My hypothesis is that population growth is so embedded in the common psyche, from economics to culture and religion, that suggesting otherwise is anathema and rejected by Pavlovian reflex.
I think it’s because no one ever bothers to support it.
You declare that we have “too many people” and “need fewer humans” — but don’t demonstrate that’s true. It seems more like an article of faith among a certain crowd.
But to people who don’t think that’s true, saying we need fewer people and enacting policies to achieve that seems dangerous: you’re trying to destroy other people’s families for no reason but your religious beliefs.
Seconding toomuchtodo's comment, I also take issue with
> saying we need fewer people and enacting policies to achieve that seems dangerous: you’re trying to destroy other people’s families for no reason but your religious beliefs
Trying to conflate a natural (or at least unintended [1]) population drop with some deliberate policy of "family destruction" is the height of dishonesty.
> Trying to conflate a natural (or at least unintended [1]) population drop with some deliberate policy of "family destruction" is the height of dishonesty.
Your sibling comments (including the one you support) are arguing that we should continue policies which abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed because we have “too many people”. That would be animal abuse if I did it to cows: intentionally abusing a herd so they were too distressed to procreate.
I think you not admitting that I’m responding to sentiments expressed in this very thread is dishonest.
Quality of life and fertility seem to be very strongly anti-correlated. It does not seem like any sort of "policies which abuse the young" are needed to reduce population - education, gender equality, and some baseline material security suffice.
That the countries least desirable to live in have the highest fertility, and that there is a global ecological catastrophe slowly unfolding, are both well-documented common knowledge, that you became instantly ignorant of when they became inconvenient to your argument.
I would ask you to explain why you think "policies which abuse the young" are what people have in mind, or why they are needed, when obviously what has been shown to work and is popular is raising living standards. But I won't, because given the above, I already know the answer: it's much easier to argue for perpetual population growth if you can pretend the only alternative is "abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed".
> that there is a global ecological catastrophe slowly unfolding, [is] well-documented common knowledge
I find it strange you can’t show me actual support for that then, after my repeated requests — are you sure it’s not a widely held dogmatic belief?
> I would ask you to explain why you think "policies which abuse the young" are what people have in mind, or why they are needed, when obviously what has been shown to work and is popular is raising living standards.
Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children.
The entire system is set up in a way which is crushing the middle class (in the US and likely other developed nations), causing them to choose not to breed. The evidence suggests that people aren’t having as many kids as they would like due to policies which harm them (eg, high taxes) — policies which people support here despite knowing that they’re driving those outcomes.
> I already know the answer: it's much easier to argue for perpetual population growth if you can pretend the only alternative is "abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed".
This is you creating a strawman to avoid recognizing the negative impacts of your own policy and the harms it’s causing to humanity.
Just under 3% of the world's land remains ecologically intact [..] The study paints a gloomier picture than previous analyses of wilderness areas, focused on human impact on habitat, which estimated that 20 to 40% of the earth's terrestrial surface has been little affected by humans. - https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/world/intact-ecosystems-repor...
I.e. the overly optimistic studies showed that ~70% of Earth's land has been significantly affected by humans.
> Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children.
Clearly young people in Somalia are financially better off then, and we should emulate their policies.
We have a global climate and environmental crisis in a world where most human beings are still quite poor and with population still increasing.
We're being told that we should travel less, eat less meat, this, that, when most people on Earth actually still struggle to afford these things (I.e. consumption per capita is increasing as people leave abject poverty worldwide)
Believing that global population level is fine is not even an article of faith, it simply is denial of reality because it is something some people somehow simply refuse to hear.
Lastly, no-one here suggests that we should kill people or whatnot. In Japan and other developed countries population is decreasing naturally, let's just let it instead of panicking.
Your entire argument is “an authority told me so!” and from there you treat it as an article of faith.
You’re also ignoring that more people has led to less poverty and the current world is the richest it has ever been — ie, the data which shows more people is good. Global hunger has precipitously fallen, as we’ve had more people and richer nations capable of more aid.
> In Japan and other developed countries population is decreasing naturally, let's just let it instead of panicking.
It’s decreasing as a result of policies chosen which stress the young and cause them not to breed — saying “well, less people is good, so let’s keep the abuse!” is monstrous.
Suppose you're born on a planet that has some amount of natural resources and some characteristic that makes it liveable. Now if you consume part of the resources to produce stuff, and pollute the environment as a side effect, you're richer of the amount of stuff that you produced, but you're also poorer of the non-renewable resources that you consume, and you'll have to pay for the environment at some point too.
For instance, in the case of global warming, there will be migration of populations, raise of ocean level, extreme weather events, all of this will have a cost that we'll have to pay eventually.
All of this has to be taken into account if you want to assess the merit and sustainability of our production system and demographic growth.
Putting it another way, we're rich because we were given a huge loan in the form of natural resources and a hospitable environment, but this is ending. Unfortunately, there's no perpetual growth in a finite world. This is a mathematical truth.
> All of this has to be taken into account if you want to assess the merit and sustainability of our production system and demographic growth.
Sure — so show me the actual account.
You’re just hand-waving about possible costs without showing they’re unsustainable on reasonable timelines OR that fewer people would help the problem at all.
That’s not a rational basis to want fewer humans.
> this is ending. Unfortunately, there's no perpetual growth in a finite world. This is a mathematical truth.
Discussing abstract concepts like limits without showing that we’re near those limits is merely dogmatic belief — it doesn’t justify anything.
It's impossible to give exact prediction and timelines, but it's certain that the perpetual growth model isn't sustainable and most likely, limits will materialise within the next decades.
> How can you conclude that when you previously said you can’t “ give exact prediction and timelines”?
Because I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary, and various authors on the topic and that's what they say based on actual data. And I'm yet to find quantified arguments that say otherwise. You're the one whose ideas are based on faith, not me.
> To me, you seem to be repeating the same “the world is ending!” nihilism that has always permeated society.
No, because
1. I don't think the world is ending, just that current growth will stop one way or another, because it's not sustainable and limits are within sight
2. it's not about nihilism but predictions based on numerous data, which are more accurate and comprehensive than what was available in the past
> Because I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary
Except both the links you provided and your own comment admits those aren’t terribly accurate predictions and most of them are a ways out — with huge error bars.
They also don’t attempt to address factors we know are going to happen, like increased technical prowess that come with a larger population.
If you have an actual quantitative source and model with that prediction, then post it. But you haven’t.
> I read "the limits to growth", the IPCC report summary, and various authors on the topic and that's what they say based on actual data.
Then you should cite that — because you haven’t so far.
> 1. I don't think the world is ending, just that current growth will stop one way or another, because it's not sustainable and limits are within sight
“The world (as you know it) is ending!”
I’d find you more credible if you owned what you were saying.
What supporting citations would you like? There are 121 million unintended pregnancies globally annually. 2.7 millions children in foster/institutional care. 689 million in poverty and destitution. Rainforests are being clear cut, the planet is well beyond its carbon budget (and Herculean efforts will be required to pull us back from 2C), and there is ample evidence climate change is going to cause famines and heatwaves that will inflict suffering on wide swaths of the global population (with the developing world being hit particularly hard). This is not the fiction that religion is, these are verifiable facts (ourworldindata.org, UN reports).
Isn’t it dangerous to have large numbers of people we’re going to just let die when resources are further constrained? It seems a lot safer to argue for family planning for all but the most capable and emotionally invested parents and let everyone else age out with a decent quality of life to responsibly transition to a lower human run rate. No one is arguing for eugenics, family destruction, or similar distasteful policies.
> Isn’t it dangerous to have large numbers of people we’re going to just let die when resources are further constrained?
You haven’t shown anything like this — merely asserted it based on unrelated facts.
You cited raw numbers, but eg, portion of humanity in starvation conditions has gone down as population went up, because the increased wealth of nations allowed for feeding more people.
Neither unintended pregnancies nor a fraction of children in foster care seems like something that is solved by having fewer people. In fact, that will get worse (like hunger) as society regresses and we are less wealthy as nations.
> No one is arguing for eugenics, family destruction, or similar distasteful policies.
You are: Planned Parenthood was founded by a noted eugenicist; the policies to support your vision require massive taxes that stress the young and prevent them from breeding even if they otherwise would want to; etc.
You’re just denying your role in that destruction through social policy based on some kind of religious apocalyptic fantasy.
My hypothesis is that population growth is so embedded in the common psyche, from economics to culture and religion, that suggesting otherwise is anathema and rejected by Pavlovian reflex.