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Comment by Bubble_Pop_22 | Hacker News Reader

AKA 'people should have more kids!'

'Wait! Not in those shithole countries!'

Declining birthrates alarmists are essentially sponsoring the great replacement theory. Not with words or by shilling the conspiracy online but with their alarmism as conflated to just particular geographic areas without looking at the whole globe. Global population is still growing and will continue to do so during our lifetime.

The relative distribution of cultures , language, accents, religions... will change but that has always happened. It's crazy to just focus on a particular region. It's as crazy as saying: let's sacrifice present day Swedes and Norwegians to bring back the ancient Romans and Greeks .

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I think it's just good to have open discussion on what these demographics changes might mean in the context of different societies. Both Europe and North America will see increasing migration from more overpopulated and poorer parts of the world, and this obviously presents its challenges to societies in the both ends of the flow.

I don't believe in "great replacement theory", what is happening is just a natural consequence of massive differences in standards of living and population growth in different parts of the world. Yet at the same time I can also see that this development isn't always without its troubles, like Sweden suffering from a wave of gun violence due to its failure to integrate many migrants who lack education and language skills, and many developing countries suffering from brain-drain. These are small-scale issues compared to the environmental impact of overpopulation, but they should still be discussed.

Totally agreed that the implications of population shifts warrant investigation. Demographic changes have significant impacts on variety of factors—even if one ONLY cares about maximizing investment gains, it's an important subject.

Genuine question: what part(s) of the world do you consider overpopulated?

Mainly those that are already having trouble feeding their populations. For example in Africa and Middle-East many countries are in trouble with the effects of the Russian invasion. I can only imagine what will happen in these parts of the world if climate change really starts to disrupt farming.

Of course this is just one way to look at the issue. If we look at resource consumption then worst offenders are elsewhere. After all, even current population levels could be sustained if nobody consumed more than the minimum they really need, food was distributed equally and green energy was dominant.

I see. Would you consider Las Vegas overpopulated? Nothing grows there, there is no water, everything has to be shipped from outside. If the supply-chain is affected by some catastrophe, people there will starve.

I assure you wholeheartedly that brain-drain is not the big problem for Africa it's made out to be. It's a very big red herring for sure.

Sure you can have this "discussion" but it comes off as needless (and probably racist) concern trolling. The Sweden thing is a favorite among reactionaries trying to mask their racism. The homicide rate in Sweden is lower than Canada. It's lower than Finland.

Indeed Sweden as a whole is safe, but organized crime related gun violence has become a problem of different size than here in Finland for example. It's quite worrying as gunfights between gangs do carry a high risk to other people who just happen to be nearby. A typical stabbing at least here in Finland involves drunks or drug addicts and happens in a private apartment.

On page 12 you can see statistic of gun-violence related deaths per million inhabitants in Nordic countries. Sweden is clearly doing worse than other countries, where overall trend has been declining rather than rising. The higher rates in Finland at the beginning are due to statistics also including stabbings.

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/744136/ON_Luod...

The fact that "Declining birthrates alarmists are essentially sponsoring the great replacement theory" is one of the reasons we put together this document.

Demographic collapse as a risk (and related risks related to declining populations) deserves to be explored from a non-racially/religiously motivated angle. Just because some racially/religiously motivated groups care about a problem does not mean that everyone who cares about that problem is racially/religiously motivated.

We also don't argue in the document that people should NOT be having kids in certain countries, nor do we argue that certain groups should not have so many kids. We don't even argue that people in general should have more kids (having kids is not for everyone). We merely attempt to take a sober approach to issues around population decline and potential solutions.

> We merely attempt to take a sober approach to issues around population decline and potential solutions.

Sober..."The Demographic Apocalypse".

Also what population decline? You and I will both be dead before the peak is even in.

We do think that demographic collapse can be "an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale." There was, admittedly, internal debate about using alarmist language in the title, though, and we appreciate the criticism (everything in this document is subject to change based on feedback).

We care about what happens to humanity after we die. We acknowledge that not everyone does. No judgment there. This document is more relevant to people who care about what happens to humans beyond their own personal lifespans.

As a black man in Africa, I had not realized that this was not an obvious subtext until I read your comment. Is it not?

A lot of people haven't developed the muscle to look at anything discussing "demographics" extremely critically.

Exactly. Perhaps one of the biggest barriers slowing down solutions to problems caused by demographic collapse = people not being willing to discuss demographic collapse merely because some racist/religiously extreme groups refer to demographic shifts in some of their arguments.

Just because hitler self-identified as a vegetarian doesn't mean that other people who self-identify as vegetarians condone Hitler's views.

And that's Godwin . . . Bingo!

Something like this needs trigger warnings. That's a way to start breaking down those barriers. People won't engage seriously unless they're presented with something seems a little less like stealth hate speech.

There is nothing to embellish or present. When the numbers are still going up it's obvious that the person complaining or being concerned only has their stance because they think they are going up in the wrong places.

It's better not to embellish , at least DJT was honest and didn't try to pretend he said something else.

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