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Comment by olegious | Hacker News Reader

Less people isn't a bad thing as long as the demographic distribution within the smaller population is healthy- meaning it is shaped like a pyramid, a wide base of young and working age people and smaller numbers of old people non-working people on the top.

The problem for many first world countries today is that their populations are shaped like upside down pyramids- many old people and people nearing retirement age and much fewer young and working age people. Why is this a problem? The working age population represents the tax and production base that supports the non-working and non-tax contributing older population, the non-working young people represent the replacement for the working age people that will eventually retire.

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The wide base of young people in the healthy pyramid will eventually grow old. Since it was wide, it means to keep the pyramid healthy, multiples of young people would need to be added. Whom will also grow old, needing even more young people.

Or most people need to die before they get old.

Maybe we can rephrase it as "visiting the metaverse".

Part of my question would be how to deal with the pyramid. The pyramid should get less pronounced as time goes on as birth rates normalize. Basic human needs industries like clothing, food and shelter should't need that many people to support the retired. Health care may need some intervention.

I guess part of the problem is maybe some of this is too much like socialism and/or being able to give non-working persons actual dollars.

> Health care may need some intervention.

One of the major issues faced by the Nordic countries is that healthcare workers are quitting ing large numbers and starting to take direct action like strikes in order to improve working conditions.

In Denmark and Finland there was direct government intervention when nurses went on strike (or threatened in Finland's case); a highly unconventional move considering the fact that both countries grant workers the right to use strikes as a tool in collective bargaining. Both the Danish and the Finnish governments are lead by Social Democrats, the political movement traditionally directly connected with the labour unions.

That taken into account, the health care sector doesn't just need some intervention. It requires large-scale restructuring in order to make it a more attractive sector to work in.

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