this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] poopkins@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

How many humans should we aim to have, long term? 20 billion? 50 billion? We're already on track to reach 10 billion in the next 25 years.

I believe that as a society, we should have a long-term plan and a goal for our species's population count, because simply offering incentives for continued growth in order to continue funding generational gaps in our pyramid scheme of social welfare is untenable. Ultimately we will reach the logistical capacity of a functional welfare state, to say nothing of all the other problems.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] poopkins@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Continuing to fixate on short-term problems like bridging a generational gap—which incidentally we've survived many times in anthropological history—by continuing policies with long-term ramifications is not a good plan.

At some point we need to come to terms with the fact that continuous population growth is not tenable. Whether the population cap is 10 billion or 100 billion, the fact of the matter is that we will eventually hit it. We can't keep procrastinating because we're unwilling to resolve the challenges you've mentioned in a more effective manner.

Call me an optimist, but if we're unable to change our habits as a species, perhaps a well-needed revolution will kick us into action.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

We probably won't ever hit 11 billion contiguous humans. At least not without colonizing Venus. The birthrates worldwide are dropping quickly, and every time another country passes through the Industrial Age, into the Modern Age, their birthrates fall off a cliff. I suspect we will eventually stabilize around 9 billion people, which is a few billion lower than the maximum projected sustainable population of The Earth.