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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Just by simple numbers – no, you don't need a sustainable population rate. We were perfectly fine as a species when the population was half or a tenth or hundredth of what it is now, and will still thrive if it gets to that again. The problem is the demographic breakdown. If the rate of growth is decreasing it means that when your current population ages and exits the labor pool there won't be enough young people to replace them. And with better medical care and increased life expectancy these old people will still hang around and need care.

This is a problem that every large, developed country faces today, and they generally solve it through immigration. But what happens when every country is in the same situation?

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do we need that labor pool considering we are progressing in technology? 100 years ago there were no factories we see today etc. But day by day with technological advancement we are automating lot of things. So I really don't think we need that much labor we required yesterday.

Is population problem really a big deal considering we already have a big elephant in room already like climate change, scarcity of resources, poverty, water crisis?

While technology has definitely made things better over the last few decades, we are still very, very far from the post-scarcity society that we like to envision. The majority of people on the planet today are still doing back breaking labor in order to survive.

I always thought that when our western governments talk about this problem, they are not concerned with the back breaking work that needs doing, but the amount of tax being paid by younger generations not enough to cover pensions and all the expensive medical conditions old people have.

I think its mostly a financial problem, not a physical labor problem.

> I think its mostly a financial problem, not a physical labor problem.

what does this mean? i assume in your picture, the taxes (finance) are paying for the labor. if not, what is it that we’re struggling to finance?

Most people over the age of ~65 are given $967.50 a fortnight. (its means tested - but the family home is not counted). They spend that on whatever they like. I shudder to think how much goes into the pokies.

Old people like to visit the GP, like every week, to chat about the weather and that weird pimple that's been growing in weird places. That's also paid for by the government.

Here is a breakdown of where one Australians Tax Money goes. https://imgur.co/NmCZa5V

I'm of the opinion that the aged pension should be no different to unemployment benefits given we have free healthcare as well.

On readit, somebody posted a breakdown for UK taxes.

Welfare (23.8%)

Health (19.9%)

State Pensions (12.8%)

Education (12%)

National Debt Interest (6.1%)

Defence (5.3%)

Public Order and Safety (4.3%)

Transport (4.3%)

Business and Industry (2.9%)

Government Administration (2.1%)

Housing and Utilities, like street lighting (1.6%)

Culture, like sports, libraries, museums (1.6%)

Environment (1.6%)

Overseas Aid (1.2%)

UK Contribution to the EU Budget (0.7%)

We're automating a lot of things, but not healthcare. There we're inventing treatments that enable the dying to receive more and increasingly sophisticated care over longer periods of time.

This is the issue that became known as "death panels" in the Obama-era healthcare debate. We're pretty committed to not solving it.

But isnt all a self correcting system? If there isn't enough care for older folks then they'll just die off and life expectancy would go down. We see this in countries with civil wars and major catastrophes. At least that's what happened/happening in Syria.

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