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It's almost like if people had free time, a positive outlook on life, and resources to live comfortably that babies would be a natural outcome.

Yeah, Hans Rossling had a cool tes talk about the direct correlation between family sizes and access to healthcare. If the life expectancy goes up, family sizes go down. The talk

Now we have reached a point where the system in a lot of countries works against the forever growth as people need to work work work and don't see a future for themselves, let alone for a family.

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say that as long as global population is going up, we're having too many, not too few. Once it levels off we may have to think about whether we want to degrow the population or just leave it.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if by the 2080s, "peak human" according to the quoted estimate, Brave New World baby factories are an option should we need them.

"I love my unborn children far too much to bring them into this dumpster fire of a society."

My parents were pestering the wife and I about when we're going to give them grandbabies. Hit em with that line a few years ago, and they haven't brought it up since.

The idea of having a kid in today's world just seems cruel.

No, but we also don’t want that line to suddenly plummet either.

Think of it this way: birth rate of one is half replacement value and most developed countries are there. We’re already having half the children we need to stay level but it’s not obvious because of the larger generations still living. In 20 years, that half population will half yet again, one quarter the children to level off. Then those older generations age out, and you get larger generations replaced by multiple halvings. For example if you live three generations, then at the end of your life, the population is only 1/8 what it was. Obviously it won’t be this simple and many things could affect birthrate but I find this trend frightening for humanity’s future. We’re not talking lower population but facing the possibility of a crashing population

The first publishing of "Limits to Growth" suggested that if immediate actions were done to curtail growth and use of resources, the world could possibly in many decades peak and then come back down to a sustainable flat line. That was in 1970. 54 years ago we may have had a chance - although the research didn't include many things not known to them, including the impact of climate change that was already underway and just not obvious (the ocean was buffering much of the effects for a long time).

My non-scientific opinion is that crossing the line of hunter-gatherer to agriculture was the real point of no return. We gained a lot from that, but it also sealed our path and fate. Finding the rich energy source of petroleum was the final accelerant.

Oh, someone else who read 'The Ministry for the Future'?

not if the cost goes up 3x to. give me enough for a house and yard and reliable car or make reliable transit where the house is and enough for the family to eat healthy with some spoilage treat behavior and get them standard stuff like a laptop and have decent chance for a good educaton and in my case make me 30 years younger.

Money is not enough, especially if both parents have to work. At least as importantly, most of us no longer have the support of extended family and communities, or the ability to have a stay at home parent to help make it work and those are equally important

For the planet? No. For capitalism, yes.

I would always travel with chicken if that was the case!