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Comment by meristohm | Hacker News Reader

My first reaction is “good, there are too many of us anyway.” We’re in for some stress, though, if the Social Security system is predicated on a growing number of workers and retirees not living too much longer past retirement.

I have a child, and one is enough. We’re not a threatened species in terms of numbers, and I argue we’re less threatened if we scale back “progress” and then redefine it towards supporting a long, healthy, unbroken story until survival is out of our control. Much of this comes down to what we value.

If falling birth rate upsets you, what are your concerns?

Related opinion piece: Why we shouldn’t worry about falling birthrates https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/02/why-we-sh...

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> If falling birth rate upsets you, what are your concerns?

The US has had below-replacement (2.1) birthrates for at least 50 years [1], yet its population keeps increasing. A low fertility rate by itself does not seem to solve the "there are too many of us anyway" problem.

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/raw-data-the-...

You're naive lol. First, what over-population? There are huge ares of unpopulated land in the U.S. Many states are largely empty. Second, China just expanded their child policy. You think young people today have it hard in terms of competition? Good luck to your kid in a couple decades, because it will be that much more harder thanks to the U.S. slowly dying off.

I have no kids thanks to a decade and a half of being beaten down by the economy and people who would rather see me suffer because I look like people whose ancestors did bad things. I'm not complaining though, the next few generations will suffer compounding consequences.

It's not a space issue, it's a resource issue [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. Less people means less resource contention.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/biodiv-clearcut/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/06/phosphat...

[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/sea-runni...

[4] https://www.siwi.org/latest/the-worlds-natural-aquifers-at-r...

[5] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/groundwat...

[6] https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/the-meat-indust...

[7] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/36/21994

Those are all great issues that definitely deserve attention. However, they're not problems that are caused by population. Everything you've listed are problems of the economic and cultural systems currently in place. None of these issues improves with a lower population.

Edit: Your comment has radically changed since I left my comment. My point is the same.

> Edit: Your comment has radically changed since I left my comment. My point is the same.

For historical purposes, my previous comment revision was a thesis without links, and I replaced it instead with links to make the same point. My entire kingdom for HN comment version history support.

In short, very few will willingly forgo resources and give up quality of life, and for those who do will have those resources consumed by others (China harvesting the world's oceans, Brazil clear cutting the rainforest, etc).

My point isn't that people forgo resources but better utilize the efficiency and technology we've developed. We can maintain and better the quality of life for everyone. For example, at one point the US was wasting 51% of fresh food that has been distributed. Working on improving that distribution network can reduce food costs and waste. We have the technology.

Yet China wants more population. Are people criticizing that policity because lack of resources? If lack of resources is true, where is the outrage here? It seems more like some people are not willing to sacrifice lifestyle and instead sacrifice human population, not to mention there is huge asymmetry in the world when it comes to population.

Yikes. I’m sorry you’re suffering. Is it systematic oppression? To what degree is it your choices and actions? What are you grateful for?

There’s no perfect time to have a child. We eventually decided to just go for it and scrambled to make it work. I reckon I’ve grown up more in the last three years than the previous twenty, and I’m olay with that. When I was heavy into videogames I couldn’t imagine not being so, and now I’m more free to shed/change habits since I focus on the wellbeing of someone other than me.

Regarding huge areas/acres of unpopulated land and “largely empty” states: there are other, non-human persons living there, and I think that’s grand. We may not agree on this. I’m all for rewilding (see E. O. Wilson’s “half earth” idea and George Monbiot’s book Feral) and letting a lot of land be relatively empty of human settlement (with room for stewards, and tourism).

I’m thankful for this life, and I feel the amount of resources I consume does not scale well, given my values.

> Is it systematic oppression?

Yes, in that I was unlucky to have been born with a physical trait where I'm the "oppressor", when in fact I'm an immigrant having nothing to do with U.S. history. This affected my social and economic life in ways that I feel are unfair, but FML I guess.

> the amount of resources I consume does not scale well, given my values.

So you're solution is to scale back on humans instead, when other countries are scaling up their population with impunity. Where is the outrage at China's child policy update (unless you're Chinese, in which case, good for you I guess)? Is that side of the world somehow immune to over-population?

I favor reducing our collective impact so that other life may also thrive. If enough of us scale back our resource-use enough then we don’t need to intentionally limit our numbers.

I’m not outraged, but saddened by what we’ve done and continue to do. I’m also excited/interested/awed by what we’ve done and contribute to do, and curious about our potential. I’d like for us to stretch our collective story unbroken (unlike what my ancestors did to indigenous groups in North America, for example, significantly reducing language and oral-history diversity) for another ten thousand years or more, why not?

I try not to be outraged (nor to dwell in sadness) over things I have little to no influence over. I’m practicing letting the waves of emotion crash and subside.

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