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Selfish reasons to want more humans

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Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#441

Post by fulafel »

carlosjobim wrote: post #311
silvestrov wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "more people" was always better then India and Africa should be much richer than Europe. A lack of people can be an innovation driver: "hiring people is too expensive, so we have to automate everything", i.e. innovation is a must for survival.

Europe is much more densely populated than Africa.

It's interesting how wildly different numbers are offered for Europe's population density on high profile web sources.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/europe-phy... 188 persons/km2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe 72 p/km2

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/europe-popula... 34 p/km2

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#442

Post by orthecreedence »

adastra22 wrote: post #97
orthecreedence wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could start by not incentivizing population growth as many states do. Why does every response to "we should probably not multiply exponentially" need to be some variation of "oH sO YoU wANt GENOCIDE?!?!11"

Because a lot of the degrowth movement does want radical population decrease that we are never likely to see without such drastic measures. Those harmful ideas need to be countered before they become reality.

I think the assumption that the only way to have a working economy is to multiply indefinitely is the only thing that needs to be countered seriously.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#443

Post by chaostheory »

hef19898 wrote: post #440
chaostheory wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They account for socioeconomic changes like abortion and birth control ie these trends started long before the sexual revolution and long before abortion was even legal. It is not a “deeply wrong conclusion” unless no one bother to read any of it. Completely ignoring the endocrine disrupter pollution just shows you completely ignored my comment. The key is declining male fertility https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2…

I know, declining male fertility is such a nice talking point, you know men being less manly and all that. Funny so, that while micro plastics and whatnot sure are ugly and cannot be ignored, all other studies do not mention male fertility as a root cause, but rather: - urbanization and changes in lifestyle - women pursuing a life other than being a mother - birth control (the reason why birth control reduces the num…

That’s a moot point. Yes, socioeconomic factors do negatively affect birth rates, but what you don't understand is that even before those socioeconomic factors were in play, male fertility was already on the decline. A good example is Canada. Before contraceptives were popular, before abortion was legal, and before economic incentives for having nuclear families disappeared; they already lost the ability to replenish their population in 1972 (birthrates fell below 2.1), meaning their birthrates were already declining during decades of an optimal socioeconomic environment. ie that’s what it means when the male infertility studies accounted for socioeconomic factors.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#444

Post by dotancohen »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #430
dotancohen wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spoken to a few Bedouin women, though less than men. I've never heard any say that they are unhappy with the quantity of children they raise. That's their culture, why would they be unhappy? One thing that I've heard them say they are unhappy about are the marrying of additional wives. One particular conversation was with two wives of the same man. The older wife said that she did not want her husband to marry,…

> That's their culture, why would they be unhappy? Because you have no reason to assume they would tell you the truth, or that they are not lying even to themselves. Actions speak louder than words, and 99% of women who attain financial and physical security choose to not have 14, or even 4 kids.

You should know that any attempt to change that culture would have the international community screaming genocide.

See here:

  > Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#445

Post by hef19898 »

anemoiac wrote: post #422
hef19898 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just in a demographically problematic situation of having a bad ratio of young vs. old people.

That would also be true but, yes, the population would be decreasing without immigration from regions with higher birth rates.

Long term? Yes. Long term as in "by 2100". Until then, the more immediate issue is the aging population, making everything from health care to retirement financing (the public, European-style models), in the current form difficult. This was a topic already discussed in the late 80s to a degree to be part of classes when I was in my very early teens.

Migration helped to mitigate that. Regarding fertility rates so, the developed West is just ahead of the curve. With economic growth and stability, the rest of the world is following the same curve Europe and the US do for quite a while.

I think, that ultimately, global population will stabilize, including individual countries. There will be dips and spikes, as usual, overall so we should be fine as a species.

How to support the elderly in a world where the same GDP is produced by less and less working age people is a question so: using salaries as a basis for social securoty and public health care won't really work as well anymore. Taxing corporations and wealth (as in really wealthy, being a paper millionaire just because you happen to own a house does not qualify) is one option.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#446

Post by hef19898 »

chaostheory wrote: post #443
hef19898 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, declining male fertility is such a nice talking point, you know men being less manly and all that. Funny so, that while micro plastics and whatnot sure are ugly and cannot be ignored, all other studies do not mention male fertility as a root cause, but rather: - urbanization and changes in lifestyle - women pursuing a life other than being a mother - birth control (the reason why birth control reduces the num…

That’s a moot point. Yes, socioeconomic factors do negatively affect birth rates, but what you don't understand is that even before those socioeconomic factors were in play, male fertility was already on the decline. A good example is Canada. Before contraceptives were popular, before abortion was legal, and before economic incentives for having nuclear families disappeared; they already lost the ability to replenish…

1972? So, after the sexual revolution, the pill, emancipaction, the beginning of urbanization (which really started in the early 60s), the rise of automated agriculture, the beginning of women having real career opportunities as part of the work force and both, a rise of the industrial and service sectors of the economy.

All of which, across the globe, drive birth rates down. But sure, it was male fertility that caused all of that...

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#447

Post by yetihehe »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #388
strangattractor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2 most prominent proponents of this idea happen to have the resources (money) that will allow them to avoid most of the downsides a larger population would create. Great for them bad for me. There are plenty enough geniuses in existence today. They cannot be utilized because they live in shitty conditions created by the too large population we already have. As others have pointed out consideration of of negative…

> There are plenty enough geniuses in existence today. They cannot be utilized because they live in shitty conditions created by the too large population we already have I’m pretty sure that the shitty conditions are not caused by a too large population of humans more broadly. If society took the wealth of a few billionaires and distributed it to the most impoverished I think a lot of our overpopulation woes would va…

> If society took the wealth of a few billionaires and distributed it to the most impoverished I think a lot of our overpopulation woes would vanish overnight.

Maybe, maybe not. Most of impoverished people I know are impoverished because they continue to act irresponsibly with money. Just giving them money without education, handholding and a lot of coaching about how to spend money will mean that money will be distrobuted back away into society and eventually the rich will return to being rich. Of course not everyone is like that, but I'd say 80%. By just redistributing wealth, after 5 years we would reduce amount of poor people by 20%. That's why it's so hard to fight poorness. They require a lot more than just money.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#448

Post by lotsofpulp »

dotancohen wrote: post #444
lotsofpulp wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's their culture, why would they be unhappy? Because you have no reason to assume they would tell you the truth, or that they are not lying even to themselves. Actions speak louder than words, and 99% of women who attain financial and physical security choose to not have 14, or even 4 kids.

You should know that any attempt to change that culture would have the international community screaming genocide. See here: > Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

Giving women the opportunity to be self sufficient is not intending to prevent births.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#449

Post by shiroiushi »

aranelsurion wrote: post #368
naasking wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's a cute term for oppressing people to a degree that they don't want to follow natural instincts to procreate. For instance, developed nations economically penalize parenthood to such an extent that native birth rate is now below replacement in all of them with only a few exceptions.

This seems to me only partially true. Sure if everyone had one-percenter level resources they'd be more inclined to procreate, though the cultural change and the shifted focus to individualism and one's own experience in life (YOLO thinking, if I may) probably has as much or even more effect on it. As an anecdata, most people I know are somewhere on the low-class to upper-mid class, and the ones who want kids seem to…

>Sure if everyone had one-percenter level resources they'd be more inclined to procreate

When we look at actual billionaires, we don't see huge fertility levels. Maybe on average a bit higher than the average couple today, but nothing really significant. It's not like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have been trying to compete with the Duggars.

The only thing more resources do is allow people to have the number of kids they truly would like to have. Most women really don't want to squeeze 15 kids out of their vaginas, and are generally happy with 2 or maybe 3.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#450

Post by carlosjobim »

fulafel wrote: post #441
carlosjobim wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is much more densely populated than Africa.

It's interesting how wildly different numbers are offered for Europe's population density on high profile web sources. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/europe-phy... 188 persons/km2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe 72 p/km2 https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/europe-popula... 34 p/km2

I think it has to do with the inclusion/exclusion of Russia. I looked at your source Worldometers, and they included Russia as part of Eastern Europe.

I think that the inclusion/exclusion of Greenland could have a big effect as well.

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