The last time I commented on this subject it revolved around us having the need to save the economy. When you let go of the economic aspect of it though, it seems like a natural process and we'll...
The last time I commented on this subject it revolved around us having the need to save the economy. When you let go of the economic aspect of it though, it seems like a natural process and we'll all be fine.
The 'economic aspect' isn't solely someone trying to make numbers bigger. It's a question of allocating limited resources, which means, for a period of time, accepting our elderly population gets...
The 'economic aspect' isn't solely someone trying to make numbers bigger.
It's a question of allocating limited resources, which means, for a period of time, accepting our elderly population gets continually worse and worse retirement assistance and health care options or the burden on the current generation grows larger.
Immigration is a short term solution, but in the long term we need to make it easier for people to have kids.
Why? I mean, yes, it sucks that elderly people will have fewer younger people to take care of them, but having more kids just so that we have people to take care of the elderly seems... totally...
Why? I mean, yes, it sucks that elderly people will have fewer younger people to take care of them, but having more kids just so that we have people to take care of the elderly seems... totally counterproductive to me.
I think that you're right in a way, we should make it easier for people to have and take care of kids, because we should be doing everything we can to reduce burdens and suffering in everyone's life as much as possible, period, but incentivizing people to have more kids just so we have more people around is pointless at best, and actively harmful to the planet at worst.
I would imagine that as technology proliferates and advances throughout the world, population growth will continue to decline until its globally negative, and then trend that way for a while until it reaches a new equilibrium that accounts for the widespread usage of birth control and access to reproductive education, at which point birth rate will probably self level out after the global population shrinks at bit.
That future sounds a lot more optimistic to me than one where humanity grows ad nauseum until it either completely strips all resources on every celestial body it gets access to then dies off because it can't get access to more resources beyond our solar system, or somehow figures that out and just spends thousands of years strip mining everything around us to support the trillions of people having more kids every year.
I agree. To me this just screams "society-wide pyramid scheme." If your economic system only works if the population keeps growing indefinitely, well sooner or later it's going to hit a wall. Some...
Why? I mean, yes, it sucks that elderly people will have fewer younger people to take care of them, but having more kids just so that we have people to take care of the elderly seems... totally counterproductive to me.
I agree. To me this just screams "society-wide pyramid scheme." If your economic system only works if the population keeps growing indefinitely, well sooner or later it's going to hit a wall. Some generation is going to be the one that reaches the limits of growth and has to start making those hard sacrifices to learn to live with a stable or declining population.
And really, this method, of people just voluntarily choosing to have fewer children, is probably the least painful way of doing that, regardless of what it does to national pension schemes. The alternative is we just keep growing forever until we hit some hard Malthusian limit, and our numbers start being controlled by mass war and famine. Considering the power of modern technology, such a catastrophe would likely also mean a complete collapse of the global ecosystem. Collapsing national governments really aren't equipped to stop desperate, hungry people from wandering into wildlife reserves and hunting endangered species to extinction.
There's a lot of debate about what the precise carrying capacity of the Earth is. But I for one would rather not find out. (And most scientific attempts to answer the question conclude we've way overshot the natural limits of the planet.)
It's the default way populations work. The way we got around it before large population increases was that we had most people dying early. So unless we want to have major regressions in life...
To me this just screams "society-wide pyramid scheme." If your economic system only works if the population keeps growing indefinitely, well sooner or later it's going to hit a wall.
It's the default way populations work. The way we got around it before large population increases was that we had most people dying early. So unless we want to have major regressions in life expectancy what's the alternative?
It's not the way populations work. The population of every animal on the planet reaches an equilibrium, where there's a hard ceiling against their population getting larger. Not enough food, or...
It's not the way populations work. The population of every animal on the planet reaches an equilibrium, where there's a hard ceiling against their population getting larger. Not enough food, or not enough space, or predation keeps populations in check. The same will happen to humanity, just on a longer term scale, because we're able to use advanced technology to solve those problems. Eventually we'll hit a hard physics limit of course. I think more likely though, we'll hit a social limit.
Universally, once a population reaches a certain level of wealth and social equality, women gain access to affordable birth control and the population recieves adequate reproductive education, the birth rate falls below replacement. As humans are a sexually reproductive species, it means that every woman must have, on average, more than two children in order for our population to remain stable. That's not happening in any "first world" country. Human population growth is fueled entirely by the developing world. Eventually, (hopefully), those places will become wealthy enough that they too will have the same effect.
So it's not something that we have to figure out an alternative to, it's something that is on track to happen already. The discussion is about whether we should try to actively counteract this. Personally I don't think we should, because having a large human population for the sake of having a large population seems like it would cause way more problems than it would solve.
Yes. That equilibrium is called dying early as I said. Not enough food? Older, sicker animals starve. Not enough space? Weaker animals get thrown out of the pack or get outcompeted for food until...
The population of every animal on the planet reaches an equilibrium, where there's a hard ceiling against their population getting larger.
Yes. That equilibrium is called dying early as I said. Not enough food? Older, sicker animals starve. Not enough space? Weaker animals get thrown out of the pack or get outcompeted for food until they starve. Predation? Weaker animals get eaten. That's what keeps the dependency ratio down.
If people live longer and have below replacement level children, then you're going to have a very high dependency ratio. If your society isn't sufficiently capital rich and egalitarian to be able to sustain such a dependency ratio, then there isn't enough to go around and people end up dying early due to lack of access to life-extending medical care or food or housing.
You either get robots capable of doing the dirty scut work, or you get privation once the growth engine sputters. The objection is to characterizing this as a "pyramid scheme" because it's not a "scheme." It's literally just biology.
I can still remember the day I learned that the money that was being taken out of my paycheck for Social Security was not being saved and invested for my retirement (as I had assumed it was), but...
To me this just screams "society-wide pyramid scheme." If your economic system only works if the population keeps growing indefinitely, well sooner or later it's going to hit a wall.
I can still remember the day I learned that the money that was being taken out of my paycheck for Social Security was not being saved and invested for my retirement (as I had assumed it was), but rather being used to pay social security benefits for old people right then and there.
What is the history of the starting generation? Did the first generation of old people just start getting paychecks despite never having contributed to the fund?
I think this is a poor characterization of my argument. For the record, I don't think we should have more people for the sake of more people. People will suffer and/or die as a result of a large...
but incentivizing people to have more kids just so we have more people around is pointless at best, and actively harmful to the planet at worst.
I think this is a poor characterization of my argument. For the record, I don't think we should have more people for the sake of more people.
Why?
People will suffer and/or die as a result of a large negative population growth. Even if I was sure that 'generation $XYZ' was prepared to take on a higher burden as taxpayers (which I wouldn't count on), it's a larger piece out of a shrinking pie. Technology may be able to fill in that gap, but what if it doesn't? I agree with you that your first scenario is ideal, but what's wrong with just shooting for a stable population and not having to rely on technological innovation to prevent suffering?
That future sounds a lot more optimistic to me than one where humanity grows ad nauseum until it either completely strips all resources on every celestial body it gets access to then dies off because it can't get access to more resources beyond our solar system, or somehow figures that out and just spends thousands of years strip mining everything around us to support the trillions of people having more kids every year.
Just want to tangentially soapbox off this for a second, so apologies. When people compare humanity to cancer or whatever they often have this kind of preconception of ad nauseam growth baked into their world view. However, this is how life works too, not just cancer. Every population of every species grows until checked by external factors. Which is not to say it's a blank cheque, morally there are obligations to a sentient species: the rights of people and life today, and also the rights of future peoples/life. That's why conservation is important, not because the natural state of insentient material is somehow more ethical than a processed one. If there is a future where we are strip mining barren planets and building dyson spheres at a massive scale to support populations in the trillions that sounds pretty good if you believe in the positive utility of a human life. Yea, there's a list of caveats to this example a parsec long, but if we're just talking about optimistic scenarios for humanity I don't see why we'd exclude this one.
Anyways, apologies for the rant. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had around why people have a negative view of this scenario but unfortunately it also attracts misanthropic arguments dressed up as ethics, which aren't really interesting to me.
The way in which modern humans manipulate their environment to secure resources is completely unprecedented in the history of life on Earth. I think of this in terms of Daniel Quinn's "law of...
However, this is how life works too, not just cancer. Every population of every species grows until checked by external factors.
The way in which modern humans manipulate their environment to secure resources is completely unprecedented in the history of life on Earth. I think of this in terms of Daniel Quinn's "law of limited competition": organisms compete with each other, but they do not systematically exclude other organisms from resource competition. Lions compete with hyenas for food, but they do not create and guard enclosed spaces in which hyenas are not allowed to hunt, nor do they band together and attempt to exterminate hyenas.
Although this exact formulation is not common, I think most people have an intuitive understanding that the relationships that humans have to other organisms are different from the relationships that other organisms have between each other, and I think it is this intuition that underpins the "humans = cancer" analogy. It's not just about the fact that our population size grows to meet available resources; it's that the methods we use to grow our stock of available resources are unlike anything in the history of life---they're "not right"---and in fact are deleterious to essentially all other organisms.
If there is a future where we are strip mining barren planets and building dyson spheres at a massive scale to support populations in the trillions that sounds pretty good if you believe in the positive utility of a human life.
It sounds pretty good because, presumably, those stripped planets would not have harbored life to begin with. As things currently stand, the way in which we acquire and use resources is destroying biodiversity on an alarming scale. And, of course, it is already coming back to bite us as well.
It's not a necessary connection---i.e., there's a possible world in which growing human resource use does not negatively impact anything---but it is a real one. And there are other considerations as well. What does it say about a species that imagines itself to be in control of its own destiny that it cannot control its growth, for the sake of others as well as for itself? And even if we do get to the point where we can strip mine planets (which, in my view, is almost guaranteed to never happen due to fundamental physical constraints), we will have to stop growing eventually. Even if we don't have to stop growing yet, isn't it kind of irresponsible to keep kicking the can down the road? And isn't it possible that, in stopping growth sooner, we coould increase the quality of life of the generations that come after us?
I do agree we're different in a sense -- the fact that we are capable of self realization and reflection bestows upon us a sort of responsibility. I would caution against looking to the natural...
Although this exact formulation is not common, I think most people have an intuitive understanding that the relationships that humans have to other organisms are different from the relationships that other organisms have between each other, and I think it is this intuition that underpins the "humans = cancer" analogy. It's not just about the fact that our population size grows to meet available resources; it's that the methods we use to grow our stock of available resources are unlike anything in the history of life---they're "not right"---and in fact are deleterious to essentially all other organisms.
I do agree we're different in a sense -- the fact that we are capable of self realization and reflection bestows upon us a sort of responsibility. I would caution against looking to the natural world for a sense of morality though. For one, there's a host of fucked up behaviour in the natural world. Depending on how much you want to stretch the definition of 'systematically', we could probably come reasonably close to your definition somewhere in our planet's history. Secondly and more importantly, while it's perhaps possible (but probably not easy?) to define human activity as unnatural in some fashion but I'm not sure what claim to a higher morality natural has over unnatural.
It's not a necessary connection---i.e., there's a possible world in which growing human resource use does not negatively impact anything---but it is a real one.
I agree with you, hence my list of caveats. If I were a betting man, I would probably even bet against us getting there one day. You have listed some good questions to which I don't have any direct answers to but I do have some related thoughts that might explain my position better.
What does it say about a species that imagines itself to be in control of its own destiny that it cannot control its growth, for the sake of others as well as for itself?
I think we have a great deal less control that we imagine. The physical, biological, and social forces acting on us often seem to be massive headwinds to human progress. I'm skeptical growth is something we are even capable of limiting -- it's often conceived as something shareholders and investors have created but in reality it's the ideas, desires, and needs with which we have been granted and encumbered by the aforementioned forces. But I think the human condition is in large part defined by a refusal to surrender to these forces and the Hobbesian world, so perhaps we'll get there one day. While I'm also somewhat doubtful of our chances to succeed, I still think future generations will do better than us on the whole. Will it be enough? I'm not sure.
I also just refuse to entertain some of the fatalistic arguments found in this thread because a) they're not 'helpful' even if they were correct and b) people are and have throughout history been notoriously bad at predicting events across even short time frames and the certainty with which some people have decided to write us off is, in my opinion, foolish.
Because I think that having kids primarily to fuel a flawed economic engine is wrong. Kids never ask to be born, I think that we owe it to the unborn to have them primarily because we want to love...
but what's wrong with just shooting for a stable population and not having to rely on technological innovation to prevent suffering?
Because I think that having kids primarily to fuel a flawed economic engine is wrong. Kids never ask to be born, I think that we owe it to the unborn to have them primarily because we want to love them and ensure that they have happy lives, not because they will help ease an economic burden, or make our lives easier. I'm all for making it easier for people who already want to have kids to have them, but encouraging people to have kids to keep the system running rather than changing the system is backwards, immoral thinking in my mind.
When people compare humanity to cancer or whatever they often have this kind of preconception of ad nauseam growth baked into their world view. However, this is how life works too, not just cancer
Humanity is unique in a couple ways. One, we have the technological means to solve most of the barriers that nature normally throws in the way of a population to keep them in check. If there's a lush forest with lots of food and the deer population explodes, the predator population increases in response and those deer are kept in check and can't threaten to destroy the entire world's ecosystem. There's no danger of the deer inventing machine guns to kill all the wolves so that they can eat entire forests in peace. Humanity can. We've overcome predators, diseases, famine, natural disasters, and so on without major impacts on our population so we have a unique responsibility to be thoughtful about how we consume, if nothing else but for our own well being. Two, we uniquely have the ability to reason and think about our impact on the natural world. Sharks don't' worry about over fishing. They don't have the ability to conceptualize that even though things are great now, if they come up with ways to eat all the fish in the ocean, they won't be around for too much longer. They aren't capable of assigning any sort of moral good to the biodiversity of the ocean. They just eat and reproduce like every other species on the planet. Humans are unique there as well, so even though we're part of nature, we can't hold ourselves to the same moral standard as other animals.
I'm not sure if this is just a general comment, or is it directed at me? If it's directed at me, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think we should have kids solely to support our current...
I'm all for making it easier for people who already want to have kids to have them, but encouraging people to have kids to keep the system running rather than changing the system is backwards, immoral thinking in my mind.
I'm not sure if this is just a general comment, or is it directed at me? If it's directed at me, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think we should have kids solely to support our current selves from. I agree, that would be immoral. But you'd truly have to have the most cynical outlook on the value of a human life to think people are having or being encouraged to have kids solely to support our current society.
so even though we're part of nature, we can't hold ourselves to the same moral standard as other animals.
I agree with you and said as much in my post:
Which is not to say it's a blank cheque, morally there are obligations to a sentient species: the rights of people and life today, and also the rights of future peoples/life.
I think that's an extremely long-term view and it disregards the suffering that is created in getting there. Shrinking civilizations mean that the systems we created when civilizations were...
That future sounds a lot more optimistic to me than one where humanity grows ad nauseum until it either completely strips all resources on every celestial body it gets access to then dies off because it can't get access to more resources beyond our solar system, or somehow figures that out and just spends thousands of years strip mining everything around us to support the trillions of people having more kids every year.
I think that's an extremely long-term view and it disregards the suffering that is created in getting there. Shrinking civilizations mean that the systems we created when civilizations were growing and we couldn't imagine anything else happening, like pensions, stop working. Retirement doesn't work in the way that you pay into a pot that you then take out of when you're old, it works by your money going to fund the retirees now, and the later generation funding you when you're old. In addition, a shrinking population means a smaller workforce, and I don't mean for the bullshit jobs that really wouldn't need to be done, but in stuff that needs doing, like teachers, medical professionals, etc.
Shrinking populations already lead to significant civil unrest.
The version of capitalism that dominates the world expects perpetual growth, which is obviously not sustainable, but saying "In 500 years when humanity sails the stars it'll all be better" is not doing the argument justice.
I think you misunderstand my argument. I don't think there's any significant reason for humanity to sail the stars. I think humanity sailing the stars will pretty much only be motivated by the...
I think you misunderstand my argument. I don't think there's any significant reason for humanity to sail the stars. I think humanity sailing the stars will pretty much only be motivated by the harmful infinite growth myth that got us here in the first place.
I agree that suffering will take place if our population declines and nothing else changes, but I think the solution is to fix the broken systems we have in place that assumes the human population is going to grow forever rather than trying to make it so that the human population does grow forever.
People shouldn't feel pressured to have kids, but anyone who wants to have kids should be encouraged to have kids. Too many people now want kids but are deciding against it for ethical reasons,...
People shouldn't feel pressured to have kids, but anyone who wants to have kids should be encouraged to have kids. Too many people now want kids but are deciding against it for ethical reasons, but IMO the thinking is a bit misguided.
I’ve seen over and over online people that think they’re saving the planet by not having kids but make no other life changes that change their carbon footprint at all. Then spend a whole lot of...
I’ve seen over and over online people that think they’re saving the planet by not having kids but make no other life changes that change their carbon footprint at all. Then spend a whole lot of energy trying to socially pressure those around them against having kids.
But for all this great commitment to the planet they still won’t take the bus to work.
Don’t have kids if you don’t want to have kids, but don’t think you’re saving the world by not having them. There’s really no point saving the planet anyway if it’s not to maintain it for future generations.
I mean, they kinda are. The numbers vary based on how rich you are and the country you live in, but the average person in the US creates 16 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. That's 1,120...
I mean, they kinda are.
The numbers vary based on how rich you are and the country you live in, but the average person in the US creates 16 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. That's 1,120 tons of CO2 over the course of a 70 year lifespan. The typical passenger vehicle is 4.6 tons per year.
Someone simply choosing to not reproduce is already more than twice as eco-friendly than someone that only takes the bus, but spits out a kid. Simple math and your complaint that they don't take the bus while also not having children only holds weight when the people with kids bring their collective carbon footprints down by two-thirds to match a childfree person.
Not having children is the single most eco-friendly thing anyone can do.It's also the easiest.
The simple math continues with the "only source of intelligent life" comment below. Just because we can barely spot some million year old photons from time to time, doesn't make us special in the universe, just makes us look really self centered.
The fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they are already significantly...
The fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they are already significantly lower than they were in the past.
The average person in the US created over 21 tons of carbon emission in 1980. Much higher than today and the downward trend is set to continue. And no those emissions are not just exported to other countries.
Your children will not use anywhere near as much carbon as you have.
I can totally understand ones decisions to not have kids, or to wait until they are in a better place to have them, but I would feel extraordinarily bamboozled if I let eco-anxiety be the reason I...
I can totally understand ones decisions to not have kids, or to wait until they are in a better place to have them, but I would feel extraordinarily bamboozled if I let eco-anxiety be the reason I never have kids and it turns out in 20-30 years we have cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification.
Also my theory is that promoting the idea that collapse is somehow impossible to mitigate or that we are on an irreversible track towards doom, and that things will only be worse in the future, is insanely bad, especially for young people, and it is normalizing an attitude of inaction, zero-sum behavior, and waiting for some Great Policy Change to save the day. It prevents effective social, political, and economic change from really happening because people become convinced they don't have the agency to build a better world.
Solar geoengineering, weather engineering, net-zero carbon cycle, etc are all actionable paths that one can go down to increase probabilities of easing our collective eco-anxiety, and there are people on the frontlines of this.
And how would you feel if the cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification were still "20-30 years away" as they have been for the last century and the child(ren)...
I can totally understand ones decisions to not have kids, or to wait until they are in a better place to have them, but I would feel extraordinarily bamboozled if I let eco-anxiety be the reason I never have kids and it turns out in 20-30 years we have cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification.
And how would you feel if the cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification were still "20-30 years away" as they have been for the last century and the child(ren) you brought into the world are facing even graver consequences of that, facing a world where there's more suffering and starvation than ever before, facing a world where there is no realistic chance that they or their children or their children will have a life as good as, let alone better, than yours?
Would you look them in the eyes and apologize for rolling the dice on their suffering. Would that apology include "Well, I didn't want to feel bamboozled?"
In the ever-shifting landscape of our world, envision a dumbbell. On one side, you have the weight of progress, gleaming with promise and innovation. On the other, the weight of challenges, heavy...
In the ever-shifting landscape of our world, envision a dumbbell. On one side, you have the weight of progress, gleaming with promise and innovation. On the other, the weight of challenges, heavy with cautionary tales and looming collapse. Balancing between these weights is the bar of time, and as we progress through the next 20-30 years, we'll oscillate between these two extremes, flexing the muscles of human ingenuity and adaptability. We've been doing this for some time already:
From my perspective, things are generally improving. There's no other era in human history where I'd feel more confident about raising my own children.
I am a human yes, humans are very much the thing I am most concerned about. If your ideology requires convincing everyone that humans are less important or even equal to than other life, well I...
How very human-centric of you.
I am a human yes, humans are very much the thing I am most concerned about. If your ideology requires convincing everyone that humans are less important or even equal to than other life, well I don't think you're going to get very far.
The world would be better off without us anyway.
I like animals as much as the next person, and think we should do our best to protect and preserve all life. But this idea that the world would be better if the human race committed mass suicide is just not something I can take seriously. This performative pessimist meme needs to die. Nature without humans isn't some lovely dovey wonderland where no animals ever suffer. And humans for all our flaws are the only source of intelligent life we know of in the universe. I am pro-human and ultimately no other ideology is going to survive into the future anyway if anti-humans don't reproduce and die off.
I don't agree with this idea that we shouldn't view other life as equally important as humans. This isn't to say that we should or even can afford other organisms the same rights as people, but we...
I don't agree with this idea that we shouldn't view other life as equally important as humans. This isn't to say that we should or even can afford other organisms the same rights as people, but we need the trees, the microbes in our gut, the insects that pollinate our food, and all of the complexity they bring to maintain life on this planet, including humans. Preserving non-human life, or at least slowing down the rapid loss we're seeing of it, and trying to understand the ecological relationships is important not just from an epistemological stand point but also has practical purposes for our well-being. We really should view other life as important - because they have important consequences.
And also to address your previous comment - reducing the number of kids you bring into the world typically has the largest impact on your carbon footprint. This isn't to say that you shouldn't focus on other means of reducing emissions, but all of those pale in comparison to the effects of bringing another person into the world that will go onto drive CO2 consumption. However, I think this is also a bit of a distraction from the main point that we should be looking at systemic and individual choices in terms of CO2 production and our consumption habits as a society.
If protecting other species is necessary for human prosperity, placing humans at the top of the priority ladder will necessarily involve preserving the environment.
If protecting other species is necessary for human prosperity, placing humans at the top of the priority ladder will necessarily involve preserving the environment.
Misrepresenting an idea as a completely different idea reveals the fundamental unseriousness of the original idea? I don't follow. Antinatalists don't assign the same value to the creation of new...
Misrepresenting an idea as a completely different idea reveals the fundamental unseriousness of the original idea? I don't follow.
Antinatalists don't assign the same value to the creation of new lives as we do to the continuation of currently existing lives. If we did, then yeah, it'd be nonsense.
Yeah, I think there's a comfy middle between constant, unmitigated growth and consumption, and global human extinction, call me crazy. I think we could survive with a contracting population...
Yeah, I think there's a comfy middle between constant, unmitigated growth and consumption, and global human extinction, call me crazy.
I think we could survive with a contracting population without global economic collapse. It's about finding a resource equilibrium in an economy built around guaranteed growth, and that's a logistics and policy problem.
I’ll bite. What are those arguments? Are they the same as your reasons? Misanthropic stewardship. Of course, the images we get to conjure up of a post-human quietude exist because we do. Altruism...
I’ll bite.
There are a lot of really strong arguments in the anti-natal movement. As far as I'm concerned there are multiple reasons that having children is unethical.
What are those arguments? Are they the same as your reasons?
we don't need more children, or humans at all. The world would be better off without us anyway.
Misanthropic stewardship. Of course, the images we get to conjure up of a post-human quietude exist because we do. Altruism has its limits. All the non-human examples that come to mind (male spiders dying after mating, female octopuses dying after caring for their eggs, storks throwing the weakest chick out of the nest) facilitate procreation rather than end it. Condemning humankind to non-existence on the basis of a benefit to the earth. What is the argument for that?
Objectively speaking, not having kids really is the greatest thing you can possibly do on an individual level to lower carbon emissions. Taking the bus and buying organic food is helpful, but it's...
I’ve seen over and over online people that think they’re saving the planet by not having kids but make no other life changes that change their carbon footprint at all.
Objectively speaking, not having kids really is the greatest thing you can possibly do on an individual level to lower carbon emissions. Taking the bus and buying organic food is helpful, but it's nothing compared to not bringing another person to life in a country built around high emissions and energy use.
Additionally, in a big, advanced, industrial economy, most of our carbon emissions are outside our own direct control. When I go and buy something at a store, there's a heavy carbon cost baked into every product on the shelves. And my ability as a consumer to select low-carbon options is simply very limited. Even if a product advertises itself as low carbon, corporate carbon accounting is incredibly shady and easily obfuscated. There are limited choices on any given product, and it is effectively impossible for me to research the actual carbon intensity of any given product or service.
Simply choosing not to have kids is thus one of the most effective means of reducing long-term carbon emissions. I can't really control the carbon intensity of most of my purchases, but I can insure that there's a few less consumers in the future being caught in the same situation I am.
As I posted further down, the fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they...
As I posted further down, the fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they are already significantly lower than they were in the past.
The average person in the US created over 21 tons of carbon emission in 1980. Much higher than today and the downward trend is set to continue. And no those emissions are not just exported to other countries.
Your children will not use anywhere near as much carbon as you have.
That's a lot of speculation. And yes, many of those emissions have just been shipped to other countries. While there has been good news in terms of solar and wind deployment, global total carbon...
Your children will not use anywhere near as much carbon as you have.
That's a lot of speculation. And yes, many of those emissions have just been shipped to other countries. While there has been good news in terms of solar and wind deployment, global total carbon emissions have continued to increase year after year.
While yes, in the US, we may have made some modest improvements (assuming it's not just a trade-based mirage), these improvements are just that, modest. We're currently back to per-capita emissions levels similar to where we were in the 1950s, the era of giant cars and the golden age of the great American road trip.
Ultimately, I think the biggest reason per-capita emissions have declined in the US is simply because people are getting poorer. A 25 year old who works a retail job, takes the bus, and is forced to share a 3-bedroom apartment with 6 other people has far lower per-capita CO2 emissions than someone who parks their two cars in a 2500 ft^2 single family home.
Look at the data you provided. The per capita decline really kicks into high gear in 2007/2008, exactly coinciding with the start if the Great Recession.
I mean, just look at those numbers. Per-capita CO2 emissions declined from about 20 tons per year in 2008 to 15 tons now. But despite how much progress has been made by renewables, they certainly didn't have anywhere near that effect. Solar represented about 3% of electricity production in 2020. Wind generated another 9%. In 2020, less than 1% of cars on US roads were electric.
The hypothesis that lowered per-capita carbon emissions are due to higher technology is simply not supported by the data. We just haven't deployed solar, wind, and electric cars on a wide enough scale to have anywhere near that level of impact.
When you look at the graph you posted, you're not watching a nation cleaning up its act and lowering its environmental impact. You're just watching millions of people falling into poverty, forced to reduce carbon emissions due to that poverty.
I would agree with you if the underlying data supported the doom and gloom narrative but it doesn't. Incomes, while lower than a couple years ago due to inflation, are still higher than they ever...
I would agree with you if the underlying data supported the doom and gloom narrative but it doesn't.
I understand a lot of the younger generations feel like they've been screwed in various ways but the actual data doesn't support the idea that we're all slowly circling the drain of increased poverty as a cause for reduced emissions.
Looking at the income alone I think you're missing a big piece of the puzzle - the purchasing power of that income hasn't really changed all too much, while we are seeing disproportionate...
According to that data purchasing power is still over $9000 a year higher in 2021 vs 2010 in 2021 dollars, a 14% increase is still a pretty significant increase. Housing costs are definitely a...
According to that data purchasing power is still over $9000 a year higher in 2021 vs 2010 in 2021 dollars, a 14% increase is still a pretty significant increase.
Housing costs are definitely a huge problem but are heavily location specific. Ultimately the answer for both lower housing costs and lower emissions is building increased density but there is definitely a lot more that needs to be done there.
Increasing housing density really would be a big boon towards lowering emissions. I don't think enough people are on board for that, at least not in the United States.
Increasing housing density really would be a big boon towards lowering emissions. I don't think enough people are on board for that, at least not in the United States.
I find it...interesting...that we are openly going to warn that essential things like healthcare and retirement are going to be impossible for elderly if the population falls, instead of...
I find it...interesting...that we are openly going to warn that essential things like healthcare and retirement are going to be impossible for elderly if the population falls, instead of discussing that we could pretty easily work ourselves out of the problem by refocusing away from non-essential items. The only thing that needs to change is our focus on unbridled capitalism. It doesn't even need to be abolished, we would just need to plan ahead and use financial incentives to increase training and adoption of the careers that are needed, while financially deincentivizing nonessential services through heavy taxation.
The one gripe I have with the 'saving the economy'-thing is that it should be upheld as some kind of universal law. The now graying population grew up in a time of prosperity yet everything...
The one gripe I have with the 'saving the economy'-thing is that it should be upheld as some kind of universal law. The now graying population grew up in a time of prosperity yet everything consists of cycles going up and down. They can't take for granted that that prosperity won't be around forever.
From my understanding, birth rates have been falling ever since it became economically better to have fewer children. In other words, when we started moving from agricultural society to industrial...
From my understanding, birth rates have been falling ever since it became economically better to have fewer children.
In other words, when we started moving from agricultural society to industrial society and out of the farmlands into the cities, it became less necessary to have more than a couple of children. And today, it's actually economically harmful to have more than one or two.
And as it gets more expensive to take proper care of children, less people will have them.
On top of that, increased acceptability of non-childbearing relationships (gay or straight) also helps push the trend downward as there's no longer social stigma or pressure to have the stereotypical 2.5 children.
The global population is going up fast. https://www.census.gov/popclock/ No danger of people dying out due to lack of births. No need for people to have more children if they don't want them.
You haven't really approached the why part to your reasoning Why should women be pushed to have 2.1 children? Why should society be more child friendly? Why should people have to sacrifice the...
Exemplary
You haven't really approached the why part to your reasoning
Why should women be pushed to have 2.1 children? Why should society be more child friendly? Why should people have to sacrifice the freedoms that modern society brings only to be burdened by having to spend 2+ decades raising 2.1 children?
So present society doesn't crumble? The society you've already admitted is, in not so many words, shit.
"It's good for the economy" isn't a valid reason either.
You mention that if we observed a species that had all they needed, but wouldn't breed, we'd agree there is something wrong with their environment.
Society is our environment.
Our environment is shit.
Trying to actively push people to reduce their quality of life to preserve and ultimately make a shit environment worse seems like a terrible argument to make.
There's a difference between forcing people to have kids, encouraging people to have kids, and not getting in the way of people who were already motivated to have kids to have kids. It's fair to...
There's a difference between forcing people to have kids, encouraging people to have kids, and not getting in the way of people who were already motivated to have kids to have kids. It's fair to say that people shouldn't be pressured to have kids, but it's another thing to be trying to actively pressure people to not have kids. It's also a false assumption to think that a high-carbon lifestyle is synonymous with a high-quality lifestyle. The American lifestyle is extremely high-carbon and often at the active detriment to quality of life (ex. taking a 1 hour commute by car from the suburbs because the city hasn't built enough housing or because you're convinced that you need to live in a large house in suburban hell to be happy).
Not really. There is absolutely zero chance of that happening. There are different negative feedback cycles at different time scales that will prevent it. In the medium term, a declining...
Exemplary
So that the human race doesn't become extinct. If you disagree with that value then that's fine, but otherwise without ~2.1, extinction is where we're headed.
Not really. There is absolutely zero chance of that happening. There are different negative feedback cycles at different time scales that will prevent it.
In the medium term, a declining population in many ways makes it easier to have kids. In an elderly-heavy population, people or working age can demand higher wages. Ultimately, this is the root cause of the "labor shortage" we're having now. Despite polemics about people "not wanting to work," the labor shortage of today is just demographics. Baby Boomers are retiring, and many retired early during the Covid epidemic (the million+ deaths also didn't help.) Wages are now rising for working class people providing services to the elder population. When population starts actually declining, this will mean a decline in housing prices, thus making it more affordable for families to have kids. Younger people earning more money and having lower housing costs sounds like a perfect prescription for higher birth rates.
But those are just medium term things. There are a lot of other factors involved, so it is possible that other factors will overwhelm these.
However, there is one long-term iron clad fact that means that low population growth can NEVER result in human extinction. And that relates to the simple unavoidable fact that modern effective birth control is the product of an advanced industrialized society.
We've always had contraceptives and abortifacients, usually herbal remedies of dubious functionality. But modern hormonal and other contraceptive methods are the product of modern science and industrial society. The Pill, Plan B, IUDs, etc. These are things that require large pharmaceutical companies and major industrial operations to produce. (Or at the very least, big pharma companies are required if you want to make them cheap enough to have any appreciable effect on the birth rate.)
We forget that our technology is as much a function of our population as anything else. But there's a reason there are only a handful of companies that make smartphones. A modern smartphone just isn't something that a dozen people can whip up in a workshop using simple tools. It requires the combined work of millions of people to create a smartphone. And it's the same for every technology. For every technology, there is some minimum number of people required to produce it.
I don't know what exactly that level is for something like birth control, but eventually your numbers get low enough that most large scale industry and even mechanized agriculture become impossible. If your population drops to 18th century levels, expect many aspects of your technology to start mirroring those of the 18th century.
But the point is that this represents a hard floor on how far our numbers can ever decline from the use of birth control. At some point your population density is so low that you no longer have an economy capable of producing it. Now, I would expect us to halt the decline long before we became technologically incapable of making birth control, but it does represent a hard floor below which we cannot fall.
And ultimately, I'm OK with that. No society or civilization lasts forever. If modern consumer capitalism is so dysfunctional, that it makes people so miserable that few want children anymore, then that's a system that deserves to die. Maybe we just keep up our current practices and let the birth rates fall where they may. If things don't change on their own, eventually our numbers will decline to the point that we can't make birth control anymore. At that point we would find ourselves living in perhaps a near-agrarian state, knocked back to a preindustrial level.
And don't worry, we won't stay there forever. Once it became impossible to make birth control, the birth rates would rise again. And in time population would grow and once again be capable of forming more complex social struggles. And those people a few centuries from now, when planning out that new system, will be able to learn from our mistakes and design a system that allows us to build a technological society capable of sustaining itself long-term. Our existing dysfunctional system simply has too many powerful and wealthy people too entrenched to make meaningful change possible. But even if all this falls apart, that won't be the end of the human story. Eventually they'll give advanced technology another go, and hopefully they can do better next time.
Women are not responsible for carrying forward the human race. As @AgustusFerdinand mentioned in their comment above, the environment is shit. I am not going to sacrifice my limited time, career,...
Women are not responsible for carrying forward the human race. As @AgustusFerdinand mentioned in their comment above, the environment is shit. I am not going to sacrifice my limited time, career, health, and more just to prevent extinction when those in power have done nothing to correct the environment.
There is more than just money incentives to encourage reproduction. The environment just churns and burns people; I and others are embracing the selfishness to not partake in producing another being to go through that.
My bad for getting mixed in the conversation! In this current climate where women's reproductive health is being heavily legislated, the rise of inceldom, abusing the statistics of male loneliness...
My bad for getting mixed in the conversation! In this current climate where women's reproductive health is being heavily legislated, the rise of inceldom, abusing the statistics of male loneliness to justify men need sexual satisfaction from women, and a while slew of other troubling trends seeing that type of language is a red flag to me. My initial interpretation of your comment read as if it was in that manner, but my apologies for not understanding it properly.
I agree with everything you said, except for the "embracing the selfishness" portion toward the end. I would argue that the act of not wanting to bring another being into existence to save them...
I agree with everything you said, except for the "embracing the selfishness" portion toward the end. I would argue that the act of not wanting to bring another being into existence to save them from future suffering isn't selfish at all. In fact I would say wanting to bring beings into existence to "save the species" or "save the economy" and whatever other drivel we are seeing in this thread is selfish.
Ahhh, maybe I could have phrased that a little better. In the hectic, hyper-capitalistic world that we work in, it steals much precious personal time. Even in countries in strong worker...
Ahhh, maybe I could have phrased that a little better. In the hectic, hyper-capitalistic world that we work in, it steals much precious personal time. Even in countries in strong worker protections, most jobs suck and are a theft of time I would rather invest in what I want to do. To spend 8+ hours at work stressing and then to have my other 8 minus sleep be occupied by the stress of caring for child is not something I desire. I guess the better way to phrase it is that I am selfish with my personal time.
If work was less stressful and more meaningful than making someone at the top exorbitantly richer plus child rearing was easier overall, it would be more enticing to have children. I and other women want our limited free time to be for us.
Considering global fresh water reserves will be 40% over capacity by 2030, and 90% of global top soil and arable land is at risk of depletion by 2050, I don't think it matters much anyway.
Ana Somavilla, Marta Ley, Ana Ruiz - El Confidencial Translator/s: Albie Mills/Voxeurop Spain France Falling rates in Nordic countries Factors Job stability Contrast between France and Spain Delay...
Ana Somavilla, Marta Ley, Ana Ruiz - El Confidencial Translator/s: Albie Mills/Voxeurop
Fertility declines across the European Union, with the South lagging behind. Birth rates in northern countries also show signs of decline as the causes become more structural and unrelated to wealth and stability. What's going on? A data-story.
Spain
The birth rate in the European Union is falling, Spain being the country with the second lowest fertility rate, behind only Malta.
“Europe experienced a baby boom in the 1950s in all the countries affected by the Second World War,” explains Diego Ramiro, a researcher at the Demographic Dynamics group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The effect came later to Spain, which in the 1960s and 1970s was among the countries with the highest fertility rates.
But Spanish families went from having almost 3 children per woman in 1970 to 1.13 in 1998. The 2000s, on the other hand, began with an optimistic economic situation that increased births in Spain and in most EU countries. But the 2008 financial crisis caused a “sharp drop in fertility“, in Ramiro’s words, which has lasted until the present day.
France
With figures even higher than the Nordic countries, France stands out as the EU country with the highest fertility rate. The change in birth rates also shows a more stable pattern than elsewhere. “In France there has always been very strong support for fertility, it is almost like a national interest,” says Ramiro.
Falling rates in Nordic countries
The European map of fertility decline shows the biggest surprise of recent years for demographers: falling fertility rates in the Nordic countries. “These sharp declines have been unexpected, because these countries have always been seen as pioneers in work-life balance policies,” Sobotka notes in the article. “This is unheard of for them,” says Ramiro. If we look at the Eurostat figures for the last decade, fertility has fallen by 2% in Denmark, 12% in Sweden, 18% in Norway and up to 20% in Finland.
Some authors believe that if this decline is linked to the fact that it is increasingly common to delay family formation, it may become entrenched in future generations
Factors
In order for families to decide to have children, “the important thing is the living and upbringing conditions, the rest are short-term measures or patches”, says Marta Seiz, doctor in Political and Social Sciences, specialised in demography. She believes that one-off aids such as ‘baby payments’ to promote the birth rate do not foster birth rates in the long term. “Access to early childhood education from 0 to 3 years of age is very important, as it makes it easier to reconcile work and family life,” Seiz adds.
Job stability
Although a relationship has been observed between level of education and fertility (the higher the level of education, the more children), the researchers conclude that job stability is much more decisive. “For those who are unemployed, fertility rates plummet, both for women that have a university degree and those who don’t. And for those who have a permanent job, during the economic crisis not only did fertility not fall, but it stayed on the same level and even slightly increased”.
Contrast between France and Spain
In France, greater economic stability and easier access to the labour market mean that young people are able to move out earlier. Access to housing and co-parenting are also more established.
In Spain, on the other hand, the working conditions of the young population and a greater sense of uncertainty continue to act as a brake on the birth rate. In fact, many researches confirm how – beyond the impact of economic crises – working conditions, access to housing, economic independence and the general increase in uncertainty among younger generations can affect fertility levels.
Delay in having children
The delay in having children means that a wide gap in the number of children a woman wants to have and the number of children she can have is becoming increasingly common. Late motherhood “makes having a second child more difficult”, warns Seiz.
The mirage of immigration
Another factor which is taken into account when studying birth rates is the influence of migration flows. Faced with the scenario of a declining birth rate in Spain, the immigrant population has often been seen as a lifeline for fertility. But “immigrants adapt quickly to the fertility rates of the host country”, warns Ramiro.
“From 2000 to 2008 we had an influx of five million immigrants into Spain, but their fertility level is not very different from that of Spanish women, although it is somewhat higher,” Ramiro reflects. He also points to another international trend: “Fertility rates are decreasing quite sharply in most of the countries of origin as well”. Eventually, the upturns associated with immigration does not have an effect on the long term, Marta Seiz confirms, because immigrants end up “assimilating into the reproductive patterns” of the country they arrive in.
Covid-19
The Covid crisis has also added a new layer of uncertainty for families and those who study population trends. In Spain, nine months after the confinement, births plummeted, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics.
It is still too early to tell how long the effect of the pandemic will last and the challenge of guessing what the birth trends will be is becoming increasingly complex.
Original article (paywalled) in Spanish - Los países nórdicos rompen los esquemas de la natalidad: la estabilidad ya no es suficiente
The last time I commented on this subject it revolved around us having the need to save the economy. When you let go of the economic aspect of it though, it seems like a natural process and we'll all be fine.
The 'economic aspect' isn't solely someone trying to make numbers bigger.
It's a question of allocating limited resources, which means, for a period of time, accepting our elderly population gets continually worse and worse retirement assistance and health care options or the burden on the current generation grows larger.
Immigration is a short term solution, but in the long term we need to make it easier for people to have kids.
Why? I mean, yes, it sucks that elderly people will have fewer younger people to take care of them, but having more kids just so that we have people to take care of the elderly seems... totally counterproductive to me.
I think that you're right in a way, we should make it easier for people to have and take care of kids, because we should be doing everything we can to reduce burdens and suffering in everyone's life as much as possible, period, but incentivizing people to have more kids just so we have more people around is pointless at best, and actively harmful to the planet at worst.
I would imagine that as technology proliferates and advances throughout the world, population growth will continue to decline until its globally negative, and then trend that way for a while until it reaches a new equilibrium that accounts for the widespread usage of birth control and access to reproductive education, at which point birth rate will probably self level out after the global population shrinks at bit.
That future sounds a lot more optimistic to me than one where humanity grows ad nauseum until it either completely strips all resources on every celestial body it gets access to then dies off because it can't get access to more resources beyond our solar system, or somehow figures that out and just spends thousands of years strip mining everything around us to support the trillions of people having more kids every year.
I agree. To me this just screams "society-wide pyramid scheme." If your economic system only works if the population keeps growing indefinitely, well sooner or later it's going to hit a wall. Some generation is going to be the one that reaches the limits of growth and has to start making those hard sacrifices to learn to live with a stable or declining population.
And really, this method, of people just voluntarily choosing to have fewer children, is probably the least painful way of doing that, regardless of what it does to national pension schemes. The alternative is we just keep growing forever until we hit some hard Malthusian limit, and our numbers start being controlled by mass war and famine. Considering the power of modern technology, such a catastrophe would likely also mean a complete collapse of the global ecosystem. Collapsing national governments really aren't equipped to stop desperate, hungry people from wandering into wildlife reserves and hunting endangered species to extinction.
There's a lot of debate about what the precise carrying capacity of the Earth is. But I for one would rather not find out. (And most scientific attempts to answer the question conclude we've way overshot the natural limits of the planet.)
It's the default way populations work. The way we got around it before large population increases was that we had most people dying early. So unless we want to have major regressions in life expectancy what's the alternative?
It's not the way populations work. The population of every animal on the planet reaches an equilibrium, where there's a hard ceiling against their population getting larger. Not enough food, or not enough space, or predation keeps populations in check. The same will happen to humanity, just on a longer term scale, because we're able to use advanced technology to solve those problems. Eventually we'll hit a hard physics limit of course. I think more likely though, we'll hit a social limit.
Universally, once a population reaches a certain level of wealth and social equality, women gain access to affordable birth control and the population recieves adequate reproductive education, the birth rate falls below replacement. As humans are a sexually reproductive species, it means that every woman must have, on average, more than two children in order for our population to remain stable. That's not happening in any "first world" country. Human population growth is fueled entirely by the developing world. Eventually, (hopefully), those places will become wealthy enough that they too will have the same effect.
So it's not something that we have to figure out an alternative to, it's something that is on track to happen already. The discussion is about whether we should try to actively counteract this. Personally I don't think we should, because having a large human population for the sake of having a large population seems like it would cause way more problems than it would solve.
Yes. That equilibrium is called dying early as I said. Not enough food? Older, sicker animals starve. Not enough space? Weaker animals get thrown out of the pack or get outcompeted for food until they starve. Predation? Weaker animals get eaten. That's what keeps the dependency ratio down.
If people live longer and have below replacement level children, then you're going to have a very high dependency ratio. If your society isn't sufficiently capital rich and egalitarian to be able to sustain such a dependency ratio, then there isn't enough to go around and people end up dying early due to lack of access to life-extending medical care or food or housing.
You either get robots capable of doing the dirty scut work, or you get privation once the growth engine sputters. The objection is to characterizing this as a "pyramid scheme" because it's not a "scheme." It's literally just biology.
I can still remember the day I learned that the money that was being taken out of my paycheck for Social Security was not being saved and invested for my retirement (as I had assumed it was), but rather being used to pay social security benefits for old people right then and there.
What is the history of the starting generation? Did the first generation of old people just start getting paychecks despite never having contributed to the fund?
Ida May Fuller was the first regular recipient. She paid into Social Security for three years, and received 35 years of benefits.
I think this is a poor characterization of my argument. For the record, I don't think we should have more people for the sake of more people.
People will suffer and/or die as a result of a large negative population growth. Even if I was sure that 'generation $XYZ' was prepared to take on a higher burden as taxpayers (which I wouldn't count on), it's a larger piece out of a shrinking pie. Technology may be able to fill in that gap, but what if it doesn't? I agree with you that your first scenario is ideal, but what's wrong with just shooting for a stable population and not having to rely on technological innovation to prevent suffering?
Just want to tangentially soapbox off this for a second, so apologies. When people compare humanity to cancer or whatever they often have this kind of preconception of ad nauseam growth baked into their world view. However, this is how life works too, not just cancer. Every population of every species grows until checked by external factors. Which is not to say it's a blank cheque, morally there are obligations to a sentient species: the rights of people and life today, and also the rights of future peoples/life. That's why conservation is important, not because the natural state of insentient material is somehow more ethical than a processed one. If there is a future where we are strip mining barren planets and building dyson spheres at a massive scale to support populations in the trillions that sounds pretty good if you believe in the positive utility of a human life. Yea, there's a list of caveats to this example a parsec long, but if we're just talking about optimistic scenarios for humanity I don't see why we'd exclude this one.
Anyways, apologies for the rant. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had around why people have a negative view of this scenario but unfortunately it also attracts misanthropic arguments dressed up as ethics, which aren't really interesting to me.
The way in which modern humans manipulate their environment to secure resources is completely unprecedented in the history of life on Earth. I think of this in terms of Daniel Quinn's "law of limited competition": organisms compete with each other, but they do not systematically exclude other organisms from resource competition. Lions compete with hyenas for food, but they do not create and guard enclosed spaces in which hyenas are not allowed to hunt, nor do they band together and attempt to exterminate hyenas.
Although this exact formulation is not common, I think most people have an intuitive understanding that the relationships that humans have to other organisms are different from the relationships that other organisms have between each other, and I think it is this intuition that underpins the "humans = cancer" analogy. It's not just about the fact that our population size grows to meet available resources; it's that the methods we use to grow our stock of available resources are unlike anything in the history of life---they're "not right"---and in fact are deleterious to essentially all other organisms.
It sounds pretty good because, presumably, those stripped planets would not have harbored life to begin with. As things currently stand, the way in which we acquire and use resources is destroying biodiversity on an alarming scale. And, of course, it is already coming back to bite us as well.
It's not a necessary connection---i.e., there's a possible world in which growing human resource use does not negatively impact anything---but it is a real one. And there are other considerations as well. What does it say about a species that imagines itself to be in control of its own destiny that it cannot control its growth, for the sake of others as well as for itself? And even if we do get to the point where we can strip mine planets (which, in my view, is almost guaranteed to never happen due to fundamental physical constraints), we will have to stop growing eventually. Even if we don't have to stop growing yet, isn't it kind of irresponsible to keep kicking the can down the road? And isn't it possible that, in stopping growth sooner, we coould increase the quality of life of the generations that come after us?
I do agree we're different in a sense -- the fact that we are capable of self realization and reflection bestows upon us a sort of responsibility. I would caution against looking to the natural world for a sense of morality though. For one, there's a host of fucked up behaviour in the natural world. Depending on how much you want to stretch the definition of 'systematically', we could probably come reasonably close to your definition somewhere in our planet's history. Secondly and more importantly, while it's perhaps possible (but probably not easy?) to define human activity as unnatural in some fashion but I'm not sure what claim to a higher morality natural has over unnatural.
I agree with you, hence my list of caveats. If I were a betting man, I would probably even bet against us getting there one day. You have listed some good questions to which I don't have any direct answers to but I do have some related thoughts that might explain my position better.
I think we have a great deal less control that we imagine. The physical, biological, and social forces acting on us often seem to be massive headwinds to human progress. I'm skeptical growth is something we are even capable of limiting -- it's often conceived as something shareholders and investors have created but in reality it's the ideas, desires, and needs with which we have been granted and encumbered by the aforementioned forces. But I think the human condition is in large part defined by a refusal to surrender to these forces and the Hobbesian world, so perhaps we'll get there one day. While I'm also somewhat doubtful of our chances to succeed, I still think future generations will do better than us on the whole. Will it be enough? I'm not sure.
I also just refuse to entertain some of the fatalistic arguments found in this thread because a) they're not 'helpful' even if they were correct and b) people are and have throughout history been notoriously bad at predicting events across even short time frames and the certainty with which some people have decided to write us off is, in my opinion, foolish.
Because I think that having kids primarily to fuel a flawed economic engine is wrong. Kids never ask to be born, I think that we owe it to the unborn to have them primarily because we want to love them and ensure that they have happy lives, not because they will help ease an economic burden, or make our lives easier. I'm all for making it easier for people who already want to have kids to have them, but encouraging people to have kids to keep the system running rather than changing the system is backwards, immoral thinking in my mind.
Humanity is unique in a couple ways. One, we have the technological means to solve most of the barriers that nature normally throws in the way of a population to keep them in check. If there's a lush forest with lots of food and the deer population explodes, the predator population increases in response and those deer are kept in check and can't threaten to destroy the entire world's ecosystem. There's no danger of the deer inventing machine guns to kill all the wolves so that they can eat entire forests in peace. Humanity can. We've overcome predators, diseases, famine, natural disasters, and so on without major impacts on our population so we have a unique responsibility to be thoughtful about how we consume, if nothing else but for our own well being. Two, we uniquely have the ability to reason and think about our impact on the natural world. Sharks don't' worry about over fishing. They don't have the ability to conceptualize that even though things are great now, if they come up with ways to eat all the fish in the ocean, they won't be around for too much longer. They aren't capable of assigning any sort of moral good to the biodiversity of the ocean. They just eat and reproduce like every other species on the planet. Humans are unique there as well, so even though we're part of nature, we can't hold ourselves to the same moral standard as other animals.
I'm not sure if this is just a general comment, or is it directed at me? If it's directed at me, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think we should have kids solely to support our current selves from. I agree, that would be immoral. But you'd truly have to have the most cynical outlook on the value of a human life to think people are having or being encouraged to have kids solely to support our current society.
I agree with you and said as much in my post:
I think that's an extremely long-term view and it disregards the suffering that is created in getting there. Shrinking civilizations mean that the systems we created when civilizations were growing and we couldn't imagine anything else happening, like pensions, stop working. Retirement doesn't work in the way that you pay into a pot that you then take out of when you're old, it works by your money going to fund the retirees now, and the later generation funding you when you're old. In addition, a shrinking population means a smaller workforce, and I don't mean for the bullshit jobs that really wouldn't need to be done, but in stuff that needs doing, like teachers, medical professionals, etc.
Shrinking populations already lead to significant civil unrest.
The version of capitalism that dominates the world expects perpetual growth, which is obviously not sustainable, but saying "In 500 years when humanity sails the stars it'll all be better" is not doing the argument justice.
I think you misunderstand my argument. I don't think there's any significant reason for humanity to sail the stars. I think humanity sailing the stars will pretty much only be motivated by the harmful infinite growth myth that got us here in the first place.
I agree that suffering will take place if our population declines and nothing else changes, but I think the solution is to fix the broken systems we have in place that assumes the human population is going to grow forever rather than trying to make it so that the human population does grow forever.
People shouldn't feel pressured to have kids, but anyone who wants to have kids should be encouraged to have kids. Too many people now want kids but are deciding against it for ethical reasons, but IMO the thinking is a bit misguided.
How so?
I’ve seen over and over online people that think they’re saving the planet by not having kids but make no other life changes that change their carbon footprint at all. Then spend a whole lot of energy trying to socially pressure those around them against having kids.
But for all this great commitment to the planet they still won’t take the bus to work.
Don’t have kids if you don’t want to have kids, but don’t think you’re saving the world by not having them. There’s really no point saving the planet anyway if it’s not to maintain it for future generations.
I mean, they kinda are.
The numbers vary based on how rich you are and the country you live in, but the average person in the US creates 16 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. That's 1,120 tons of CO2 over the course of a 70 year lifespan. The typical passenger vehicle is 4.6 tons per year.
Someone simply choosing to not reproduce is already more than twice as eco-friendly than someone that only takes the bus, but spits out a kid. Simple math and your complaint that they don't take the bus while also not having children only holds weight when the people with kids bring their collective carbon footprints down by two-thirds to match a childfree person.
Not having children is the single most eco-friendly thing anyone can do. It's also the easiest.
The simple math continues with the "only source of intelligent life" comment below. Just because we can barely spot some million year old photons from time to time, doesn't make us special in the universe, just makes us look really self centered.
The fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they are already significantly lower than they were in the past.
The average person in the US created over 21 tons of carbon emission in 1980. Much higher than today and the downward trend is set to continue. And no those emissions are not just exported to other countries.
Your children will not use anywhere near as much carbon as you have.
Renewable energy is now the cheapest energy available and its adoption is increasing at an exponential rate.
I can totally understand ones decisions to not have kids, or to wait until they are in a better place to have them, but I would feel extraordinarily bamboozled if I let eco-anxiety be the reason I never have kids and it turns out in 20-30 years we have cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification.
I wrote this a little while back on here:
https://tildes.net/~enviro/18x7/the_profound_loneliness_of_being_collapse_aware#comment-9ymh
And how would you feel if the cheap, clean, abundant nuclear and renewable energy and albedo modification were still "20-30 years away" as they have been for the last century and the child(ren) you brought into the world are facing even graver consequences of that, facing a world where there's more suffering and starvation than ever before, facing a world where there is no realistic chance that they or their children or their children will have a life as good as, let alone better, than yours?
Would you look them in the eyes and apologize for rolling the dice on their suffering. Would that apology include "Well, I didn't want to feel bamboozled?"
In the ever-shifting landscape of our world, envision a dumbbell. On one side, you have the weight of progress, gleaming with promise and innovation. On the other, the weight of challenges, heavy with cautionary tales and looming collapse. Balancing between these weights is the bar of time, and as we progress through the next 20-30 years, we'll oscillate between these two extremes, flexing the muscles of human ingenuity and adaptability. We've been doing this for some time already:
Progress:
Challenge:
Progress:
Challenge:
Progress:
Challenge:
Progress:
etc...
From my perspective, things are generally improving. There's no other era in human history where I'd feel more confident about raising my own children.
I am a human yes, humans are very much the thing I am most concerned about. If your ideology requires convincing everyone that humans are less important or even equal to than other life, well I don't think you're going to get very far.
I like animals as much as the next person, and think we should do our best to protect and preserve all life. But this idea that the world would be better if the human race committed mass suicide is just not something I can take seriously. This performative pessimist meme needs to die. Nature without humans isn't some lovely dovey wonderland where no animals ever suffer. And humans for all our flaws are the only source of intelligent life we know of in the universe. I am pro-human and ultimately no other ideology is going to survive into the future anyway if anti-humans don't reproduce and die off.
I don't agree with this idea that we shouldn't view other life as equally important as humans. This isn't to say that we should or even can afford other organisms the same rights as people, but we need the trees, the microbes in our gut, the insects that pollinate our food, and all of the complexity they bring to maintain life on this planet, including humans. Preserving non-human life, or at least slowing down the rapid loss we're seeing of it, and trying to understand the ecological relationships is important not just from an epistemological stand point but also has practical purposes for our well-being. We really should view other life as important - because they have important consequences.
And also to address your previous comment - reducing the number of kids you bring into the world typically has the largest impact on your carbon footprint. This isn't to say that you shouldn't focus on other means of reducing emissions, but all of those pale in comparison to the effects of bringing another person into the world that will go onto drive CO2 consumption. However, I think this is also a bit of a distraction from the main point that we should be looking at systemic and individual choices in terms of CO2 production and our consumption habits as a society.
If protecting other species is necessary for human prosperity, placing humans at the top of the priority ladder will necessarily involve preserving the environment.
Maybe if we were purely rational actors - but I'm not sure that assumption holds out ;)
Because it reveals the fundamental unseriousness of the idea. It's about as viable an ideology as anarchy and falls apart in pretty much the same way.
I’ve read plenty and given that you’ve made no substantial points other than “humans bad” I’m not really inclined to go any deeper.
Misrepresenting an idea as a completely different idea reveals the fundamental unseriousness of the original idea? I don't follow.
Antinatalists don't assign the same value to the creation of new lives as we do to the continuation of currently existing lives. If we did, then yeah, it'd be nonsense.
Yeah, I think there's a comfy middle between constant, unmitigated growth and consumption, and global human extinction, call me crazy.
I think we could survive with a contracting population without global economic collapse. It's about finding a resource equilibrium in an economy built around guaranteed growth, and that's a logistics and policy problem.
I’ll bite.
What are those arguments? Are they the same as your reasons?
Misanthropic stewardship. Of course, the images we get to conjure up of a post-human quietude exist because we do. Altruism has its limits. All the non-human examples that come to mind (male spiders dying after mating, female octopuses dying after caring for their eggs, storks throwing the weakest chick out of the nest) facilitate procreation rather than end it. Condemning humankind to non-existence on the basis of a benefit to the earth. What is the argument for that?
Objectively speaking, not having kids really is the greatest thing you can possibly do on an individual level to lower carbon emissions. Taking the bus and buying organic food is helpful, but it's nothing compared to not bringing another person to life in a country built around high emissions and energy use.
Additionally, in a big, advanced, industrial economy, most of our carbon emissions are outside our own direct control. When I go and buy something at a store, there's a heavy carbon cost baked into every product on the shelves. And my ability as a consumer to select low-carbon options is simply very limited. Even if a product advertises itself as low carbon, corporate carbon accounting is incredibly shady and easily obfuscated. There are limited choices on any given product, and it is effectively impossible for me to research the actual carbon intensity of any given product or service.
Simply choosing not to have kids is thus one of the most effective means of reducing long-term carbon emissions. I can't really control the carbon intensity of most of my purchases, but I can insure that there's a few less consumers in the future being caught in the same situation I am.
As I posted further down, the fundamental flaw at the core of this idea is that per capita emissions are not a constant and will be significantly lower in the future. In developed countries they are already significantly lower than they were in the past.
The average person in the US created over 21 tons of carbon emission in 1980. Much higher than today and the downward trend is set to continue. And no those emissions are not just exported to other countries.
Your children will not use anywhere near as much carbon as you have.
Renewable energy is now the cheapest energy available and its adoption is increasing at an exponential rate.
That's a lot of speculation. And yes, many of those emissions have just been shipped to other countries. While there has been good news in terms of solar and wind deployment, global total carbon emissions have continued to increase year after year.
While yes, in the US, we may have made some modest improvements (assuming it's not just a trade-based mirage), these improvements are just that, modest. We're currently back to per-capita emissions levels similar to where we were in the 1950s, the era of giant cars and the golden age of the great American road trip.
Ultimately, I think the biggest reason per-capita emissions have declined in the US is simply because people are getting poorer. A 25 year old who works a retail job, takes the bus, and is forced to share a 3-bedroom apartment with 6 other people has far lower per-capita CO2 emissions than someone who parks their two cars in a 2500 ft^2 single family home.
Look at the data you provided. The per capita decline really kicks into high gear in 2007/2008, exactly coinciding with the start if the Great Recession.
I mean, just look at those numbers. Per-capita CO2 emissions declined from about 20 tons per year in 2008 to 15 tons now. But despite how much progress has been made by renewables, they certainly didn't have anywhere near that effect. Solar represented about 3% of electricity production in 2020. Wind generated another 9%. In 2020, less than 1% of cars on US roads were electric.
The hypothesis that lowered per-capita carbon emissions are due to higher technology is simply not supported by the data. We just haven't deployed solar, wind, and electric cars on a wide enough scale to have anywhere near that level of impact.
When you look at the graph you posted, you're not watching a nation cleaning up its act and lowering its environmental impact. You're just watching millions of people falling into poverty, forced to reduce carbon emissions due to that poverty.
I would agree with you if the underlying data supported the doom and gloom narrative but it doesn't.
Incomes, while lower than a couple years ago due to inflation, are still higher than they ever were before the Great Recession.
The poverty rate has decreased from from 14.8% in 2009-2011 to 11.2% in 2019-2021
More than half of new US electricity capacity going online in 2023 will be solar.
Outside of the US, the majority of EU countries will hit their 2030 solar target well ahead of schedule.
Solar adoption is also booming across the developing world at an incredible exponential rate
I understand a lot of the younger generations feel like they've been screwed in various ways but the actual data doesn't support the idea that we're all slowly circling the drain of increased poverty as a cause for reduced emissions.
Looking at the income alone I think you're missing a big piece of the puzzle - the purchasing power of that income hasn't really changed all too much, while we are seeing disproportionate increases in things such as rent, which might suggest that people are circling the drain - we're just slightly further out from the hole, so hopefully it can be stoppered before it gets worse.
According to that data purchasing power is still over $9000 a year higher in 2021 vs 2010 in 2021 dollars, a 14% increase is still a pretty significant increase.
Housing costs are definitely a huge problem but are heavily location specific. Ultimately the answer for both lower housing costs and lower emissions is building increased density but there is definitely a lot more that needs to be done there.
That being said, over 50% of Millennials own their home and they've pretty much caught up to the percentage of GenX that owned a home at their age with GenZ actually ahead of the pace of both Millennials and GenX.
Increasing housing density really would be a big boon towards lowering emissions. I don't think enough people are on board for that, at least not in the United States.
I find it...interesting...that we are openly going to warn that essential things like healthcare and retirement are going to be impossible for elderly if the population falls, instead of discussing that we could pretty easily work ourselves out of the problem by refocusing away from non-essential items. The only thing that needs to change is our focus on unbridled capitalism. It doesn't even need to be abolished, we would just need to plan ahead and use financial incentives to increase training and adoption of the careers that are needed, while financially deincentivizing nonessential services through heavy taxation.
The one gripe I have with the 'saving the economy'-thing is that it should be upheld as some kind of universal law. The now graying population grew up in a time of prosperity yet everything consists of cycles going up and down. They can't take for granted that that prosperity won't be around forever.
Or accepting that the very wealthy make less. The resources are there and are abundant.
From my understanding, birth rates have been falling ever since it became economically better to have fewer children.
In other words, when we started moving from agricultural society to industrial society and out of the farmlands into the cities, it became less necessary to have more than a couple of children. And today, it's actually economically harmful to have more than one or two.
And as it gets more expensive to take proper care of children, less people will have them.
On top of that, increased acceptability of non-childbearing relationships (gay or straight) also helps push the trend downward as there's no longer social stigma or pressure to have the stereotypical 2.5 children.
The global population is going up fast.
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
No danger of people dying out due to lack of births. No need for people to have more children if they don't want them.
You haven't really approached the why part to your reasoning
Why should women be pushed to have 2.1 children?
Why should society be more child friendly?
Why should people have to sacrifice the freedoms that modern society brings only to be burdened by having to spend 2+ decades raising 2.1 children?
So present society doesn't crumble? The society you've already admitted is, in not so many words, shit.
"It's good for the economy" isn't a valid reason either.
You mention that if we observed a species that had all they needed, but wouldn't breed, we'd agree there is something wrong with their environment.
Society is our environment.
Our environment is shit.
Trying to actively push people to reduce their quality of life to preserve and ultimately make a shit environment worse seems like a terrible argument to make.
There's a difference between forcing people to have kids, encouraging people to have kids, and not getting in the way of people who were already motivated to have kids to have kids. It's fair to say that people shouldn't be pressured to have kids, but it's another thing to be trying to actively pressure people to not have kids. It's also a false assumption to think that a high-carbon lifestyle is synonymous with a high-quality lifestyle. The American lifestyle is extremely high-carbon and often at the active detriment to quality of life (ex. taking a 1 hour commute by car from the suburbs because the city hasn't built enough housing or because you're convinced that you need to live in a large house in suburban hell to be happy).
Not really. There is absolutely zero chance of that happening. There are different negative feedback cycles at different time scales that will prevent it.
In the medium term, a declining population in many ways makes it easier to have kids. In an elderly-heavy population, people or working age can demand higher wages. Ultimately, this is the root cause of the "labor shortage" we're having now. Despite polemics about people "not wanting to work," the labor shortage of today is just demographics. Baby Boomers are retiring, and many retired early during the Covid epidemic (the million+ deaths also didn't help.) Wages are now rising for working class people providing services to the elder population. When population starts actually declining, this will mean a decline in housing prices, thus making it more affordable for families to have kids. Younger people earning more money and having lower housing costs sounds like a perfect prescription for higher birth rates.
But those are just medium term things. There are a lot of other factors involved, so it is possible that other factors will overwhelm these.
However, there is one long-term iron clad fact that means that low population growth can NEVER result in human extinction. And that relates to the simple unavoidable fact that modern effective birth control is the product of an advanced industrialized society.
We've always had contraceptives and abortifacients, usually herbal remedies of dubious functionality. But modern hormonal and other contraceptive methods are the product of modern science and industrial society. The Pill, Plan B, IUDs, etc. These are things that require large pharmaceutical companies and major industrial operations to produce. (Or at the very least, big pharma companies are required if you want to make them cheap enough to have any appreciable effect on the birth rate.)
We forget that our technology is as much a function of our population as anything else. But there's a reason there are only a handful of companies that make smartphones. A modern smartphone just isn't something that a dozen people can whip up in a workshop using simple tools. It requires the combined work of millions of people to create a smartphone. And it's the same for every technology. For every technology, there is some minimum number of people required to produce it.
I don't know what exactly that level is for something like birth control, but eventually your numbers get low enough that most large scale industry and even mechanized agriculture become impossible. If your population drops to 18th century levels, expect many aspects of your technology to start mirroring those of the 18th century.
But the point is that this represents a hard floor on how far our numbers can ever decline from the use of birth control. At some point your population density is so low that you no longer have an economy capable of producing it. Now, I would expect us to halt the decline long before we became technologically incapable of making birth control, but it does represent a hard floor below which we cannot fall.
And ultimately, I'm OK with that. No society or civilization lasts forever. If modern consumer capitalism is so dysfunctional, that it makes people so miserable that few want children anymore, then that's a system that deserves to die. Maybe we just keep up our current practices and let the birth rates fall where they may. If things don't change on their own, eventually our numbers will decline to the point that we can't make birth control anymore. At that point we would find ourselves living in perhaps a near-agrarian state, knocked back to a preindustrial level.
And don't worry, we won't stay there forever. Once it became impossible to make birth control, the birth rates would rise again. And in time population would grow and once again be capable of forming more complex social struggles. And those people a few centuries from now, when planning out that new system, will be able to learn from our mistakes and design a system that allows us to build a technological society capable of sustaining itself long-term. Our existing dysfunctional system simply has too many powerful and wealthy people too entrenched to make meaningful change possible. But even if all this falls apart, that won't be the end of the human story. Eventually they'll give advanced technology another go, and hopefully they can do better next time.
Women are not responsible for carrying forward the human race. As @AgustusFerdinand mentioned in their comment above, the environment is shit. I am not going to sacrifice my limited time, career, health, and more just to prevent extinction when those in power have done nothing to correct the environment.
There is more than just money incentives to encourage reproduction. The environment just churns and burns people; I and others are embracing the selfishness to not partake in producing another being to go through that.
My bad for getting mixed in the conversation! In this current climate where women's reproductive health is being heavily legislated, the rise of inceldom, abusing the statistics of male loneliness to justify men need sexual satisfaction from women, and a while slew of other troubling trends seeing that type of language is a red flag to me. My initial interpretation of your comment read as if it was in that manner, but my apologies for not understanding it properly.
I agree with everything you said, except for the "embracing the selfishness" portion toward the end. I would argue that the act of not wanting to bring another being into existence to save them from future suffering isn't selfish at all. In fact I would say wanting to bring beings into existence to "save the species" or "save the economy" and whatever other drivel we are seeing in this thread is selfish.
Ahhh, maybe I could have phrased that a little better. In the hectic, hyper-capitalistic world that we work in, it steals much precious personal time. Even in countries in strong worker protections, most jobs suck and are a theft of time I would rather invest in what I want to do. To spend 8+ hours at work stressing and then to have my other 8 minus sleep be occupied by the stress of caring for child is not something I desire. I guess the better way to phrase it is that I am selfish with my personal time.
If work was less stressful and more meaningful than making someone at the top exorbitantly richer plus child rearing was easier overall, it would be more enticing to have children. I and other women want our limited free time to be for us.
Considering global fresh water reserves will be 40% over capacity by 2030, and 90% of global top soil and arable land is at risk of depletion by 2050, I don't think it matters much anyway.
Among other planetary boundaries we are overshooting.
Ana Somavilla, Marta Ley, Ana Ruiz - El Confidencial
Translator/s: Albie Mills/Voxeurop
Spain
France
Falling rates in Nordic countries
Factors
Job stability
Contrast between France and Spain
Delay in having children
The mirage of immigration
Covid-19
Original article (paywalled) in Spanish - Los países nórdicos rompen los esquemas de la natalidad: la estabilidad ya no es suficiente
Link to archived version (in Spanish)