Falling Birth Rates: A Global Crisis

[-]

PsychWitch72@reddit

Is it a crisis? I mean it is for capitalism, less people means less economic growth but for the planet it’s got to be a good thing.

[-]

Absolutely. Raising kids is physically, mentally, emotionally and financially hard. And while treat as big I can completely understand why women don’t want to do it (or men). We need an economic system that works for the people and their needs not us fitting in our needs for the economic system.

[-]

happytrel@reddit

I dont want to be an absent parent, I'd rather not be a parent at all

[-]

CascadeNZ@reddit

I have kids and the juggle of working and raising them is absolutely taking a toll on me and my partner but more concerning on them. They have major behaviour issues I didn’t have and I think at least some of the iPad baby sitting we have to rely on or the letting them down because something at work has come up etc etc has impacted them.

We are doing our best but it’s not easy and I can totally see why people don’t do it!!

[-]

GiftToTheUniverse@reddit

My grandma had 10 kids and I remember hearing her say that people who don't have kids are selfish.

But her kids ran around town from sunup until sundown. They more or less raised each other and could take a bus to a public swimming pool or whatever.

These days children under a certain age seen riding a bus alone might get snatched up by CPS and the parents sent to jail for child endangerment.

You have described the cancerous tumor of capitalistic excess, for which there is an end game. I am just happy I live in a time that is not the end.

[-]

ComradeGibbon@reddit

There is an engineering maximum. If a process is exponential eventually it will stop. Capitalism is an exponential process. It was stop and were seeing that happen.

I'm rolling that idea around that in a per-industrial society the Malthusian limits on population are malnutrition and disease. But in an urban industrial society there are other limits and we've overshot them.

[-]

MeateatersRLosers@reddit

The limit on society in pre-industrial society was actually mostly protein or more specially soil nitrogen delivered via amino acids.

You see, every gram of protein does not come animals or plants, but up from the soil to plant to animals. Soil bacteria took the arduous process to affix relative alert and super abundant nitrogen from the air to something organisms can use.

Fritz Haber in the early 1900s did away with this when he developed the Haber Bosch process and started making ammonia.

Before, humans had to compost, to use night soil (recycle our poop), cow poop, and ultimately seize bat guano islands in the 1800s to maximize land use.

This was the single most bottleneck to farming and agricultural land at a set productivity is what Malthus based his calculations on and what Haber broke through.

Industral productivity and green revolution by Norman Borlaug etc also raised the bar but not as much or as fundamental.

[-]

GiftToTheUniverse@reddit

I'm pretty sure malnutrition and disease are just taking a breather. They're not extinguished. Even if we were socially fine our soils are degrading, rain patterns are messed up, drought and heat are growing...

[-]

WrongThinkBadSpeak@reddit

The infinite growth ponzi scheme only works when the bottom of the pyramid keeps growing. Otherwise it topples over.

[-]

LakeSun@reddit

Stock Market Growth is Strongly Correlated to Population Growth.

It does use more energy for making videos so they will be adding 30% to our electric bills. So technically, ai gets healthcare first? Also technically, ai gets free internet to use, to create bots, memes, videos, content, and then recycle it with itself.

Ai is cool for a local open source project right now but in most businesses it’s too early (for them, the business, unless they don’t mind shittification) and we’re just using it wrong. Not in the sense of prompts, but in the sense of putting our resources to it without citizens input nor without another plan.

Just… don’t consume. Food, yes. But apps, cloud, anything digital, yarrr harrrr orrrrr make yourself. Ai is a tool against them as well, hence why it’s too early. Oh I need an app to do X? Well I’ll just make it myself.

We’re at an odd place. Self sufficient lifestyle is going to go far I think, while our health system I have no idea tbh it’s all so complicated and twisted from the rest of the worlds, but yeah… meat will be tough for me… I don’t skin or kill and I relied on our farmers for that who relied on our gov who relied on billionaires and insane simulacrums they brought out into reality.

I hate it.

[-]

Ragnarok314159@reddit

LLM’s don’t really do anything of value, either.

[-]

Useful_Reaction_2552@reddit

great point!

[-]

Parkimedes@reddit

Well, there’s always the option of changing our consumption habits. The governments could steer people towards more sustainable lifestyles to lower the minimum cost of living. With the car culture now, and nuclear families, and lawns instead of vegetable gardens, getting by is really expensive. But if it wasn’t so expensive, maybe those elderly people could get by more easily themselves and with more help from their families, who would also be getting by more easily themselves.

LauraPa1mer@reddit

It's a crisis for some men, not women. Women don't solely exist to be wombs for children the world doesn't need. There are enough people on the planet already.

[-]

Shoddy-Childhood-511@reddit

It'd be a crisis for communism too, because communism is also productivist aka growthist.

It's NOT a crisis for workers, or the actual populations they maintain, because fewer workers means better pay, and less economic inequality. See Walter Scheidel or Peter Turchin or many other historians.

If you're worried about enough jobs doing elder care, then just increase payroll taxes for the bullshit jobs like advrtising, finance, and law, while then paying more to people who do elder care, other medical, teaching, etc.

[-]

Embarrassed-Run-9120@reddit

And that's exactly why we see natalist propaganda everywhere these days. Did you watch the Fantastic Four movie? Please don't, it's disgusting, it's like Elon Musk did it.

[-]

thedude2202@reddit

I actually enjoyed but I’m genuinely curious what you found disgusted about? Could be something I over looked from enjoying the spectacle

[-]

Embarrassed-Run-9120@reddit

It's obvious natalist propaganda, they were willing to sacrifice the whole planet to save a single baby and the people about to die were ok with it because babies are above everything ele, the same crap that ruined Squid Game. All the plot is suddenly replaced by same old boring "save the baby".

[-]

daretoeatapeach@reddit

(Spoilers ahead)

Fewer people is technically good for the planet, but our tech overlords are in the process of installing ai data centers to replace our labor, whether or not we all have more children. One data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households and billions of gallons of water to keep that hardware cool. Sadly, if things keep moving as they are, a lower population probably won’t make as big of an impact as we hope.

[-]

daretoeatapeach@reddit

Things won't keep going as they are, AI is a bubble. The AI companies are leaning on loans from other AI companies. Their expected growth is astronomical, like to keep with investor expectations Open AI needs to be about as big as Microsoft or Apple by next year, and that's not going to happen.

Every CEO is slapping AI on their product and using that to justify their need for funding but actual customers aren't buying. It's not the future, it's tulips all over again.

Also the claims about water usage are way overblown. Using AI as an individual is like a glass of water for twenty queries. It's bad but many other industries are worse or equivalent.

[-]

Evening-Square-1669@reddit

don't worry, the USA grid cant handle shit, AI is a bubble

Hi, springbreak2222. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 4: Keep information quality high.

Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the Misinformation & False Claims page.

Please refer to the Addressing Overpopulation (https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/wiki/claims#wiki_addressing_overpopulation) section of the guide.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[-]

Opening_Acadia1843@reddit

No, I never said anything about “culling” the elderly. I just think they can be cared for without continuing to have a bunch of kids. I don’t think it’s eco-fascist to think that we shouldn’t promote having more kids than people actually want to have. I don’t think people should be prevented from having kids if that’s what they want to do, but there is a clear rise in natalist propaganda and policy decisions right now, and I find that really concerning.

[-]

Iorith@reddit

The average worker today is far more productive than the workers were at the turn of the last century. But the profits of that increase in production do not go to the workers, the profits go to the business class.

Maybe if we properly disrupted labor, we could get everything we need done with less people working and have the same amount of needs met.

We need to start figuring out these issues though!!

[-]

owoah323@reddit

Seriously. It’s weird to think humans have billions on this earth compared to any other species.

One of the most destructive species in a new environment is the common rat, but rats, wolves, deer; introduced species can be horrifyingly destructive in a new environment. Hell, just ask Australia how it feels about rabbits - per cracked.com:

Rising to the challenge, Australian rabbit control teams released Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease, which can make the rabbits convulse, shoot blood out of their noses and die. This is the point when the rest of the world stood in awkward silence and said, "Dude... we knew you were serious about the rabbit thing but... dude."

Humans are only special in that we're capable of organising at scale and have opposable thumbs.

[-]

Embarrassed-Run-9120@reddit

And ironically we will die by breeding until there's no planet to sustain us, like any other species would do if left with unlimited access to food and no predators. Primal urges win over reason, that's stupid but true.

[-]

owoah323@reddit

There’s so much we don’t know. That’s an interesting theory.

Would be pretty funny if the “rapture” ended up being a bunch of aliens coming to take people instead of God opening up heaven’s door

[-]

King_Saline_IV@reddit

There's over 20 billion chickens

[-]

micromoses@reddit

If we don’t have enough new people to support the old people we have, a lot of people need to die to make it balance out. Which was always going to be the case, but you know…

[-]

PsychWitch72@reddit

Can you explain what you mean? Do you mean young people working to keep the world turning for the older generation that’s retired? Young people might argue that the boomers and to some extent Gen X are doing ok while their generation struggles to get a job since the world turned to shit with the 2008 crash and everything that’s come along since such as Brexit in the UK and Covid plus the war in Ukraine which is blamed for the cost of living crisis among other things. All reasons why this generation doesn’t want kids.

[-]

Motorheadass@reddit

Ignore the financial stuff for a moment, it's a much more fundamental problem than that: you can't eat money. It doesn't matter how rich the older generations are if there's simply not enough working age people around to grow enough food, maintain all the infrastructure, provide enough medical treatment, and so on.

About 60% of the population in the US is working age. If birth rates fall very suddenly, we could easily end up in a situation where that drops to 30, 20, maybe even 10% over a period of a couple decades, as more people age out of the workforce than age in. And then every working age person on average has to provide enough resources for 5-10 people. I am certain that's not a burden they'll be willing to bear, if they'd even be able to.

The only way for the population to decrease in a non-catastrophoc way is if the birth rate falls slowly over many years. That doesn't seem to be what's happening.

[-]

micromoses@reddit

More like our financial system is kind of built around constant growth, and speculation based on population growth, and pensions for those old people depend on are invested in businesses that rely on constant growth. If there’s a population crash, the derivatives market crashes, pension funds are worthless, a bunch of people are homeless, private owners buy the devalued property. So it’s not exactly “a lot of people will die,” more like “the money to live must be withheld from a lot of people depending on it.” Because what else are we going to do, liquidate private assets to cover the losses on mismanaged pension funds when we aren’t legally required to?

[-]

snertwith2ls@reddit

I think the main bad thing is that people who are elderly and/or vulnerable and basically helpless are in for a really rough time.

[-]

Stereotype_Apostate@reddit

Labor isn't just what capitalists exploit to pad their bank accounts. It's the backbone of making the world work.

You like having electricity? Someone needs to install that in your house, someone needs to maintain the transmission lines, someone needs to run the power plants, someone needs to refine the fuel or build the solar panels or the wind turbines.

You like eating? Someone has to grow the food, someone has to harvest it, someone has to package it, you need someone to transport it from the farm to the store.

Someone needs to educate all of these people as children. Someone needs to educate their children when they're working. Someone needs to enforce law and order. Someone needs to put out fires. Someone needs to flip your old ass to make sure you don't get bedsores.

No, society needs labor. And we have labor. Plenty of it. Hell, one person with a laptop can do what once took an entire floor of workers as human calculators to do without ever leaving their house. One dude who is good at excel can do the work that once took an entire department of workers. I remember the normalization of the PC and internet being a herald of a 3 day work week.

Instead we allowed the small percent of the population to reap the rewards of the insane jump in production of the average worker.

lol do people who say this not realize that

1) immigration is a bandage solution and short term fix? Even the countries with rapid population growth like Nigeria will eventually have declining birth rates and there will no longer be any country with immigration to draw from.

2) you want your own population to have kids too… especially because those immigrants will, in 1-2 generations, be at the same birth rate level if the environmental conditions in developed countries don’t change.

[-]

RadTimeWizard@reddit

immigration is a bandage solution and short term fix?

If that's a question rather than an argument, the answer is no.

Even the countries with rapid population growth like Nigeria will eventually have declining birth rates

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea this decade.

there will no longer be any country with immigration to draw from.

That's ridiculous. The land isn't going to float away into space without the weight of extra people.

you want your own population to have kids too…

My people is my family, not my race.
You don't know what I want.
I know you're a conservative because conservatives love telling people what they think.

those immigrants will, in 1-2 generations, be at the same birth rate level if the environmental conditions in developed countries don’t change.

GOOD. Humans as a species are in a population explosion. For the first time EVER, we have doubled in number in one generation, and we're still growing fast.

[-]

LogicianMission22@reddit

Your countrymen are your people too. I can’t speak to any of the old world countries whose nationality is often tied to their genetic heritage, but I live in America and I consider my fellow Americans to be a tertiary group of “my people”. First it is my family, then friends, then my fellow Americans of every race or background. If Americans from various backgrounds aren’t having kids, that means that the immigrants that come here will eventually have kids who won’t have kids, because there is something about the culture/environment that is not conducive to having children. Hence it’s a bandage solution.

[-]

RadTimeWizard@reddit

Your countrymen are your people too.

Nope. People are people, and they're generally the same no matter where you go.

nationality is often tied to their genetic heritage

That's called racism. I'm not interested, thanks.

[-]

MmeLaRue@reddit

You’d think, but the race is between negative population growth and positive population decline.

[-]

RadTimeWizard@reddit

negative population growth and positive population decline

Can you please explain the difference between negative growth and positive decline?

[-]

MmeLaRue@reddit

Negative population growth involves declines in birth rate. Positive population decline involves increases in the death rate, often caused by war, famine, natural disasters, etc. I had to look it up to be sure, but it was part of Malthus's theories on demographic change along with changes in economic conditions.

[-]

RadTimeWizard@reddit

I think we're due to even out as a species, considering we're in a population explosion.

[-]

And in every single case women MUST be given a choice.

No-Importance-7691@reddit

This is going on in most places for more than 100 years. People confuse declining birthrates with declining population. Even Nazi Germany had declining birthrates. Essentially any influence of modern technology coincides with declining birthrates. Even Afghanistan has now declining birthrates. Those "ultra-orthodox" Jews in Israel have steady birthrates, but look how they live, without contraception and cellphones and education. It's hard to find more examples, even the Amish have declining birth rates. Studies show that a lower number of siblings results in a lower number of children.

[-]

rephil3@reddit

What about ensuring that more than 20 percent of humanity can enjoy high HDI life? Redistributing wealth of billionaires, cutting our stupid geopolitical infighting games, etc. So many tasks left unfinished and it seems as if we are in for many big shocks. Just be fairly good, grateful and pure until one's time is done on this hot ball

[-]

BlogintonBlakley@reddit

Falling birth rates?

Elite driven civilization is disillusioning.

[-]

DoubtSubstantial5440@reddit

I’ll have a kid when the human race proves its not short sighted and stupid

[-]

FirstEvolutionist@reddit

Doing otherwise would mean bringing a kid into a world in crises. One of them being a global population decline...

[-]

constructioncranes@reddit

My young children seem to be doing fine considering the state of the world. My parents seemed to fare well considering they did nuclear drills at school. Their parents seemed to be ok having survived WWII. Caveman children seemed to be ok considering being surrounded by constant threat of famine or violence. But shucks, I'm sorry your mom birthed you... I'm sure life's a real drag completely void of even a moment of joy.

[-]

TheOldPug@reddit

I'm sorry your mom birthed you...

Just a butthurt downvotes from an absurd worldview. Go enjoy a desert or whatever barren wasteland devoid of humans y'all think is idyllic. I'll go hug my kids.

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, constructioncranes. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: Be respectful to others.

In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, constructioncranes. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: Be respectful to others.

In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[-]

wastingtoomuchthyme@reddit

What the actual fuck

I've heard some nihilist shit on this subreddit but that takes the cake.

No, no one has to "earn" the right to procreate and you can fuck off all the way off with that eugenitics BS.

[-]

Chinaroos@reddit

If a farmer turns their field into a garbage dumb and fills the soil with poison, it's no surprise when nothing in that field grows. When they suddenly get the idea that farmers should grow crops, it does not change what they've done. So they stamp their feet and scream how unfair it is that every other farmer has beautiful fields full of crops and they have only trash, but they will still have no crops, and what grows will be too poisoned and shriveled growth to sell.

They chose to do this. Poor choices, not genetics.

Though I can understand why people who are deeply concerned about their own genetics surviving may feel that way. Why, they ask, should the poor choices of their forefathers impinge their own lineage? How unfair it is!

And you'd be right. How unfortunate it is that our still-living sires cared so little about their future. How unfortunate that only suddenly their senility has overtaken their greed, and with their children's blood still crusting their mouths, crying "where are my grand babies?". So now our sires pick through the trash heap where 20 years ago they dumped their own children looking for the dopamine and oxytocin rush of new babies.

So here's the brutal truth, since brutality what our civilization loves so much: the trash picking approach to the future is not the same as farming. You get what you get, and some people will get nothing.

[-]

comewhatmay_hem@reddit

Jesus I have to get off this site what a load of absolute drivel

[-]

here-i-am-now@reddit

You don’t need to announce your exit

[-]

Embarrassed-Run-9120@reddit

Even here we are bombarded with this crap? A growing population is what caused all the major problems we face today. There's so much natalist propaganda, like the one you just shared here because billionaires benefit on poor people pooping more wage slaves.

I couldn't care any less about France or other nazi enabling hellhole

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, Embarrassed-Run-9120. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: Be respectful to others.

In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

lowrads@reddit

Curiously, there always seems to be money to bail out the recklessness of the oligarchs, and to clean up the messes they leave behind.

[-]

arkH3@reddit

Well that's how oligarchy works, doesn't it - until economic or financial collapse is reached (or systemic change).

[-]

skwiddo@reddit

I dobt know any girls my age (29) who want kids tbh. The men do though

[-]

B4SSF4C3@reddit

Not a crisis. A normal response to the actual crisis.

[-]

Lifsagft_useitwisely@reddit

I cannot understand why anyone would want to have children today. The state of the world, socially politically and environmentally, the cost of living, and the sheer brain rot that is taking place as a result of phone based childhoods. I just read an article about how some stupid meme regarding the numbers six and seven is causing disruption in classrooms whenever the two numbers are used consecutively. I just read a fascinating book called “the anxious generation” which explores the move from play base childhoods to phone base childhoods and the rise of safetyism in parenting. If I had a young child, I would be terrified, and would be looking for the return section on the maternity ward.

[-]

mdlway@reddit

I also saw someone bring up how these kids will never know a world without AI, taking the “sheer brain rot” through the roof.

Nobody with power cares about the future. Even China with their green energy plans and thousands of years of history and empire, cannot change the publics disregard for ecology. Fuck you, I got mine. And the world burns for its radical kickass flames, not even slowly burned for warmth from necessity. It's a /contest/ among the wealthy at this point. They're not even rational actors within the capitalist framework they claim. The only comfort you will get is that they will die, same as everyone else, eventually.

Life is the best, healthiest, most prosperous and peaceful it has ever been in the history of mankind. Taking the entire world into account, people in the most dangerous and miserable places of the world have large families. Yes, climate change is going to pick up over the next century but our self-delusions of misery has never been more inaccurate in all of world history and this comment is just evidence of that.

[-]

butters091@reddit

people in the most dangerous and miserable places of the world have large families

Not sure if you watched it but the Nate Hagens interview that he did with evolutionary biologist Corey Bradshaw addresses this. Infant mortality is the number one predicter of fertility rate among women globally. It has very little to do with women/families being hopeful for the future

“Humans aren’t adapted to want to have babies” is (and I’m sorry but I have to say it) the dumbest thing I’ve read in days. To call it bad biology is an insult even to bad biology.

[-]

Iorith@reddit

People are biologically evolved to have babies. Not necessarily to want babies. A lot of people in the past 50 years have kids by accident, not by intent. The second the first condom was invented, the biological urge to have sex stopped being directly tied to the desire to have offspring.

[-]

LiliVonSchtupp@reddit

This is almost as bad as the comment to which I replied. Utter and complete nonsense.

[-]

Iorith@reddit

Which is why you have such a well worded rebuttal to refute it, right?

So please, tell me, what's the real reason so many people are choosing not to have children. Because according to you, they shouldn't be making that choice.

[-]

LiliVonSchtupp@reddit

You’re conflating personal choice with biological imperative. I choose not to have a child because i find bringing a child into collapse is ethically wrong. I am, however, biologically evolved to reproduce and to have an innate desire to do so, lest the species die. We are thinking beings who can make such a choice, but that does not change biology.

[-]

Iorith@reddit

Millions upon millions of people do not feel any innate desire to do so. Not that they decided against it, but they simply don't desire it in the first place. Explain that.

[-]

LiliVonSchtupp@reddit

Ok, so please step back a moment and think about what you’re suggesting. Millions of people have no desire to have babies (true!), therefore there is no biological imperative for the species.

[-]

Iorith@reddit

Yes. We have specific urges and desires hard wired into us in a general sense, but they aren't absolute and present in a myriad of ways, and you can even manage to sidestep them entirely. For many people, the "biological imperative" just presents as the desire to have a partner and to have sex. Which, thanks to contraceptives, means that urge is completely filled without not having kids.

Side note: I asked you to explain it, not to restate it.

[-]

LiliVonSchtupp@reddit

No. That’s is not the definition of “biological imperative” in human biology. I’m sorry, but your causal, anecdotal assertions are fundamentally false, and you’re expecting me to explain why? You’re in a forum of people who agree that the conditions for human life on this planet are changing faster than we can adapt, yet you’re claiming human evolution has rapidly changed. This isn’t science; it’s self-help.

People make choices. Some of those go against their biology. It does not upend said biology. Those millions of people are the outliers, the statistical anomalies. The mere fact that I, an adult woman, choose not to have a child for myriad reasons does not negate biological drive.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/biological_imperative

[-]

Iorith@reddit

Apparently it's more than just millions if it's a world wide issue that's causing this much of an issue. Currently it's around half. If it's an inherent drive to have children specifically, not have sex, not have companionship, but to have children, that shouldn't be happening.

I'm not claiming human evolution has changed. I'm stating that the "inherent drive to have children" as a post hoc rationalization for observed behavior. People have always had lots of kids, therefore there must be a drive to have kids. I disagree with that rationalization to explain the behavior. I think it's far more complex than just "biology says we desire children", which is a massive oversimplification of the complexities of biology and evolution.

Until recently(historically speaking), most women did not have a choice in the matter, and now they do, and are choosing not to. Until recently, people had multiple children to help out with the family business(usually farming, historically speaking) and to have spares in case of child mortality.

The fact that those two factors, among many others, having such a drastic impact, points to it not being so simple as "biology says so".

[-]

LiliVonSchtupp@reddit

And I’m not trying to be an asshole here, genuinely. It’s just the kind of argument you’re making goes against science, negates the real issues of human survival, and has been used to blame women in particular for the failure of society to reproduce. It’s both bad science, and dangerous.

[-]

dukercrd@reddit

I disagree. The cost of goods that are necessity is now beyond the reach of young people. Top 10 percent of population spends more than 50 percent of consumption in anerican while the bottom 60 percent ( mostly youth ) spend less than 20 percent of economy. Refer to City groups views on a report 2005 of creating a plutonomy in which wages would be perenially suppressed by immigration... and rich will cater to rich only. So population decline can be seen as economic phasing out of non productive part of economy... the majority.

[-]

Right? Like, Is it.....?

[-]

Billionaire propaganda

Less people is good. Only bad for people who hold all the money

[-]

DragonShine@reddit

I grew up in apartments and I'm still stuck in an apartment. I f**king hate it. I hate sharing walls, I hate being vunerable and co dependent to landlords, I hate forced community, I hate subscription models. I just want to own my own, have privacy, have space and not have others breathe down my neck. Why would I make my kid go through what I am living through? Nothing about this feels natural.

[-]

rekabis@reddit

It’s only a crisis for infinite-growth capitalism. It breaks that ponzi scheme.

For everyone else, where costs keep going up much faster than income, having no children has become the logical and rational choice.

mangodrunk@reddit

Apparently, “baby boomers have $82 trillion, making them the wealthiest generation in U.S. history”. And yet there are people who claim that we need more babies to support baby boomers who need healthcare and financial assistance. Why can’t they support each other?

[-]

stevef1963@reddit

Does it? Like the self funding healthcare system in the US? One of the most expensive systems in the world, and an utter failure

[-]

Then-Junket-2172@reddit

Iran has a sub replacement tfr, same as Tunisia now, and Bangladesh too with other poorer countries in South America being sub 1.7

[-]

WildFlemima@reddit

Good. It needs to be global to be most effective.

[-]

leisurechef@reddit

This is trying to fix a planetary virus with more virus.

The reduced number of births leads to insufficient young people who must care for ageing populations,

Madness.

[-]

doctordaedalus@reddit

Literally the opposite of a crisis for the globe itself.

[-]

iwouldntknowthough@reddit

nice ☺️

[-]

LordGreybies@reddit

I'm not falling for billionaire propaganda. Whenever there's less people in the workforce, workers have more power.

If anything we need to dismantle the wealth hoarding at the top.

lol how the fuck is that a crisis, there are 10 billion of us and I can't get a spot at a campground in the middle of nowhere

[-]

FenrirHere@reddit

You mean a global awesomesauce?

[-]

kiwittnz@reddit

We need to reduce the population naturally to 500 million, according to the Georgia Guidestones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

When I was growing up, my mum could stay at home to raise us 3 kids. My dad earned the wage. He was a teacher and then taught music (his passion) 2 nights a week plus Saturdays. They paid a mortgage on a 4 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood. We didn't go on holidays really, but we never went without the things we needed, and the more expensive things we wanted were birthday and Christmas gifts.

As an adult, I'm married and pay a mortgage on a little 2 bedroom house with my husband. I'm a teacher, my husband works in marketing. We both work full time and earn decent wages. We need both our wages as they are to continue to afford our little house. We don't live any more lavishly than I did growing up, and my husband grew up similarly to me.

No one wants to have kids because it isn’t safe for them.

You want us to have kids? Help make a better world for them instead of burning it all to make a dollar.

[-]

femanonette@reddit

How is falling birth rates a crisis? The planet is collapsing and rich fucks seek to replace us with bots.

Not having children is of the ultimate luxuries you can give yourself in life. Many humans will choose to end their bloodline for a comfortable life. In today's society it's understandable, you can live very comfortably with internet.

And this is why our societies and culture will collapse because more and more of us chose to live like this.

[-]

NeonDrifting@reddit

This planet cannot support an infinite number of people

[-]

Masta0nion@reddit

This is by design. The wealthiest’s biggest concern was overpopulation.

[-]

Exkersion@reddit

I want kids, I really do.

But I love my kids so much that I’m not having them.

3 billion in 1961

4 billion in 1975

5 billion in 1988

6 billion in 1999

7 billion in 2011

8 billion in 2022

[-]

Minizaka@reddit

Overshoot remedy

[-]

tiggie_7@reddit

I find it amusing as hell. Every major government seems to be oblivious and act confused as to “hey, WHY don’t our citizens want to keep having kids? 🤷🏻‍♂️ I sure am stumped!” When it’s just fucking OBVIOUS why no one wants to have children anymore. Our politics, our economy, our lack of absolutely any community and hyper-individualism we have as a ‘culture’. If you’re smart, the less inclined you are to AT ALL exhaust yourself, make yourself broke, spend all that time and energy in propagating the species when you’re not even sure if WWIII or the climate collapses by the end of the century lol.

Background-Head-5541@reddit

Sounds like a good thing to me. It's also a self correcting problem

[-]

casualLogic@reddit

The luxuries of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor - Voltaire

More things change, the more they stay the same. #TeamNoKids for the W

[-]

lowrads@reddit

It's the final referendum on a system that doesn't work, and a permanent veto.

[-]

AllLifeEqual@reddit

The planet cannot support such an imbalance of humans vs nature.

[-]

Geostomp@reddit

Could it be that people can't afford kids in an economy and political system where oligarchs and fascists are sucking the life out of everyone?

Did you mean to reply to someone else?

Government makes it exponentially harder to survive

I know people on here will often jump to 'the best thing you can do is not have children' but looking at it from the economical point of view it's actually another huge problem when your economic system requires more meat for the grinder. But that in itself means we require more energy and resources which is simply unsustainable.

As we're so unwilling to give up the pursuit for endless growth, people not having kids is just another reason the global economy will collapse because without that you have younger people shouldering the burden of an ever increasing aging population.

It's another reason why we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. You push for degrowth and it all collapses. You continue to chase it and it it all collapses. We're just completely stuck.

[-]

WildFlemima@reddit

We aren't stuck. We are a horse refusing to drink water.

[-]

stevef1963@reddit

And yet the world's population is still increasing exponentialy. Go figure

[-]

wiserone29@reddit

Let the job creators also be people creators. If normal people are squeezed so hard they give up on their biological imperative the system is broken.

In my opinion it is not fixable. The people with the most will never decide they need less.

[-]

StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Express_Classic_1569:

Birth rates are falling. Most countries aren’t having enough kids to replace their populations. This is creating ageing societies, worker shortages, and increasing pressure on healthcare and pensions. If it continues, economies and social systems could slowly break down over time.

It’s… not a crisis There are plenty of humans around today there will be plenty more around tomorrow too

This species is myopic tbh, but we’ll be fine

[-]

Zachariot88@reddit

Oligarchs want to destroys millions and millions of jobs through AI and automation, why the fuck are any of them upset about falling birth rates?

[-]

Perfect. Now the factories can staff robots full time and everyone else's cost of living will fall right?

[-]

00001000U@reddit

is it tho?

[-]

Virtual_Ad8137@reddit

I think it's a good thing, less people would mean less resource exploitation. Governments worrying about the GDP is their own way of saying 'now we have less taxpayers give us money and to need us to exist'. To them we are already a cheap resource since there's an overabundant supply of us.