Forget Overpopulation, Underpopulation Is The Future
January 9, 2013 in Daily Bulletin
Jeff Wise writes that instead of being worried about there being too many people for the planet to sustain in the future, we should be concerned about the very extinction of our species. Highlights include:
- It took 12 years for the world population to reach 6 billion. It took 13 years to reach 7 billion. Our population growth is – for the first time – slowing.
- In countries such as Russia and China the total population could fall by 50% in our lifetime.
- This is because as countries develop and women get educated, there is a higher opportunity cost to having children, causing birthrates to decline below the 2.1 rate necessary to keep our population levels stable.
- The world’s population is expected to level out at around 9 billion – and then to start declining.
- Dealing with this problem is difficult. Countries such as Singapore have offered up to $18,000 per child and its birthrate is still just 1.2.
Read more about this future and when our population is projected to go extinct over here.
Source: Slate
I think there are enough resources in the world for all creatures, human being are need struggling for finding of them. We used these resources to overcome anxiety regarding to population.
I don’t know if underpopulation is the correct term. As less fortunate people develop economically, they will consume more resources (per capita), so even if there are fewer of us, the issue of overconsumption (and thus risk of exhausting the limited resources) will remain. Since resource availability is the key parameter defining what is over or underpopulation, we won’t be “underpopulated”.
This will not be something we have to “fix” for quite a while. When we do have to deal with it, I envision mandatory motherhood, and when that quickly leads to unrest, sperm and egg harvesting for artificial wombs. The children would not be raised by a parental unit: instead the government will have facilities staffed by people who have made a career of child rearing. The facilitieswould start schooling younger and make it more intense, and children would be kept with a small group of children as roommates from birth (cribs near each others, feed and played with at the same times and as a group) to teens ( sleep in one room, distribute chores such as cleaning and making meals, figure out a shower schedule) and would be taught that that is their family unit. This would be more efficient than the current method, and would result in workers who had been firmly taught values (unlike now, when my fellow high schoolers often are lazy and unmotivated establishment haters) so they would be more productive. Also, retirement will likely cease to exist. As long as you’re healthy, you might as well contribute to society. This would encourage people to take jobs they’re interested in, and mid life career changes would become more common. Life span will likely increase, as will overall health, as more Hostesses go out of business and we gain laws that make it more convenient to be healthy (fast food is not cheaper than homemademeals, as I believe Centives has covered in the past.)
This sounds a bit communist to me, but I believe it will work. People five hundred years ago could not envision the world of today, from population to government to technology. I’m sure the same will hold true in relation to us and the world 500 years from now.
Yes, this is probably poorly composed, failed to cover some big issues, and overuses parentheses. I’m sorry. I’m fourteen and just woke up: clearly, I don’t have enough experience to know what of our society is culture (likely to change over the years) and what is human nature (and, as our nurture will change significantly over time, even that may change a bit) so there could be some massive holes in my reasoning, and I’m still waking up, so my mental capacities aren’t as high as they usually are.
No Catalina. Just, no.
You’re probably right in that people will stop retiring. The Economist had an article arguing the same thing a while back: http://www.economist.com/node/13900145