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.

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.

You and people who raise this notion are all for rapid depopulation when you aren’t imagining it’s you dealing with the impact of billions of people not having enough resources. It sounds a bit entitled.

I think I’m going to trust the reporting from actual people in China over someone who’s moderation comment I can fucking SEE so don’t pretend shit around me. I will never see your stupid comments again.

How many humans should we aim to have, long term? 20 billion? 50 billion?

That’s not what this issue is about, this isn’t “pro-growth” this is about averting economic and logistical collapse across much of the developed world.

Sure, we could do with a reduced population, but it needs to be reduced slowly enough that we don’t see mass casualties and so that our infrastructure, production and logistics aren’t suddenly unmanned, or many, many people will suffer.

We have to understand that the argument for continued population upkeep is about stability not some desire to perpetually increase population. There’s not a sharp, two-sided binary here, the problem is that many, many people in the developed world are having either no kids or not enough to keep up with expected decline and longer lifespans. When we run out of young people to run our cities, our roads, our offices and our shipyards and rail systems, we end up with collapse.

Look into South Korea for a vision of the worst case and think about what will happen broadly when the same syndrome hits other major world powers and logistical hubs.

no… they canceled that

This shit is so easy to check before you click “reply” I have no idea why we can’t be asked to spend several seconds on a basic google search before spilling whatever is on our mind. You can hate China for whatever reasons, but let’s not share factually incorrect information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy

edit: why am I not at all surprised your mod history is filled with hate towards Asian people.

Sadly, when it comes down to it, children are necessary for society to function long-term.

It shouldn’t be sad, this is basic reality. We should love kids and want kids and pressure our own countries to make it easier to have families.

I am really getting worried that the left broadly is turning soft anti-natalist and there is no faster way to end your movement than by not having more people. I feel like “birth rates” and “fertility” are terms that we feel have been co-opted by the right because figures like Elon Musk and the manosphere bros.

China is thinking long-term and practical. If they lose their young work-force it won’t matter what those “other people” are doing or not.

Someone in China told me once that one of the biggest differences between China and Europe/USA is that in the west we think in terms of years or decades. In China they are making plans for the next several centuries.

This isn’t a glowing endorsement of the heinous shit China has done, but it should at least make you understand that this isn’t a social welfare program designed to help families as much as the first of many measures to fight the forces that are eroding the power and production capability of other countries. If you want to see how bad it can get, look into what the future holds for South Korea.