The global fertility crisis: are fewer babies a good or a bad thing? Experts are divided
The global fertility crisis: are fewer babies a good or a bad thing? Experts are divided
The UK’s fertility rate is at an all-time low, and many other countries face similar declines, creating ageing populations. But can ecological benefits of fewer people outweigh social problems created?
It's interesting how different countries are dealing and are effected by the declining worldwide birth rates. The most astounding statistic to me is that wildlife populations have dropped +70% over the past 50 years. Frankly, if humans think that we are in the right to drop wildlife populations by such a staggering amount, a slight drop in human populations only seems like a fair way to balance the scales.
Apparently endless growth is a good thing. How the planet is supposed to continue to provide and survive a continuous expansion of Homo sapiens is beyond me. The only way out is to decrease population growth and refactor the world economy away from endless growth.
Apparently endless growth is a good thing.
Really, we should just work towards keeping the world population stable and bring everyone out of poverty
Not that we have to try particularly hard, the population is stabilizing off by itself
We're 8 billion people on the planet, we aren't running out anytime soon
It's bad for the 1% and good for everyone else including wildlife, nature and the planet.
as I see both fewer and more is bad. more is bad because of overpopulation, but fewer is also bad because of how the pension system works at most places
If it becomes universal and is irreversible, then yes it would be a bad thing. The issue with the wild life annihilation is that it is occurring in the poorest parts of the world. What do we do to stop them? Invade, order them to just stay poor? Import the world's poorest into the wealthiest countries? Mass sterilization of the poor? All of those sound fascist AF.
Offer education, contraception, and healthcare universally, regardless of border. This would tank the birthrate in a non fascist way, which is an objectively good thing. This weird procapitalist idea that we need or should want or really could sustain 8+ billion apex predators is ridiculous. In no ecosystem is that sustainable, even if the predators are smart enough to stop directly predating in other animals.
We should genuinely be striving for the least number of people that still allows the highest quality of life, with a further constraint being the lowest impact to the rest of the environment. Make no mistake, everyone regardless of immutable or even mutable status should be allowed to have kids if they want, but we shouldn't want or need to frame it as something essential to continue continuity of wage labor.
It's good. And the decision to have (or not have) kids is one of the few forms of power that the general population has over those in charge. If people are being squeezed out financially or have no hope for the future (e.g. environmental collapse), they may choose to opt out of reproduction.
It probably doesn't hold up. The idea of overpopulation is wrong because the west is suffering a birth crisis while the third world is having a child boom. It's not that more children are being born, it's that their standards are being improved so more of them survive. They in turn will level out and see less children born the better their standards become; so it's reasonable to assume if standards are collapsing in the west, then in a generation or so, more children will be born.
Imagine how many lives would be improved of people who only wanted children when they are ready had children. Everyone wins.
Eventually all the labor will go to machines and AI anyway. Nothing will be lost.
quality over quantity in all things
2bro2b