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This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born (www.wired.com)

submitted 7 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 124 points 7 months ago (29 children)

Does population decline worry you?

I mean, it’s super important. The population of all of the places we love is shrinking. In 50 years, 30 years, you’ll have half as many people in places that you love. Society will collapse. We have to solve it. It’s very critical.

Uhhh...what? There are a handful of countries with recent population decline, but most of the world is still growing even if growth rates are slowing. I've never seen any credible projections of catastrophic population decline.

[–] Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago (18 children)

In essence, when the growth rate slows to a certain point, people are dying faster than they're being replaced, and the trend can only continue unless everyone starts having 10 kids.

It's a matter of job replacement. Maybe AI will partly help, or maybe we'll open our borders so immigrants can come end masse and do all the jobs we don't have enough people for, but unless extreme measures are taken once it gets to that point, civilization as we know it will collapse.

I'm by no means pro-forced birth. But birth rate decline is a serious issue.

The U.S. population grew at the slowest pace in history in 2021, according to census data released last week. That news sounds extreme, but it’s on trend. First came 2020, which saw one of the lowest U.S. population-growth rates ever. And now we have 2021 officially setting the all-time record.

U.S. growth didn’t slowly fade away: It slipped, and slipped, and then fell off a cliff. The 2010s were already demographically stagnant; every year from 2011 to 2017, the U.S. grew by only 2 million people. In 2020, the U.S. grew by just 1.1 million. Last year, we added only 393,000 people.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/03/american-population-growth-rate-slow/629392/

[–] Red_October@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago (8 children)

In essence, when the growth rate slows to a certain point, people are dying faster than they’re being replaced, and the trend can only continue unless everyone starts having 10 kids.

Growth is growth. It's not tracking only births, it's tracking births against deaths. Population decline is people dying faster than they're being replaced, but even "very slow growth" would still mean the population is increasing.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There are countries that decline in population even though they try to offset it with immigration, Japan is ahead of everyone in that.

But every time someone talks about the decline in population they usually aren't afraid of people going extinct, they are afraid of working hands supply going low imo 🌚

[–] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Not anymore, Japan has one of the highest birthrates in Asia now.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Uh what. Source on that please?

[–] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

https://fortune.com/asia/2024/03/12/asia-worlds-lowest-birth-rates-baby-bonus-not-working-singapore-south-korea-hong-kong-japan/

It's less "Japan's got higher" than "Japan's fell the slowest compared to other Asian countries"

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, mostly because they've got no more births to reduce lol. Keep in mind these are the worst countries in Asia, though. There's still plenty that have decent birth rates (for now)

[–] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

Yea I mentioned in another comment I should have clarified "east Asia" in the original comment. The rest of the southern and western asian continent have much higher birthrates.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You mean, the rest of the Asia has gone below even further? Also, birthrate isn't the only factor, and birthrate of Japan is highest among developed Asian countries, it's not highest overall

[–] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

You're right, I was thinking east Asia when I said "Asia" and should have been clearer, and it's more that Japan's has fallen the slowest

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