[ryandrake]

Or, why not lean in to falling birthrates and try to build a society that doesn't rely on the population needing to increase infinitely? Everyone just acts as though replacement birthrate is simply something we must meet or exceed, because of dumb "line must always go up" economics. Can't we envision a functional world where the global population is halving every 40 years rather than doubling every 40 years?

[balfirevic]

Barring not-yet-invented advances in automation, shrinking population means fewer and fewer people providing goods and services compared to the number of people that need them, which means worse and worse poverty for larger and larger fraction of people.

[ponector]

>> fewer and fewer people providing goods and services

Many of them are not needed anyway. Close half of the fast food joints. Or fire half of the IT people. Go back to levels we had in 2006!

[skeledrew]

> halving every 40 years

Sounds like a road to species extinction.

[throw-the-towel]

But who'd pay the pensions then?