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Reddit relishing the news of declining birthrates

https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1cqvfpo/the_global_birth_rate_is_also_at_a_red_light_the/?sort=controversial

Archive link to article for povertycels: https://archive.md/dQdUP

Signing off on the suicide pact :marseyrope: :marseygunshotsuicide:

So what? Let it happen. Too many people anyway. Let societies collapse.

Good there's way too many fricking people The earth was fine a little while ago when there were only like 4 billion of us let's get back to that

Nor should it. The world has too many people, as evidenced by how quickly we are wasting our resources, polluting the world, and killing off every other living creature.

lol. Enough babies for what? To maintain the capitalist approach to life? Awwww... whatever will we do?

Isn't this a good thing? Because of sustainability, climate changes, resources?

Don't worry, AI/robotics will save us :marseyrobot: :marseysnappy:

Robotics, automation and AI will solve this. Please stop this BS about low birth rates when we have an over populated world filled with pauper people willing to work for a bowl of rice. The only ones that benefit from having more people are the rich that can keep exploring workers.

Well it's a good thing the robotics/AI revolution is upon us. This isn't really an issue and this article is no better than fear propaganda.

The future belongs to those who show up. Support Catholic Christian Nationalism :marseypope: :marseycrusader2:

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I think societies ought to confront this rather than keep relying on immigration until it isn't possible anymore. It'll probably suck no matter what, but if there was a way to manage this, we won't figure it out by putting band-aid solutions in place.

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I don't see reversal happening so someday societies will confront this.

We'll just have to see how much can kicking happens first and how violent it ends up being :marsey57:

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Reversal could probably happen eventually, but not before the immediate effects of population collapse hits. I also fully expect the can to be kicked so far that the problem may actually become unsolvable.

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the immediate effects of population collapse

Yeah so uh... what are those? Are we just worried stonkz go down and everyone goes broke?

Because I keep seeing:

  • "Too many people in bullshit DEI non-jobs!"

  • "AI will take all the jobs, massive unemployment!"

  • "cOlLaPsInG birthrate is a disaster, not enough people to shovel shit!"

And like, those can't all be true simultaneously.

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Well, some of that is mainly sensationalism. And they could in theory still be simultaneously true, which would exacerbate some problems. If the population is declining, and jobs are scarce, then you have even more dependent:workers than normal. People would also definitely not like their DEI/white collar job taken away or over by AI just to start shoveling shit or doing other manual labor. It will cause major unrest.

Immediate effects are easy to work out. Think of literally any business, industry, technology, etc, and ask β€œwhat if there was no one to keep this going?”. This would lead to heavy losses of knowledge and capability. Worst case scenario is that the country no longer knows how to safely provide food and water to itself.

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Think of literally any business, industry, technology, etc, and ask β€œwhat if there was no one to keep this going?”

Ok, so over the course of my (extremely well-paid and in demand) career if there were no one to keep the companies I worked for going...

  • People wouldn't see ads online

  • People wouldn't see ads on mobile

  • People would see less relevant ads

  • Developers (not people) might find it harder to store uploaded files.

  • Lenders would not have access to as much accurate data to make credit decisions.

I guess my assertion is that there is a shitload of deadwood to cut in the tertiary and quaternary sectors and humanity can lose billions upon billions before we risk being unable to get food and clean water.

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That's undeniably true, but it isn't as easy as β€œget those people to do something else”. If that was the case, Zimbabwe wouldn't have had gone food negative after appropriating farmland. Those people need to be reeducated and repurposed, which is a big part of what I mean when I say that societies need to be proactive about this. Shit needs to be triaged and people need to be doing essential stuff.

As a counterexample, I work in drug manufacturing where I engineer ways to make certain types of drugs. I am dependent on my employees and a relatively large number of companies for technology and equipment, some of whom are the only ones that provide it. If those certain companies went down, it essentially kills off businesses that use them and I would have no job. In the era of global trade, this would have cascading effects. Supply shortages, loss of production capability, etc will all have knock on effects and possibly kill industries we take for granted.

I don't think population collapse is necessarily apocalyptic, but it very well could be if we take a laissez-faire approach to it. It is going to decrease the standard of living until we get a handle of the situation.

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Okay, I don't really disagree with any of that. People might be more adaptable than you're giving them credit for. During the pandemic, there were loads of weird supply chain problems and some local shortages, but more or less everyone adapted and nothing collapsed.

Even industries like tourism and hospitality didn't die.

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True, but that's compensating for a short-term disaster vs dealing with a long-term fundamental shift in how the world works. Our ability to adapt is good, but as population-collapse accelerates, that ability decreases. Which is why I think we should already be working at these problems (in a more concerted manner, some people are already addressing some aspects like automation).

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There were many things that are still suffering supply chain issues that you probably never heard about, but which would be much more cataclysmic to our way of life if the scamdemic continued. For instance, I work in power distribution and we are still suffering massive material shortages of critical components to keep our grid healthy.

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More comments

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17050678429764252.webp

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That's the spirit! LPB has already solved the problem.

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if artificial wombs are safe and shown to have no negative impacts on children then their use could help reverse it.

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If futurology worked properly we'd be living on the Moon

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The thing is selfish people (a.k.a the majority of hedonists) would not want to waste years of their life raising a kid when they could be living their best lifes by partying, consooming, etc

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yeah but the government seeing a potential collapse would be more than willing to make children of the state. iirc even third world countries are already having downward trends with birthrates, if all this continues by 2050 the gov will be looking at few new immigrants, aging population but the perfect solution that'll prove effective in 20 years

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So basically rise orphans with state mandated nannys?

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The question is whether people are not having kids because pregnancy is a burden or if they're not having kids because kids are a burden. I'm thinking it might be the latter

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There's not going to be any reversal, at least not anytime soon, South Korea is an extreme case where low fertility is now reinforcing itself. Immigration is a palliative but not a longterm solution, the US is one of the few countries that can actually assimilate immigrates on a rapid rate

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Its simple:

>make college cheap

>ban homes from being bought out by megacorps, theyll have to build it to sell it or rent it

>slash social security and stop consuming literally half of the entire tax revenue every year on boomers so that young people actually have money and benefits to establish themselves and have a family

Boomers and their parasitism of the young is literally the problem.

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Yeah the answer here is to just destroy the age-based social welfare net. It hasn't made sense since the 1950s. We're not an income based society anymore, we're capital based. And old people have the most capital.

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