this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024

386 points (98.2% liked)

World News

38987 readers

2053 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

386

Humanity will shrink in the future: 97% of countries will experience negative growth by 2100 (english.elpais.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

116 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I love how they blame this on a declining birth rate instead of on climate change leading to loss of habitable land to sea level rise and loss of farmland to changing temperatures. And pests. Don’t forget warmer temperatures lead to more pests.

I will be shocked if civilization hasn’t collapsed before 2100 based on our current trajectory.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The researcher points out that births “will increasingly be concentrated in the areas of the world that are most vulnerable to climate change, resource scarcity, political instability, poverty and infant mortality.”

Well, this can only end well ...

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

Having 0-2 happy children vs having 8-12 children running around dirty, hungry and naked.

Yup. People naturally choose the former if they can, but a country with fewer people is weaker and may become poorer.

So it's a government's job to make it affordable to have children.

This part of reality is explained best via logic which may seem a bit fascist, but it does exist. It's not a good thing to be eaten.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

kind of like ""Children of Men" but people just choosing not to have children. I see people my age in their 40's having only 1 or 2 children and people in their 30's just not deciding to have children at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Luckily, it's still within our power to choose not to reproduce.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Negative population growth or negative economic growth? Huge difference.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Both. Economies suffer when the populations cannot replenish workforces and when average age gets older and older.

You end up with too many people to support and not enough people to do the work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Isn't that a temporary thing though, eventually that hump will pass and we'd be down to more sustainable population levels. I'd rather it happens naturally because of birth rates than because half the planet becomes unsurvivable.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That's a good thing right?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

It will be very tough economically as fewer people will need to work to support those in retirement. Economic problems, in turn tend to lead to social unrest and a turn to extremist political positions and solutions.

But it should at least take some pressure off the planet. Maybe AI can pick up the slack. Time will tell.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

This is exactly why Japan is investing so much in robotics. They have a rapidly aging population without enough young people to replace them or care for them when they're too old to work.

They will probably eventually have to relax their immigration policies, but that will be a last resort for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In indeed is an economical and political issue. It seems like there is enough money and resources to support the elder people. It is just accumulated in the hands of corporations that are only valued by their growth. I hope that the negative growth can rub off onto companies too, so that they are valued for their stable income instead of needing to grow

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

All the incentive structures in capitalism reward growth. It's true in all levels of all companies. It will be excruciatingly hard to change.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes. We have realized as a species that we are beyond max capacity and it just affects us negatively. It's one of the most amazing things that we realized just as nature does.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

I agree with you, that ecologically, this will probably be a good thing. Economically, we will need a different system as i doubt that any increase in consumption per capita could outweigh the increase in people we currently see. And our economic system is dependent on growth.

load more comments