Worry about population decline isn’t about wanting more people. It’s about wanting there to be enough working-age people to cover the retirement and medical payments of the ones no longer working. We know exactly how many 30-year-olds we’ll have in 20 years and it’s simply not enough. Something has to give and usually the first to go is the benefits for the people who most need them.
Comment on Anon isn't worried about population decline
GonzoAtBarstow@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
8+ billion people on the planet and people complain about not enough people.
Fallibilist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Or maybe the something that has to give is a minority class of people (the .1%) getting a few percent higher tax “burden”
Fallibilist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I highly doubt that would be anywhere near enough even if the issue was only limited to the country with the highest number of ultra wealthy people which it isn’t.
Seleni@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Elon Musk could end world hunger. Full stop. He wouldn’t even notice the dip in his finances. (He offered once, claiming if someone gave him a concrete number, he would pay it, and a nonprofit took him up on it. Surprise, surprise, the whiny little snit backed out.)
They totally could fix the problem. But to those rich shitheads, it’s not a problem. It’s a feature.
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 2 weeks ago
Sort of depend on perspective, hunger only exists because there’s no political will to remove it.
We produce more food globally than we consume, and we can multiply it several times with the same cost of space by swapping more meat for vegan crops.
We have plenty of space for everyone to have shelter, the problem is largely due to the issue that most people want to live in a metropolitan area. So the price for living in a highly sought out location increases to unmanageable levels.
A key factor is the big difference between the kinds of jobs you can get in a more rural location compared to the bigger urban centers. Everyone are forced to move to urban locations to study, causing most people to form their first adult social and professional circles around whichever urban location they studied at.
There’s a lot of minor things that needs to be done, what exactly differs by country. But making the rural regions more accessible to live in should be considered across most countries. One simple first step, would be to make remote capable jobs offer their workers to do it all remotely. Government office workers, could quite easily spearhead such an initiative; I bet some people would move closer to nature, if they could hold onto their bread
GonzoAtBarstow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That falls back to “ponzi schemes aren’t sustainable”
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
usually the first to go is the benefits for the people who most need them.
Then this way of life is not worth saving.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Enough for what? There are plenty of unemployed people.
Fallibilist@feddit.uk 1 week ago
Literally says right there.
…there to be enough working-age people to cover the retirement and medical payments of the ones no longer working.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 week ago
We can make more money.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Why the obsession with only retirees? What matters is the dependency ratio.Image
The dependency ratio counts the total number of dependents, not just the retirees the eugenicists like to focus on. By the end of the century, globally we’ll have a dependency ratio similar to the level it was in the mid-20th century.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
When do they teach ‘carrying capacity’ and what happens after it’s exceeded these days?
whalesnrainbows@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, people worried about “population decline” are actually concerned about their preferred race/religion losing political & cultural power.
It’s a dog whistle every time
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Population decline isn’t inherently a problem (unless you’re a racist worried about “your people” losing power). Too rapid population decline is a big problem. We’re already seeing the effects: When the sum of birth rates and working-age immigration fall fast enough, the ratio of working-age people to care-needing people also falls. I don’t think I need to explain why it’s a problem that every able-bodied working age adult will be responsible (directly or indirectly) for taking care of more people. It puts more pressure on everyone, and impacts societies ability to care for those in need of it.
A controlled, slow, population decline would probably just be a good thing at this point. However, that’s not what prognoses are pointing towards, and that’s why (non-racist) people are worried.
TheTetrapod@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was gonna say we could start pushing people out on ice floes when they get past 60, but climate change is ruining that for us too.
Psionicsickness@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Easy solution, eliminate the boomers. Crisis averted.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is mostly a joke, but I do foresee a time when a very authoritarian government just kills a bunch of old people.
For example, during the One Child Policy the Chinese government did hundreds of thousands of forced abortions.
whalesnrainbows@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ll acknowledge that saying it’s a dog whistle every time was slightly hyperbolic.
However, I’d argue that the claim that the global human population is declining too rapidly is actually pretty hotly contested. The world’s population is still growing — around 8.2 billion now, heading toward a peak near 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
That being said, in some countries there will be a surplus of retirees and not enough workers to fund them through the existing tax structure, which is a legitimate problem. But it’s a problem best remedied through better social safety nets, not by popping out more babies.
However, the biggest contention I have with the concern over population decline is that population decline doesn’t matter at all if we don’t adequately address climate change within the next decade. If someone’s house is actively on fire and they express concern to me that their roof should be re-shingled, I’m not going to give a shit about their roof shingles until I’m certain their roof will survive the fire.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Thanks, that was a much more nuanced take that I have a much easier time agreeing with :)
I think the population problem has some in common with food distribution: There’s enough food in the world, it’s just distributed in such a way that some places have obesity as a societal-level issue, while other places people are dying of malnourishment.
Similarly, the global population is increasing, however it’s increasing far more rapidly that sustainable in some places, while declining more rapidly than sustainable in others.
There’s only so much you can do by redistributing wealth in a better way (which I think we should, regardless). It doesn’t help to tax the rich if there isn’t any manpower you can buy with that tax income to actually do the work that needs doing. I think that’s the scary part about a rapid population decline: We’re heading towards a situation (in some places) where the ratio of capable workers to people needing care approaches 2:1, which means a far larger fraction of the population will need to spend their entire working career as direct care providers than is currently the case. You can’t really alleviate a manpower shortage with just money.
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
Hegemony is the word you’re looking for.
Yeah, always a dog whistle.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Why would I care about how many people are the same race as me? It could only be a problem if you keep racism.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
it’s almost like you have your answer already