Commentators across the political spectrum claim that humanity faces imminent collapse due to a “fertility crisis.” Is this mass delusion or cynical propaganda?

This was published a couple of weeks ago, but not yet posted in this community.

It’s a much-needed skewering of the idea that low birth rates are an existential crisis and that somehow what we need is more human beings on our stressed planet. This crazymaking meme is quickly becoming received wisdom. As the article describes, it’s being propagated by a bunch of disparate thought leaders:

  • millenarianist billionnaires who are completely unexposed to our planet’s ecological limits (Elon Musk, obviously)
  • pronatalist religious types, both conservative (Ross Douthat) and progressive (Elizabeth Bruenig)
  • liberals (Ezra Klein) and eccentric libertarians (Tyler Cowen) who apparently believe “abundance” is the only way to save democracy

Their talking points are pretty well recapitulated here. There’s a legitimate argument to be had about the speed of any population decline (because of the stress on welfare systems). But the pronatalists are not talking about that, they’re genuinely worried about human underpopulation. This article is full of stats and demonstrations that show that this concern is completely delusional and is helping to make our planet less liveable. We need to fight back by stating this fact more loudly.

[I]f 95 percent of today’s human beings were to evaporate overnight, we would still have a global population higher than 400 million. That’s more people than existed during Rome’s greatest territorial extent, a time after Homer, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Thucydides, Alexander, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Livy, Virgil, Jesus, and many other important figures had all made their contributions to the Western world. This population level, which amounts to five percent or one-twentieth that of today (at most), was hardly a threat to civilization, and much less to the human species.

  • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    my old state uni near me, had some of the staff blame birth rate as the cause of thier low enrollment, no its the job prospects of many stem majors, heavily gatekeeped at the scientist level to prevent most entry level from entering the field. also HCOL IS THE OTHER major issues, no countries wants to address at all as with global warming, sabin made a video how GW was pratically abandoned.