[gota]

This is "only" a crisis in the sense that our current economies break down if the influx of new consumers slows down. We'll adapt. Won't be painless, but it is not catastrophic, at least not in the same sense that climate change is catastrophic

> “Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?” If you asked Leahy what the explanation was, “my answer is technology,” he said. “My answer is social media. My answer is AI.”

My answer may include that, especially for richer countries, but also includes, and at a mucher higher placing for all countries:

    * reduced child mortality risk, family planning
    * urbanization; reduction of child-as-farmhand-labor incentives
    * increasing distance to parent support networks, the disaggregation of clan/extended family households
    * economic uncertainty

[pseudohadamard]

Also, the global fertility crisis isn't too few births, it's too many. Pretty much all of the world's problems boil down to too many people competing for too few resources. Less humans competing for and consuming everything imaginable, less problems.

[John23832]

Even if you remove the economic interests, human society has always worked with the young taking care of the old. We're reaching the point where there is no more young. That's a problem.

A 20 year old was made 20 years ago.

[basch]

except automation and technology multiplying labor, right? isnt the point of all this innovation to do more with less. are you saying that fewer people, with the assistance of robots, cant provide food, medicine, shelter, and water to the aging?

[binary132]

do you have any idea how much human labor elder care takes? caring for cognitively impaired but otherwise functioning human beings is a full time++ job, often for more than one person depending on the individual. there’s a reason they keep old folks loaded.