This is an overly simplified take on a potential coming tragedy, which is a rapid population collapse.
I’m not saying anywhere that we need constant growth or even stable population levels where it is now, we would absolutely do better with about half as many people on Earth.
But if that drop happens too fast, you have no idea how much harm and suffering it will do to society. We’re talking great-filter scenario where there’s simply not enough people to maintain the systems that deliver food to stores, maintenance supplies to the machines that keep your roads paved, antibiotics to impoverished nations, cornmeal to livestock and on and on and on.
And the left is broadly nodding on in agreement with the deranged fucking anti-natalists because we think it’s conservation. When right-wing people like Musk scream about birth rates and fertility, they’re using the coming problem to start seeding racist ideology around the problem and nobody seems to get what they’re doing.
South Korea is going to be one of the first major population centers that ends up with abandoned cities in a couple generations, the only short-term answer is open immigration, but it’s so dire in so many places that there won’t be anyone to enforce borders anyway.
This should NOT be painting a picture in your head of pastoral countrysides and empty cities where you can do all your reading. Think more in terms of millions of starving migrant families, children, lots and lots of elderly people, all walks of life, no resources being moved, no infrastructure being supported. Whole swaths of nations basically being amputated to consolidate manpower where it’s needed to maintain defense, and you better believe there will be wars.
If we look at our history, there have been numerous scenarios where industry was reduced, like disease or war. A society is fairly resilient against short-term fluctuations in the number of working age adults.
I’d not panic about it, especially as the human population continues to grow, and with every passing day there are still vastly more children being born than adults reaching retirement age.
I was primarily confused about your comment about resources. You clarified that this concern is about the production and distribution of food and other essentials. I’m not concerned about this; again, when we look back, we can see how technological breakthroughs have allowed us to produce and distribute more with fewer hands at an exponential pace that has kept up with our equally exponential population growth.
I’m sooner concerned about the depletion of non-renewable resources, like phosphorus, which is essential for life on earth. Reclaiming it from the sea bottom is not something we’ll be able to perform at scale within a generation and the clock on a food crisis had been ticking for some time already. This is just one of many examples.
I’m afraid that the answer to averting a global food crisis is not to increase our population growth, either. As a species, we will need to come up with a better long-term plan for sustainable life on earth.
I’m confused about your comment. Can you elaborate?
This is an overly simplified take on a potential coming tragedy, which is a rapid population collapse.
I’m not saying anywhere that we need constant growth or even stable population levels where it is now, we would absolutely do better with about half as many people on Earth.
But if that drop happens too fast, you have no idea how much harm and suffering it will do to society. We’re talking great-filter scenario where there’s simply not enough people to maintain the systems that deliver food to stores, maintenance supplies to the machines that keep your roads paved, antibiotics to impoverished nations, cornmeal to livestock and on and on and on.
And the left is broadly nodding on in agreement with the deranged fucking anti-natalists because we think it’s conservation. When right-wing people like Musk scream about birth rates and fertility, they’re using the coming problem to start seeding racist ideology around the problem and nobody seems to get what they’re doing.
South Korea is going to be one of the first major population centers that ends up with abandoned cities in a couple generations, the only short-term answer is open immigration, but it’s so dire in so many places that there won’t be anyone to enforce borders anyway.
This should NOT be painting a picture in your head of pastoral countrysides and empty cities where you can do all your reading. Think more in terms of millions of starving migrant families, children, lots and lots of elderly people, all walks of life, no resources being moved, no infrastructure being supported. Whole swaths of nations basically being amputated to consolidate manpower where it’s needed to maintain defense, and you better believe there will be wars.
That’s certainly an interesting perspective.
If we look at our history, there have been numerous scenarios where industry was reduced, like disease or war. A society is fairly resilient against short-term fluctuations in the number of working age adults.
I’d not panic about it, especially as the human population continues to grow, and with every passing day there are still vastly more children being born than adults reaching retirement age.
I was primarily confused about your comment about resources. You clarified that this concern is about the production and distribution of food and other essentials. I’m not concerned about this; again, when we look back, we can see how technological breakthroughs have allowed us to produce and distribute more with fewer hands at an exponential pace that has kept up with our equally exponential population growth.
I’m sooner concerned about the depletion of non-renewable resources, like phosphorus, which is essential for life on earth. Reclaiming it from the sea bottom is not something we’ll be able to perform at scale within a generation and the clock on a food crisis had been ticking for some time already. This is just one of many examples.
I’m afraid that the answer to averting a global food crisis is not to increase our population growth, either. As a species, we will need to come up with a better long-term plan for sustainable life on earth.
It’s like when you try to shake people in a dream to get them to realize it’s a dream, but they’re not real so they just stare at you.