[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> I see a lot of parents say this. They somehow think their kids are a gift to the world.

Quite literally so. If you want to benefit from our society/civilization, without making the next generation that will become that society/civilization, you're saying you deserve to get all the things you get from it without contributing back. The government took out debt in your name, to be paid back by future generations that you aren't helping to create... it's borderline fraud.

> To me climate change, overpopulation

A crazy doomsday hippy wrote a book with an unsupportable, unsubstantiated crackpot theory in 1968, and now you believe this concept that never existed and is pretty meaningless. What is the cutoff population number after which is overpopulation? Did you know that in the 1980s the UK's population crashed and only a few roving cannibals still lived there?

> I understand that in terms of social systems we "need" more kids to support the old. But at the same time these kids will grow old at some point as well, and if you always need more kids than old people that means you need growth forever,

This is bad math. You need to hug pretty close to replacement fertility (2.1 kids), but you don't need growth.

[carlmr]

>The government took out debt in your name, to be paid back by future generations that you aren't helping to create... it's borderline fraud.

I already paid back more in taxes than I've ever gotten from the state in education. And since I don't have children I pay more taxes, making up for it more quickly.

Children would create future resource consumers that cause damage not only to my country, but to all human and animal life on this planet.

>A crazy doomsday hippy wrote a book with an unsupportable, unsubstantiated crackpot theory in 1968, and now you believe this concept that never existed and is pretty meaningless.

If you're post fact there's no purpose discussing anything with you, because you won't accept reason.

>What is the cutoff population number after which is overpopulation?

Overpopulation is any population that utilizes more resource in a year than what is regenerated by mother earth in a year. I.e. earth overshoot day moving past December.

>Did you know that in the 1980s the UK's population crashed and only a few roving cannibals still lived there?

Ok now you've really stopped making sense.

>This is bad math. You need to hug pretty close to replacement fertility (2.1 kids), but you don't need growth.

Not according to our politicians, who need an ever growing tax base to keep up social systems that are not sustainably set up. Mostly because the first generation didn't pay in, but took out massive amounts.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Ok now you've really stopped making sense.

Paul Erlich. The asshole that reinvented Malthus for the hippy age. The Population Bomb, 1968. It's on archive.org.

[skeaker]

Does your work and economic contributions not count for anything to society? Does your standing in your local community mean nothing? If having a child is the only thing you can do that has any value, life seems pretty pointless.

[benterix]

I like your style but you could state the same in one sense and without insults. 1968 was the year when the world population growth peaked and although it is in decline, in 2022 the population peak was estimated to peak in 2080 but later corrections point more towards 2060. So at least for the next 30 years the population will still grow worldwide, unless something unpredictable happens.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Sub-replacement fertility is human extinction. When people talk about it at all, they're always yammering about "how will we pay for social security" and other nonsense, like any of that matters.

> in 2022 the population peak was estimated to peak in 2080 but later corrections point more towards 2060.

It will be revised earlier and earlier. This problem is accelerating.

[carlmr]

>Sub-replacement fertility is human extinction.

Um, why would you say that? Only if you stay at sub replacement for hundreds of years will you reach extinction.

If we get back to 1 billion people in 200 years we can go back to having replacement level kids again.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Um, why would you say that? Only if you stay at sub replacement for hundreds of years will you reach extinction.

Why would you think this? Is it because it's a comfortable thought? "Oh gee, but we'll be able to fix it later!" Sub-replacement fertility causes demographic collapse, which causes extreme economic collapse. If you're bitching and moaning that you can't afford kids now, how will that be any different for the few grandchildren you had 50 years from now when they have to each support three or four social security retirees and pay back the $35 trillion credit card bill you ran up? Sub-replacement fertility doesn't just cause a dip in population, it actively causes more sub-replacement fertility. It accelerates. And, I'll have you note that however many centuries you think this takes, the better part of that last century consists of childless people (the last generation) living out lonely, desolate lives as they wait for humanity to become extinct.

> If we get back to 1 billion people in 200 years we can go back to having replacement level kids again.

All people aren't equal when it comes to this problem. Only the (next to) most recent generation can even make kids. Roughly from age 15 to age 35. Do you think those 1 billion people would all consist of people age 15 to age 35? Most of them would be geriatric. That's one of the things people don't ever seem to get... they're counting the wrong fucking thing. You thought "hey, we have 1 billion people, that's more than enough". But what you really had is maybe 10 or 20 million people at that point who are still capable of having children. Virtually all of those people were only-children themselves. Do you think they're going to say "hey, I want 10 children, and I'll be a good parent too even though no one alive knows how to raise that many children in a single family!" ?

Maybe I'm being mean. Maybe this is counter-intuitive. But you're just flat out wrong, refuse to do the thinking necessary to get past your own biases and cognitive malfunctions, and you and other people will live to see at least the first stage of a rapid decline that you don't even have the mental tools to understand.