In a world with 8 billion people, birth rate drops don't seem particularly scary to me. - ThreadSky

alastairmeeks.bsky.social • 9 days ago

In a world with 8 billion people, birth rate drops don't seem particularly scary to me.

Reposted from Sam Freedman

What's interesting/scary about the birth rate drops is they seem almost entirely resistant to any policy solution.

Comments

philipporter.bsky.social•9 days ago

Oh. Give it time.

samfr.bsky.social•9 days ago

Once they're all retired and not paying taxes - well that's pretty damn scary.

legalmusings.bsky.social•9 days ago

They solved this in the 1970s. Choose your policy: Soylent Green or Logan’s Run.

tepid.meme•9 days ago

As Mark Blyth frequently jokes, mandatory whisky and cigars for the over 60s

alastairmeeks.bsky.social•9 days ago

Immigration (coupled with longer working lives) looks like a pretty good solution.

We can't keep working on the basis of ever-increasing population. That's a Ponzi scheme.

samfr.bsky.social•9 days ago

Immigration stops working as a solution as birth rates start dropping everywhere and demand for workers skyrockets.

You don't population to increase but you do need it not to plummet.

alastairmeeks.bsky.social•9 days ago

While the world's population is still rising (it is still projected to increase by c25% in the next generation or so), it's a bit early to worry about that.

Also, we have proven pretty poor with predictions about future work trends in an ageing population, see eg:

https://www.ft.com/content/3e315ec0-efb0-4b86-9266-f21521de081b

samfr.bsky.social•9 days ago

The birth rate is now falling almost everywhere. It's not really prediction - it is happening.

rholmes.bsky.social•9 days ago

Falling birth rate, people living longer. If we lose a lot of service sector jobs to automation, the country is going to be in a pickle.

quincel.bsky.social•9 days ago

Surely exponential decay means if everywhere ends up where the developed world is now (and it's still falling somewhat) then in not that many generations we will be much less than 8 billion people and it would take a big increase in fertility rates to reverse such a trend? That's kinda scary to me.

alastairmeeks.bsky.social•9 days ago

I'd worry about that in a few generations' time. The world's population is still rising for now and is due to hit 10 billion in a generation or so.

We had as few as a billion at the turn of the 19th century. It's not a period thought to have been one where humanity was in existential crisis.

quincel.bsky.social•9 days ago

That's fair, but I think a society where population has grown significantly over 2-4 generations is a lot easier economically (dependancy ratios etc) than one where it has halved in that time.

olibradley.bsky.social•9 days ago

Who's going to pay for the old people?

officer-blackavar.bsky.social•9 days ago

I think the current policy is "something, something, AI, something, something, robots".

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply