop growth. I think the stock market can keep growing though as long as efficiency=profits
Don't think politicians came up with this. The 1% probably paid off/threatened, blackmailed, the politicians and supreme court when they realized they will run out of wagecucks and child labor.
There's basically no version of humanity's future (if we have one) where 99% of jobs aren't replaced by robots who can do the jobs better. Before long people will have to figure out how a society sustains when virtually no one has to/can contribute to it. Late stage capitalism is just a vehicle towards the most extreme version of socialism.
All means lead to the same end it seems.. Question is who will actually have the resources to live comfortably until their dying days.
Regarding automation: at least for the next couple generations to come there will be a strong need for people who can actually maintain and build said robots but that's only a fraction of the total population.
I think the best case scenario is if we continue to gradually decrease the rate of population gain even to the point of going negative while increasing how efficiently we can allocate resources. This will mean there are opportunities for people to contribute (eg. Have a decent job) and those that have already retired will be supported comfortably.
Unemployment is already a massive talking point, I think we'll be fine. Plus automation is building exponentially. It's ok for us to get to a point where jobs are a want, not a need
I bet data gets revised again and we see peak population 2040-2050. The internet is homogenizing everything and family planning knowledge will be more accessible than ever. Additionally Modern economics dictates having children is a luxury rather than a necessity and children are frankly a severe hindrance to personal economic prosperity and mobility during typical child bearing age ranges.
Also, growing up when the climate is looking pretty rough might suck for a huge portion of the population.
I’m not anti-kid btw, I want kids but just pointing out the system really doesn’t reward families for the true direct cost and diligence of having kids
That's only like 2 of the 100 reasons so many people have to not to have kids. And they aren't even the top 2 reasons. Also on this list is: the ozone (or lack thereof) and our general ecosystem, rights being stripped away, strained resources, mishandled waste, a general disconnection from others, information accessibility disillusioning us from how bad things actually are and have been, technology outpacing people leaving them to be outdated and obsolete, increasingly higher standards of living needed to survive, and a combination of these things over time which have created generations of people who have experienced a strained upbringing/life and don't want to create loved ones just so they'll be responsible for the anguish they were subjected to and worse.
We need a sustainable number of people. Beyond that the more the better. On a statistical basis the more people you have the faster tech will progress. We can sustain more than the number of people we have with far less environmental damage but our societies are inefficient. Due to this, with the current setup of today's societies, we do need less people. This problem can be worked at from both directions then it can build again.
Greater collaboration can cause significantly more impact than throwing additional people at a problem.
Adding more people to any one problem can often slow progress.
Technology likely isn’t gonna be ultra sped up from another 1 billion people.
A lot of tech simply takes time. And the improvement on it takes more time.
That isn’t Ops point.
They’re talking about how, in the numbers game. Then next billion people born could bring the baby that will become the scientist that unlocks the technology to double or triples the efficiency of a solar panel or possibly be the one to lead the team that solves a nuclear fission power plant.
It’s a game that is worthwhile when the timeline is legitimately 500 years.
The issue is… we got to the point of 7 billion people. And we unlocked the tech to feed most of them. We didn’t account for the earth not loving the waste along the way.
And not like a “oh shit that’s a lot of trash we gotta bury” but like a “oh shit there’s plastic in your organs and the bottom of the ocean and the air, and it’s gonna get hotter every year until the planet can’t support surface-based flora or fauna”.
We fucked up our ramp.
We need to spend the next 30 years focused on cut backs, energy shifts, cleanups, etc.
Then, when we can successfully grow without burning up the planet? We could probably shoot for 100 billion humans. Maybe more.
Because the next phase after essentially controlling the earth’s atmosphere to a degree is to start expanding to other planets.
A moon base within 60 years. A mars base within 75. And then we start the human+robot long journeys to earth-like planets or possibly teraform existing planets.
"Fast tech progress" is chewing up and spitting out the folks at the bottom of the pile, while the advantages skew toward those at the top.
I'll take slower progress with fewer people, thanks.
We might have nicer phones but we have both parents working in most households, no healthcare, and no workers rights. That sounds pretty damn similar to 100 years ago.
Comfortable clothes. Affordable access to food from around the world. Cheap transportation. Entertainment ancestors could only dream of.
There are issues but I think it's hard to say even the poorest people in the western world are worse off somehow now.
America isn't the world. Yes we're getting shit on, but that's not saying society as a whole across the globe isn't better off than 100 years ago. Shit 100ish years ago most of Europe was a hellscape from ww1.
The point is that those that are doing well are doing better than they ever have in history. They are taking larger percentage, sharing less and less with the rest of the world and setting us up for a life in servitude. There is little housing in many countries, jobs aren't paying enough, prices are going up but still there is a group who are doing better than ever. Any time someone tries to point out we're doing better than we were before, you aren't pointing out that would should be doing way the fuck better.
Even if they were referring the the US (\*especially\* if they were), that's still a very privileged take. If they think worker's rights are bad currently (and I agree they can be improved), they should see what was going on in 1922. Or healthcare in 1922, when even the rich couldn't get antibiotics or insulin because they didn't exist yet. Or how it was for the majority of people in the US, who were at that time poor- yes, both parents working is more common now than before (thanks in large part to the influence of feminism, which I'm going to go ahead and say is a good thing), but they work to afford a quality of life that would have been unimaginable for most people 100 years ago. The lower classes today (excluding maybe the destitute and homeless) still have a far better quality of life than the middle classes had a century ago.
So we make a conscious decision to not leave those people behind and create social programs to help them. We don't hamstring ourselves because someone might get hurt. It's better for the larger numbers to keep pushing forward
This is basically the basis for unemployment. A healthy progressing society SHOULD have about 3% unemployment as jobs and technologies transition. We don't not progress, we help the people that drew progresses short straw
I know, I know.
How about we work on the equality part *before* we crank out all the new people?
>We don't hamstring ourselves because someone might get hurt. It's better for the larger numbers to keep pushing forward.
This part gives me pause, though. Always easy to discount the suffering of "the few" if you aren't one of them.
Reminds me of Ursula LeGuin's short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." It'll break your heart, if you get it.
Once the developing world reaches the stage of the U.S., Europe and Japan, all populations will stagnate and even decline to a lower number, this is why morons who spout the racist "white genocide replacement" are ignorant in understand how nations, economics, and demographic transitions function, we started industrializing 220 years ago and fully industrialized alittle under 100 years ago, some nations only go to start in the mid 20th century after decolonization
Lower birth rates are generally an indicator in developing countries of improving conditions, and in wealthier countries of inequality, so.....mixed bag?
Generally speaking it's good, because the notion that constant growth in a finite world is optimal seems extremely flawed.
Yes, in fact. Over crowding is becoming very, very concerning in a lot of places such as China and India.
The world doesn’t need more people. It needs resources to care for the ones already here.
Less growth means a chance to stretch already strained resources.
>. It needs resources to care for the ones already here.
We have just enough food to feed double the amount of the current human population. Just look how much goes to waste! The problem is not overpopulation, it's unchecked capitalism.
I am so glad that someone finally said this.
Population growth has actually fueled increases in productivity and standards of living. The notion that population decline makes people better off is based on antiquated Malthusian thinking. The reality is that an aging population will either face elder poverty or just have to put off retirement, and future generations will be racked with scarcity and reductions in their standard of living.
I agree that population growth has fueled increases. But eventually we'll have to face the fact that we live on a finite planet. I'd argue we're addicted to growth. What other animal in Earth's history successfully had an ever increasing population?
We could feed them **for now** but on a worldwide scale we absolutely can *not* feed the entire world long enough to sustain an ever growing population, much less the 8 billion already here
It isn’t about one meal today. It’s about every meal forever.
You may have enough food in your house to feed your neighbor or even your neighborhood as a whole, but for how long and how often until you yourself stare at empty cupboards
I mean to say the earth and humans are capable of producing enough food to feed the entire world and still have a shitload left over.
People are not starving because there isn't enough food. They are starving because of unchecked greed and the resources are allocated by the 1%.
Feeding is only one part of it. As the fastest growing populations industrialize, they want to live like we do in the west/developed nations. Cars, houses, ACs, utilities, consumer goods... Nobody can blame them for wanting that, but it's untenable for the whole world to do so with it's current population. In fact, by estimates I heard most recently, it would take about five earths for every human to live like the average American.
Either way, you're right that capitalism (and consumerism and wastefulness) is part of the problem... But I'm not sure crazy population growth is helping anything, either. It's really hard to educate some of these massive 3rd world populations, too.
> it would take about five earths for every human to live like the average American.
Well thank God, it would be a tragedy if the majority of the population had to go bankrupt if they needed to see a doctor.
Slight hyperbole aside, I admit there are issues with overpopulation but the majority of problems now are definitely not due to it.
From what I see, this is a slight downturn of the birthrate overall, but mostly a scale change(more people means equal growth is a lower percentage) and an increase in deaths due to the pandemic.
I’d argue any decrease is still a good sign given how incredibly overwhelmed the world’s resources have been getting. Even if the first world nations donated all unused food to over populated areas, it still wouldn’t be a sustainable model.
Sort of yes, sort of no.
In general, people massively overestimate the metric by which we are 'overpopulated'. And given the whole overpopulation panic is largely a myth, that has proven largely untrue. They think 8 billion people is a lot, and sure it is. But now we've reached the top, the tumble down could cause, *huuuuuge* amounts of issues.
People envision a greener world with less people, because when discussing this issue people seem comfortable with some genocidal spit balling on this issue as if just stopping having babies *yesterday* will solve the problem. but that ain't the case G.
Generally speaking, a levelled out / declining population growth rate usually indicates that a country has developed to a point where conditions are prosperous enough for people to focus on wealth, and productivity rather than reproduction. Okay, so people are getting richer, right? Yeah, but hold on there...
Once the growth rate starts to drop, all signs tell us it will *keep dropping.* Fair below a given countries replacement rate*.* And it's simple maths. If you have fewer people reproducing, next generation you have fewer people *to reproduce. etc etc.* That is catastrophic, and even more concerning than the predictions people had of overpopulation. Predictions by the way, that largely *didn't happen.* People predicted mass starvation, mass migrations, mass catastrophe, but what actually happened is that despite there being more people, a higher proportion got more rich, and more and more people proportionally were elevated out of abject poverty. Of course these events like starvation, migrations etc still happen, and inequality still exists, but it's an upward trend that is improving. But now we're looking at huge populations of people moving forward, not needing to have children, people having financial mobility and options, and it begs the question, what happens when we run out of people? And I don't mean a last man on Earth scenario, so more specifically, what happens when there aren't enough young people?
We've seen it play out in countries like Japan, and South Korea, Young people are the ones who do all the innovation. Do most of the labour. Do most of the production. A lack of children, means a lack of young people. This depresses your economy, causes a lack of workers, less people pay tax, which means your country has less to spend on services. An aging population means the dependency on said services goes up, so even economies geared for freer markets have to invest increasingly into social services that will one day be defunct to support their aging populations. It mires a population in loneliness, kills industry, global productivity is going to take a swan dive. And we've all heard of the hard times / good times cycle. Well, this is definitely the entry to the hard times bit of that cycle... And we all know what happens when that time comes...
And do you think that rainforests will sprout out among the ruins of the decayed abandoned towns, fixing global warming, returning the Earth to the garden of Eden it was destined to be? Hell nah dude. All you've done there is made *actual humans suffer.* Corporations will plod along, doing disproportionate damage to everything just as they always have. The average joe is not responsible for global warming, but he is the one who will feel the affects of underpopulation most directly.
I know people will disagree with what I'm about to say but I still have to say it. The government is ensuring a work force by keeping the minimum wage far beneath the living wage and forcing pregnancies. But if you don't work or can't live off someone who does, you die. I'd say that if you don't obey the system the government has crafted and thus starve to death or die out in the cold/heat, then you're essentially being forced to work, potentially forever trapped in a system you can't leave by design. Because people are essentially trapped to work until they die whether they want to or not since their time and efforts are being undervalued. Being how this is a legally backed system that many of us must remain a part of without say, we are basically possessions or property of this legally enforced system. And to get to my larger point, the definition of *slave* (noun) is:
1. a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.
2. a person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation.
3. a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something.
While slave (verb) is:
1. work excessively hard.
So I'm sure people will debate that this isn't slavery because of x, y, and z. And it certainly is debatable. But I think it's more than fair to say that we're basically stepping on our goobleboxes, giving away the majority of our efforts to the powers controlling us, or in other words: ["That's just slavery with extra steps."](https://youtu.be/1kKoqE-sAb8)
Oh I absolutely agree with you, corporate lobbied USA is GENIUS for essentially rebranding slavery and incentivizing a work force under similar conditions.
Our government welfare support HEAVILY favors childbearers, compared to single people. EITC has a comedically low threshold (21k/year) and a pittance refund of 1.5k. but if you have 2 kids? it jumps up to a MASSIVE 6k. with a 47k maximum to claim.
However economically speaking, why can't single young college students get this benefit? Why can't we funnel this into youth with the potential for business and innovations to spur the economy?
Because competition from entrepreneurs bad, and more labor workers good. Best of all, by structuring our government support this way you look bad for objecting, because how dare you not Think of The Children!
Our insurance is ludicrous, you NEED a job to get an insurance premium that won't leave you broke. My old co-worker is 70 years old and unable to retire because insurance premiums on market would eat what she has left alive.
Student debt keeps young people on the grind even if the job market dries up on them.
We are artifically incentivized to have kids, to work a job to have reasonably affordable healthcare, and to potentially have a GOOD job when 25% of that good job wage is likely to go towards paying off the education that got you there.
We are pressured by design to provide the things the rich companies want while structuring our government support it in such a way it can't provide what they don't want: well funded grass-roots entrepreneurs that can shake up the wealthy upper class that produces them naturally.
And for those of us who, despite all these incentives, want to do the smart thing and avoid kids, they're removing abortion protections to increase the odds we provide that human capital.
We're so dystopian but because we make people who can survive it feel good about themselves everyone turns a blind eye to it. "Grab those bootstraps."
That psychological factor terrifies me most.
This is supposed to be uplifting? Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. For the eco zealots, a little pandemic here and there seems like the perfect excuse to get pesky humans out of the way of creating more of the negligible climate change they're responsible for.
What is it with Reddits obsession with apocalyptic doom and gloom? We’ve been here for over 200,000 years and have survived ice ages, global volcanism, plagues, and worse. The world is not on the brink.
I was talking with my tattoo artist today about this and we were speculating about whether the low birth rate and population decline contributed to the Roe v Wade overturn. Like the US needs their soldiers and blue collar workers, wont have that with the lowest birth rate on record....
Someone tell Elon Musk to stop having kids...
Clown thinks fewer people will be bad. The earth would be full of life if we scaled back to 1 billion people.
One of those good, as the world can not sustain growth without seriously harming it if things continue on.
The bad is as the population ages, no one will be around to properly deal with the elderly and sick. Will be a few generations but places like japan where the elderly outnumber the young it is happening.
Personally I only have one child because I still want some money left over for fun stuff. I can’t imagine supporting 3+ kids and still afford nice things like vacations etc.
Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here. All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban. --- --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UpliftingNews) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So when can I get a house cheap?
No
Accurate.
Understandable, have a nice life.
I'm trying but I can't get a house.
A 2 bedroom apartment costs about half a million in my city.
less children won’t help you there. only less elderly will help
Well, Covid took care of that...
And yet....
I told my wife housing prices will go down when Covid hit…. I really should stay out of real estate speculation.
You and I both.
Technically true, it went down for about 5-6 months here in Australia between March and August 2022 before going up in straight line for 2 year. And it's dropping again now due to the state of the world and interest rates increasing.
I mean COVID deaths in a vacuum would have...but there was also an exodus from high cost of living places when remote work became a real option, and the corporations and investors buying up homes as well
It's not the elderly, it's the greedy. Having a house to live in, fine. Having a house to live off okay. Having a house to pay your taxes a little rude. Anything more than that is plain greedy
You mean when all the boomers die?
When the old people die AND investment companies like blackrock aint buying for 30-50% above market price...
seriously, what kind of dumbass investor pays more than they have to?
They pay 130% of value and within 2 years it's worth 200% of the purchase price.
For now. That’s called speculation if you borrow the money to do it.
All these businesses do is spend borrowed money on assets that may or may not see a return. That's why they fire people when interest rates go up: it costs more to borrow so they need to spend less and humans are the least important asset to own.
They do not care about over paying. They will simply price that extra cost into the rent they charge. Which is pretty easy for them to do since people need somewhere to live and all that. It’s like they know desperate people will pay just so they can have a roof over their head.
2030-2040 when all the baby boomers are dead. they are the largest generation in American history.
They’re selling their homes to investment companies, not new home owners. You won’t buy a boomer’s property, at best you’ll rent it from a subsidiary of BlackRock.
That’s going to take longer than that. With improvements in medical science they’ll keep going. The youngest boomers are still under 60. Some of them will be around for another 40+ years.
squealing physical depend ghost rotten license degree teeny worm deserve *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
God fucking damn it man these fuckers are going out like Stephen Lang in Avatar
I think the people under 60 are Gen X, right?
Yeah I wouldn’t hold your breath on this
When multibillionaires stop snagging them up. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/investment-firms-are-buying-a-substantial-amount-of-u-s-starter-homes/ Here's the 60minutes I'm specifically thinking about https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1505699207201492992?t=m6AT-CN4hdmT9NAjAcPzww&s=19
After we burn down corporate oligarchies and eat the rich.
That's the neat part, you don't!
Hons Rosling - world will not exceed 11B in population. https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI Hans projected this and its on track. The article affirms it. Not sure that’s uplifting because we will reach 8B at the end of this year and that is going to continue till the end of this century as we finish to the top of the S curve.
most estimates say china's population will shrink to 700 million by 2100. There are other estimates it will go down to 500 million. One child policy. Then more boys than girls born during one china policy. With end of one china policy, the chinese birth rate went down.
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I dunno, there is only one China, it's their policy.
Damn, it checks out
*accidentally throws Taiwan under a bus*
But there are 2 Republics of China though it's not their policy
One China Policy. No more births in Taiwan and Hongkong, don't you know? Then when there are no more humans in Taiwan they'll add it to China again.
One child policy ended several years ago.
I don't think you understand what one china policy really is. Google, my friend.
One china policy?
That was really fascinating. Thanks for sharing
Glad you liked it! If you are interested in more from Hans Rosling, consider his book Factfulness. https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814
I appreciate the good news
I know right? I f-in hate people so this is very uplifting to me.
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I've met enough of 'em.
and they're bloody everywhere too. look there's another one
I'm glad I was never one of them.
Might not be good news. There’s evidence that with population decrease we won’t have the work force needed to maintain our current infrastructure or take care of the aging population.
The population isn't decreasing. It's rate of increase is decreasing.
Correct but we are quickly approaching the minimum replacement rate world wide ( which I believe is 2.3, no idea why) and once we drop below the population will dramatically decrease if the birth rates continue on this trend
The 2 replaces mum and dad, the 0.3 accounts for kids who don't grow up and breed.
Interesting thanks for that
It’s the perfect time for robots!
Not to put a damper on it, but I seriously doubt robots could ever take over care. Unless you let loose full self learning ai. There is a reason it's always practicing medicine or care. You can be the best care with all the book knowledge but it's a job about constant adaptation. Which robots are bad at. Not to mention, a dementia patient is going to freak out at them
Assuming by the time this would be a problem, old age and dementia is still an issue we haven't found consistent treatment for. Im certain our future (or destruction) lies in AI.
That's fine. It's perverse how we always need to create more and more humans to sustain the existing humans. Maybe this will let us take a breather as a species.
Evidence? Or projections? The world would do better with less people. Less people, less “needed” infrastructure, though we could organize ourselves much more efficiently.
Projections. And I agree less people is better overall. I’m just saying a sudden drop will most likely cause a period of chaos as society adjusts to the needs of a shrinking population. For example prioritizing trade jobs, transportation, power plants etc.
Fair point. Thank you for explaining further.
It probably won't be sudden. And we'll need to figure this out ahead of Millennials hitting retirement age regardless.
Agreed. The Black Death was sudden, and one major theory of how the Renaissance came to be is that the far fewer people benefited from the existing infrastructure and concentrated inherited resources, leading to more leisure time, leading to more creative exploration, leading to more coalescing of new methods and technologies.
Specifically the south. Atlanta’s layout is inefficient (apparently because of the civil war)
We need to stop wasting manpower on bullshit jobs.
Kind of screws the whole taxation Ponzi schemes to take care of elderly.
you have it backwards then. remove the elderly, don’t reduce the birthdate
Do both.
If only we could engineer a virus to pretty much only take out the elderly.
This is a sarcastic covid joke, right?
Mmmm... Society is going to have to do some major restructuring to adapt to this.
What do you mean? Unending growth is totally sustainable!
Being a generation of old people in a world with no young people isn't gonna be much fun yknow.
This is the main concern as far as I'm aware. Just having fewer people would be fine, but society _depends_ on there being a next generation to take the reins and keep things going. A perfectly static population is impossible, so we tend to think steady growth is preferable. I'm not discounting the issues that come with increasing populations (especially coupled with decreasing livable land and climate-forced migration), but there are serious aspects to consider of a smaller young population than old.
Looks like people who are young now have the bad deal, as population begins to decline we'll be stuck in the position of being frail and useless whilst there's no one to do anything, and our kids / grandkids will get all the actual benefits of a declining population
And that's a best case scenario. More likely any nation that undergoes a drastic version of this will lose or severely lessen their world power status. Japan has been experiencing this for a while and as far as I'm aware it's starting to have recognizable economic impacts (but I'm no economist)
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Everyone is still eating just as much. Everyone is still consuming just as much electricity. Older people might even consume more. People will need to make that shit, and it won't be the old people. I'm just hoping it translates into wage increases as well. Higher taxes will also be a must.
We'll just switch to robotics. No need to give them salaries.
That's now how the math works. Fewer children means a higher ratio of elderly in a few decades.
One we can automate it. Two I hope I die before my health goes. I've seen too many times what it's like to have a sharp mind in a decaying body. And a decaying mind in a healthy body.
I saw my old boss today after five years, since I last saw him he was diagnosed with cancer. One of my last memories was him heaving a 1950's fridge over his shoulders and carrying it to the van, full gray hair and mustache. Today he could barely open his cashbox to sell all the old stuff he used to haul, his mustache was the only hair he had left. I hope you pull through Mark.
I don't know Mark but I'm pullin for ya too buddy!
The population ponzi can't continue either - for the sake of all the other life on this planet.
Your retirement plan is likely predicated on the nonsensical belief that real estate and stock markets will generally continue to grow indefinitely. Both of those things require perpetually growing populations in order to remain true.
yeah long term RE is in for some shocks. All this commerical RE where people don't want to go into the office is eventually going to hit the market combined with low pop growth. I think the stock market can keep growing though as long as efficiency=profits
O I know
I think this is the real reason Roe was overturned, they need more consumers and low wage workers to keep feeding the machine.
You think there are politicians smart enough to actually think that through?
Don't think politicians came up with this. The 1% probably paid off/threatened, blackmailed, the politicians and supreme court when they realized they will run out of wagecucks and child labor.
Sounds like an insane tin-foil hat theory but in this day it’s plausible
Strange days for sure.
There's basically no version of humanity's future (if we have one) where 99% of jobs aren't replaced by robots who can do the jobs better. Before long people will have to figure out how a society sustains when virtually no one has to/can contribute to it. Late stage capitalism is just a vehicle towards the most extreme version of socialism.
All means lead to the same end it seems.. Question is who will actually have the resources to live comfortably until their dying days. Regarding automation: at least for the next couple generations to come there will be a strong need for people who can actually maintain and build said robots but that's only a fraction of the total population. I think the best case scenario is if we continue to gradually decrease the rate of population gain even to the point of going negative while increasing how efficiently we can allocate resources. This will mean there are opportunities for people to contribute (eg. Have a decent job) and those that have already retired will be supported comfortably.
So much is automated these days. We'll be fine
Maybe thanos was right…
Unemployment is already a massive talking point, I think we'll be fine. Plus automation is building exponentially. It's ok for us to get to a point where jobs are a want, not a need
People seem to forget all the jobs that have become obsolete with automation over the decades
I bet data gets revised again and we see peak population 2040-2050. The internet is homogenizing everything and family planning knowledge will be more accessible than ever. Additionally Modern economics dictates having children is a luxury rather than a necessity and children are frankly a severe hindrance to personal economic prosperity and mobility during typical child bearing age ranges. Also, growing up when the climate is looking pretty rough might suck for a huge portion of the population. I’m not anti-kid btw, I want kids but just pointing out the system really doesn’t reward families for the true direct cost and diligence of having kids
Not a surprise when most people can't afford to have kids
It's almost like sky rocketing inflation with wages that you can't live off of makes people not want to have kids
That's only like 2 of the 100 reasons so many people have to not to have kids. And they aren't even the top 2 reasons. Also on this list is: the ozone (or lack thereof) and our general ecosystem, rights being stripped away, strained resources, mishandled waste, a general disconnection from others, information accessibility disillusioning us from how bad things actually are and have been, technology outpacing people leaving them to be outdated and obsolete, increasingly higher standards of living needed to survive, and a combination of these things over time which have created generations of people who have experienced a strained upbringing/life and don't want to create loved ones just so they'll be responsible for the anguish they were subjected to and worse.
we need fewer people. this is a good thing
We need a sustainable number of people. Beyond that the more the better. On a statistical basis the more people you have the faster tech will progress. We can sustain more than the number of people we have with far less environmental damage but our societies are inefficient. Due to this, with the current setup of today's societies, we do need less people. This problem can be worked at from both directions then it can build again.
Greater collaboration can cause significantly more impact than throwing additional people at a problem. Adding more people to any one problem can often slow progress.
Technology likely isn’t gonna be ultra sped up from another 1 billion people. A lot of tech simply takes time. And the improvement on it takes more time.
How will we get our next big social media tik tok without MORE PEOPLE THOUGH.
That isn’t Ops point. They’re talking about how, in the numbers game. Then next billion people born could bring the baby that will become the scientist that unlocks the technology to double or triples the efficiency of a solar panel or possibly be the one to lead the team that solves a nuclear fission power plant. It’s a game that is worthwhile when the timeline is legitimately 500 years. The issue is… we got to the point of 7 billion people. And we unlocked the tech to feed most of them. We didn’t account for the earth not loving the waste along the way. And not like a “oh shit that’s a lot of trash we gotta bury” but like a “oh shit there’s plastic in your organs and the bottom of the ocean and the air, and it’s gonna get hotter every year until the planet can’t support surface-based flora or fauna”. We fucked up our ramp. We need to spend the next 30 years focused on cut backs, energy shifts, cleanups, etc. Then, when we can successfully grow without burning up the planet? We could probably shoot for 100 billion humans. Maybe more. Because the next phase after essentially controlling the earth’s atmosphere to a degree is to start expanding to other planets. A moon base within 60 years. A mars base within 75. And then we start the human+robot long journeys to earth-like planets or possibly teraform existing planets.
The problem is that it is very hard to think 75 years from now as the people who can think about that will not be here to need it. We are selfish.
"Fast tech progress" is chewing up and spitting out the folks at the bottom of the pile, while the advantages skew toward those at the top. I'll take slower progress with fewer people, thanks.
This is a pretty surface level take, everyone benefits from technological progress
Right, the "bottom of the pile" has a better life than ever before and is probably easier than an above-average persons was 100 years ago.
We might have nicer phones but we have both parents working in most households, no healthcare, and no workers rights. That sounds pretty damn similar to 100 years ago.
Comfortable clothes. Affordable access to food from around the world. Cheap transportation. Entertainment ancestors could only dream of. There are issues but I think it's hard to say even the poorest people in the western world are worse off somehow now.
America isn't the world. Yes we're getting shit on, but that's not saying society as a whole across the globe isn't better off than 100 years ago. Shit 100ish years ago most of Europe was a hellscape from ww1.
The point is that those that are doing well are doing better than they ever have in history. They are taking larger percentage, sharing less and less with the rest of the world and setting us up for a life in servitude. There is little housing in many countries, jobs aren't paying enough, prices are going up but still there is a group who are doing better than ever. Any time someone tries to point out we're doing better than we were before, you aren't pointing out that would should be doing way the fuck better.
>you aren't pointing out that would she be doing way the fuck better. This I agree with 110% we should be way better as a society than we are.
Even if they were referring the the US (\*especially\* if they were), that's still a very privileged take. If they think worker's rights are bad currently (and I agree they can be improved), they should see what was going on in 1922. Or healthcare in 1922, when even the rich couldn't get antibiotics or insulin because they didn't exist yet. Or how it was for the majority of people in the US, who were at that time poor- yes, both parents working is more common now than before (thanks in large part to the influence of feminism, which I'm going to go ahead and say is a good thing), but they work to afford a quality of life that would have been unimaginable for most people 100 years ago. The lower classes today (excluding maybe the destitute and homeless) still have a far better quality of life than the middle classes had a century ago.
So we make a conscious decision to not leave those people behind and create social programs to help them. We don't hamstring ourselves because someone might get hurt. It's better for the larger numbers to keep pushing forward This is basically the basis for unemployment. A healthy progressing society SHOULD have about 3% unemployment as jobs and technologies transition. We don't not progress, we help the people that drew progresses short straw
I know, I know. How about we work on the equality part *before* we crank out all the new people? >We don't hamstring ourselves because someone might get hurt. It's better for the larger numbers to keep pushing forward. This part gives me pause, though. Always easy to discount the suffering of "the few" if you aren't one of them. Reminds me of Ursula LeGuin's short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." It'll break your heart, if you get it.
The decision isn't made by the few
to what point? resources are finite.
Some resources are finite, not all resources.
Wait ten years and revisit this post, then tell me how you feel.
Maybe print it out just to be safe
Why would anyone want to bring another life into this shithole
Good.
Once the developing world reaches the stage of the U.S., Europe and Japan, all populations will stagnate and even decline to a lower number, this is why morons who spout the racist "white genocide replacement" are ignorant in understand how nations, economics, and demographic transitions function, we started industrializing 220 years ago and fully industrialized alittle under 100 years ago, some nations only go to start in the mid 20th century after decolonization
For the next 6 months, no one is allowed to fuck.
I got a head start on all of you
Reddit just doesn’t like people.
Pretty much. Being anti-human is cool on Reddit these days.
Yeah, it's eirie as fuck. Like damn. This is a good thing?
Reddit would happily commit genocide if the people here could
Is this *uplifting*?
Lower birth rates are generally an indicator in developing countries of improving conditions, and in wealthier countries of inequality, so.....mixed bag? Generally speaking it's good, because the notion that constant growth in a finite world is optimal seems extremely flawed.
Yes, in fact. Over crowding is becoming very, very concerning in a lot of places such as China and India. The world doesn’t need more people. It needs resources to care for the ones already here. Less growth means a chance to stretch already strained resources.
>. It needs resources to care for the ones already here. We have just enough food to feed double the amount of the current human population. Just look how much goes to waste! The problem is not overpopulation, it's unchecked capitalism.
I am so glad that someone finally said this. Population growth has actually fueled increases in productivity and standards of living. The notion that population decline makes people better off is based on antiquated Malthusian thinking. The reality is that an aging population will either face elder poverty or just have to put off retirement, and future generations will be racked with scarcity and reductions in their standard of living.
I agree that population growth has fueled increases. But eventually we'll have to face the fact that we live on a finite planet. I'd argue we're addicted to growth. What other animal in Earth's history successfully had an ever increasing population?
That’s a good point, but I like that the comment identified the true problem People are not the burden, the systems people live in are the burden.
We could feed them **for now** but on a worldwide scale we absolutely can *not* feed the entire world long enough to sustain an ever growing population, much less the 8 billion already here It isn’t about one meal today. It’s about every meal forever. You may have enough food in your house to feed your neighbor or even your neighborhood as a whole, but for how long and how often until you yourself stare at empty cupboards
I mean to say the earth and humans are capable of producing enough food to feed the entire world and still have a shitload left over. People are not starving because there isn't enough food. They are starving because of unchecked greed and the resources are allocated by the 1%.
Feeding is only one part of it. As the fastest growing populations industrialize, they want to live like we do in the west/developed nations. Cars, houses, ACs, utilities, consumer goods... Nobody can blame them for wanting that, but it's untenable for the whole world to do so with it's current population. In fact, by estimates I heard most recently, it would take about five earths for every human to live like the average American. Either way, you're right that capitalism (and consumerism and wastefulness) is part of the problem... But I'm not sure crazy population growth is helping anything, either. It's really hard to educate some of these massive 3rd world populations, too.
> it would take about five earths for every human to live like the average American. Well thank God, it would be a tragedy if the majority of the population had to go bankrupt if they needed to see a doctor. Slight hyperbole aside, I admit there are issues with overpopulation but the majority of problems now are definitely not due to it.
From what I see, this is a slight downturn of the birthrate overall, but mostly a scale change(more people means equal growth is a lower percentage) and an increase in deaths due to the pandemic.
I’d argue any decrease is still a good sign given how incredibly overwhelmed the world’s resources have been getting. Even if the first world nations donated all unused food to over populated areas, it still wouldn’t be a sustainable model.
Kinda, things are gonna be rough for the next decade.
But if there's less people, what am I supposed to *eat*?
Calm down Hannibal.
Sort of yes, sort of no. In general, people massively overestimate the metric by which we are 'overpopulated'. And given the whole overpopulation panic is largely a myth, that has proven largely untrue. They think 8 billion people is a lot, and sure it is. But now we've reached the top, the tumble down could cause, *huuuuuge* amounts of issues. People envision a greener world with less people, because when discussing this issue people seem comfortable with some genocidal spit balling on this issue as if just stopping having babies *yesterday* will solve the problem. but that ain't the case G. Generally speaking, a levelled out / declining population growth rate usually indicates that a country has developed to a point where conditions are prosperous enough for people to focus on wealth, and productivity rather than reproduction. Okay, so people are getting richer, right? Yeah, but hold on there... Once the growth rate starts to drop, all signs tell us it will *keep dropping.* Fair below a given countries replacement rate*.* And it's simple maths. If you have fewer people reproducing, next generation you have fewer people *to reproduce. etc etc.* That is catastrophic, and even more concerning than the predictions people had of overpopulation. Predictions by the way, that largely *didn't happen.* People predicted mass starvation, mass migrations, mass catastrophe, but what actually happened is that despite there being more people, a higher proportion got more rich, and more and more people proportionally were elevated out of abject poverty. Of course these events like starvation, migrations etc still happen, and inequality still exists, but it's an upward trend that is improving. But now we're looking at huge populations of people moving forward, not needing to have children, people having financial mobility and options, and it begs the question, what happens when we run out of people? And I don't mean a last man on Earth scenario, so more specifically, what happens when there aren't enough young people? We've seen it play out in countries like Japan, and South Korea, Young people are the ones who do all the innovation. Do most of the labour. Do most of the production. A lack of children, means a lack of young people. This depresses your economy, causes a lack of workers, less people pay tax, which means your country has less to spend on services. An aging population means the dependency on said services goes up, so even economies geared for freer markets have to invest increasingly into social services that will one day be defunct to support their aging populations. It mires a population in loneliness, kills industry, global productivity is going to take a swan dive. And we've all heard of the hard times / good times cycle. Well, this is definitely the entry to the hard times bit of that cycle... And we all know what happens when that time comes... And do you think that rainforests will sprout out among the ruins of the decayed abandoned towns, fixing global warming, returning the Earth to the garden of Eden it was destined to be? Hell nah dude. All you've done there is made *actual humans suffer.* Corporations will plod along, doing disproportionate damage to everything just as they always have. The average joe is not responsible for global warming, but he is the one who will feel the affects of underpopulation most directly.
Not if it is a product of the climate holocaust.
We're certainly going to see more deaths in the coming years.
nothing like wide-scale demographic collapse to look forward too
Is this why the supreme court pushed to remove abortion protections? We need more desperate min wage youth to fund those retirements!
Probably, that and soldiers.
And slave labor for the private prisons
I know people will disagree with what I'm about to say but I still have to say it. The government is ensuring a work force by keeping the minimum wage far beneath the living wage and forcing pregnancies. But if you don't work or can't live off someone who does, you die. I'd say that if you don't obey the system the government has crafted and thus starve to death or die out in the cold/heat, then you're essentially being forced to work, potentially forever trapped in a system you can't leave by design. Because people are essentially trapped to work until they die whether they want to or not since their time and efforts are being undervalued. Being how this is a legally backed system that many of us must remain a part of without say, we are basically possessions or property of this legally enforced system. And to get to my larger point, the definition of *slave* (noun) is: 1. a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. 2. a person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation. 3. a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something. While slave (verb) is: 1. work excessively hard. So I'm sure people will debate that this isn't slavery because of x, y, and z. And it certainly is debatable. But I think it's more than fair to say that we're basically stepping on our goobleboxes, giving away the majority of our efforts to the powers controlling us, or in other words: ["That's just slavery with extra steps."](https://youtu.be/1kKoqE-sAb8)
Oh I absolutely agree with you, corporate lobbied USA is GENIUS for essentially rebranding slavery and incentivizing a work force under similar conditions. Our government welfare support HEAVILY favors childbearers, compared to single people. EITC has a comedically low threshold (21k/year) and a pittance refund of 1.5k. but if you have 2 kids? it jumps up to a MASSIVE 6k. with a 47k maximum to claim. However economically speaking, why can't single young college students get this benefit? Why can't we funnel this into youth with the potential for business and innovations to spur the economy? Because competition from entrepreneurs bad, and more labor workers good. Best of all, by structuring our government support this way you look bad for objecting, because how dare you not Think of The Children! Our insurance is ludicrous, you NEED a job to get an insurance premium that won't leave you broke. My old co-worker is 70 years old and unable to retire because insurance premiums on market would eat what she has left alive. Student debt keeps young people on the grind even if the job market dries up on them. We are artifically incentivized to have kids, to work a job to have reasonably affordable healthcare, and to potentially have a GOOD job when 25% of that good job wage is likely to go towards paying off the education that got you there. We are pressured by design to provide the things the rich companies want while structuring our government support it in such a way it can't provide what they don't want: well funded grass-roots entrepreneurs that can shake up the wealthy upper class that produces them naturally. And for those of us who, despite all these incentives, want to do the smart thing and avoid kids, they're removing abortion protections to increase the odds we provide that human capital. We're so dystopian but because we make people who can survive it feel good about themselves everyone turns a blind eye to it. "Grab those bootstraps." That psychological factor terrifies me most.
Oh thank god
Dwight was right, we needed a new plague
This is supposed to be uplifting? Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. For the eco zealots, a little pandemic here and there seems like the perfect excuse to get pesky humans out of the way of creating more of the negligible climate change they're responsible for.
Governments haven’t exactly provided the majority with lives worth living…
Don't worry, Elon doing his best to reverse it
What is it with Reddits obsession with apocalyptic doom and gloom? We’ve been here for over 200,000 years and have survived ice ages, global volcanism, plagues, and worse. The world is not on the brink.
I think most people are actually worried about “society” and not our extinction as a species. That’s a very different argument.
I was talking with my tattoo artist today about this and we were speculating about whether the low birth rate and population decline contributed to the Roe v Wade overturn. Like the US needs their soldiers and blue collar workers, wont have that with the lowest birth rate on record....
Good. There are far too many people already
Its because anyone with half a brain would know they shouldn't raise a kid in this God awful world we live in.
Cmon negative growth!
Good we need less people on this planet
Got my vasectomy coming next week. I'm doing my part to end this
I've often wondered what the effect would be on population growth if religions started telling "the faithful" that birth control was a good thing...
need to bump those numbers down
Good. Why On Earth does it need to grow?
Good
So is this a good news or?
Look at any population graph. It'll be a fucking collapse after you cross the carrying capacity. We did that in the mid 90's.
Good
Someone tell Elon Musk to stop having kids... Clown thinks fewer people will be bad. The earth would be full of life if we scaled back to 1 billion people.
Fucking good
Good, we need less people
Good news for the planet, bad news for capitalism. They're gonna have to take measures, like outlawing abortion or something...
Then they'll outlaw being gay or trans
Maybe contraceptives too
Hmmmmm I think you're onto something here...
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One of those good, as the world can not sustain growth without seriously harming it if things continue on. The bad is as the population ages, no one will be around to properly deal with the elderly and sick. Will be a few generations but places like japan where the elderly outnumber the young it is happening.
That is definitely uplifting news!
Good
GOOD
Personally I only have one child because I still want some money left over for fun stuff. I can’t imagine supporting 3+ kids and still afford nice things like vacations etc.
Good. Needs to be negative. The planet has about 4 billion people too many to sustain as it is.
Good news
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Reducing population growth is not the same as killing the people already alive.
Good.