Population overload.

[chaosmaker]

Just wondering if anyone else thinks that we are at a stage where we should incentivise/reward people who choose not to breed. We're on a finitely resourced planet and I've just read a thread where people were talking about some celebrity having a 4th kid via a surrogate.
Should we talk about how the more kids you have, the more competition you are making for them in adult life?

AI is already being used to take over previously human staffed jobs. It's been creeping into jobs like journalism for ages.
There have been famines in various countries for ever and yet we are at a point in evolution where we have more power over our fertility than ever.
Interested in what other people think about this.

We are actually heading for population collapse due to the falling birth rate

DH was at an internal presentation at work on "Sustainability". The external speaker introduced himself, "Hi, my name is X. I am marred to Mrs X and we have four wonderful children." DH asked how he was qualified to talk about "sustainability" when he has four kids. People often compartmentalise things. We have one. I'm happy with that, for lots of reasons.

Perhaps there should be support for people to have the number of children they wish or don't wish to have and no judgement of those choices.

Birth rate is the lowest it's been in decades.

The population is already declining.

As others have pointed out, it’s not the birth rate that’s the problem. It’s that we’re all living longer and consuming more than ever before.

I'm not talking about just UK population here.

I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion but a woman at work who has 5 children was sitting talking to another woman who has 3 children. They were discussing how scared they are for their children’s futures because of over population, lack of resources and things like that. They were talking about there being a water war and climate change causing mass migration. The conversation then went on to how the population is out of control in developing countries and one of the women was saying how proud she is of one of her children who is going to be volunteering abroad to help build houses or something in another country. This moved the conversation on to various achievements their children had and goals they wanted to achieve, or in the case of the youngest ones, what they hoped they would achieve. Then one of them said to me something like ‘see our children’s achievements bring so much pride and happiness, how can you say you don’t want that?’. I asked her if she wasn’t happy I wasn’t having children because it’s one less person for her children to fight in the water war she had just been terrified about her children surviving.

Birth rates naturally decline as countries get richer.
If we don't want 3rd world countries to have too many babies we should help them get richer.

I agree there needs to be a shift.

Yes, population decline is going to be very uncomfortable for the generations going through it, but we might just salvage a planet that can be lived on.

The alternative is continuing to pay people to have more and more kids, and we all get our pensions paid(!) whilst the world literally burns us all to a crisp.

I literally don’t understand why people insist that we should be incentivising more babies being born given, you know, the world, but they do and that probably isn’t going to change.

The external speaker introduced himself, "Hi, my name is X. I am marred to Mrs X and we have four wonderful children." DH asked how he was qualified to talk about "sustainability" when he has four kids

I work with someone with 5 kids, a minivan, they all eat meat and take annual holidays overseas. She heard that I was a vegetarian and told me that I should consider veganism as it’s better for the planet and it’s her kids - not mine - that will inherit it.

Self-awareness is tough.

Birthrates are in free fall for a few reasons. One of the main ones is declining fertility ;sperm counts have fallen 63% within the last half century and while IVF is an option, the cost of living and resourcing issues is rendering infertile and subfertile couples unable to access fertility treatment. The urge to reproduce is incredibly strong and if couples are unable to do it or are flat out denied the chance, the future is looking pretty grim.

It's tricky because the countries that have falling birth rates are in general the ones using the most resources per person (and vice versa). So the countries needing to address sustainability issues are already tackling this issue (albeit indirectly rather than deliberately). And the ones not tackling it have less need to, if that makes sense.

It’s highly unlikely that women our age will have great great grandchildren. The chances are the planet will be almost unlivable by then. I find it incredibly scary and am always surprised people have children despite knowing that ( but then I have cognitive dissonance when it comes to cheese v loving cows so I sort of get it)
it is very hard for people to reconcile that with their wish for children.
it is their children who are going to suffer the effects of climate change. That’s enough punishment for them I think.
The only thing that will save the planet is the population going into free fall. Maybe some of the people in pointless jobs can move into care work and we can support the aging population until closer to the end. We can’t carry on with the same lifestyle as we have now and expect it all to be fine

I expect my two children probably have a huge carbon foot print compared to some families of 5 children living a subsistence lifestyle. So it seems a bit crap to tell them to have less children, rather than tell me to consume less.

There's no evidence that infertility has increased in a like-for-like population. The main reason that infertility is rising is that maternal age is rising.

The evidence on sperm counts is contested, as the researchers did not compare like-for-like populations over time. Even if true, most infertility is not caused by sperm issues, and we still have more than enough sperm to go round 😉

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow if there is enough to sperm, then why is it that my DH not only has low T but also has a sperm count of 11 million per mil of ejaculate? He has 10% of the number he should have. He's 34. We have no kids because of it. We've been doing ISCI for the last 17 months and not a single embryo so far has lived. I'm sorry if I'm coming off hostile, but I'm sick of infertility.

enough sperm*
ICSI*

Sorry. Just so pissed right now.

@SarahShorty - sending you a hug. We have one child, and it took us a long time to get her. I feel some of your pain. Thinking of you.

@Zimunya ❤

Perhaps the child free could be swapped for those with lots of dc in countries which do/ do not need dc?

Plenty of sperm existing on a global basis doesn't tell you anything about quantity in a specific set of testicles. There have always been some men with little or no viable sperm. I'm sorry you're struggling, but your personal experience doesn't negate the wider picture.

As for pipulation growth - birth rates are falling pretty pretty much everywhere. Approaching replacement level, or even below, in much of the developing world as well as rich counties. As a PP said, continuing growth is almost entirely driven now by rising life expectancy rather than number of births. Although Covid has made a dent in that.

Well, that rather depends on what countries we're talking about. And if the childfree go to X country that doesn't need DC and the people with DC go to Y country that needs DC then surely X country now needs the DC it doesn't have on account of swapping them.

The very most effective way to reduce birth rates is to educate women. Women who attain a higher level of education choose to have fewer children. This is true globally.

and btw populations are heading towards collapse all over the world. Your ire is better directed elsewhere Op.

I can't get my head around the simplistic logic of this argument.

Population is in decline.

How gross.