The global fertility rate is falling - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521 <comment><USER5> It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y.

When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity for them. The best case scenario for huge numbers of people is stagnation.

A shrinking, aging population would fix this problem. The demand for labor will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the investor class looking for profits, good for reducing economic inequality. People will be able to profit from labor again.

The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated.

<comment><USER6> > The demand for labor will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the > investor class looking for profits, good for reducing economic inequality. > People will be able to profit from labor again.

I'm not so sure about that.

Loads of wealth is consolidated at the top, both in terms of economic class and age. People who got their jobs and attained management positions after barely graduating high school are demanding bachelor's or master's degrees for jobs that will barely pay rent. Landowners bought up when it was cheap and refuse to lower prices or sell for below what they think it's worth, even going as far as evicting people during a pandemic, knowing full well those units might not be filled in months or years, if ever. Some young people will get to a point where they can buy stuff up and work their way up the ladder, but there will be plenty more people who have it all given to them by those who established themselves when it was easier. I don't expect the next generation to be any more compassionate.

There are already endless reports of there being insufficient workers for agricultural jobs, nursing, teachers, etc. Wages haven't risen to meet the demand. They've remained stagnant or dropped in the long term. Meanwhile, those at the top are richer than ever.

Wealth at the top is often created by rent seeking. Just extracting money without actually making anything. I'm pretty confident that if the number of workers dropped and demand for labor increased, they'd just squeeze harder. Shut out the ones who didn't make it and terrify the ones who've managed to hold a job about the possibilities of what'll happen should they quit.

People are already getting paid more being _unemployed_. Employers are trying to get people to work for them again while offering them _less_ than unemployment pays. They're not even trying to compete because they know people are going to come desperately crawling back.

<comment><USER7> I think we need to ask ourselves why some of those things are the case.

Why are the same jobs requiring higher levels of education now than they did in the past? If you've worked these jobs you know they don't require anything past a highschool education.

Why is housing seen as something that must constantly increase in value? It doesn't, we've been through housing bubbles but people still cling to this belief and continue to pump air into the bubbles with speculation based on it. If you've owned a home you know that it is a constant sink for money just to maintain its existing state let alone what it costs to upgrade it to modern standards as it ages.

What is driving people away from the sectors you mentioned? Is it only lack of pay? Why are we not funding these sectors when they are so essential to the functioning of our society? Where is the existing funding going, specifically whose pockets does it wind up in?

Why don't employers offer higher wages? Are they really being greedy or are their profits going to something else like rent or other business costs?

I don't think this is entirely to be laid at the feet of the richest members of society. Yes they protect their own interests but all of us are responsible for ensuring that our communities continue to function and improve. We've neglected that responsibility, we've all collectively failed. We all have to work together to fix this, blaming one group or the other will solve nothing.

<comment><USER8> "Why are we not funding these sectors when they are so essential to the functioning of our society? Where is the existing funding going, specifically whose pockets does it wind up in?"

Because there is no capitalist imperative to keep people alive. If investors and landowners can't make any money producing food, then no food will be produced beyond that which is needed to feed the investors and landowners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere:

We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forward is a combination of longer lifespans and less children shifting the elderly support structure from a pyramid to a column.

A big driver of this is people moving up in job prospects around the world. Clearly in rich nations like the US, Japan and UK couples are working more and putting off having kids. But, also in the poorer nations people are moving to the cities because that's where the jobs are. Once there, the combination of high rent and great reductions in child mortality means it doesn't make sense any more to have lots of kids hoping that a few survive long enough to work at a young age. Instead of having babies rapidly, women around the world are going to work to bring in that second income needed to pay the bills in the city.

It's great news, really. It's just really scary really great news because we don't know how to set up a society where there aren't enough young people to support the elderly.

<comment><USER10> Here are two scary storylines that get discussed pretty regularly here on HN:

a) AI and machine learning will raise productivity so much that they will steal millions of jobs from people.

b) Global population will eventually go into decline, which will crash the economy by killing growth.

But, these two stories look far less scary when considered together. In fact they seem directly complementary, although the timing is not likely to work out perfectly, so it won't necessarily be smooth sailing along the way.

<comment><USER11> now if we could just get the robots to pay social security

<comment><USER12> You jest, but the economic effects of all of this are severe. A total regression in the real-estate market (because stagnant demographics means the existing housing stock will roughly suffice or even exceed demand) will have severe effects.

Basically the end to growing demand, and thus essentially an end to growth- orientated capitalism.

<comment><USER13> My long term prediction is that once the boomers start dying off in droves, we'll face a real estate crisis as their houses flood the market...and many less desirable neighborhoods throughout suburbia will turn into mini ghost towns.

<comment><USER12> I come from northern Italy and during my relatively brief lifetime ( _length(life.qubex) >40_) I've seen this happen to formerly exclusive "Beverly Hills"-type affluent residential areas (and un/gated communities). Enormous, cavernous hangar-sized homes that used to be worth millions of euros now struggling to sell for a couple hundred thousand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical.

So - this may be out of place, but here goes.

When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.)

I would like to contribute a bit of information.

I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful people I know, and it is comforting to be aware that we will be part of each others' lives forever. I spent a lot of time in assisted living facilities with my mother as her health failed, and I saw a lot of old people in those facilities with no one to visit them. It is comforting to know that I will not spend my final years in loneliness and isolation.

Our grandchildren are an unalloyed joy. We have two 3-year-old identical twin grand-daughters, and they are working their way through the nuances and finer points of grammar. It is indescribably adorable to see their efforts at expressing their detailed and elaborate thoughts. My grandsons are seriously into aviation, and I've become the go-to aerodynamics consultant. Our four- year-old asked me with great seriousness, "Grand-dad, why is the horizontal stabilizer always shorter than the wings?" Another time, the family was at the beach. He, his dad, and I were looking out at the ocean. He asked, "What are waves?" Darn good questions!

No rose-colored glasses fantasy here: I've found that your children can break your heart and devastate you just as well as bring you unfathomable joy. My daughter (a black-belt IP lawyer now), when she was about four, wandered off in a crowded video game arcade, and we searched through the crowds for her for about ten minutes, with growing panic and horror. We found her and all was fine. Fact is, if you love someone as much as you end up loving your children and grandchildren, their decisions and choices will have profound effects on you. My therapist observes that you are only as happy as your least happy child.

So, the decision about whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences. I highly recommend it.

<comment><USER15> This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys of success. It's absolutely correct, but it's also just one data point.

Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I'm not sure it's a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be lonely in old age, because it need not be true.

<comment><USER16> Only on Hacker News would someone post a response this patronising and argumentative. I think the point he made was fine, and I'm way glad to have heard his story. It was lovely.

<comment><USER17> I disagree and I think the comment is valid. I know many cases in which children and parents are not close emotionally or physically (live away). As they say, your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER18> It might be logically valid, but it's pretty emotionally tone-deaf to blithely dismiss a long heartfelt personal account by saying "Survivor bias. Caveat emptor." Read the room, as they say.

<comment><USER16> I don't even think it's logically valid. I think if you raise your children _well,_ the chance that they'll be there for you in old age is very high. If you don't have kids, the chance you will have friends that loyal is low. Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic.

How do you measure that statistically? All you have are personal experiences. Saying, "not statistics, isn't valid" is obtuse, it leaves you unable to understand anything that is difficult to measure at scale.

<comment><USER19> > Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic.

Somewhat off-tangent here, but this is a frequent misunderstanding of this particular quote. The actual quote is: "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" and it means the exact opposite of what we now use it for. The intended meaning is that relationships entered into as adults are much stronger and deeper than those we are forced into through accident of birth simply because they are intentional. While I hope my children will be there for me in old age, I know that I will be there for my wife and closest friends even though we are not bound by any particular genetic imperative.

<comment><USER16> I think the reason the meaning shifted is that the original meaning is not particularly accurate. Although that said, I'm looking into it and it doesn't seem settled that that _is_ the etymylogical root. That root also specifically refers to blood shed _in battle_. My guess is it was war propaganda.

<comment><USER20> I think the reason is the shorter version is easier to remember, and people love to attribute genuine wisdom to these kinds of statements. Because the shorter version is easier to remember it is near at hand and got used more.

<comment><USER16> I don't think people are that dumb tbh.

<comment><USER21> then you haven't been paying very much attention have you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One aspect this article does not address at all is the _massive_ sex ratio imbalance in India and China (for different reasons) at around 1,100 men for every 1000 women.

This means there are 100 million girls less today in these countries alone, finding a suitable partner becomes harder and there are lesser number of couples will be there in the first place who _can_ have kids

The 2.1 replacement is perhaps not adequate at all. The models are outdated and largely considers IFMR and few other factors, it does not factor really in issues such as the gender imbalance, hikikomori, much later age pregnancies ( higher chances of miscarriages etc?) and slightly more controversially also same sex relationships / marriages .

I do not mean to imply same sex relationships are bad or anything like that, What I mean to say is that everyone needs to have more kids as it is harder for same sex couples to have _biological_ children ( while adoption is great and purest expression of parenthood it does not increase the population)

<comment><USER23> Miscarriages are not births. If the birth rate remains at 2.1 you can have as many miscarriages as you want, and the population will still increase.

The same with Hikkikomori, and gay people. As long as there is 2.1 children born for every woman, then the population will increase.

The only factor which you mention that is correct is that in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1 birthrate. And as the article mentions, India is expected to grow over the next 80 years. So they clearly have a fertility rate that exceeds whatever number they need.

I think you are confusing the fertility rate, with how many children a family _with children_ would have. The denominator is different, and that's a completely different issue, but perhaps one that is worth thinking about.

<comment><USER24> You are failing to account for the gender imbalance. Consider an extreme gender ratio where for the 2.1 born for an average woman, there are 2 males and 0.1 females. This means that every generation will have 10X less women.

<comment><USER25> As they said, "in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1 birthrate."

Murder or not (I'm not sure what the illegal "sex-selective technologies" actually are), the gender imbalance is not a natural phenomenon thankfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are saying this is good for the environment. Having 20% fewer people won't do that. Clean energy and other technology will.

You can easily fit 100B humans on earth, with more of the earth dedicated to nature preserves. (Maybe a trillion people [https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc](https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc)) Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people.

You can fit quadrillions in ONeil cylinders just in our own solar system.

We shouldn't shrink into extinction, we should ride to the stars and populate the galaxy with consciousness.

<comment><USER27> > Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass > on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people.

Yes, because the earth's carrying capacity is about square footage and not the resources necessary to keep those people alive, healthy, and happy for 80+ years. How many square km of farmland do you think is necessary to feed Macau?

<comment><USER28> The sea is full of resources. No wonder coastal cities eats lots of fish.

<comment><USER29> Fish population is crashing hard worldwide. If we continue fishing as much as we do now, the oceans will be pretty much empty in a generation or two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Its concerning that this article closes with the idea that "migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option."

There are multiple factors that limit population density, most important of which is access to space and clean water. The fact that a professor from London, with a population density of over 10,000 people per square kilometer [1] is advocating for continued growth is odd.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population_density)

<comment><USER31> The sentence is a bit weird as well, if every one is having a population decline, then migration cannot be the solution, at least not globally.

Maybe he meant every one will compete for migrants, but some of them will lose the game. (Probably the poor and climate change hit countries.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well that is a particularly click baitey article.

My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into falling birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth rate correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it really wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents became more educated and society's measure of success became more material, the parental effort to provide the "best" for their kids went up.

It worked kind of like this, you have kids, you want them to have as good or better life than you have. If you've defined "better" here as wealth and social status, then you want them to have more opportunities.

Getting them those opportunities (which you may have missed out on) costs money (wealth). Examples, good schools, good nutrition, good after school programs, Etc.

Also, the developing society is putting more social status points on "successful" people (at least outwardly so by their display of wealth) which incentivizes couples to both continue their careers and "success trajectories." That path costs still more because now you have to add day care and possibly a nanny or two to the mix.

Here in the U.S. there is actually an interesting empirical example that supports this, its called foster care fraud. When the state offers to pay money to someone as a foster parent, a small number of people will exploit this by becoming foster parents for many many children to accrue the state benefit for "caring" for them. As an example, it suggests to me that if the state provided support to people with larger families that offset their costs significantly, the result would be larger families.

I would not argue that this "proves" the supposition that child care costs drive down the size of families, but to me it argues that it is likely a large factor in the decision.

<comment><USER33> > My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into > falling birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth > rate correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it > really wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents > became more educated and society's measure of success became more material, > the parental effort to provide the "best" for their kids went up.

I think it is pretty clear that humans (like animals generally) are more likely to adopt K strategy (smaller numbers of offspring with higher investment in each) rather than r strategy (larger numbers of offspring with smaller investment in each) in a stable, secure environment, and that this is structurally favored by the environment.

I wouldn't put much weight on the suggestion that either the number or investment piece drives the other, though.

<comment><USER32> I don't disagree (someone does though :-)) The argument is that given an expected pool of available wealth K to a couple, and a predicted cost p per offspring. Is O = K / p variable? or constant?

More simply, if you change one and not the other, does the value of O go up and down? The article was trying to look at that question by evaluating K and p and comparing O for different values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think people are putting too much emphasis on the financial costs, you figure it out as you go.

I have a 1.5 year old and it's hard to explain the simple joys I get from just running around the house with him goofing off. It's nice to forget about the real world for a while and build a pillow fort. He's also brought much joy to other family members (grandparents, cousins), and my extended family is closer as a result.

<comment><USER34> People who think about social policy on the scale of nations need to worry about costs.

This isn't something that you "figure out as you go", it's something that causes wars and societal breakdown. We're already in a democratic world where the key voting fault lines are young-vs-old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My wife's theory is that there will be a lot of babies born in about 6 months (9 months after the quarantine started), but only for first time parents. Being quarantined with a child is the absolute best birth control.

<comment><USER36> For this a childless couple has to live together. Not separately in one person household, not with parents, not sharing the place with flatmates.

<comment><USER37> How does that change the point?

<comment><USER36> In Europe at least even until the age of 35 most people belong to one of the three latter groups.

<comment><USER37> Do you have these stats on that?

It seems like a lot of unmarried couples live together these days. Anecdotally, I know more unmarried couples that live together than I do unmarried couples that live separately, at least if we're talking about the kind of relationship that is anywhere close to "making babies".

<comment><USER36> I'd say it's common knowledge in Europe.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8whym9/rising_propo...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8whym9/rising_proportion_of_single_person_households_in/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/bbimot/share_of_you...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/bbimot/share_of_youth_not_in_employment_education_or/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ct33wa/neet_rate_in...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ct33wa/neet_rate_in_europe_2017/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8vriuq/share_of_pe...](https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8vriuq/share_of_people_aged_2534_living_with_parents_in/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/gplbtg/share_of_yo...](https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/gplbtg/share_of_young_people_aged_2534_living_with/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thank goodness! I hope this is true. Please let it be true, that the population will decrease in the example countries and elsewhere.

Seems to be about the only thing, that can protect us from further overpopulating the planet with more humans. Even better, if it is caused by more education and more similar or equal opportunity for women. We should start celebrating women, who choose not to get children or at least not more than 1 child as climate saviors too.

<comment><USER39> Agreed!

A great resource on the subject is _Countdown_ by Alan Weisman.

I did a few podcast episodes on my Leadership and the Environment podcast on population:

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/310-the-start-and-end-of-any-serious-conversation-on-the- env)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/294-population-how-much-is-too-much)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/250-why-talk-about-birthrate-and-population-so-much)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/248-countdown-a-book-i-recommend-by-alan-weisman)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/251-lets-make-birth-control-only-a-finance-issue)

[http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/alan- weisman](http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/alan-weisman)

For those who think we can grow forever, Tom Murphy's Do The Math blog covers it in his post Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist: [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets- physicist](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I fail to see the problem. Lower population means an age of abundance: high supply, low demand, safe environment, automation, freedom, leisure, invention. Think dark ages, plague, Renaissance. Pensions can either deflate with price level, or governments can inflate with basic income. It's only bad for an elite class of people that benefits from increasing consumption, but doesn't pay the social cost of it. And if you pay more than 0.1% of your net worth in taxes, that's not you. The elites have become brazen in their assumption of our stupidity.

</comment><comment><USER41> Give it a few generations.

In the past, having a family was status quo and basically required.

Now, it's a choice.

Natural selection will heavily favor those with the "I want kids!" gene.

<comment><USER42> I think the point here is that the people who don't want kids are still a useful part of our gene pool, and we should look critically at what factors in to the decision not to have any kids - I don't think it's genetic at all.

It's impossible for me not to think of Idiocracy while writing this - <USER2> was extremely exaggerated, but still...

<comment><USER43> Are you thinking of memetics?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So, massive article on how terrible a declining population is, but only four (supposedly, maybe) negative effects listed?

\- Who pays tax in a massively aged world?

\- Who pays for healthcare for the elderly?

\- Who looks after the elderly?

\- Will people still be able to retire from work?

I welcome a declining population. Because the climate will benefit and the poor will be less so, and the threat of war would diminish. I would hope this, at least, because I'd like to believe that fewer lives would place more value on the lives of others.

<comment><USER42> Why do you think the climate will benefit? Smaller but richer populations have polluted more than large but poor populations in the past. Due to global trade and wealth accumulation, a declining population could easily just lead to more concentrated wealth and more luxury goods consumption (think private jet flights, yacht construction...) which leads to pollution not decreasing.

Similar with war - tons of wars are fought for wealth and resources, which seems unrelated to population, and even with a small population, drone attacks, assassinations and proxy wars are still entirely possible.

<comment><USER44> You're probably right. My thinking is that with time and with a reduced population the world might become more enlightened. Also if there is an agricultural surplus that it might be put to use feeding the poor. I'm an optimist, and hope the world might one day become an egalitarian matriarchy that learns a thing or two from the past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There's a short-term problem of society becoming "top-heavy", where there might not be enough young to pay for the continued care of the old. But in the long run this seems like a win. I wonder what impact it might have on climate projections.

<comment><USER46> A big part of that problem is that most nations have a pension system where the active work force pays for the pension of the elder instead of each person paying their own pension by saving/investing troughout their lives.

<comment><USER10> Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments.

Retirement financing in general relies on future economic growth for future cashflow. That said, you don't necessarily need a growing population to make it work. If the population declines 15%, but the average worker's productivity goes up 20% during that time, you still come out ahead.

<comment><USER47> >Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments.

The core unit of the economy is not cash, it's value. Saving roughly corresponds to avoiding consumption and preserving value; in a very basic economy, this would take the form of e.g. preserving grain in a granary rather than eating it all. People or government savings systems that save for retirement are then able to consume the value they saved when they retire; they don't require any value transfer from the working population.

<comment><USER10> In a society that wishes to support people who are not producing value, the people who are producing value will need to overproduce.

Whether you measure the overage in units of lifetime granaries, or running annual surpluses, is primarily an accounting choice.

As a practical matter, it's impossible for one farmer to save up enough food to span their entire retirement. Storage is an expense, and food goes bad eventually. The concept of a retirement is only possible in a society that transacts value regularly.

<comment><USER48> Yeah but we have money that can be stored and anyone that is old and have reserves of money will be treated and get food etc.

Society doesn't reward you based on the value you produce but based on how much fictional currency you have. This could be entirely granted to you for example in a a lottery and you never produced anything of value.

<comment><USER49> Money spoils (aka inflation) just as much as food does. To maintain the value of your money you have to actively utilize it in the economy by investing it. This is not a flaw. It is necessary to keep the economy running. Otherwise we would see Scrooge McDuck in real life.

<comment><USER48> This is why we have bank accounts and index funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've read plenty researches: main factor is healthcare. It's a natural a better healthcare - leads to lower child and women death rate. That's why people are having less child and they become more valuable.

100 years ago there's NO statistic for child under 13yo death rate. Mostly because it was TOO high around 50-60% children are dying before they get ready for marriage.

My grand-grand-ma told me she had 8 brothers and sisters and only 2 survive: she and her brother. In that time it was reasonable to bake kids in enormous numbers in hope some of them are won't die. Then healthcare changed everything.

<comment><USER51> > 100 years ago there's NO statistic for child under 13yo death rate

100 years ago was 1920. Many countries absolutely had infant mortality statistics by 1920.

See R.A. Meckel's "American public health reform and the prevention of infant mortality, 1850-1929" which (as the name implies) goes back was more than 100 years.

See also I. Loudon's "Death in childbirth: an international study of maternal care and maternal mortality, 1800-1950"

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Kind of a silly thought experiment, but ever wondered why you were born at this point in history, and not some other point? If population is now nearing its peak, you're more likely to be among the people alive now.

<comment><USER53> I think you might be referring to the « doomsday argument »? - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument)

<comment><USER48> I read a science fiction book based around this once. It makes a lot of sense at first, the issue is that we are not a random sample. People could have used this argument at any time in human history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dmch-1 This article is not about the correlation of individual happiness and having children, but about a demographic change and issues it might bring in the future. In hundred years we may have a population where 80+ year olds are twice as many as 20 year olds. What will be the health of such a population? Who will take care of the elderly? What will be the economic prospects or innovation on which the today's society relies? Some very legitimate questions, and here I read about advantages/disadvantages of having children from a personal perspective. Just annoying that many people are unable to think about anything beyond their current immediate environment.

</comment><comment><USER54> Millennials can't afford to move out of Mom & Dad's basement, get married, and have kids. Our society is profoundly sick, both figuratively and now literally.

<comment><USER55> That's not the only reason. Overweight women have a harder time conceiving. More alarmingly, men's sperm counts have been dropping for decades, and not by small amounts. I think it's a greater threat to humanity than global warming, yet most people aren't even aware of it.

<comment><USER54> For every one couple who wants to get pregnant but can't due to weight or sperm count, I would wager there are dozens and dozens who cannot afford to take on a baby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Why would a decline of sum(humans) even be a problem? We have destroyed large swathes of our habitats, poisoned the air, land and water not only where we live but also where we get our resources, exploit and kill each other because of a skydaddy or for financial gain, and delude ourselves into thinking we're a gift to this earth or even the universe.

How we can even think that putting more consumers on this planet is good for the environment is beyond me. The best way to stop polluting is to consume less. The max minimum of consumption is an absence of consumption.

We don't need more people, we need less of them. And if education and prosperity is making us recognize that, then I demand more education and more prosperity worldwide.

</comment><comment><USER57> I feel like bemoaning sub-replacement rate fertility doesn't take into account the exponential growth of automation in post-industrialized economies and how little labor actually needs to be done to maintain the same productivity, let alone how _less labor_ increases productivity in an organization (no numbers there - just an observation from my own work).

Extrapolated to society I'm not really afraid of an aging population of pensioners like Japan several years ago, because 10 years from now we'll be moving further from human controlled economic activity. But who knows if that is going to be a good thing.

I guess what I'm saying is we're going to hit Star Trek or the Matrix

<comment><USER58> I worry because society has not given us the benefits of increased productivity. We've already massively increased productivity with computerization, but during that same period instead of more leisure time, society has actually demanded MORE working hours (by putting more women to work)

<comment><USER57> It's kind of hard to make a sweeping statement like that.

We're seeing costs and benefits of increased productivity/efficiency. My diet consists of fruits and vegetables that my parents could only buy a few times a year when I was a kid. My grandmother made dresses from potato and flour sacks during the war, and my great grandmother sold jams from homegrown fruits because sugar was rationed. I'm typing this comment on a machine manufactured and assembled halfway around the world, designed 30 miles from where I'm sitting, and last week took a medical test that was developed, tested, manufactured and shipped across the country in weeks.

To say that we don't benefit from increased productivity is not true - <USER3> anecdotes are all examples of how rapid industrialization across the globe and improved communications, design, manufacturing, operations, and strategy have quantifiably improved my life as a human.

I also wouldn't say that the boon in productivity _demanded_ more labor. Particularly because the entry of women into the workforce was driven by the Great Inflation (which didn't improve productivity) and the tail end of second wave feminism which had succeeded in changing our society's attitude towards women in the workforce. The decomposition of that barrier in our society begot such productivity in our economy, it didn't respond to the demand for more.

But I agree, we're not getting all the benefits of such productivity. At least not all of us. But that's why UBI is probably the future, because eventually all our jobs are going to be automated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This trend among other things is one of the inspirations for writing this essay that was well received on here a few weeks ago. [https://moultano.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/the-defaults- dont-...](https://moultano.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/the-defaults-dont-work/)

I really feel like we don't have any effective model for how to integrate parenthood in our lives anymore, and so having kids has become almost an affectation or a hobby, rather than something that everyone bases their life around as a matter of course.

<comment><USER60> Great read thanks for posting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Adding to the discussion, population density seems to cause lower birth rates:

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981?seq=1)

To me that seems like a natural feedback loop. Once population declines to a certain level people will want to have more kids.

<comment><USER10> Does the article actually say population density "causes" lower birth rates? The title says it is a "factor," which is not necessarily a causal relationship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Overall prognosis is still bleak.

>However, this will be a truly global issue, with 183 out of 195 countries having a fertility rate below the replacement level.

...

>As a result, the researchers expect the number of people on the planet to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.

...

>The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to treble in size to more than three billion people by 2100.

We're still looking at a 2billion increase in population while simultaneously 9/10 billion people from least to less developed countries will be consuming more resources as they develop. Mostly through coal and oil.

</comment><comment><USER36> Social systems are zero sum game between individuals paying in and receiving benefits from them.

Meantime the salaries are stale, salary deductions only increase, and corporations (ehem formally "charities") funnel out billions annually through tax havens and heavens.

In countries where social systems are not that mature and trustworthy (e.g. post-Communist countries) even the most qualified like doctors and engineers pick contracting as a form of the employment to skip contributing to the social systems or to contribute only the minimum required by law.

How long more is this sustainable?

<comment><USER63> Its never been "sustainable", its just a question of when society wants to bring the proverbial chickens home to roost.

<comment><USER36> "Purge of the needy and old", something like in the Bergamo area in Italy this March and April... and marginalization of the homeless and incarcerated like in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Serious thought/question: I think everyone can agree that reproduction is how you advance your gene pool to the next stage of the human species. Does this mean people who don't want kids are effectively weeding themselves out? And is this somehow a function of survival of the fittest (or natural selection) in action?

<comment><USER49> Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce. Over the long term this problem will fix itself. However, I personally believe that the population will level out instead of keep shrinking forever until reproductive pressures fix the problem by force.

<comment><USER64> _> Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce._

Those, who do want to reproduce, will also be replaced by the next generations. Natural selection doesn't select individuals, it selects genes. And your genes are well-represented in the rest of the population.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Maybe a controversial opinion, but: the specific way in which Western capitalist societies (which were then pushed on to the rest of the developed world, directly or indirectly) went about the liberation of women is a major cause of population implosion.

It used to be possible to raise a family on a single income. However, once corporate interests (and the blind market itself) realized that having women in the workforce would both _increase potential consumers_ and _increase the workforce_ (thus depressing wages), the model of _everyone should be a worker first and a father /mother/family member second_ won out over alternatives. Add to that an entertainment-and-consumption-focused value system, and you have the present day: young people either can't afford to start families or are culturally discouraged to; to be a mid-twenties married couple with kids is almost embarrassing or shameful in many social groups.

We need a new model of work, in which parents (both men and women) aren't punished for simultaneously pursuing individual career goals and wanting to build a family unit.

</comment><comment><USER66> Can we take a minute to appreciate that graph

The X axis run at a nice pace, about 7 pixels a year, upto 2017

It then compresses the next 83 years in the space of about 10 years.

<comment><USER67> Exactly, the plot is misleading. It suggests a dramatic "jaw-dropping" change, while in reality the curve is slowly crawling towards and below 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> As the article states, women are _choosing_ to have fewer children. There are multiple ways to read this, and you can take the materialist theory of them just being caught up in their careers, but I tend to fall into a more cynical interpretation: humans are social creatures, and we are acutely tuned in to threats around us. I think humans are becoming increasingly aware, consciously or unconsciously, that we are killing ourselves through destroying the planet and that there is no way we can sustain further population growth. Whether "focusing on your career" is the chicken or the egg in this situation is up for interpretation.

</comment><comment><USER69> This absolutely must be reasoned about together with climate change projections. I don't see there's any chance in hell we can stop at a 2 degree world. That means though that large parts of the world will likely become inhospitable to human life as we know it. So, I'd expect either huge population transfers, wars, or both. The population decline will likely not be uniform then, as people will flock to the still hospitable parts of the planet. Provided 'native' populations don't go full lock-the-borders mode.

</comment><comment><USER70> That Dr Murray is a spin doctor too. The argument is that its good for the environment. And he says yes but the social problems. Well it doesn't change the fact that it is one of the best ways to preserve natural environment, and somehow I think dealing with ageing society, especially with assistance of technology is an easier problem than global environmental disasters such as climate change etc. He also says it would take a few centuries for humans to disappear. I would like to see the calculations he's done as they seem wrong.

</comment><comment><USER71> The good: a lower total population is good for climate change. Additionally, humans can focus on living in the most habitable, productive areas, improving per capita efficiency.

The neutral: day-to-day things are unlikely to be affected much. Fewer farmers, but fewer mouths to feed. This applies to most consumables.

The mildly negative: for knowledge intangibles, a lower total population means a lower number of scientists, entrepreneurs, etc. Perhaps substantially less. Apex projects that take a substantial proportion of the world's capital and labor (e.g. colonies on Mars) become a lot harder, with many becoming impossible. This is somewhat counteracted by most countries becoming richer and more educated.

The disastrous: older societies where each person working has to support multiple other people are sclerotic societies. A society where younger workers have to pay taxes 2x higher than they do today, to support a bunch of old people who already own all the housing and capital stocks? That's a society that I'd move away from in a hurry, regardless of if I'm old or young. I'm going to have to encourage any kids I have to study Yoruba.

This is one of those huge issues on par with climate change, but people mostly don't care or think about it. I'm not sure what governments can do about it. At some point I want to study Israeli demographics and fertility more, as it's the only country I know of that has maintained a high TFR (>2.1) even in its secular populations.

<comment><USER72> > " _A society where younger workers having to pay taxes 2x higher or more > than they do today..._ "

Most likely social welfare programs for the elderly will simply be allowed to collapse. Nothing will motivate the young to vote like having their paychecks eaten away.

I feel bad for young people graduating now; if they're not able to save the _entire_ cost of their own retirement over the course of their career, they are just plain screwed.

<comment><USER71> Retired voters, and voters approaching retirement, will fight denture and nail against that. The likely result is some claw back of benefits for them, but young workers would still carry a much heavier tax burden than the retired class did, preempting their own retirement savings. That causes them to defer or forego marriage and children as well, causing a continuing downward spiral.

Without an attestupa or genuine efforts to improve fertility rates, we're in for very grim times in most countries. There's a kind of virtuous cycle here, though, as a government that does figure out how to mold its age demographics in an effective manner will be a much more attractive destination for young emigrants.

<comment><USER73> For anyone else wondering; apparently prehistoric Nordic people practiced killing of the elderly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ättestupa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ättestupa)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Just a few points I didn't see elsewhere and would like to point at for further thought.

It seems to me that some parents have kids to help them deal with their existential angst and fulfill a need for meaning they couldn't find elsewhere, let's say providing and caring for people who are already alive and in dire need of help, lets say orphans in developing countries, homeless ppl etc. Or something entirely different. Having children have a very strong narrative for meaning associated with it, which might cause some who are lost in their life have children which will be equally lost.

I happen to hear things like "spread my genes" as example, probably not accounting for the 99.9% similarity with the next random guy and we all share the same ancestors. Even the homeless dude would help us spread our (common) dna if we could help him get his act together.

There are lots of good reasons for having children already mentioned and I agree with many of them, however, difficulty making friends and feelings of meaninglessness should probably be resolved before having children.

Focusing on having something meaningful to give is a lot better. My takeaway from the article is that people deal with more complexities today and might not reach a point where they feel enough "on top of things". Having children if already stressed out might not leave much left to give.

</comment><comment><USER55> My wife and I have been trying for nearly 3 years now. We're both healthy - <USER4> exercise, eat right, and we're in our early 30s. We were saving up for IVF all of last year so we'd be able to do it this year.

Unfortunately, I'm a photographer and COVID has destroyed the chances of that happening. Minnesota's wedding season is really short and runs from early June to late September. That means we may not have enough until the end of next summer. When you've been trying for as long as we have every month you wait is absolute torture. My wife cries regularly, and while I've held together better I've had a few absolute breakdowns.

Nothing has made me feel like more of a failure of a husband than this has. Our infertility is unexplained, so it could be my fault. Worse is the fact that I have a degree in computer science and I could have had a job that paid better in the best of times, and right now could be done remotely. It's agonizing that all of this stress and suffering could be over if we just had some more money.

The problem is for most people there's no definitive answer, and IVF success rates aren't absolutely amazing. It'll cost north of $30,000 for just one try after the actual procedure, testing, and medicine. That has less than a 50/50 chance of working. How many times should you try before giving up? I've already put two years worth of savings/retirement in to it. I honestly think insurance should be mandated to cover at least one round of IVF. Isn't making babies our entire biological reason for being?

</comment><comment><USER75> I would love to see this re-spun as a net-positive article, discussing how we can 'grow the economy' by providing goods and services worldwide instead of asymmetrically to only a small cohort of the population.

'Do it better with less people' is what sustainable is all about.

Birth rate decline in many economies correlates strongly to rises in standards of living: kids are a hedge against economic bad times in poor, rural economies.

</comment><comment><USER76> Interesting for a variety of reasons but my immediate takeaway is that the world is in a long term deflationary economic trend and any attempts to push against that, however successful in the short run, will fail.

Cash will be king and assets will be sold for pennies on the dollar, so to speak - provided you can remain solvent in the whipsaws and gyrations of the desperate attempts to stave off deflation at any cost.

</comment><comment><USER77> TFA shows the US population _increasing_ slightly by 2100. But there's no comment. I wonder about the basis. Is it projected immigration?

<comment><USER78> It must be, because TFR for resident populations is below replacement. Every wave of immigration has seen this fall: first-generation kids are intermediate, and second-generation have the same TFR as the population as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> We have shit on this planet so much, we do not deserve children. None of us choose to be born. Yet we have to deal with mistakes and evils of generations past. Even the joy of discovery, of exploring a world anew, of making our own rules has been stolen. We live in the dead shells of our foolish ancestors, dragging their legacy into a future chosen for us by the wealthy 1%

</comment><comment><USER80> Elder care is a pressing issue, but in general isn't this good news?

<comment><USER81> Not for the economy

<comment><USER82> Yes for the planet and yes for the human race too, overpopulation leads to all sort of problems

The economy should adapt not the other way around

<comment><USER83> Agreed, but no one seems to know how we decouple the economy from growth without hurting or angering a lot of people. Maybe we just tear off that bandaid quickly.

<comment><USER84> The number of people who would be adversely 'negatively' affected if we said "alright, we're taking control of this situation and not just going to blindly let you maximize your profits at the expense of the rest of the planet" is pretty small. A few millionaires and billionaires. The majority of us will adapt just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> One of the most fascinating books I read is Pricing the Priceless Children by Viviana A. Zelizer ([https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0691034591](https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0691034591)).

The central theme is that modern children are "economically useless" and "emotionally priceless".

</comment><comment><USER86> This doesn't seem that "jaw dropping." Hans Rosling was saying this for at least a decade prior to this, that global population would peak around 10B and decline thereafter. That said, I think that viable longevity therapy will significantly alter this trend.

</comment><comment><USER87> What's terrifying is that just as we face all of this pressure from falling fertility rates, we have the technology to implement massive state-sponsored breeding programs to "fix" the problem...

</comment><comment><USER88> I find articles like this send a mass hysteria that its happening across the world, when in fact its actually dependent on the country. You can see middle east countries to africa are not falling, but yes the overall worldwide rate is falling.

[https://external- preview.redd.it/_mQKfLNs2BdBrdF5eF0GNxqPMlB...](https://external- preview.redd.it/_mQKfLNs2BdBrdF5eF0GNxqPMlBKjLV- ao50S0OyvqY.png?auto=webp&s=b90d559108d9efe8366c8d186f03ab52fdbc8348)

</comment><comment><USER89> Inverted population pyramid causes many problems. All the ponzi-like schemes for pensions will collapse. There will be a massive influx of sub-saharan African immigrants in the Western world as they are the only ones still making babies. Latin America holds up, mostly. But there's already internal mass migrations in the millions.

China has been investing a lot on on designer babies, artificial womb, and cloning technologies.

It's going to be... interesting to see how it all develops.

</comment><comment><USER90> Maybe it's poor access to contraceptives but I personally know people(family) in a third-world country where a single person has 4+ kids... I'm like why, can you even afford it. These people are also still living on a dirt patch in the forest/woods. What's crazy too is in the 15+ years I left, it's still almost the same... I guess that's what happens when you're far away from major cities.

<comment><USER91> The labor from those 4 kids is the greatest form of wealth that person will have.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We should discuss the most important reason people have children. A way to make their genetic material immortal. At least half of it. There is no other way to continue living after ceasing to exist.

The joy of children, the company, the pain of loneliness being childless etc are emotions that is like malicious code that hacks the human psyche in order to replicate some other lines of code on to the next generation.

</comment><comment><USER92> I remember we learned in elementary school, about three hundred years ago when I was a kid, a correlation (or inverse of) between economic prosperity and demographic picture. It was so obvious it even had named phases for it (that we had to learn, which I forgot).. but from vague memory it was along the lines of expansion (when country is poor), stagnation (when well-fed) and immigration (when rich).

<comment><USER93> There's a new economic model starting to get popular in Europe called the Donut[0][1] according to which after a country reaches a level of maturity, it should stop focusing on growth and switch to stability so as to avoid overshooting.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_(economic_model)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_\(economic_model\))

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> As life span increases, which it will in the next few decades, so will the length of fertility.

So any extrapolation out 80 years is nothing more than sensationalism.

I truly don't understand this nonsense.

We can clearly see in the past 80 years, the really slow moving pre internet past, the global fertility rate has changed how it works significantly, but suddenly in this hyper-society we are wasting time looking at 2100?

</comment><comment><USER95> That's a good thing, because fertile soil depletion is going to be a huge problem.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third- of...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths- soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study)

</comment><comment><USER31> The article talks about this slightly, but very long term humanity will need a stable fertility rate and I have no idea how it will happen.

If the fertility rate keeps being below the replacement rate, at some point humanity will disappear. While short/medium term negative population growth might be a good thing, at some point we will need to do something.

<comment><USER96> If population keeps doubling every 60 years we will also disappear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> i think the main question is if people want kids but aren't having them for economic reasons or if they simply don't want them.

the latter seems fine to me but we still need to solve the problem of paying for the social security ponzi scheme and will have to deal with increased labor costs (which could be a good thing)

<comment><USER98> Those issues can be solved by immigration and by immigration, respectively.

<comment><USER71> Immigration from the same countries that are rapidly improving their own standard of living, and at the same time experiencing their own demographic crashes?

<comment><USER98> No, immigration from other countries whose fertility is not crashing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> "Prof Ibrahim Abubakar, University College London (UCL), said: "If these predictions are even half accurate, migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option."

So if the US current attitude towards immigrants persists, this is a future in which it does not compete well?

</comment><comment><USER100> So the Amish win?

It seems everything has already been said: Most of our problems are driven by population pressure. Leveling off is a good thing, despite potential expense of reconfiguring society and economies (but we have to do that anyway to address climate change!)

</comment><comment><USER101> Kids are great. But you only have about 13 years with them until they decide want to hang out with their friends instead of you. Enjoy the journey. It is hard work though! Especially combined with the pressure and commitments of working.

</comment><comment><USER102> Anybody look at that graph and say...

WTF?! The data says nothing like what the headline says!

Yes, the projection goes down sharply... but the best estimator of tomorrow is yesterday, and the last few years of data are saying nothing like what the projection is showing!

<comment><USER103> It took me a minute to get what you're saying but indeed the graph is quite deceptive. The time scale isn't consistent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> There are two types of people in the (this) world (thread):

* People who defend the non-existent children * People who defend non-existent children can't be defended because they're non-existent

My opinion: do what your brain and heart tell you to do.

</comment><comment><USER105> > Prof Murray adds: "It will create enormous social change. It makes me > worried because I have an eight-year-old daughter and I wonder what the > world will be like."

Case in point: This implies the professor has only one child.

</comment><comment><USER106> It's only 'jaw-dropping' if you've been living under a rock.

</comment><comment><USER107> Why are they trying so hard to manufacture reasons why a lower population would be a bad thing?

Might see reduced populations _by the end of the century_?? We don't even know if we'll be immortal or off-planet by then.

</comment><comment> hunter-2 The article is a little alarmist. Automation is on the rise which means you don't so many people to take care of things. So there will be enough resources to handle healthcare and the elderly.

</comment><comment><USER108> Overpopulation and the resulting over consumption and pollution are our biggest threats. This is a good thing, certainly until we can figure out a way to live on another planet easily.

</comment><comment><USER109> Yes, finally we get off this stupid econ, pop, and everything else growth wagon.

Too bad this isn't an intentional march to Fukuyama take 2, but a sign of the Keynesian feedback loop being broken.

</comment><comment><USER110> Does anyone know how to derive replacement rate (aka break even) fertility?

        If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then
        the size of the population starts to fall.

</comment><comment><USER111> This is a very good thing. Earth is overpopulated. Ideally we shouldn't have more than 2 billion on the planet for long-term environment sustainability.

</comment><comment><USER112> No mention of economic inequality or rising cost of living?

<comment><USER82> It is one of the factors for sure, but also contraception, education, women emancipation (eg they are unwillig to make 10 kids unlike 100 years ago even in the western world)

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> How come they project it below 2?

I think it's perfectly reasonable that the numbers drop to 2 if more and more people in the world get stable lifes.

</comment><comment><USER114> obviously, the quarantine might change those results :D

but on a serious note -- the global population has been falling. And it might be seen as a "negative" thing, but if you change your perspective: the global rate was at once higher only because women DIDN'T have access to education, opportunities, employment, or the rest.

A positive, vis-a-vis a negative, is a negative, right?

</comment><comment><USER115> Blame it to the abundance of endocrine disruptors in the ambient. Thyroid problems are in an all time high, specially in women.

</comment><comment><USER116> > migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option

Looks like the projections contradict this in at least two ways:

1\. The population of the United States is projected to grow slightly, so it's not "all nations"

2\. The population of two of the most currently populous countries, China and India will drop so precipitously that I'm not sure where they expect the "migration" to come from.

<comment><USER105> Africa.

[https://www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic- trut...](https://www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic-truth-and- consequences)

Specifically graphs like this: [https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/goldstone_africa_...](https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/goldstone_africa_2050_demographic_truth_and_consequences_revised1-20.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> This is pretty great. I expect automation will address a lot of the labor shortage issues.

</comment><comment><USER118> This is old news, bit glad it's getting mentioned I guess. Confused that the BBC seem to be running it as if it's new.

And it's astounding that they somehow put an overall negative spin on it. The problems of an ageing population seem miniscule compared to the problems of resource scarcity and climate change.

</comment><comment><USER119> Kids used to be the future, and still are, in a future with less of them.

</comment><comment><USER120> "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions)

</comment><comment><USER121> Lets build a world people want to have kids in then.

</comment><comment><USER122> This may be unpopular, but I already feel the earth is well beyond it's ideal human population capacity. We are straining resources because of our bad policies and practices and politics.

<comment><USER123> It may be unpopular, but I agree 100%.

I don't want people to suffer unnecessarily. But the more people we add to the planet, the more we exacerbate problems with food, water, Co2 emissions, etc.

In the end, _something_ will curtail human population growth. I really hope it's voluntary and painless.

<comment><USER124> Following this logic (and ignoring the increase of suffering as a raw product of addition) it's totally possible there'd be less suffering if we stayed in loosely connected hunter-gatherer societies.

<comment><USER71> Following this logic further, we might be best off if we reduced the population to a single person whose ideal, perfectly happy life is that of a hermit.

Philosophers have given this a lot of thought: the "repugnant conclusion" is what to Google for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> RIP J. D. Unwin.

</comment><comment><USER126> It beats a gigantic Malthusian trap.

</comment><comment><USER127> People used to want children so they could take care of you when you're older.

I suppose people don't plan that far anymore.

<comment><USER127> Note - I'm not making this up. This is a real thing in Asia for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> This is perfect. We need this ASAP.

It'll convince more and more that healthful longevity is a viable future.

</comment><comment><USER129> Do we need more people?

<comment><USER130> Of course we do. Who else is going to buy all the crap that billionaires are selling us now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> zika is still a thing.

</comment><comment><USER132> This is quite good news for the environment

</comment><comment><USER133> I think a lot of people are incorrectly identifying this as a good thing.

Really, this is an unprecedented phenomenon in recorded human history.

The entire social structure of basically every country on the planet is completely unprepared for the challenges that a rapidly aging popuation will bring. The effects won't be felt for decades after the change begins, and once it starts in earnest, it will prove very difficult to reverse in any short timescale.

It will become a sort of feedback loop - fewer people have children, so the capacity for children in the next generation is reduced. Because the retiree/worker ratio has now increased, the young people there are, are unable to afford having children, and so on.

Even with massive increases in productivity, you would see economies contracting. Ending up in a deflationary trap with increasing (and unsustainable) debt.

I see these kind of statements so often:

"AI will solve this problem" \- really? The World Bank development report 2019 ([https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2019](https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2019)) basically comes to the conclusion that "while automation displaces workers, technological innovation creates more new industries and jobs on balance". This has been the case for centuries now.

Automation causing mass unemployment always seems right around the corner, yet never comes. I'm confident that we're now in the "trough of disillusionment" when it comes to progress on AI. Things like self driving cars for example are much more complex than we had considered.

"This is good for the environment" \- It might not be though; the economic issues caused by aging populations could lead countries to take exploitative short-term decisions; converting rainforests to farmland, using cheaper means of generating electricity (that also prove to be more damaging to the environment) for example.

It is generally more expensive to be green (in the environmental sense).

The competition for immigration (which seems like an inevetable outcome in this scenario) could also destabilise certain countries, with potentially dire outcomes.

"It will reduce inequality" \- Japan is ahead of the curve on the whole aging population front, and the average wages there have basically stagnated for the past two decades: [https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/wage- growth](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/wage-growth) even as the number of employed people has stagnated/fallen: [https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed- persons](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed-persons)

I think the keys to this are: \- Why are people having fewer children? If it's a genuine choice, then of course this is acceptable. But I think often the number of children people want to have is actually higher than the number they feel they are able to support due to economic (and other) reasons: [https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/27/the-empty- crib](https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/27/the-empty-crib) \- If the retiree/worker ratio is going to increase, and life expectancy is going to increase, then how can we manage this in a way that puts minimal pressure on health and social care systems? \- Are there any other ways we can prepare economically/socially for a society with an inverse population pyramid (I personally think this is a very, very difficult problem to solve, but would love to be proved wrong) \- How do we manage depopulation of specific communities? This is a problem that Spain is currently experiencing (e.g. it is more economical to forcibly move people away from communities that are dying out and no longer economically viable)

</comment><comment><USER134> Good.

</comment><comment><USER135> Like any complex phenomena declining fertility has multiple causes. The importance of each cause depends on the local conditions.

1\. Easy access to contraceptives (they are easily available throughout the developed world) 2\. Positive view of abortion (the christian world used to see abortion as a crime, now with increased secularisation more is placed on the mother's preference than on the fetus). 3\. Pressure on resources (when having children becomes a choice, it doesn't happen 'naturally', people are less likely to bring a child into the world if they cannot raise it properly). 4\. Education and career orientation of women (Educated women make less children, they finish school around 24, start their career and if they don't secure a partner by 30-32 their fertility windows has closed - even if biologically they could bear children, they struggle finding a partner to raise children with). 5\. The marriage institution has collapsed (Marriage is the bedrock of children rearing - high divorce rates, divorce courts, normalisation and acceptance of divorce has made people less likely to marry and thus having the environment in which to raise children). 6\. Culture - it's not cool to have children. Now it's cool to travel the world and find yourself and experiment with as many partners as you can. This culture is not conducive to child rearing. Movies, books, music do not portrait happy families. Today, cool is to be 'different'. 7\. Religion - christianity with its marriage and chastity laws is dying out. Is is being replaced by the secular world where monogamy and child rearing are not perceived as something desirable. 8\. Lack of social support - as people travel to find jobs they do not live with their parents. Raising children without the support of grandparents is much more difficult. 9\. Low wage growth due to women joining the work force. One man could maintain a family with children and his wife, 50-60 years ago. That is no longer possible unless you are in the top 0.1%. 10\. Skewed dating market. Women are desirable by men until they reach 30-32. After that few men who want a family would try to know and marry a women because she is less likely to bear children and this is not a priority for her. Women are under much pressure to sort out their careers, know themselves and start of family by early thirties. The education and career 'system' is not optimised for mothers. 11\. Global warming and reaching peak resources. We have reached the peak point in multiple natural resources and are destroying natural habitats at an alarming rate. This makes people less likely to see a hopeful future into which children have a place.

To summarise, we live in era of tremendous technological and cultural change where we reached the limits of our planet's resources in the way we currently use them and this has led to population shrinkage in the developed world.

</comment><comment><USER136> Good!

</comment><comment><USER137> another chicken little article. worthless speculation about the future. who knows what will happen if the population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, infinite growth society must have it's day of reckoning

<comment><USER138> I support this sentiment 100%.

In human population, we should be aiming for quality, not quantity. Quality also means diversity.

If higher quantity unavoidably brings a higher proportion of human suffering, then we have no other choice but to promote quality over quantity. I fear for the future of our species. Our evolutionary instinct to multiply combined with the tech we've created is now bringing this planet to the brink.

Everyone wants to exist. But I would rather exist in a positive way, than exist at all.

<comment><USER139> People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues?

Without getting into a long spiel, human intelligence appears to actually be extremely limited, compared to a theoretical perfect intelligence, and any explicit actions we may take to enforce "quality over quantity" could end up doing more "harm" than "good" as soon as 1 "move" beyond the furthest move that we're capable of calculating.

IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death.

<comment><USER138> > People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a > meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire > that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're > facing the aforementioned issues?

Yes, in a way. But with mindfulness, one can choose different thoughts to attach to that innate survival feeling of wanting to exist and multiply. Instead of, 'We need to always multiply / population control is evil', make it, 'We need to create a better world for our species and those around us'.

> IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is > just a way of postponing death.

Also agreed. I've read the big AI books like Nick Bostrom's and Max Tegmark's. Given their monumental knowledge, the sentiments around population control are not so much about saving so much as managing. More importantly, it's about saving the possibility of AI and superior forms of evolution to arise in the future, which are far more significant than current Homo sapiens.

One way to put this into practice is to choose to adopt a child as your own, instead of producing yet another one. I may do this in my life.

<comment><USER139> If you believe you're the sort of person who can potentially "save" the world, wouldn't you want to clone your inherited software to counterbalance the cloning of those who cannot or will not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER140> Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work centered culture. It used to be a mark of shame not to have a large family -- you were seen as a "dead end."

I don't think these changes are natural, given how little control people have over their lives. This stuff is being pushed from the top.

<comment><USER141> I started to read this waiting for the punchline to a Dad joke. Kids can still mow lawns for sure.

>This stuff is being pushed from the top.

Is this some kind of Sparta thing? Like you all go up to the top of the mountain and someone pushes Dad off? Because if you actually mean there's a "top" that is dictating human sexuality I am deeply, deeply interested in seeing a schematic diagram for how that system works.

>It used to be a mark of shame not to have a large family

When and where was this? As someone who grew up Catholic it feels like that cut both ways.

To be vaguely serious for longer than I want, my wife and I just had a long, unfun conversation about how hard it is to deal with her mom's dementia and I don't know that we could do anywhere near as well with dealing with it if we didn't have a kid of our own. It's a shitty Ponzi schema, but the alternative is being Shakers.

<comment><USER142> Old calculus: "I need to have lots of children so they support me in my old age. No matter the cost."

New calculus: "Between retirement accounts and welfare, society will support me in my old age. Children are really, really expensive."

It's economics, plain and simple. Of course there's a "top" and the "top" does dictate the structure. If you doubt that, ask: what percent of your income do you pay in taxes, and what percent of his income does your CEO pay in taxes (assuming you work at a typical bigcorp)?

I'm not saying that "yolo all the way to carrying capacity -- and beyond!" would be a better policy, but it clearly used to be the policy and isn't anymore. Personally, I think we dodged a big bullet and took a little one. The "little" bullet is still going to hurt quite a bit, though.

<comment><USER140> This, but also people used to see having a family as being the meaning of their lives. In the modern world, the alternative meaning of life invention is the Career™. This alone, that people have been influenced to believe a career is a replacement for having a family, is highly suspect of "top-down" influence. We don't even have the perspective of how ridiculous career driven culture is.

<comment><USER143> This also causes people to move farther away from their families for both school and then work, often meaning that the grandparent support system is not available when you want to have kids.

That, in my opinion, is taken for granted more than anything else.

<comment><USER144> It also causes people to wait longer and longer to have children. My twins, my first children, came when I was 38 years old. My wife was 35. Most of our friends and family were also well into their 30s before having their first kid. This is not a winning strategy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> Sad the amount of technological progress we may be missing out on by this, I rarely see it discussed but I think fertility is important in order for society to be able to maintain a steady course of improvement in science and technology.

<comment><USER146> The number of individuals with the potential of Albert Einstein (to pick a stereotype) in a given country is not correlated to the total number of people. Standard of living, a stable childhood environment, quality of schooling, modern medicine, economic opportunity, sanitation, are more important to nurture future innovators. A kid working the fields in Angola will probably never reach his full potential, but little Johnny from suburban America probably will.</comment></comment>


Election Cybersecurity: Preparing for the 2020 U.S. Elections - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/election-cybersecurity-preparing-for-the-2020-u-s-elections/ <comment><USER3> Claims about raw numbers of attacks on internet facing services always seem a bit dishonest.

Anyone who has ever attached a public IPv4 address to a server knows that they are immediately hit with drive by attacks of all sorts because it's just not that hard to attempt attacks against literally every possible IPv4 address.

It would be nice if CloudFlare could indicate whether the attacks they're claiming in this post are targeted or are just run of the mill drive by attacks.

Raw numbers don't really mean anything. How do the numbers of attacks against campaigns and election sites compare to those against other sites of similar reach? They do compare Senate and House campaign sites but I don't know if those differences are more likely to be due to how the drive by attackers prioritize their work (eg if a site appears on Twitter more often because a Senate campaign has a broader reach does it lead to more attacks)

Overall this post implies the attacks are related to the election but I don't see any real data indicating that they are targeted.

<comment><USER4> Host a bunch of campaign sites - many using the program talked about here.

It would be cool to have more precise numbers and neat stats on more specific attacks but as long as I'm protected I don't really care.

Regardless of that...

I'd argue the reality is it's nearly impossible, expensive, or just plain risky to host any high-profile website without Cloudflare today (using their campaign offering or not). Between security and random traffic spikes it's simply an awesome / killer / the absolute best deal. All clients must go on Cloudflare for me.

The only other option is to go 100% static - ultimate security and speed - which also has its trade-offs.

Cloudflare actually doesn't offer a pure static option even with their election protection program. The ability to just go "pure static" doesn't exist to my understanding.

E.g.: You can try to mimic "fake static" by turning on 100% HTML Page Cache on, Firewall rules to block non GET/HEAD requests. This still subjects you to cache busting techniques to hit origin (/?fbid=1, /?fbid=2, /?fbid=3, etc...). This is because ignoring query strings and pure HTML cache only would only be possible using Workers or an Enterprise plan with Custom Cache Keys - <USER2> which are not offered under their campaign program.

The best work-around would be rate-limiting but that still exposes origin and has it's trade-offs.

Google offers an election program [1] which is more the pure cache = pure security philosophy. Way, way less flexible though. Just some thoughts.

1: [https://protectyourelection.withgoogle.com/intl/en/](https://protectyourelection.withgoogle.com/intl/en/)</comment></comment>


EU launches antitrust probe into alleged Google abuses - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11876443

<comment><USER2> I think the basic question is whether "vertical search" (products, maps, ...) is a different product from generic web search. If that's the case, then Google is clearly using its dominating position in generic search to push forward its vertical search products.

If that's not the case, i.e., products search is so close to generic web search that a distinction doesn't make sense, then Google is not abusing its monopoly but just enhancing its product.

I remember a blog post from the creator of "sushikartan.se" complaining about Google Maps entries being displayed on a search for "sushi stockholm" above his own website. That caused him a major loss in traffic, and he quite convincingly argues that his own search results and reviews are much better than Google's, so Google was (at least in that case) not really working in the user's best interest.

[http://www.tedvalentin.com/2010/05/google-content- producer.h...](http://www.tedvalentin.com/2010/05/google-content- producer.html)

I personally think its legitimate behaviour from Google. They are not pushing some entirely unrelated product of theirs (e.g. GMail) but really trying to enhance their product (not always successfully, see sushikartan example above). And I'd be very surprised if they manually modified rankings of competitors like ciao on purpose. But I think it's a valid question to raise.

<comment><USER3> Unfair promotion isn't the only form of anticompetitive behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The European Commission should be very careful in distinguishing between illegal activity and success as a good service that people overwhelmingly prefer. A company (just like an individual) should not be expected to sabotage itself by promoting competitors' products. It is only natural that a company supports and advertises its own offerings first and foremost, and any attempt to force it to do otherwise (given that the company has not acted illegally) is unethical. In a related article on the BBC site, the founder of Foundem (a firm that filed a complaint against Google) says "We just want a level playing field." The proper response to that would be: "Well, go out and create a compelling product that people want to use." Nothing in business (or in life) is on a perfectly level playing field; you have to work hard to create opportunities for yourself. Asking the government to hinder a competitor is morally questionable and certainly not a viable long-term strategy. An even bigger problem is asking the government to provide "level playing field[s]" that go beyond the existing anti-trust laws. I hope the EC will be prudent enough to punish Google if and only if clear law violations are found, and not because some competitor is unhappy with the Google's size and customer engagement.

<comment><USER3> Can a company become so large (and powerful), that it becomes (realistically) impossible to compete?

<comment><USER5> No, not for any real length of time - unless of course they are granted some privilege by the government.

<comment><USER3> I hope you're correct :)

From my understanding, this is one of the reasons that we have legal frameworks that discourage monopolies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _For example, it said, Foundem "duplicates 79% of its website content from other sites."_

 _"We have consistently informed webmasters that our algorithms disadvantage duplicate sites," the firm said._

Search engines duplicate content by necessity, so this isn't really a very fair test when it's applied to Google's competitors (i.e. sites providing search for specific areas and industries).

It's entirely unreasonable to state 'these are the rules, we're simply sticking to them', when the rules have been set by the organisation in question.

No matter how much desire there is to project (and enforce) a healthy, non- stifling culture - when an organisation reaches a large size, the stake individuals are responsible for grows, and (some) people will act recklessly and aggressively to provide gains for the organisation in question.

When an organisation or company grows to a very large size, I think it can become analogous to a large pike in a small pond, consuming almost everything it can.

Our economic system isn't the pure system many people wish it was - it's not perfect. As much as I like the idea of a free-market, I think intervention is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER6> Last time this was up, some people pointed out that the two companies didn't deserve high google rankings. That may or may not be the case.

The last complaint is correct however. Googles user requirements for its adservices prohibits webmasters from placing other contextual ads on the site. I wonder why nobody has complaind before (its not exactly a secret, it was written in the agreement).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I do think that Google search by definition "manipulates search results". A tautology? If it didn't, then there wouldn't be results.

Curious that legal threats and regulatory challenges came up in an interview discussion...

<comment><USER7> This confused me too. If I ran a website "ZoFreX's top 10 websites", and (for some reason) 80% of the internet populace used it, would I no longer be able to decide the order of the sites (or which sites appeared) myself? I don't understand why so many companies think Google is obligated to not manipulate the search results.

<comment><USER8> If ZoFreX's top 10 website list became a monopoly, you would have to abide by the rules for the monopolies. One of which is that you can't abuse your position to increase your market share in other industries.

For example, it would be against the rules to utilise ZoFreX's top 10 website list to display ZoFreX's skin cream website at the top of the list.

The key in this case is whether your other site that you are promoting is considered a different industry or market, and whether your monopoly in the top 10 lists market has unfairly influenced your position in another market.

There is probably a grey area if the list rankings were generated automatically in some way, but it could still be argued that knowledge of unpublished details of the list algorithms have given you a advantage, and unless you published full algorithm details you would probably be subject to accusations of fixing the list anyway. The rules are there to ensure that the markets remain competitive for others to do business in.

<comment><USER9> This is a very good explanation of what a monopoly is and why they need to abide to different rules. I think Google, like Microsoft before it, is getting pretty close to this situation, and we as a society need to look at them in this new light. In particular, we need to impose restrictions on what Google can legitimately do with all its power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Framing the conversation in the context of ranking always bothered me, a search engine is a question answerer not a traffic pump. Google has different verticals to handle different query types, geographical, financial, etc. After sending a query you are presented with the results on the Google SERP from one or more of these verticals, that is the whole concept behind the 'universal search box'.

Google's obligation is to user experience not to to self-proclaimed 'competitors', it should provide answers not send users sifting through another set of results or to conduct searches elsewhere.

And what if in the future search engines evolves beyond the ranking of blue links will the EU force Google not to change anything? And what about personalized search?

This is all quite ridiculous.

<comment><USER3> A search engine is a question answerer _and_ a traffic pump.

<comment><USER10> Traffic is a consequence of a question being answered, the EU here is investigating whether there should be another step for getting that answer which is mind-boggling.

<comment><USER3> Not another step; the possibility of an _alternative_ step.

<comment><USER10> That's what the address bar is for, type the address of any 'alternative' and you'll get there. As a bonus you can also google the name of that 'alternative', click the link and you're there, and it won't cost you a thing.

<comment><USER3> Well, I think that's a slightly disingenuous response when you consider that most people discover new sites through a search engine - and Google is one of the most commonly used search engines on the planet :)

<comment><USER10> Search is only but one avenue for discovery, look at the rise of social and social media. Also they do have the right to an editorial process, you can't really expect Google to cripple their application so that a useless linkfarm can get preferable exposure because they are claiming to be a competitor.

<comment><USER3> I see what you're saying, but I think we'll have a to agree to disagree. I think maybe it's a difference of politics more than anything else.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parallel Intelligent Game-Playing Algorithms for Rhythmomachy [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www-pgss.mcs.cmu.edu/Publications/Volume18/Rhythmomachy.pdf <comment><USER2> I've been unable to find the date of this paper, but the most recent cited paper in the references section is from 1999. I guess the paper itself is not much more recent than that. It contains a reference to a Cray computer with 512 CPUs at about 400 MHz.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm one of the authors. We wrote it in the summer of 1999 during the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences at Carnegie Mellon.

Getting access to a Cray T3E supercomputer as a high schooler was a beautiful thing. :)</comment></comment>


Windows Phone 7 a 'disaster' says Infoworld after developer demo - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jul/16/windows-phone-7-disaster-claim?asid=06b57d0d <comment><USER2> It's an interesting commentary on how little interest or emotional attachment there is in WP7 that such an inflammatory article could be on HN for this long without attracting any real reaction. If it had been about the iPhone or Android - or even the Pre/Blackberry/Nokia - there would be far more controversy.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really wish people like this would stop calling themselves journalists. While he had a glimpse at the early stage stuff, it's not a finished product and I really wish he put together something well written instead of this hack piece aimed at grabbing headlines. He has some good points, but wrapped around the rest of what he says makes the whole article a useless exercise.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the criticism is interesting. Many social apps I use are approaching their limits as to how much data can they show. My IM contact list is very, very long and my Gwibber feed scrolls too quickly most of the time.

An that is on a vertical monitor. On a phone, it would be much more delicate.</comment>