[mytailorisrich]

This is a false choice.

Population cannot grow forever, birth rates are dropping globally, and in fact birds rates are already below replacement rate in most developed countries.

So stagnant or decreasing population will happen, and I think actually should happen considering the global environmental crisis.

This does not imply plateauing economics. We need to start focusing on figures per capita, which means using education and technology to maximise productivity instead of relying on cheap human labour and overall GDP figures. What's important is for people to be better off individually.

Mass immigration is destroying homogeneous nation states in Europe, hence the backlash and hence why Eastern Asian countries do not want to follow down the same path.

[spacebanana7]

> Population cannot grow forever,

I think the best case long term scenario is population stability.

> We need to start focusing on figures per capita

Even per capita figures are distorted by the fact that naturally declining populations imply ageing populations. So even in a technologically improving society where output per worker was increasing, per capita figures could decrease.

To be clear I don't think Japanification is inherently bad - individual quality of life can still improve despite unflattering macroeconomic numbers. But it still involves tradeoffs.