I'm with you. We can have fewer people on earth. But, that means 2-ish generations will have to do 2x-the-work per capita while receiving 0.5x the care when they retire. Our social welfare and economic systems are not built to deal with decreasing populations, let alone halving of population every 2 generations.
I am approaching 30. I very much feel like the generation that is going to pay for a comfortable retirement for boomers, never be able to afford real estate, pay huge amounts to raise kids and get nothing in return. Because, by the time I retire, the work-force will have halved. If even fewer people have kids, society will find itself staring at collapse.
The definition of 'good parenting' has changed rapidly over the last few decades and it is going to keep changing. As of now, it seems like an impossible bar to reach. It's better to expect just 'slightly less worse' from each generation, and let the momentum carry it forward.
Look at it from the bright side: you are likely born towards a local maximum in terms of human development. Too late not to notice the decline, but early enough that you aren't likely to suffer too much from it for the best part of your life.
Current forecasts put generalized famines, all around the globe, at somewhere between +2.5ºC and +3.0ºC of global warming. We are on track to cross +2.0ºC around 2050, at best 2055 [1]. So really, it's just around the corner.
At current trend, it's not lack of birth, but lack of food that is going to drive population decline...
The earth is getting greener. There are a ton of untapped opportunities in farming but it's mostly unprofitable and mismanaged. People don't care and will blame the government for rising food prices.
> Current forecasts put generalized famines, all around the globe
I am not aware of any such forecasts and call BS on that. If we are having a famine, it's because of a war or a conflict that disrupted our supply lines. Climate change effects are really minor (beyond having a bit of a hotter summer).
> Climate change effects are really minor (beyond having a bit of a hotter summer).
That's patently false. It goes way beyond hotter summers. We're already observing today the increased frequency of extreme weather events (droughs, floodings, hurricanes). Even not taking into account the other changes, just the extreme weather events will massively impact the US.
While I agree that the US will not suffer a famine (though a massive movement of farming activities), there will be global famine events that the richer countries will compensate by buying up all the market and letting poorer countries to suffer.
If there are fewer people, won't there be less competition for housing and thus affordability would improve somewhat? If you need to spend less on a mortgage or rent, you may not need to work as much, or a single income couple might be viable once more, etc. (Or perhaps this just means cheaper property can continue to accumulate in the hands of wealthier people.)
Most work is unnecessary, bureaucratic and consumerist bs. Still many people are unemployed. Automation is held back by unions who fight for their right to do even the crappiest work, like mining. Inhabitable land is overcrowded. Less people is definitely net positive. Surely the economy might take a hit, cause it requires steady growth, but while that is bullshit in its own, we can still have growing economy with declining workforce, everyone would have to get very wealthy then.
Interesting that we may get to be test subjects for:
What will be prioritised when there aren't enough workers for all the current positions?
- necessities for everyone
- luxuries for those who can afford exorbitant prices
It can be both, to some extent, but with any luxuries will come a sacrifice of necessities, and a sacrifice of necessities will increase the prices. The best of people will tend towards being paid more, which shallows the pool of talent for necessities, which reduces quality at the same time as increasing price.
> What will be prioritized when there aren't enough workers for all the current positions?
I'll give you the politically incorrect answer.
Until recently, a large population of old people oppressing a slighter smaller population of young people (by majoritarian voting patterns) meant violence.
Humans have eliminated the 3 main uncertainties that ensured some level of demand-supply elasticity : unprotected sex, starvation and violence.
So now, instead of society promptly reacting to a disgruntled workforce, we instead get slow but perpetual decline because the workforce cannot retaliate in any real manner. They can't vote out old people. They can't enforce violence. In any other world, bored-young-people would be having tons of unprotected sex and brute force replacing the old population. But, contraception allows people to engage in their most primal instinct (sex) without the resulting rise in work force.
Now, I am a 100% not suggesting that we need a return to older times. But, we need an awareness that the removal of these avenues means that history might not repeat itself and nature might not heal on its own.... because we have conquered nature.
Nope. Sky rocketing would mean that the numbers were low previously and are increasing now. Birth rates are still high in a small number of countries but even there they're lower than they were in the 60s.
I'm with you. We can have fewer people on earth. But, that means 2-ish generations will have to do 2x-the-work per capita while receiving 0.5x the care when they retire. Our social welfare and economic systems are not built to deal with decreasing populations, let alone halving of population every 2 generations.
I am approaching 30. I very much feel like the generation that is going to pay for a comfortable retirement for boomers, never be able to afford real estate, pay huge amounts to raise kids and get nothing in return. Because, by the time I retire, the work-force will have halved. If even fewer people have kids, society will find itself staring at collapse.
The definition of 'good parenting' has changed rapidly over the last few decades and it is going to keep changing. As of now, it seems like an impossible bar to reach. It's better to expect just 'slightly less worse' from each generation, and let the momentum carry it forward.