Commentators across the political spectrum claim that humanity faces imminent collapse due to a “fertility crisis.” Is this mass delusion or cynical propaganda?

This was published a couple of weeks ago, but not yet posted in this community.

It’s a much-needed skewering of the idea that low birth rates are an existential crisis and that somehow what we need is more human beings on our stressed planet. This crazymaking meme is quickly becoming received wisdom. As the article describes, it’s being propagated by a bunch of disparate thought leaders:

  • millenarianist billionnaires who are completely unexposed to our planet’s ecological limits (Elon Musk, obviously)
  • pronatalist religious types, both conservative (Ross Douthat) and progressive (Elizabeth Bruenig)
  • liberals (Ezra Klein) and eccentric libertarians (Tyler Cowen) who apparently believe “abundance” is the only way to save democracy

Their talking points are pretty well recapitulated here. There’s a legitimate argument to be had about the speed of any population decline (because of the stress on welfare systems). But the pronatalists are not talking about that, they’re genuinely worried about human underpopulation. This article is full of stats and demonstrations that show that this concern is completely delusional and is helping to make our planet less liveable. We need to fight back by stating this fact more loudly.

[I]f 95 percent of today’s human beings were to evaporate overnight, we would still have a global population higher than 400 million. That’s more people than existed during Rome’s greatest territorial extent, a time after Homer, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Thucydides, Alexander, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Livy, Virgil, Jesus, and many other important figures had all made their contributions to the Western world. This population level, which amounts to five percent or one-twentieth that of today (at most), was hardly a threat to civilization, and much less to the human species.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    2 days ago

    To say political and social choices are “just demographics and maths” is exactly how the neoliberals presented their own unsustainable recipes in the 1970s and 80s: “There Is No Alternative.” As for “societal collapse”, that is silly histrionics. Today’s supposedly collapsing societies (Japan, Italy and so on) are, in material terms, some of the richest the world has ever known - far richer than they were themselves a few generations ago when orthodox economists were cheerleading for them. No, clearly they are not going to be pacemaking world GDP growth and consumption going forward - but do we not have the right to choose to move to other values? Most obviously: to work a few more years (not necessarily more hours) in line with longevity, to better distribute the existing abundance and above all to consume a bit less? I’m not a fan of the mental prison that underlies the choices you’re presenting as inevitable.