Population: Public Enemy No. 1

[etienne]

There are many BS jobs that could be saved in order to do the needed things, but of course it makes more fun to do statistics about whatever, or to manage subsidies to support useless policies than to take care of older people.

[kiwichick16]

@  etiennne   .... re The limits to Growth  report    ......we can easily forget that they were presenting possible outcomes if we followed certain courses of actions

vested interests are unlikely to be working for the benefit of the majority

https://limits2growth.org.uk/revisited/#:~:text=Revisiting%20the%20Limits%20to%20Growth&text=There%20is%20unsettling%20evidence%20that,may%20only%20be%20decades%20away.

[Sigmetnow]

🇪🇺 EU FACES FERTILITY CRISIS: BIRTHS HIT RECORD LOW
 
For the first time since 1960, the EU’s live births dropped below 4 million, with just 3.88 million babies born in 2022.
 
The EU’s average fertility rate is now 1.46, well below the global average of 2.27.
 
Malta (1.08), Spain (1.16), Italy (1.24), Greece (1.32), and Cyprus (1.37) have the lowest fertility rates in Europe.
 
Live births have plunged from 5.1 million in 1990 to this record low.
 
Source: Euronews

9/5/24, https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1831796057975746633

[oren]

I wish my own country had such a "crisis".

[kiwichick16]

@  oren .....one wonders how much whining and gnashing of teeth some of the commentators would engage in about a dearth of cannon fodder / slaves , if the human population fell back to the level it was 220 years ago ......... 1 billion .


While at the same time other, presumably different commentators, warn of the demise of jobs due to automation

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages#

[Sigmetnow]

Almost twice as many people died in Greece in 2022 as there were babies born.
  —-
 
🇬🇷 POPULATION COLLAPSE IS GREECE'S BIGGEST THREAT
 
New figures predict its population will drop sharply by up to 25% by 2070, far higher than the EU average of 4%.
 
In 2022, the country recorded fewer than 77,000 births, the lowest in nearly a century, while deaths reached 140,000.
Economic challenges, low wages, and high unemployment have driven many young Greeks abroad, worsening the crisis.
 
Greece's fertility rate is now just 1.32 births per woman, leading to an aging population.
 
The government has introduced tax incentives and family support measures to combat the trend, with officials calling it the nation's "biggest threat."
 
Source: Express
9/16/24, https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1835603541857120332

 
[But 45 years is a long time to forecast.  Many changes are in store for the world in the next decade or so (in food, energy, and transport) which could shift the balance of the perceived cost of having children.]

 
    —-
 
⬇️ American fertility rates
 
9/15/24, https://x.com/therabbithole84/status/1835332722535100848

[Rascal Dog]

POPULATION COLLAPSE IS GREECE'S BIGGEST THREAT

Economic challenges, low wages, and high unemployment have driven many young Greeks abroad, worsening the crisis.

Low wages mean there are too many workers for the available jobs.

Why have a baby that can't grow up to get work at reasonable pay?

Lower birth rate corrects that problem.

[kassy]

If it worked like that there would be less people. Plus reasonably is debatable.
Modern life needs less hands so people had less kids as they moved to the city. And nowadays you can chose, not everyone wants kids, many had only one or two so it´s not that hard to dip under 2.x so the population shrinks.

We have also known for ages that this is coming so planning for it is doable. There is no need to call it a collapse. 

[oren]

Greece receives immigration from several sources, which partly balances the low birth rate.
But in any case, a usual it is unclear why population growth is considered super-duper-great but population decline is terrible-collapse.

[John_the_Younger]

it is unclear why population growth is considered super-duper-great but population decline is terrible-collapse.

I'm not particularly fluent in population issues, but generally, the fear of population decline due to low birthrates is the fear of folks who realize there will not be young workers to pay taxes that support their retirement.  Of course, if smart machines will work magnanimously (and those who control them are socially minded), then there is no problem.  But who was the last self-made billionaire who advocated for a guaranteed minimum income for all citizens?

[etienne]

In the book "The origins of totalitarianism", part "Antisemitismus" Chapter III, Hannah Arendt has a surprising sentence that says more or less (I have the french version of the book).

The great challenge of modern times (19th century) and the specific danger were that, for the first time, humans were  confronted to humans without being protected by differences in situations and conditions. It is precisely that new concept of equality that made so complicated modern relations between the races because we face natural differences and cannot expect a change of the conditions that would make it less visible. It is because equality requires that I recognize each human whoever he is, equal to myself that conflicts between the different groups who, for their own reasons refuse to recognize reciprocally that basic equality, take so terrible forms.

I feel that this still is really present day valid. We have different groups of humans like migrants, LGBTQ, specific religious groups... who don't want to recognize reciprocally the basic equality (the right to get married outside of the group, solidarity networks...) and don't want to mix among one another and with the general population.
The general population itself only recognize the basic equality to people agreeing to integrate themselves which means if they give up their original difference and dissolve themselves in the local culture, which none of the groups can accept.
In the book, she always talk about privileged/educated Jews (but could be applied to migrants, LGBTQ...) that are integrated in the main culture because they are something like a curiosity which is fun to go around with.
This problem of equality between different groups might explain why it is so complicated to accept immigration as a solution to a reduced native population. Equality is required in a democratic society and migrants coming in big numbers scare the general population because of their increasing demographic weight and internal group solidarity which bring some advantages compared to the general population. Migrants will mix sometimes in the future, but it takes at least one generation, which is too long to reassure an ageing population. One solution (which I can't accept) is to give up democracy and prefer a dictatorial or a totalitarian system which will re-create the protections between the different groups, of course with a strong exploitation of the defenseless groups.
I don't know why we went from a situation end of the 1980's where differences were minimized (we are all humans) to a situation where everybody wants his specific psychological path recognized as different. Maybe in the 1980's we were in the requirement of the general population to erase differences, and that the reaction to it is an extreme differentiation.
I believe that we need to invest in integration and solidarity as much as we can, that trade should be fair, and that AGW requires a reduction of the richness of the developed world which could make international relations easier (I'm a dreamer, I know).

[kassy]

We need a whole lot of solidarity, much more then may people care to share.

But Somalia, the easternmost country in continental Africa, can’t be held responsible for our changing climate. The figures are staggering. Somalia has emitted roughly as much carbon dioxide from fossil fuels since the 1950s as the US economy does in an average three days.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rr5qe602o

[morganism]

Global Birthrate Collapse Will Be Worse than The Black Death
September 28, 2024 by Brian Wang

Jim Rickards warns of the collapse in China’s population and collapse in global population. Nextbigfuture described these issues in mid-2023 over 15 months ago. I described the collapse as worse than the black death and Jim use the same description.

Jim Rickards is an economist, lawyer, and investment banker with 40 years of experience in the capital markets on Wall Street. (vid)

Jim emphasizes China population collapse problem but it is more than just China. It is Japan, Korea and all countries.

The Rule of TWO… point one

Husband and wives MUST average 2.1 children. It is not optional for humanity and society.

2.1 children replace 2 (the husband and the wife). Half of the children are female. 1.1 females at birth means 1.0 females should get to child bearing age and have a child.

In biology, when a population starts declining, it is usually not a controlled thing that re-stabilizes at a lower level.

Self-Genocide

If Aliens from space or an other country were forcing the disappearance of large numbers of the next generation, then the population would fight and resist. Japan losing 30 million people from a peak of 128.2 million in 2008 to 98 million in 2055 would be worse than all its losses in WW2. It would be 200 times worse than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs.

China could lose over 300 million people 2050 out of 1.42 billion. China lost 20 million people in WW2 out of 525 million. China could kill its future at 15-40 times more than what Japan did to China in WW2.

If the cycle of not replacing women continues at only have half as many daughters then every 35 years there would be half as many women in 100 years there would be 12% as many women and in 200 years there would be 1% as many.

Black Death

The Black Death was the most extreme pandemic. It killed 30 to 50 percent of the entire population of Europe. The plague might have reduced the world population from c. 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. (1346-1353)

A global TFR of 1.4 over the remainder of the century could bring global population from a peak of 9-10 billion in 2050 to 6-7 billion in 2100. It would be a Black Death over 50-60 years instead of 7 years. But the low birth population decline might not stop.

China with 1.0 to 1.18 total fertility could drop 30% from 1.41 billion to 980 million by 2055. The dorp could happen in 30 years.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/09/global-birthrate-collapse-will-be-worse-than-the-black-death.html#more-198259

[kassy]

It would be a Black Death over 50-60 years instead of 7 years.

This argument is really stupid.

[etienne]

Lives are not lost, nobody dies, it is just an (let's be provocative) healthy adaptation. Excepted if you believe that sex with birth control is a lost child for humanity.
Of course,  if you see it economically speaking,  you have many lost customers, many lost workers... But that's nonsense because we are probably already over earth capacity. I agree that degrowth is complicated to manage,  but not that it is a problem.

[oren]

Japan losing 30 million people from a peak of 128.2 million in 2008 to 98 million in 2055 would be worse than all its losses in WW2. It would be 200 times worse than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs.

The whole article is a steaming pile of BS but this really stood out.

[etienne]

Japan losing 30 million people from a peak of 128.2 million in 2008 to 98 million in 2055 would be worse than all its losses in WW2. It would be 200 times worse than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs.

The whole article is a steaming pile of BS but this really stood out.

The good news is that development is more effective than war to reduce a population.

[kiwichick16]

don't let the facts get in the way......

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066956/population-japan-historical/

[kiwichick16]

100 years ago  ......ie 1920's .....the Roaring 20's   ......the Jazz Age ..... Japan's population was less than   60 million


go back another hundred years and the number was approximately 30 million

A decrease in population might shift the balance of power as it possibly did following the Black Plague  waves in the 1300's

https://history.wustl.edu/news/how-black-death-made-life-better#:~:text=Farm%20work%20was%20peasant%20work,create%20a%20severe%20labor%20shortage.

[johnm33]

100 years ago  ......ie 1920's .....the Roaring 20's   ......the Jazz Age ..... Japan's population was less than   60 million


go back another hundred years and the number was approximately 30 million

A decrease in population might shift the balance of power as it possibly did following the Black Plague  waves in the 1300's

https://history.wustl.edu/news/how-black-death-made-life-better#:~:text=Farm%20work%20was%20peasant%20work,create%20a%20severe%20labor%20shortage.

In order to prevent a general uprising when the 'Normans' usurped soveriegnty from the tribal kindoms of britain they promised the freeman population/'peasants' that they would keep their traditional freehold four/three acres [farm/tre] and simply pay tribute to a new 'lord of the manor'. Once established they shifted the legalities little by little, first the property title was passed to the 'lord' then the peasant was tied to the property then the peasant became property thus enslavement was complete. Vagrancy was essentially punishable by death. With the coming of the plague whole seriously immobile inbred popuations perished together and the 'lords' were happy to offer 'vagrants' better terms to work the land than their traditional 'masters' this became so rife that a law was passed making the whole 'peasant' population the common property of the lords and those without 'title' have been commoners ever since. That is the common property of the crown, something still watched over by the remembrancer and his team of lawyers that oversee parliament.

[kassy]

Let´s focus on current times. The black death was just one of many examples of bad thinking. Comparing a 7 year event of that magnitude to something which takes decades and which is much less shocking because people mainly die of old age during those decades is stupid.

The big problem for the countries ´running out of people´ is that our whole system needs growth to work. You need money to pay for things like health care and schooling. Then there are pensions which need to be payed which is a problem to especially for pay as you go countries.

The people not having kids also took a gamble on pensions existing etc. Will nice helpful robots arrive in time? Who knows. But it´s not quite the black death.

[kiwichick16]

thanks  Johnm33   ...... i didn't know where "commoner" had originated from    ..."Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it "   WSC

[oren]

a law was passed making the whole 'peasant' population the common property of the lords and those without 'title' have been commoners ever since.

This is not mentioned in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commoner
Maybe a source would help?

[kassy]

Non of it relates to the current situation. Yes i know it´s the freezing season but still...

[Bruce Steele]

Kassy, Just to be argumentative , class structure of aristocracy/ commoner or peon / patron are ingrained in our social structures and will be involved in how we move forward. And if somebody calls for sources on something then maybe the BS has gotten a little thick and sources should be given before we just move on .

[zenith]

Kassy, Just to be argumentative , class structure of aristocracy/ commoner or peon / patron are ingrained in our social structures and will be involved in how we move forward. And if somebody calls for sources on something then maybe the BS has gotten a little thick and sources should be given before we just move on .

here's a source for you, he'll even diagnose the psychological problem you'll have and why you'll dismiss him - it's the same problem climate change deniers face.

"We chat with population ecologist, co-creator of the ecological footprint analysis, and one of the world’s best big-picture ecological thinkers, Dr. Bill Rees. Bill explains how our blind faith in human exceptionalism, technological optimism, and neoliberal economics fooled us into disregarding ecological limits and brought us into a state of extreme overshoot. These same false stories enabled humans to use cheap abundant energy to convert nature and nonhumans into human artifacts, and rich nations to exploit the resources of other countries, while degrading the biophysical basis of existence.

Continuing on this trajectory but with green-tinted glasses will be catastrophic. Nothing short of a co-operative, well-planned, orderly contraction of the human enterprise – economic activity, production, consumption, and population – is needed to align with Earth’s productive and assimilative capacity. But, as Bill concludes – that which is “ecologically necessary is politically infeasible, while the politically feasible is ecologically catastrophic”. Can communities like ours, rooted in ecological wisdom and natural limits, act as lifeboats paddling strongly away from the eddies of the sinking Titanic to prepare for a post-industrial world?"

William Rees | Confronting Overshoot: Changing the Story of Human Exceptionalism

[Bruce Steele]

https://feudalism-rights-resposibilities.weebly.com/peasants.html
There is a distinction between peasants and serfs. So maybe owned is a description of a serf more than a peasant. And whether we find farming pleasant or not many more of us will be farmers in the future.
Johnm33 might chime in on whether serfs are only an artifact of the past.

[kassy]

There were many variations over history and in times and places they were interchangeable. It does not tell us that much because our society is completely different.

[kiwichick16]

China launches survey to understand why young Chinese are "afraid" of having children

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-launches-survey-understand-fear-children-rcna176214

[Rodius]

China launches survey to understand why young Chinese are "afraid" of having children

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-launches-survey-understand-fear-children-rcna176214

Same fear reasons could be said for the West.
Too expensive, housing too high, fear of environment and climatic collapse, putting off babies until later in life.

My personal opinion... capitalism doesn't pay for the true cost of the system.
For example, businesses don't pay for child rearing. That cost is carried by the parents which is more about providing workers for the companies.
If the problem of not enough children is to be fixed, make it affordable.

Perpetual growth requires ever-increasing populations.

Yet another reason why capitalism is a failed method in its current form.

Of course, we really don't want to fix that problem anyway.

[Paddy]

Legislation is working its way through the Duma in Russia to try and ban any promotion of child-free lifestyles to address their low birth rate, among other measures , such as paying students to have children

[etienne]

I can also quote Hannah Arendt in this thread,  just because some people could imagine war as a solution.  Still from the book the origins of totalitarianism.

The danger of corpse factories and dungeons is this: today, with the general population increase, with the ever-increasing number of people without a situation or a home, masses of people are constantly being reduced to becoming superfluous, if we persist in conceiving our world in utilitarian terms. Everywhere political, social and economic events are silently conspiring with the totalitarian instruments elaborated to make men superfluous. The implicit temptation towards this state of affairs is well understood by the masses who, with their utilitarian common sense, are too desperate in most countries to keep the fear of death very much alive. The Nazis and the Bolsheviks can be sure of it: their enterprises of annihilation, which offer the quickest solution to the problem of overpopulation, to the problem of these economically superfluous and socially uprooted human masses, attract as much as they warn. Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes, in the form of strong temptations that will arise whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social and economic misery in a way worthy of man.

[Bernard]

I wonder if this is the right thread, or if the question has already been answered.

Can we consider the current collapse of natality in most countries as a tipping point in human population?

See e.g., https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-point-could-arrive-2030

[Renerpho]

I wonder if this is the right thread, or if the question has already been answered.

Can we consider the current collapse of natality in most countries as a tipping point in human population?

See e.g., https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-point-could-arrive-2030

It's more of an "inflection point", rather than a "tipping point" in the sense of this thread (which is a "discontinuity"), even if that's the word they're using. Still interesting though!

[Rodius]

I wonder if this is the right thread, or if the question has already been answered.

Can we consider the current collapse of natality in most countries as a tipping point in human population?

See e.g., https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-point-could-arrive-2030

It depends on the cause.

At the moment, most of it is economic reasons, something that can change and will need to change if capitalism is to remain for the imaginary long term. When companies figure out that people need a way to bring up kids that is affordable (and preferably profitably for companies), then couples will continue to have 1 or 2 kids, if they even have them.

This is fixable with new approaches so can be reversed... so not a tipping point.

Regarding fertility, this is a problem but is also reversible over a period of generations... which means this is also reversible.

It is a significant problem though, but if we, as a species, are going to survive long term, reducing the population is part of the solution anyway.

[oren]

I wonder if this is the right thread, or if the question has already been answered.

Can we consider the current collapse of natality in most countries as a tipping point in human population?

See e.g., https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-point-could-arrive-2030

The sooner it happens the better, but the tipping point, if anything, would be for human population to actually start dropping from its overshoot levels.
As the article notes:

A drop below replacement fertility does not mean global population will immediately fall. It will likely take about 30 additional years, or roughly how long it takes for a new generation to start to reproduce, for the global death rate to exceed the birth rate.

Don't hold your breath.

[Renerpho]

A drop below replacement fertility does not mean global population will immediately fall. It will likely take about 30 additional years, or roughly how long it takes for a new generation to start to reproduce, for the global death rate to exceed the birth rate.

Don't hold your breath.

No, I'm not going to joke about how holding your breath becomes irreversible.

[trm1958]

Rodius, a drop in fertility that lasts generations is a tipping point. Even a BOE is reversible in millennia.

[The Walrus]

Rodius, a drop in fertility that lasts generations is a tipping point. Even a BOE is reversible in millennia.

I disagree.  Anything that is readily reversible cannot be considered a tipping point.  That is contrary to the basic definition of a tipping point.

[Paddy]

Rodius, a drop in fertility that lasts generations is a tipping point. Even a BOE is reversible in millennia.

I disagree.  Anything that is readily reversible cannot be considered a tipping point.  That is contrary to the basic definition of a tipping point.

Many countries have been trying to reverse it without much success in recent years.  In what way is it “readily reversible”, short of recreating the handmaid’s tale or growing babies in vats?

[Renerpho]

The Walrus is right: A decline in fertility rate that took a few generations to happen can also be "fixed" within a few generations (for some definition of fixed; whether we should fix this is a different question). A BOE can not be reversed that fast, even in principle.
That it takes millennia to fix something that happens within a human lifetime is what makes it a tipping point.

[kassy]

The underlying responses and math are different which is why i moved the posts to the population thread.

[HapHazard]

People still arguing over the nebulous definition of "tipping point".

[kiwichick16]

two of the tipping points for human population growth were the widespread availability of contraceptives, 1960's , and education for girls being normalised , particularly after 1850

[kassy]

People still arguing over the nebulous definition of "tipping point".

For the climate tipping points it means the old state is gone and is not coming back soon.

Changes in our demography are not tipping points. We do see trends. Long ago when most folks did not live in cities the kids were extra hands. In our current society they are not so we need less which is a good thing because there are plenty people around anyway.

It´s an issue because it should force choices on what you prioritize. Our system needs growth so this always interferes with that planning but since concentrated wealth rules it not much people centric planning is done. So we will have to make do with what we got. Plenty willing immigrants so yeah we can plug the hole. Or maybe the robots and AI will do it.

Our society is very different from the historical normal so yes we have a new demography which comes with that and we are in a transitional phase which will hurt but it´s not a tipping point like in those natural systems.

[kiwichick16]

i would argue that we have past at least two tipping points , contraception and widespread ( in liberal democracies at least ) availability of education of women

we are not going back to  not having contraception / education , therefore the human population curve will be different

[kiwichick16]

and to further make the point that we are not going back ......how many women of child bearing age today , in an industrailised country  have had /  are having currently their 12th child .....or 6th child .....or even 4th child

If asked, most women say their ideal is somewhere between zero and two

[oren]

and to further make the point that we are not going back ......how many women of child bearing age today , in an industrailised country  have had /  are having currently their 12th child .....or 6th child .....or even 4th child

If asked, most women say their ideal is somewhere between zero and two

Funny you should ask. The case of Israel clearly shows this so-called tipping point where education and contraception cause fertility to drop can be reversed with religion and politics.

Share of Haredi jews in the Israeli population used to be 1-2%, but now they make up more than a quarter of newborn children. The women have an average TFR of more than 7, and that includes those who have difficulty conceiving due to various conditions. The ideal is higher.
The girls do receive education but are also subject to very strong indoctrination.
Contraception is a sin to be avoided.
The group votes as a bloc and uses its political power to gain large state budgets (paid for by the other population groups) that fund the demographic anomaly. Over time its power grows due to growing voter numbers.

To those wondering, this partly explains Israel's slide into extremism and racism, but that's off-topic here.






By the way, the girls in Afghanistan might also argue with your claim that education and contraception are not going back.

[Rodius]

i would argue that we have past at least two tipping points , contraception and widespread ( in liberal democracies at least ) availability of education of women

we are not going back to  not having contraception / education , therefore the human population curve will be different

Neither are tipping points because both are reversible.

If society collapses, I would bet everything on contraception disappearing for one.

Education isn't really the problem, it is more about capitalism making children too expensive to have so people decide not to have them. This is a reversible situation as well, and there will come a point where capitalism will need to pay a parent to stay home to bring up children... but chances are capitalism will fail long before they pay for child rearing.

Regardless, both cases are reversible, the human race isn't going to disappear because there arent enough babies being born.

[kiwichick16]

@  rodius  .....if contraception is not available , sex won't be either

We are not going back