The biggest issue with these people is they use “reason and logic” to arrive at their belief, but literally fail to connect dots because of their removal from reality.

the problem is most acute in countries that are “technophilic, pluralistic, educated, where women have rights”.

It’s not because women have rights though. It’s because rich fucks like his mentor Musk absorbs the majority of prosperity in nations. If there’s no hope, there’s no reason to continue.

The only places where the birthrate is not falling to unsustainable levels are countries where the average citizen earns less than $5,000 (£4,000) a year

And this isn’t even true. Places like India, even the poorest of the poor regions, are seeing their population boom quickly decline. So while technically they haven’t hit negative values, they’re already moving in that direction.

Whenever you hit max value for a resource, you’ve hit peak that resource, and humanity has hit peak humanity in terms of how the various governments and economic systems view value in their fellow mankind. Economic systems have no additional value to give (or value that they WANT to give) to human beings. There’s just no additional investment going into that resource. We’ve hit peak humanity in an economic sense, so there’s just zero reason for something to grow if nothing is being invested into it.

This would be clear to this couple if their heads weren’t so far up their asses.

[–] maol@awful.systems 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not a mention in the article of the impact of pollution on fertility, which isn't inconsiderable.

Two factors that have made the birth rate go down are a) greater access to contraception and abortion for women and b) reduced numbers of teenage pregnancies. Of course forced births and forced labour are a-ok with these two.

[–] FiniteBanjo 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Meh, personally I think pollution impacts on fertility might be overblown. Not in any way negligible, just overrated.

For example, microplastics are being found everywhere now but widespread plastic use was about 1/6th the current levels over 40 years ago so you would expect it to have been an issue going back decades. Methane emissions also cause birth defects and loss of fertility, but states with refineries and flare stacks also have higher rates of teen mothers (unintuitive correlation of conservative policies).

On the other hand, the fastest growing populations are places such as the middle east with low to nonexistent women's rights, while the slowest growing are places with women in positions of power and education. In 1994 in Cairo the United Nations came up with a plan to curb poverty and starvation in the region by limiting population growth by... checks notes* educating women.

That all said: Population Decline is a good thing. It should decline. 200 years ago we had a billion people, and we had flourishing arts and sciences and engineering marvels such as the London Underground, typewriters, trains and canals across continents, the first Soda Fountain. Less people doesn't hinder humanity in any feasible way. More people is going to kill this planet.

Sorry for the rant.