[smrq]

If humanity can't figure out how to handle population decline, then it's doomed, full stop. There's only so much planet to go around; there's a finite limit somewhere. Rather than treating population decline as the issue, perhaps focusing on the actual issues that it exposes would be prudent. As it is now, we're just making every new generation into a layer of a global pyramid scheme.

[dragonwriter]

> If humanity can't figure out how to handle population decline, then it's doomed, full stop.

If it is going to enter a state of perpetual decline, then it is doomed, full stop.

> There's only so much planet to go around; there's a finite limit somewhere.

Perhaps, but the existence of an asymptote to growth doesn't imply a need to ever switch to decline.

The normal shape of a resource constrained growth curve is logistic.

[fatfingerd]

> If it is going to enter a state of perpetual decline, then it is doomed, full stop

There's nothing about the types of decline we are seeing that imply they are perpetual. I think these declines are a positive alternative to having decline roman empire style whenever we get too close to a political stalemate in resource allocation.

[dragonwriter]

> There's nothing about the types of decline we are seeing that imply they are perpetual.

The types of decline we are seeing are local and temporary and don't require humanity to figure out how to deal with decline at all, because humanity continues growing.

I’m responding to the suggestion of something meaningfully different than what we are seeing.

[ffgjgf1]

The Roman empire was unsustainable though since it was built entirely on exploitation. Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them.

Also the collapse occurred in parallel with climate change and plague which were responsible for most of the population decline.

[lr1970]

> Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them.

If you do not want to pay for your own army you will be paying for someone else's one.

[ffgjgf1]

Not sure if that applies here that much.

For random peasants the Roman army was as much (if not less) theirs as the those of the barbarians that settled in their lands.

Also the barbarians were often somewhat less exploitative and most of the tax money stayed in the local area instead off being shipped of to Rome/Constantinople