[RandomCitizen12]

> The pronatalist movement is ... premised on the belief that ever-larger populations are needed to spur economic growth

No, the pronatalist movement is premised on the belief that humans should not go extinct. If the entire world had the Korean birthrate (and it does seem to be moving that way), extinction would happen in 25 generations.

[SirMaster]

But surely something would change partway through those 25 generations?

Why would anyone assume that just because we enter a decline that we would remain on that same trajectory?

Surely when there is enough decline, resources become plentiful for those that remain, and people have more kids because of that? Just my naive thought.

[RandomCitizen12]

Well, one of the things that's changing is the creation of pro-natalism movements....

But there is reason to expect the trajectory to change. Currently the expectation is that, even if most people died out, there are very fecund (and very religious) groups that would repopulate the world. So the pro-natalism movement isn't needed to save humanity, just to save the 'normal' people.

[big-green-man]

The problem is that such a decline has intense inertia. When you have declining birth rates, average ages go up. Caring for elderly becomes a more significant chunk of the budget of a society. An only child for example has to care for 2 parents, potentially grandparents, themselves, and if they have a kid, half a kid. When you socialize this, people who have kids subsidize people who don't.

You can see how this would spiral. The society that makes it out of such a spiral is unfortunately the society that stops caring for it's elderly. The transition period would obviously be extremely unsavory and socially catastrophic. What winds up happening is people become incentivized to have kids so that they have someone to take care of them, and those who have more kids inherit the society a couple of generations down. That's what reversal of this trend looks like, it's not just about population numbers, median age is an even more consequential factor.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I don’t see why we would expect plentiful resources to lead to more kids. People today have fewer kids than they did 100 years ago, despite having many more material resources.

I’m also not sure that population decline would lead to plentiful resources in a sense that matters. Do people in Detroit feel rich because houses are so plentiful after the 1950s population high?

[from-nibly]

it's because now having kids means sharing your resources, where 100 years ago having more kids meant expanding your resources.

[big-green-man]

So we have turned an asset into a liability and are surprised when the change in incentive has predictable outcomes.

[c-linkage]

The key element of making dire predictions is that you can't assume anything will change as a result of publishing that prediction. Otherwise your prediction will no longer be dire.

[jnwatson]

That's the 2 trillion ton kid fallacy (a joke on Twitter of a guy holding up his infant son and projecting forward his growth rate).

The birthrate will change dramatically after a few generations of low growth.

[dbspin]

This is no more likely than malthusian predictions of over population leading to mass starvation. It turns out that human populations self regulate when a basic level of needs are met.

[pfdietz]

The feedback mechanism used to be that societies with inadequate birth rates were conquered and replaced.

[dbspin]

Citation needed, I don't think I've ever seen a historian make the argument that the determining factor in civilisational conflict was birth rates. Guns, germs, steel, and various other resources. Access to ruminants and horses, sure. But birth rates. That's a new one.

[Attrecomet]

And now, thanks to increased control over the environment due to technology and science, there are new tools in our repository that our ancestors did not have, like actually sitting down and planning how to avoid an ecological collapse -- and waging war with advanced weapons that negate a pure "breed fast" strategy. It sure would be nice if we didn't have to return to regular periods of widespread starvation like they did back in the Middle Ages, when they were too uninformed to not remove all forests and powerless to avoid staying away from the carrying capacity of their world for any amount of time.

[Muromec]

no need to conquer anybody — just fuck up the rest of the world and get net population increase through immigration from places where people don’t want to live

[fallingknife]

Used to be? It's happening as we speak. Birthrate decline is not universal. Mormons have a birth rate of 3.4. Amish and Orthodox Jews are at 6-7!

[smallmancontrov]

Agreed, but if we build an economy that maximizes extraction by artificially threatening basic needs, we could stay in the exponential decline for quite some time.

[alexey-salmin]

Yes, the self-regulation mechanism is that cultures that produce too many "problem with pronatalism" articles get regulated away.

[devbent]

The odds of society staying stable and current social trends continuing over 25 generations is pretty much 0.

25 generations is over 600 years!

[3D30497420]

Exactly. Making policy decisions now for what the world will look like in 600 years is absurd. Humanity has proven to be quite bad at making good policy decisions for the current generation, much less 5 or 10 generations from now.

[RandomCitizen12]

There are policies from 600 years ago that are in effect and beneficial. Like the Magna Carta [0], which was 800 years ago, and its derivatives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

[3D30497420]

Fair point. Though I wonder how much the original authors/participants were thinking about the long impact of history vs the more immediate needs and impacts. (In the great tradition of internet commenting, this statement was made with minimal detailed knowledge. Perhaps the authors were primarily focused on the long sweep of history.)

I do think my original point still stands that we seem to be quite bad at making good decisions for more immediate generations. Considering our rather pressing current challenges (climate change, continued warfare, etc.) I'd settle for getting the next few generations in a better place before thinking about 25 generations from now.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It’s not a 25 generations from now problem. South Korea expects that in just 50 years, they’ll have a 25% smaller population where a near-majority of people are over 65.

[3D30497420]

I wasn't arguing that falling populations is something we only need to worry about 25 generations from now. I was saying we should probably look at solving problems in a more immediate time-frame.

For South Korea specifically, the population challenges are probably more immediate than other countries.

[Tade0]

It's been going on for three generations now with no signs of stopping, so we're already 10%+ there.

Not saying the trend will 100% continue, but looking how hard is life for a young person in an ageing society it appears to be self-perpetuating.

You'd need something to put all those old people holding all the votes and wealth out of the picture.

[0] Global population growth rate peaked in 1963 and is now at a level last seen before WW2.

[snowwrestler]

That’s not how birth rates work. As a population shrinks, its birth rate goes up because the population share of old people declines.

A species producing babies is not extinct, by definition.

[bparsons]

Looking at a single blip on a population graph and assuming it will continue ad infinitum is flawed thinking.

[ath3nd]

> If the entire world had the Korean birthrate (and it does seem to be moving that way), extinction would happen in 25 generations.

Well, let's kind of obvious why Korea's birthrdate is low. It's because it's extremely expensive to have a child in a small country with limited resources and competition for them. Women are also getting more educated and emancipated and want more out of life than being somebody's wife, mother, and tons of unpaid labor: cleaning, cooking, etc. That was possible in the past, but capitalism has advanced so much that women are also expected to work in addition to their other chores, in order for the family to make ends meet. Hence, when Korean women have a choice nowadays, increasingly, their choice is to focus on themselves and not start a family.

The less people there are, the more free resources and less competition, hence more incentive and possibility to have a child. Korea is a hyper competitive capitalist society with huge incomes disparity, expensive childcare, soaring rents, and little living space. If you want high birth rates, make the country the opposite, make it more social: long parental leave, high job security, worker protection programs, social housing, low inequality, accessible healthcare, early retirement age, etc.

> No, the pronatalist movement is premised on the belief that humans should not go extinct

Yeah, but what are their real motives? How I see it, if you are a:

- pronatalist and a capitalist, you want more drones for your factories and offices

- pronatalist and religious, you want more souls for your deity of choice

- pronatalist and a nationalist, you want more people to fight your wars

- pronatalist and old, you want other people to take care of you and pay your pension

My point is, it's infuriating that we live in a system where paying rent working two jobs is near impossible, but at the same time people complaining that there are no children. Fix capitalism, and people'd start having children.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Korea is perhaps the clearest disproof of the resources -> children argument, because it was an order of magnitude poorer within living memory. Do modern South Koreans really feel more resource-constrained today than they did in the 1960s, when the most common housing was literal mud huts and 80% of people had no running water?

[ath3nd]

> Do modern South Koreans really feel more resource-constrained today than they did in the 1960s,

Probably feelings wise, yes. It's one thing to be dirt poor along with everyone else around you, and another thing to be dirt poor in 9m2 apartment, and seeing skyscraper lofts from your window where 1 month rent is equivalent to your yearly salary.

> Korea is perhaps the clearest disproof of the resources -> children argument,

Wrong. Korea is, in reality, a perfect example of resources -> children argument, a perfect example of how bad capitalism is for society.

Korea has a huge income inequality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality_in_South_K...

That means a huge portion of the population is considered poor. Hence, a large portion of their population feels like they don't have the resources to have children, afford daycare, rent, food, etc.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Not sure I'm understanding you correctly - is your contention that income inequality was lower in the 1960s than today?

[ath3nd]

> was lower in the 1960s than today?

Absolutely! Or at least the perception of financial inequality.

In the 60s after the war, the country was industrializing which increased inequality.

Only in the 80s that temporarily stopped, known as the "Miracle on the Han River”. After the 80s, inequality has just been increasing, with increased number of the population KNOWING about it. It's the reason why you have movies like Parasite, shows like Squid Games, and the rising discontent for the chaebols.

In any case, people FEEL largely so downtrodden and without access to resources, that they don't want to have children. Solve that feeling of inequality (by investing in social welfare programs and taxing the s*it out the rich), and you solve the population crisis.