Replacement level for whom? To sustain the current population? Population growth? Status quo? Corporations?
Not sure any of these things are needed to be sustained at the levels we are currently at.
Someone please explain the detrimental repercussions of not having an equal to or greater than replacement level.
Not only that, but we’re simultaneously talking about how we’re adding a force multiplier to labor with the advent and improvement of AI.
We’re literally in the process of decoupling social progress and productivity from reliance on population, and juggling the impending social burden that’s going to create if jobs decrease accordingly, yet we should be worried we’re not popping out kids to maintain population growth?
Why the fuck should we create larger generations of unemployable humans for the future we’re building?
Especially when having a kid is one of the worst possible actions you could take regarding environmental impact, and the people already alive are facing quite serious environmental consequences for such impacts.
I’ll take a crack.
Slow population loss, while concerning for policy makers, can be managed theoretically by moving money around. Taxation, subsidies, etc.
The US is currently at 1.6 fertility rate. 2.1 is replacement rate, so a pretty steep drop of 25% loss per generation. But we have substantial immigration to make up the shortfall. It’s an issue, and it’s trending down, but manageable for now.
Fertility rates of 1 or less are terrifying. Each generation is half the size of the one before. Half as many workers supporting the elderly. Retirement/pension systems will be strained then collapse, allowing retirees to fall into poverty. Half as many workers to maintain infrastructure, half as many doctors, half as many nurses, half as many experts in every field, means half as many researchers making discoveries and breakthroughs.
God forbid you go to war and have half as many soldiers to call on, from a workforce already stretched beyond any before. It’s a recipe for mass suffering in a scale never before seen.
South Korea and Japan are currently below 1. China might be even lower. People are, generally, resilient and resourceful. Adjustments will be made. People will work into their 70’s and 80’s because there is work to be done. But there will be a great deal of suffering.
sure, i’ll try to explain briefly
“infrastructure”, i.e utilities, transport, bureacracy etc is built to support a fixed population within a city. when the population increases, you have to build more infrastructure to support this new population. this part is easy, you expand your cities at their edges, extend the utilities, and set up satellite bureacracy offices if needed
the tricky part is when you lose population. the correct move would be to demolish this infrastructure and scale back. trouble is, not only would this be wasteful, but it would also leave gaps in cities, since population decline doesn’t happen uniformly from a city edge. where exactly, do you demolish the infrastructure?
it would be nice if we live in a theoretical world where, as population decreases, the cities magically shrink at their edges, and suburban residents move closer in to fill the gaps. this is not how populations deplete from an area though (example: detroit, 1950 - 2020)
you will struggle to convince a suburban homeowner at the edge, to sell up and move to one of the gaps left behind by population loss. if we stop short of rewriting laws to force this population transfer, the end result is that you are left with a “swiss cheese” city. houses and settlements will be spread so thinly that becomes impossible for city goverments to provide “infrastructure” without providing it at a loss. your local goverment will then take debt and bankrupt, the infrastructure will collapse through lack of maintenance, and then the remaining population suffers big time
i want to note that i am not using this as an argument to support population growth. i am only stating the big, big problem that needs to be tackled somehow, concerning population loss. some big-brains are going to have to work this problem through, fast!
side note: interestingly, most NA cities are spread out and sprawled so much that they are suffering unaffordable infrastructure bills already, despite not suffering the effects of population loss. goodness knows how these places will fare when population loss actually hits…
the tricky part is when you lose population. the correct move would be to demolish this infrastructure and scale back. trouble is, not only would this be wasteful, but it would also leave gaps in cities, since population decline doesn’t happen uniformly from a city edge. where exactly, do you demolish the infrastructure?
Nah, it’s simple. You just redraw the city limits. Tell the “winners” they’re now part of the countryside and reduce their public transport to one train per hour.
The problem will solve itself :P
People in the US don’t use public transport, and would be incredibly happy to not have to pay more taxes.
Pretty sure in some of the cities they do. Yeah, I know in most of the country they don’t believe in public transport. But crucially, the topic hadn’t gone full “USA”, at least not yet. So, still applicable.
I’d pay more taxes if I didn’t have to drive everywhere
If only there was public transport to be taken away
houses and settlements will be spread so thinly that becomes impossible for city goverments to provide “infrastructure” without providing it at a loss
That’s been proven wrong by history. Population density was far lower 150 years ago and there was no problem with infrastructure despite everyone being more spread out before urbanization. Really spread out requires even less infrastructure today. Everyone in my neighborhood is on 3+ acres so water is from self maintained wells (private paid to install and replace every 20 years) and many have solar.
i do get where you’re coming from, population density was less than it was. as a consequence, people had less access to resources. i would argue as a result of this, they also had less quality of life. the reason that urbanization has been a trend over the past 150 years that shows no sign of stopping, is because population urbanization is a multiplier on the effectiveness of quality of life, because it makes the cost to maintain higher quality of life cheaper per unit of life.1
for example, yes, you can supply a neighbourhood with individual wells, granted. but surely it would be cheaper for your community to build one massive well, and then everyone in the neighbourhood can collect the water at the well? the community could all pay their share to maintain the well, and then the per unit cost of the well would be cheaper to build and maintain.
whilst you’re at it, since there’s only one well, you can put in a really fancy pump and purifier system. a really high quality rig, with low cost to run. that way, you only need to maintain 1 efficient pump and purifier, rather than 20 or 30 less efficient ones that would cost more fuel to run as an aggregate. the unit cost per person of the pump and purifier setup would be cheaper to run and maintain.
if you wanna go really bougie, you could all chip in to collectively install pipes to every house so that your local community doesn’t have to walk to the well. if you build slightly more pipes than you need, this would act as insurance so that if one pipe breaks, you don’t all lose supply, and the water could flow round… other pipes… and… …wait this just sounds like a municipal supply but with extra steps…
i know i’m being facetious, but the reality is that it is just not measurably cheaper to live out in isolated pockets, through supplying individual infrastructure on a per person basis.2 economies of scale dictates this relationship.3 it’s inescapable.4. it’s inevitable.5 by all means, if it’s the only option someone has to provide utilities for themself, they should use it. but let’s not pretend that it’s more expensive to group up, live closer, and share the cost burden through communal resources.
i will trust you are aware of “economies of scale”, but i have linked a video here for those who are not aware, and also don’t want to read papers like a total nerd. ☝️🤓
[1]. (??? what would the units for quality of life per capita be i wonder? joy/kg? lol)
[2]. “The results indicate that cost savings can be achieved by increases in the scale of production…”, from “Productivity growth, economies of scale and scope in the water and sewerage industry: The Chilean case”, by Molinos-Senante and Maziotis, accessible at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8162666/
[3]. “…more spread out settlement (“Dispersion”) leads to diseconomies in distribution…”, from “Economies of scale, distribution costs and density effects in urban water supply: a spatial analysis of the role of infrastructure in urban agglomeration”, by Hugh B., accessible at https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/285/
[4]. “…agglomeration economies make firms and workers more productive in dense urban environments than in other locations.”, from “The economics of urban density”, by Duranton and Pupa, accssible at https://diegopuga.org/research.html#density
[5]. “Econometric analysis of the data from the Big Mac price survey revealed a significant positive effect of being in a rural area on the increase in prices.”, from “Identifying the size and geographic scope of short-term rural cost-of-living increases in the United States”, by Díaz-Dapena, Loveridge & Paredes, accessible at “https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-023-01244-z”
I don’t know about Chilean economies of scale. The article you linked was about privatization of utilities and the economies of scale in that sector.
What I do know is that in the US suburbs, my total water costs are much lower than when I lived in the city. Running clean water pipes to homes and sewage pipes is extraordinarily expensive.
Flint Michigan is looking at $600m to replace pipes to 43k homes. That’s $14k per home and then they still have to pay for water and sewer.
The average cost for a well and sceptic is $12k and then it’s free. Average water bill is $1400 a year for urban residents.
If combining utilities was cost effective, my neighborhood would have done it when it was built. It’s the same with gas lines.
Interesting. My water bill is around $800 per year, and that includes sewerage service. That well would take 15 years to reach cost parity, and that’s leaving out the septic system.
And wells are decidedly not free after installation, if my parents’ experience is anything to go by. (Nothing catastrophic, to they just had to pay for pump maintenance occasionally.)
yep, you’re entirely right. for your area, it’s more effective to run wells for each person. the frustrating part being that, it implies that the city has been designed so, so badly, that individuals can’t actually share resources, without the per capita price going up if they do so.
even without depopulation, that’s a huge governmental failure. if individuals are having to run all their own utility setups and infrastructure, is that even a “city”? it sounds more like rural living but it’s all vaguely connected. presumably as a result of this low density, you have higher ongoing costs elsewhere? i.e commutes to work, cost of food, etc
if not, then it could be one of those taxpayer-subsidised things, where it feels cheaper for each resident, but the reality is that someone else is paying for it. i’m not good at wording what i mean in this case, but i will pass you to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) to show it instead, he does a better job of explaining what i’m talking about
anyhow… that’s crazy! it’s entirely the thing i’m worried about seeing replicated large scale as a result of a reduction in population
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Heh infrastructure from 150 years ago is vastly different than infrastructure today. 150 years ago you didn’t have buried electricity lines, telecom lines and fiber, robust water and sewage solutions. Those things need regular service and replacement. If your population goes down that means your revenue to pay for those things go down as well.
In the modern world the only thing that’s needed for a rural home is fiber and a road. Solar provides power. Well and septic are cheaper than city water/sewer. If people have their own land, they don’t have to get food shipped from hundreds of miles away. More is grown locally.
This is one problem, but there’s a much bigger problem: the ratio of elderly (retired) to workers will increase substantially. Unless there is some AI productivity boost, many young people will have to work in health care/elderly care and standards of living will deteriorate A LOT.
Good. Right wingers naturally have lesser chances of procreating so they’ll go first.
The people against birth control and sex education are definitely not gonna have less kids.
Their child mortality might be higher because of antivaxx crackpots and lack of maternity clinics in fundamentalist states though, so that’s a “plus”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA frankly… probably the opposite.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Anecdotally, it isn’t liberal city dwellers with enormous families.
It’s right-wing Christian fundamentalist in the sticks.
I was thinking more of Ben Shapiro / Alex Jones / Trump-follower types who obviously are pretty good at repelling potential sex partners.
We’d all like to think that but Ben is married and has a kid (maybe more? Idk that much about him), don’t know about Jones, and Trump has several kids.
There are obviously plenty of women around stupid enough to reproduce with them.
Why the fuck would I bring to the world someone to live in this overheating unrestrained capitalist hellscape ? Invisible hand my ass. The invisible hand doesn’t seem to stop them from poisoning us with forever chemicals… And so much more. Why would I bring someone to suffer ? They would surely have a worse life than me. Who wants to give that to their kids ? Who ?
good. hopefully it keeps falling after 2030
As will food supply so I guess that’s working out okay.
Why would I want to have kids in this shithole. And I have it pretty darn good, always had enough to eat, roof over my head, relative luxuries. Still would never bring a kid into this world.
Sounds like a problem for governments to figure out
Immigration was always an outsourced bandaid for solving population decline.
Good. A lower population is truthful and beautiful, as my old philosophy professor would say.
Phew. The population needs to be reduced significantly, this will help!
Get it down to around 35,000 and everyone gets to go to the Superbowl.
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Yes.
I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to have kids in this environment.
Yes, my wife and I considered not for environmental reasons. My parents thought we were nuts citing the threat of nuclear war when they were kids and everyone continuing to have kids then. They’ve come around to understand our hesitation now, mostly, but it was distressing that they couldn’t understand , if not agree, with hesitating.
Of course, the environment is just one thing that gives us pause these days. People are crazy. Politicians and the laws they create are (or the dissolution of certain laws is) crazy. Plenty of reasons to pause.
We did have a child, and I do not regret it, but we also have the means to support her and a way to escape the U.S. if things get much worse. Many Americans don’t have either option, and no child should be neglected or abused and every child should have a robust support system. I wish we would encourage and educate people on contraception on a grand scale.
Yes, the same here. We had 2 kids (and then a vasectomy). We’re not rich, but we do have a house we could sell to aid leaving, and we have enough in savings to make it without selling the house, if we needed to leave right away. Of course, environmental issues will be a global problem, but the response to those will likely be better in some places as compared to others.
Quick note though, one child is still far below replacement rate. Though you didn’t state if you’re one and done or not.
True, and we were definitely one and done and now my wife is 46, so it would be way too risky. We wouldn’t have been able to financially support a child and I didn’t want to end up having a favorite, which sure happened with me and my brother who could do no wrong despite being a major asshole. I wouldn’t want to have a favorite, but I wouldn’t be able to prevent it either. And I wouldn’t want to have more than one kid if it turned out I thought one was better than the other. That could lead to proper child care issues.
Also, raising just the one has been a herculean effort due to all sorts of things, so I don’t regret it. I love her more than anything in the world and I don’t regret any of the effort I’ve made, but I don’t know that I would have been able to handle two such kids on a mental level.
My wife travels a lot for work, and I dabbled in genealogy years ago to track down my own birth relatives. By combining the two, my wife and our daughter now have EU passports, and I’m eligible for a long-term visa.
Theoretically I could be eligible for Slovakian citizenship (which is not their EU country) based on my own DNA ties, but that would require some mental gymnastics and a very progressive interpretation of how closed infant adoption affects legal rights.
I am actually very fond of Texas, and I think the idea of it is worth fighting for, and that there’s a strain of tolerance and hospitality and diversity here that could be compatible with a much more progressive worldview. I have hope that it can be better than it is. I think any place with people who love it is worth trying to make into the best version of itself, to say nothing of the people who couldn’t leave even if they wanted to…
but we’re also not going to be the last ones out if we lose that hope.
Hmmm, what dna tiws do you need to be eligible for Slovakian citizenship?
You need a grand-grandparent (or more recent) born in Slovakia. My biological great grandmother was born in a small town in the eastern half of what is now Slovakia, and immigrated to the US in the late 1920s. I was adopted as an infant though, so my legal family has no such connections, and while I could try to make my case, it would be both circumstantial and rather technical unless I could get help from my birth father, which is, shall we say, unlikely.
Interesting. My grandmother was.
I’ve wondered what my options to get to the EU are if I really wanted. That…is interesting.
Edit: do you have a source by any chance? So far I only see rules allowing if parents were Slovakian citizens.
The Australian embassy seems to have updated their page more recently than the US or Canada, and they mention the grandparents and great grandparents thing. I’d check with the US embassy (assuming you’re in the US) to confirm, but it looks like the long-discussed law change did happen. I kinda lost interest when I realized the doors I’d have to barge in to have a plausible chance of success. YMMV. :-)
And you only need to escape Indiana.
Not if Trump is president. My daughter is queer, she and I are both Jewish, and my wife is a librarian. They either want us to be part of their genocide or, in my wife’s case, in prison.
I have dual citizenship with the UK and also theoretically German citizenship. And I am sure as hell going to take advantage of that depending on what happens in November. I don’t even care about me, I care about my daughter.
Well, as I’ve said before, Illinois is close, and probably easier to get to on short notice if necessary. I’m a ways north of you (in IL), but my home is available to you if you find yourself in danger.
Edit: And you’d be coming this way anyway to fly overseas out of O’Hare, right?
Honestly, I’d probably drive somewhere less prominent and fly out from there. No reason to attract attention if you’re fleeing. But I appreciate the offer.
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That’s really awesome of him! I don’t care whether it was being friendly or officially announcing it. Either way, that’s amazing!
Not only that, but with the increasingly credible threat of automation looming, I don’t think we should be looking to traditional economic wisdom for advice about labor shortages.
Automation (eliminating work) only is a problem (eliminating jobs) in our shitty economic system.
The economic system (capitalism) only values AI for its ability to create problems for us (poor people)
Dont forget climate uncertainty
If we run out of resources, the rich will taste good.
Cringe af. Can you please stop with the constant violent rhetoric? This does not solve any problems and instead divides humanity. You will not create a better future by killing more people.
Totally agree. Instead of trying to create understanding, violence and thinking of other people as non-human only tears people apart.
Don’t kid yourself Richard, If Zuckerberg ever got the chance he’d eat you and everyone you care about!
But seriously, you worry about a divided humanity? We’ve been divided for centuries, and the people at the top aren’t going to willingly step down from their mountain of corpses to slum it with the rest of us.
Economic violence is violence. The war has begun
By that logic the war has never ceased and has been going on basically forever
Indeed, welcome aboard
You’re telling me the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles? I think you might onto something there 🤔
Oceania was always at war with Eurasia.
History repeats itself. Unless laws change to reign in the 1% and the billionair class, heads will guaranteeably roll…the question is whether it’s sooner or later. It just comes down to a question of how much are people willing to put up with before someone takes matters into their own hands, and that will be the catalyst that causes change. Either others will follow suit, or the laws will get passed to control these people.
It requires killing a lot fewer people than the .01% kills every day through economic violence. They’re just a walking trolley problem at this point.
All rights are won through violence.
We’d have a better present right now if we guillotined rich fucks and their bootlickers.
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Automation considered a threat is sad. What fucked up world we live in.
It has to be deprivatised if it’s going to be a positive for humanity, otherwise it’s just another upward wealth transfer.
Yep. Basically we already have answer to question “what if we had replicator?” and it is “DMCA”. Technology is not enough for society to be better.
Our modern rich think that with enough technology they can insulate themselves from our power entirely. The way I see it we either prove them wrong, or die.
🥳🥳🥳
Maybe stop treating the common person like utter dogshit. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
The book analyzes the elements that lead different nations to succeed or fail, in the author’s opinion, focusing on demographic, geographic, and historic factors. It asserts that the period from the 1950s to the 2020s represented a peak period of rapid economic development and innovation; meanwhile, the present (2022) and future would be associated with a rather abrupt slowing of such developments. In this view, deglobalization leads to deindustrialization, deurbanization, and even depopulation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_Is_Just_the_Beginning
Good riddance. Now to deal with the bloated bloating geriatric population…
Make the world one that people actually want to live in and this won’t be a problem
