Good. Right wingers naturally have lesser chances of procreating so they'll go first.
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Good riddance. Now to deal with the bloated bloating geriatric population...
An important point for the people cheering lower population - this is way under replacement level. As previous generations die off and this becomes apparent, the fear is a sudden depopulation enough to disrupt some economies, societies. Picture Detroit, many times over (apologies to Michiganders, since I’ve been to Detroit recently and things are finally looking up after half a century of urban blight) but r pivcture infrastructure like Flint, MI water system many time over. Unstable economies and societies are bad for us all
Given that the article is posted on a science site, and people are discussing this on fairly new technology, I also want to point out that science, technology, innovation are all “luxuries” of an expanding population. As we depopulate and an increasing share of resources go toward elderly care, infrastructure, etc, that’s less for science, technology, innovation.
Some economies could use some disruption. I'm all for shaking things up a bit.
We can still eat the rich, right?
Absolutely.
Good. A lower population is truthful and beautiful, as my old philosophy professor would say.
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.
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...
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.
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.
I’d pay more taxes if I didn’t have to drive everywhere
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.
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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"
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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.
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You have a source for this claim?
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If we didn't rely on constant growth to keep our economy working this would be great news.
Yep, a planned economy is the way to go and more than doable. But so many people are jealous spiteful dimwits. So essentially, we're fucked.
No one has any money for rent, food, or living expenses.
Everyone is overworked.
We're paid pennies compared to CEO's.
Every single company fucks us by raising prices because they can, and our governments do nothing because they haven't worked for the people in decades..
While that is all generally true, the status of most people in developed countries today is better than its ever been in history.
That's what's driving fertility down. People who have access to education, medical care, relative comfort and security have fewer children.
My wife and I are part of a younger generation whose culture revolves around NOT having children until all those things you mentioned are attained. The stress of even having a kid, let alone multiple, is not something we’re going to address until we hit financial security.
And at least in most places of the world, you are unlikely to ever achieve financial security because the government inflates your fiat currency until it's worthless.
The subtext there is that you feel that financial security is something which is attainable.
No it isn't, there's no implication of that. Just that they won't reproduce until they see it happening.
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