AIBU The global fertility crisis is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced?

[plantsdieinmyhouse]

We’re in a ‘global fertility crisis’.

I’m astounded that global (even UK/European) fertility decline to below the replacement rate of 2.1 (thought to have happened now) isn’t in the forefront of most people’s radar. There are barely even any politicians acknowledging it let alone devising policies to tackle it.

Thee are even people who still think we’re in the 70s/80s/90s and ‘overpopulation’ is still an issue.

Once everyone who’s alone now is dead the human race will be in terminal decline.

Nothing else matters if there’s none of us left!

Even on a personal level a large proportion of women don’t have the number of DCs they expect to.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/43a9bd63-25c9-4941-bc99-fc9f7e42c12a?shareToken=29bf27cb9dafe9af7a006bc25355e411

I think the human race deserves to become extinct and let the planet heal. Humans have had such a detrimental on Earth and maybe it’s just time to let another race/species have a go and hope they succeed better than we did.

Nail on the head. We need more people to be more productive. We also need the "right" type of population increase, i.e. people with skills and work ethic - not just "more" people.

Firstly the reasons for the falling birth rate has many factors: decreased fertility, microplastics in food products have been found to have a causal link for male infertility, the economy - if you can’t even afford to leave home buying or renting (unless shared accommodation) until you are into your 30s and working towards earning a wage that can support a child/ren that is considered stable is taking longer and longer to happen so some people just age out. Then there is the hook up culture that is so prevalent now, less and less people willing to make a long term commitment to each other, marriage rates have been in decline for a very long time. Then there is the fact that despite all this equality talk and action women are still penalised for becoming mothers, and whilst some men do share more of the load the majority of women are still in the position of carrying the majority of parenting labour, domestic labour and mental load whilst also bringing home a wage, and think the younger generation of women are thinking Fuck That and I don’t blame them! These are just some, not even all of the contributing factors.

Its all well and good to say humans are a stain on planet earth and that we are overpopulated but there are many many factors to this issue and it’s happening soon enough that our children and grandchildren will be suffering the consequences.

Many have mentioned immigration as a way to solve this issue, but population decline is happening in most all of the developed nations and is reaching ever further into others, whilst not absolutely everywhere it is worldwide.

Countries will be competing with others for people, for Human Resources quite literally! How do you see that playing out peacefully?? It won’t be peaceful and it will be far from pleasant. Wars are fought over much much less!!!

Then you have to think about what our country has to offer against others, we have an NHS in decline, not enough housing, not enough school places, services that are either non existent or difficult to access….if we can’t do these things now how will we ever better them in order to be considered an attractive to prospect to immigrants against other countries with better education, healthcare, opportunities etc not to mention the weather. Suddenly things are looking a little bit bleak aren’t they?!!

We haven’t even addressed the pensions issue yet, the way pensions are funded is in directly related to the working population, if we don’t have enough young workers to pay for the pensions of those in receipt of them, what do you think will happen then? Will the government just stop paying out? If they did this, or even if they just scaled it back do you see this happening peacefully??? Do we really think that people who have worked hard during their life will take that laying down?!

Then there will be the fight over resources, we rely so much these days on imported goods and AI and automation can only do so much, the fact is, is that a shortage of people will lead to a shortage of labour which in turn will lead to a shortage of goods. You only have look back as far as Covid and see how these shortages played out and how the government and the big corporations made a quick buck during the pandemic. Those with the resources will hoard them and sell them at massive profit, everyone and every country unlucky enough to need it will be paying the hefty price.

I am well aware I sound all doom and gloom and perhaps even a bit conspiracy theorist about it, but my point is, is that anyone who thinks that population decline is something that will just happen quietly in the background whilst celebrating it is a win for Mother Nature and planet Earth is seriously deluded! It’s often referred to as the depopulation bomb for a reason!

have you any idea how we lived in the 60s?
It was not luxury I assure you.

@MuckFusk and any others who commented on my earlier post: I think humans are more interesting than any other species. And yes, I sincerely believe that the ability to conceive ideas, progress thinking and impart knowledge up and down the generations is the highest achievement of all. If that means we lose a few toad species, I am willing to live with it.

To be fair, Bridgerton was pretty good! It would take some pretty amazing sex to make me turn it off

Exactly

We won't be here to care

I'm not sure what point you're making?

for fucks sake you have no idea how we lived when we were younger. This is the most ignorant comment I have ever heard. People who worked on low salaries for much of their working life now have to pay for their care as they age. Where is your compassion and empathy?

Someone will care, someone’s dc. It’s far better to reduce numbers and less fighting over resources.

Yeah, and that's a bloody nightmare - too many !!!

You seem to be unaware of how poor many of us were post war compared to how younger people lived. We haven’t had easy lives and just wish to have our last years as comfortable as possible. What exactly do you think we owe you?

Yes I agree, I always say on these threads or climate change threads, humans are just another species in the world, we might die out like many already have, something else will come along one day, we're just a blip. The world will continue, theres nothing that special about humans per se, we just think there is (naturally)

But unless we suddenly finding some way to massively boost the birthrate, its either big sacrifices for retirees now or much bigger ones for the next generation of retirees.

Should we only have compassion for the current generation of retirees, even at the cost of making things worse for younger generations?

My preference would be to find a way to address the birthrate but, if that isnt going to happen (and many in here are championing the idea of population decline) then we have to accept that social support is completely unsustainable.

There is going to be couple of generations that feel real pain with too many older people. I welcome reduction and no replacement. The real issue is people in developing poor nations are still having far too many children. They may use far less resources but a decline in population overall will be a very good thing.

Gosh, its like the plot on Futurama...

Fry and the Liu-bot begin dating, aided by her being programmed to like Fry. The other Planet Express employees, concerned about his relationship, show him the standard middle-school film that predicts the destruction of civilization if humans date robots. Unfortunately, Fry ignores the movie, and keeps making out with his Liu-bot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Dated_a_Robot

We have a political problem being that the 2 chief ways to address / mitigate demographic shift are for people to be productive for longer (ultimately end goal is to increase retirement age though there are positives to this for older people as well if done right) and secondly to invest in the young as a limited future resource. But, demographic shift itself results in older people having more political clout, due to their numbers, than younger working people and young families. And as a (very) broad generalisation, they understandably want to remain alive even in poor health, they don't want to continue working into old age even if able to do so, and they want to keep their resources rather than diverting them to the young. And we live in a democracy so... There doesn't seem to be any political will to rebalance this at the moment. Ironically this also then contributes to the decline in fertility.

I (unfortunately) think, the logical (not moral or pleasant) conclusion to this issue, in the UK at least, is that we are going to have to stop funnelling huge amounts of state money into elderly care both social and health. That when you get to 80 odd, you’ve got dementia and physical problems and you’re costing the state tens if not hundreds of thousands per year, that the state will not intervene.

They may offer a painless medicated death to avoid suffering (the comment re ill homeless elderly on the street as per previous poster) but will not continue to pour scant recourses from a shrunken tax revenue into ailing old people with poor life quality and high costs, when that money could achieve more good to a greater number of young people, eg schools, maternity and child heath services, or actually just services like road maintenance, bin collections, etc boring but vital.

It’s not a vote winner! But, perhaps, in conjunction with immigration, might reduce the crash of civilisation/society that otherwise will be inevitable when you have an inverted triangle of old to young people.

I need that laughing reaction back

Thank you for clarifying your position. So it's anthropocentrism then. A misguided viewpoint IMO, but you're not going to change it, so it's pointless to discuss it further. I can see why you might feel that way even though I don't agree.

Ridiculous article.

Adults knowing they don’t need to have children due to societal pressures of just because is huge. My grandmother and mother knew nobody that chose to not have children, half my friends have chosen to be child free, as has my brother and his wife and two of my SIL’s.

Extreme costs of living, daycare, more grandparents needing to stay in employment which removes a lot of the village structure (my generation were all watched by our grandparents), climate change, threat of war, and on and on and on.

A lot of families also try and really invest in their parenting and 2 is our absolute limit. More families are prioritizing their mental health and not having more kids just because. A lot of the world is set up for 2 children, 2 parents. A lot of people cannot afford children, or more than 1-2.

I get no help with my children ever and 2 is our limit.

What’s the alternative? Keep popping out kids, using more of the world’s resources. In the even more immediate future the populations are going to be hurt by climate change. It’s happening now, and will get worse: flooding, drought, food shortages. Mass suffering. The whole economic model will change with climate change anyway.

I'm not unaware.

I just dont know why you think that your generation deserves to continue to receive significant state support, even if it means completely fucking over every younger generation.

You demand empathy for old people of your generation, even tough it will increase the suffering of the next.

That isnt empathy, if self-centred greed.

Yup, and the biodiversity crisis.

I think most people on this thread are viewing the issue through UK eyes and a modern lens.

The world is global, anyone from anywhere can go anywhere (in practical terms, perhaps not political terms), just like when tribes travelled over from Africa and Asia and Europe and vice versa, all over the world.

So there isnt a lack of people, there are too many people still overall and in 100s of years or 1000s of years the way the world functions will be very different. Just like it was different 1000s of years ago.

Humans are relatively modern.