Panic on Earth. Not enough babies anymore!

[Fielder 3,787]

Well, I did my part but...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/ar-BB1mhbxT

[Fielder 3,787]

Perhaps Mars or Venus will colonize Earth to help boost our shrinking numbers.

[HiFlyer 9,409]

With the anti-Immigrant sentiment in my country, which once fairly easily bucked this trend by welcoming new arrivals, it will eventually result in the deterioration of the social safety net, among other things that people don't want to hear about right now.

A family member told me that pointing out information like this would get me punched in the head if mentioned in the wrong circles.

I replied that deciding to believe the moon was made of cheese would not succeed in suddenly making it edible.....

He replied that I was too innocent.......

And so it goes.

[G-RFRY 1,741]

 In ten years Indias population has surged past China 129,000,000, China 122,717,000. It`s the west that`s declining. 2/3rds live east of Istanbul. And growing.

[dmwalker 613]

18 minutes ago, G-RFRY said:

 In ten years Indias population has surged past China 129,000,000, China 122,717,000. It`s the west that`s declining.

According to the article, it's not that India is surging, it's that it is declining at a slower rate:

"India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement."

[Wildblue 253]

Well, that'll be very welcome to nature on Earth, and thus ultimately to ourselves.

[dave2013 1,155]

This is a real dilemma for Western nations.  It is true that the birth rate in most Western countries has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 per couple.  This does not bode well for the future, as our society depends on an adequate "supply" of new people to enter the workforce and pay taxes to support existing retirees' pensions and healthcare, not to mention replacing retiring workers and performing those jobs.  The situation is most dire in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.  Japan and China are also in trouble in the East.

Our entire system is based on constant economic growth, and it is difficult to get that without an increasing population.  All this talk of AI increasing productivity to compensate is exaggerated.

One of the big reasons why govts have allowed unchecked immigration is because they are desperate to maintain their population levels.  They also derive the additional benefits of bringing in primarily young people who will do the jobs that many over-educated Westerners won't do for lower wages(big business is all on board here, of course), they will have a fresh crop of taxpayers, plus immigrants tend to have more children than the average indigenous couple.

Having said all that, there are too many people in the world, and it will become increasingly difficult and costly to provide enough resources like food, water, and power for everyone.

We need policies that sustain the population at current levels.

Dave

Edited May 13 by dave2013

[Luis Hernandez 594]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

Having said all that, there are too many people in the world, and it will become increasingly difficult and costly to provide enough resources like food, water, and power for everyone.

Sadly, there is a price mankind will have to pay in order to reduce the population to more sustainable levels. That or a world war that makes WW1 and WW2 combined a child's play, but the latter would be too drastic and violent for our liking.

[LHookins 3,117]

I hate to be pessimistic, but I think it's time to revisit the data from the Mouse Utopia experiments in the 60's and 70's.  Even if you're familiar with this you may want to review the details.  Just google Mouse Utopia.

Basically, a group of 8 healthy mice were given an enclosure and all the food and water they wanted, but would be limited in space.  After a brief adjustment period the population boomed. 

At some point the mouse society changed.  Females got aggressive against males wanting to mate and eventually retreated to empty apartments and became hermits, something mice don't do.  Young males that lost fights with alpha males that were defending a harem retreated to the center of the enclosure and would "riot", massive fighting for no reason.  Females no longer raised pups properly, driving them out of nests too soon or abandoning them entirely to die.  Many males became uninterested in mating, spending all their time grooming.  They called these "the beautiful ones".  Modern accounts do not mention homosexuality but early ones did, putting a lot of emphasis on it.

Lowered birth rates and lack of mating eventually capped the population at about 2200, where it started to decline.  You would hope that when the population dropped below the trigger level that things would go back to normal, but they didn't.  All experiments resulted in the mouse colony dying out completely.

This experiment was repeated many times, with the same result every time.  There has been considerable controversy over Mouse Utopia.  The earliest accounts I remember reading in the 70's didn't give all these details, they simply said that when overcrowding got to a certain point the mice became homosexual and the colony died.

I have no idea how such a thing could happen on a global scale with humans in a short time period, but real world accounts are looking alarmingly similar to Mouse Utopia.

I hope to God I'm wrong.

Hook

 

[nonflyingdutchman 40]

Some animals or birds regulate their offspring depending on availability of food and or other resources. But they aren't homo sapiens....

[G-RFRY 1,741]

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

[W2DR 1,864]

13 hours ago, Fielder said:

Perhaps Mars or Venus will colonize Earth to help boost our shrinking numbers.

Perhaps they already have.....🙂 .

[dmwalker 613]

10 hours ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Sadly, there is a price mankind will have to pay in order to reduce the population to more sustainable levels. That or a world war that makes WW1 and WW2 combined a child's play, but the latter would be too drastic and violent for our liking.

But the whole point of this topic is that the population is starting to decline already and in the most peaceful way possible. More and more women are choosing not to have babies and it seems that direct financial incentives are not changing their minds.

[MarkW 1,502]

12 hours ago, dave2013 said:

This is a real dilemma for Western nations.  It is true that the birth rate in most Western countries has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 per couple.  This does not bode well for the future, as our society depends on an adequate "supply" of new people to enter the workforce and pay taxes to support existing retirees' pensions and healthcare, not to mention replacing retiring workers and performing those jobs.  The situation is most dire in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.  Japan and China are also in trouble in the East.

Our entire system is based on constant economic growth, and it is difficult to get that without an increasing population.  All this talk of AI increasing productivity to compensate is exaggerated.

One of the big reasons why govts have allowed unchecked immigration is because they are desperate to maintain their population levels.  They also derive the additional benefits of bringing in primarily young people who will do the jobs that many over-educated Westerners won't do for lower wages(big business is all on board here, of course), they will have a fresh crop of taxpayers, plus immigrants tend to have more children than the average indigenous couple.

Having said all that, there are too many people in the world, and it will become increasingly difficult and costly to provide enough resources like food, water, and power for everyone.

We need policies that sustain the population at current levels.

Dave

You nailed it.  One the one hand if you do nothing the standard of living deteriorates, the lower population can't support the older cohort and gets crushed by the debt of the country.  If you have wide open immigration you end up changing the nature of the country as we are seeing in many Western countries today.  Japan and Korea are determined to preserve their culture and live with the population decline. Maybe if we didn't spend so much and get into crazy debt a declining population could be manageable.

[jon b 2,076]

7 hours ago, LHookins said:

Basically, a group of 8 healthy mice were given

I remember reading of a trial recently involving 8 mice, or was it 6 ? 
Now what was that 🤔, anyway whatever it was I’m sure it has nothing to do with declining birth rates.