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Exactly. The only way it can work is as a "bottom up" choice NOT a "top down" dictum.
That said... some practical rewards can be offered, will need to be, as a part of it all.
As was said, that has been tried, to no avail.
Some countries - like Bulgaria - don't even try.
Here's the Singapore story:
Quote:
In the case of Singapore, the government has grappled with the relentless downward trend in fertility since the 1980s. After a public campaign and limited programs failed to produce results, a package of pronatalist incentives was introduced in 2001 and enhanced over the years. Currently, the package includes paid maternity leave, childcare subsidies, tax relief and rebates, one-time cash gifts, and grants for companies that implement flexible work arrangements. Despite these efforts, the fertility rate deteriorated from 1.41 in 2001 to a precarious 1.16 in 2018.
To say the human race is doomed because of a population reduction via attrition is absurd.
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
Maybe that's why no one said that.
You referenced this very assertion in the post in which you kicked off this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
The global population will begin to shrink very soon, perhaps as soon as 10 years. And once it begins to decline, it will never stop declining. That's a fact, according to some demographers. They make a pretty compelling case for the ever-shrinking human population in the book Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline. Their case, in simple terms, revolves around the emancipation of women and urbanization. It's more complicated than that, though, so interested parties should read the book or some of the many articles written about the subject.
A population that never stops declining will, by definition, eventually reach zero.
I've got to say, this sounds like a very common phenomenon. A person reads a book on a topic and is all in. They're convinced, which of course is the point of the authors, who are advancing an assertion. But that person hasn't even bothered to check other opinions, so mesmerized are they by what they've read.
Anyway, I doubt the authors made the assertion that you indicated they made. Malthusian collapses are corrections, and they end when the population is reduced to a level which resources can accommodate.
..............Anyway, I doubt the authors made the assertion that you indicated they made. Malthusian collapses are corrections, and they end when the population is reduced to a level which resources can accommodate.
Of course you could pick up the book and see if they said that, but given your reluctance I will do it for you. Look on page 2: "Once that decline begins, it will never end."
Practically speaking, a forever declining population may not actually mean extinction of the species. At least not for centuries, and even then there will be pockets of life. No one really believes humans will become extinct through a refusal to propagate. Some governments, I believe, will collapse and cease to exist. But not humans.
Population is not automatically correcting itself in some way that Malthus predicted. We humans are doing that. Clearly, earth's resources can accommodate all 7B people and probably much more.
The widespread famines predicted in "The Population Bomb" (1968) simply never materialized. But the author's views of population explosion and resource scarcity became so mainstream that anyone who suggested anything otherwise was ridiculed.
And yet here we are. The mathematics is right in front of us. The population of the world will begin to grow smaller in just a few years.
I first became interested in this subject some years ago when I began reading articles on China's Demographic Time Bomb and Russia's population collapse. There is a plethora of articles on the subject these days, so I won't cite one. It's an interesting study with many, many opinions.
Population will shrink. By a lot. It will shrink more in some places than others. The purpose of this thread is (or should be) to share opinions about what that shrinking world population may look like in human terms, especially here in America where our descendants will live.
I am skeptical, but I'm surely no expert in the field. So I found someone who is much more of an expert than I am who wrote a critical review. He explains why he doesn't buy into the thesis of Empty Planet:
I am not sure if you realized the author of your reference was writing for overpopulation-project.com
I would prefer an analysis by someone without an agenda.
[quote=Listener2307;61290677]The global population will begin to shrink very soon, perhaps as soon as 10 years. And once it begins to decline, it will never stop declining. That's a fact, according to some demographers. They make a pretty compelling case for the ever-shrinking human population in the book Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline. Their case, in simple terms, revolves around the emancipation of women and urbanization. It's more complicated than that, though, so interested parties should read the book or some of the many articles written about the subject.
Many countries are already on the decline and many more will join. Some governments will collapse - I mean cease to exist! There simply will not be enough people living in Bulgaria (to pick one) to support a government. Italy has noted that it is a dying country already.
So what will the world be like in 100 years? IN 2200, it is projected that the world will have about the same population as we do today, but the population will be much older. And old people (I am one) are not productive. We become a burden on our countries....
The US population has increased every year, now you are telling me it will decline. So what?
Pick any year from the two charts below. Did not things work in the US with less people than we have today? Some of the social welfare benefits will not be funded, that's true. But on the other hand, old people are not immortal. The world has not had a world war since the atomic bombs were invented. So we live, not under a threat, but PAX MAD. May be I am wrong, but with a decline, I foresee simpler times ahead.
(1) Not so far, they haven't. Fertility rates have only fallen since the baby boom era, and that was an anomaly. If you look at fertility rates and population growth for 60 years, the rates have only fallen. (2) So far, no incentive has worked. Singapore, who is awash in money, has failed as have Sweden, Russia and every Asian government. (3) I think you're exactly right. America and Canada will do just fine. Asian governments will not because outsiders are not welcome in Asian countries. Japan may well collapse completely, many years from now. South Korea, too, is on the road to collapse.
Pffft. 60 years is nothing. Rates have risen and fallen since man began.
It's easier to see the growth everyone knows has gotten too high.
The US had ~140Million in 1940 and still managed to arm all the allies and win WW2.
Today we're approaching 340Million. Our current surplus of warm bodies exceeds 100Million.
End the expansion. Then taper the total.
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US population declines. So what?
