Elon Musk says civilization will crumble if more people don't have more children
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
The most significant are political instability and economic downturn.
North America and Europe will become majority minority leading to much more divided politics.
At the same time China will suffer economic stagnation with a huge elderly population to support. This will put them in a similar situation to Japan, but without Japan's level of development.
Last, the countries that are projected to see large population growth (sub-Saharan Africa) are not on track to be able to support themselves and will likely be hit hard by climate change.
Edit:
As an interesting aside, it is worth noting that the world has already passed peak births/year and is now on the decline.
The remaining gains between 8 billion now and 10 billion peak population will be made up by people living longer. This ultimately means fewer and fewer working aged individuals and more elderly to care for.
Today, about 28% of the world is over 65. in 2100 it is projected to be ~40%
Like landing a plane, a controlled descent is more important than how fast you get to your destination.
Because there will still be competitive pressures, I’m not hopeful. Your social group says “we’ll glide down by X%” and my group will say “great, we’ll maintain or grow and in a generation we’ll dominate”. Often religiously driven (think competition imperatives in thr Middle East, or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull])
Is that really the only thing holding smart people back from having kids? Asking because this place is a decent representation of intelligent people in my opinion.
Wonder if Elon would choose to address the main issue of Fertility in the Western World. Since more and more Men and Women are having difficulties conceiving. With the increasing costs of Fertility and IVF treatments citizens are finding it hard to come up with money to have children.
Meanwhile the US and Canadian governments are not dealing with this problem. Perhaps leadership should start to address the problems that their citizens cannot have children and do something financially to assist families in need. Instead it seems that Canada is continuing to just fill the population with refugees and immigration.
In pockets, yes, mostly in the world's poorest nations. But the global birthrate as a whole has been falling since the 1970s: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/108A/production/...
It is now only a bit above replacement. Even a conservative projection of the trend has us at a shrinking global population in a few decades. Also, if Nigeria's population quadruples and China's goes down by nearly half, on paper it looks approximately break-even. But that would hide a great deal going on there, in terms of economic, social and political consequences, for both countries, and the world.
>Even a conservative projection of the trend has us at a shrinking global population in a few decades.
I have not seen this in any of the projections. We are past peak fertility, and past peak births, but total population has a long lag time, as lifespans are long and increasing.
The projections I have seen show total population peaking ~2100.
Elon talks a big game because he’s wealthy enough to have extensive outsourced childcare for his six kids.
People can make different arguments about what the carrying capacity or optimal population would be, but the point stands that how we get there is very critical to the state of the world when we reach any target.
Mismanaged depopulation can have devastating impact on the quality of life and even the environment.
The problems caused by population changes are very different across countries. Some countries have or will have major issues caused by population decline. Others will be unimaginable humanitarian disasters due to population growth.
>Elon talks a big game because he’s wealthy enough to have extensive outsourced childcare for his six kids.
This highlights the situational differences in population and economic needs across the globe. Population growth can be a problem in one place and population decline can be a problem in another.
Elon is living in a country with a fertility rate below replacement that requires immigration to maintain itself. It has a strong economy, high GDP, and high material well-being for it's citizens.
Contrast this to someone living in Niger, where the fertility rate is >6, half the population lives on <$1/day, and there are ~200 doctors in the entire country of 10+ million.
The problem primarily isn't one of money or financial need. The relationship is much more complicated. Money might make some small bump, but it doesn't really compare to the bigger factors.
I thought any supply/demand believer would recognize we have more supply than ever, and the marginal need for any is less than ever before.