Is Humanity REALLY Heading for Population Collapse?! Aaron Bastani meets Paul Morland
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- During 1960s, fears of planetary ‘overpopulation’ became widespread. And yet, in more recent years, an altogether different worry has emerged: future population decline. Fertility rates have fallen for decades - and in some places centuries - as humans live in cities, gender equality improves and access to birth control becomes widespread. But, according to some, if they fall too far, and too fast, the basis of the modern welfare state is in jeopardy - not to mention our entire economic order. Could falling birth rates, combined with increased life expectancy, even if not universal, really be as big a challenge in the 21st century as climate breakdown and runaway inequality? Or is this just another moral panic with no basis in fact?
To discuss all of that Aaron Bastani is joined by Dr Paul Morland, a demographer whose latest book is titled “No One Left”. Dr Morland’s previous books include “The Human Tide” and “Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers.
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His perplexity about why the richest countries' populations are now saying they can't afford to have children is because he's COMPLETELY ignoring wealth inequality. The UK is wealthy but that doesn't mean the majority are sharing that wealth!
This is what happens when you measure a nations wealth through GDP. Even the inventor of GDP argued it was incredibly flawed and should not be used as a standard. It tells us nothing of quality of life, resource availability or wealth distribution.
@@mcgoombs High iq comment.
That is an ignorant counterargument. Even the wealthiest people won't pass down tons of money because they live long enough so that most of their money will be gone.
Exactly,we are officially in French Revolution levels of wealth inequality now in much of Western World.
@@bennjmin the wealthiest absolutely do. Perhaps you’ve not had much exposure to these types of people, but they’re out there, and their wealth is very much passing from generation to generation.
Some thoughts: freaking out about the economic impacts of declining population *proves* our economic system is a ponzi scheme. Humanity dealt with population drops before and survived, and it was even a good thing for peasants and workers. Finally, I firmly believe the Earth cannot sustain this level of population. Even if we solve climate, there's still the problem of biodiversity and ecosystem loss.
Oh we dealt with population drops before & survived? So what? The world will be a worse place with less people in it. There is enough room for people in this planet, plus we need to set about colonising Mars for the next generation because of rising sea levels. Get a grip on reality, we need our human rights, the Palestine situation shows that we don’t have them. We need the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism & international Marxist communism where everything stays the same such as trade & sharing art & science except exploitative people don’t get to sit on the infinite profits of fictitious capital.
The Earth can sustain a much larger population, and our economy isn't what is really imperiled by population decline and aging, as you said, we would get poorer overall, but in some terms a declining population _would_ be beneficial to some people. The real problem is that our welfare states can't sustain themselves without growing populations.
@@robertmartin6800yeah, & we should have better welfare states (where everyone gets all their human needs met rather than only a few & the billionaires act horrible to everyone) so we can grow more & colonise Mars.
@@robertmartin6800yes it could but not at the consumption level of the developed world (where most people desire to be). You're clearly missing a bigger picture if you think that a crumbling wealthfare system is a bigger issue than an environmental collapse.
@@FabianEllis We don't need larger welfare states, we can't afford the welfare states we currently have. Having built and maintained such massive welfare states is proving to be the chief obstacle to our continued growth and development, making them bigger won't fix the problems that our building them has created.
I was disappointed that widening wealth inequality wasn't mentioned, given it's a clear trend on a similar timescale to these demographic issues. Yes, we want more kids, but it looks like many will be born into serfdom while the older generations enjoy their final salary pension schemes--perhaps we ought to improve our future prospects to encourage child-rearing, rather than tax those unfortunate enough to miss out on parenthood?
Religion is a far greater determinant of family size than wealth inequality. Why not start talking about family size inequality?
How did medieval serfs manage to have a healthy 6-7 children, of whom 50% died before their 15th birthday, while suffering under crushing wealth inequality?
@@polybian_bicycle irrelevant
@@TorstigHjalmr naive empiricism
@@allTheRobs
Please explain.
Going on about how people should have more kids because our lives allegedly have never been better is ridiculous. No mention of this disastrous economic system? No mention of rising inequality?
I have a kid, it's fucking hard.
Addressing this topic without considering the material conditions that surround us is just pathetic.
But I am happy to see, by the comments left here, that people are not deceived.
Nothing is in a state of equality ... And always will be.
@@Kitiwakeohhh so we should keep on breeding and be poor is ur logic?
If our societies are so delicate that they can't handle shifts in population over decades, how are they going to handle the sudden ebbs and flows of climate migration?
They won't. They are already faulting.
Just let them in
It's not a climate migration, that is the official narrative that is running cover for them deliberately recruiting replacements for our falling number of young. They won't have high skilled jobs, the rest are expected to work to keep them together with increased government borrowing. They are bought here to consume the fruits of everyone else's labour to amke the GDP look good so the government can borrow more for their pet projects, likely to be wars.
I can't believe people still believe man made climate change.
When we call our country rich we should be focusing on median wealth rather than mean wealth. Ordinary people are not getting richer.
No ur still wrong
U should focus on modal wealth
Mean median mode
Mode is the most accurate parameter to describe individual wealth
What was the whole point of the industrial revolution and general technological advance if it wasn't that we can produce lots more stuff with lots fewer people? Which we can, in fact way, way, more stuff. We could all work 20 hours a week and have the same living standard we had as working/middle class people in 1960. We're working 40++ hours a week because our corporate overlords have worked hard to structure the economy to maintain artificial scarcity for the working class, while dangling ever more gew-gaws in front of us so they can continue to get rich enough to control the political class. Plus, nowhere in this discussion is it mentioned that we are rapidly polluting ourselves out of a habitable planet. A falling population is not the problem. Restructuring our economy to make it fair and sustainable is.
Yes, precisely this.
A lot of us are working hard because our system's been re-aligned to create loads of bullshit jobs to keep people dependent and for "powerful" people to feel important.
I think most of how we've done it is basically jobs programmes for socio-political reasons. Not artificial scarcity (though that applies to the internet). We've got loads of cheap useless stuff. Loads of "sales and marketing" jobs around this cheap useless stuff. Then loads of finance jobs that are effectively useless, just to manage the wealth and pretend it's doing useful things by creating fictitious commodities they "invest" in. Then we've got a labyrinthine legal and regulatory apparatus that's a jobs programme. As is much of academia. And I haven't even gotten to "consultants" yet.
Strip all that away and our lives won't be that much different. But loads of middle class people will be unemployed and the bloc supporting the system will be gone.
Absolutely agree. The people relying on an economic lens are accelerating decline. My quality of life in a ‘rich’ country, is below that of a hunter gatherer, so what exactly is the point of working more to destabilize the biosphere?
What was the point of the appendix?
@@farhadchaudhry It doesn't make them important, it makes them powerful. They literally try to control every aspect of your life. They think they're fucking gods. And we don't hang them for heresy.
The privilege displayed here is astounding. I lasted for 1 and half hours and no discussion about the increase in wealth inequality which has reached the level of economic terrorism, and the lack of good paying jobs. Add to that the war mongering which sends our children to die or or become permanently injured physically or mentally. Add to that the militarization of police where people can receive death or injury unnecessarily. Add to that the increase in gun violence, especially in schools. These are all just for starters. The idea that we should all be more "cheerful" is just putting our heads in the sand and frankly comes off very cruel and disconnected. Sheesh, what a joke.
Wealth inequality has virtually nothing to do with the crashing birth rates. In countries with crushing wealth inequality, they can still maintain healthy birth rates. There's just no reason to make babies, because we have nothing to live for.
Thank you for your comment. I won’t waste my time. I’m going to assume that he has no concept of anthropogenic climate change & doesn’t mind that our bosses are paid 700 times more than us.
@@ollie2052000
By no means, the wealth inequality and capitalism is a problem. It's just that this issue is not caused by it.
💯% this guy is insane
That's because it's nothing to do with wealth inequality. Are you not aware the poor people across history from slum-dwellers to peasants have lots of children? The problem is that capitalism has destroyed communities including the primary base of communities, the extended family, which means mothers get very little support, which has made everyone in the comments here think having a child is inherently a horrible draining burden. It's a result of neoliberalism - not the antithesis.
Because I’m a guy when I was young I would’ve had to pay extra money on insurance. So I never learned to drive.
I was born poor and I don’t believe in debt so I was never able to go to college because I didn’t want to get into debt.
And now this asshole guy saying that because I don’t have kids, I should have to pay more in taxes .
Seems like I keep getting punished for for being responsible .
🤷🏻
If you want to have kids go ahead. I don’t give a shit but don’t punish me because I chose different.
Great point! We have to end poverty, international revolutionary communism is the way forwards.
You HAVE to have kids to keep the hamster wheel turning a profit for his pension.
Notice the way he describes our potential offspring? Future labour supply. Nothing about them being people or having any quality of life. They are a resource to be exploited. You must pay your life debt as they must pay theirs, ever increasing.
BREED PROLES! BREED!
@@UsualYaddaYadda Yep absolute scum the way they talk about the workers.
Just looked at his bastard's face and turned it off
I noticed that as well; cast of his mouth or something. @@nowisgodinyourlovelylife717
I just love how the birds and the bees and the trees don't charge each other to exist.
Now there's an idea! Fancy working as a tax advisor for bees and trees? I see some business potential there...
Of course they do, birds eat insects such as bees, that's a tax on the species' existence. The bees take pollen from the flowers created by birds transporting seeds. The trees feed off the corpses of birds absorbed into the soil, the birds occupy space on the trees for their nests, the bees and birds survive off the oxygen provided by the trees, etc. It's a perfectly balanced system of them all extracting a tax on the existence of the others.
Bees are organized in internal hierarchies, and they do pay for their existence by doing a specific job
@@damarcuscolfer1485 There is no tax. It's a free trade. Nobody involved in the trade is robbing any of the others of their value.
They do. Plants and animals constantly compete with one another for limited resources. If you gave one animal an edge, like we have with fossil fuels and technology, over another, they would totally demolish their competition outside and within their own species. Exploitation is written into nature because its by definition at war with itself.
"Is it time to tax the childless?"
Presumes continuation of the current, consumerist, extractive economic system.
Perhaps it's time to tax the profiteer, the divider of multigenetational communities, the urbaniser, the centraliser, the consumerist, the land holder, the meaning extractor...
Integrated families and communities can surely resolve the issues of an aging society, if they are able to spend time doing so and able to live nearby, all of which are restricted by imposing systems like consumerism.
Precisely.
Hear, hear.
He wants parenthood to be prioritized, no mention of the stigma that puts on childfree and childless people.
@@janewest2845 I don't know what "stigma" is to be honest.
Frankly, I'm past caring about how people "feel" or dealing with their precious world views based on how they feel.
The childless by choice should stay childless as they may not make great parents anyway, the childless by circumstance can always adopt as they will undoubtedly make better parents than some of the halfwits in our societies that have children.....but shouldn't have them.
I don't know how we fix this.....but fix it, we must.
We used to have things like that, you people made us get rid of them so we could build our modern welfare states.
That part at 1:09:35 about how the richer we get the less we can afford to have children really needs a consideration of Henry George and Progress and Poverty. George proposed back in 1870 that, because land value rises as societies get more developed, but instead of the community owning those gains in land value they get privately extracted, we have a vicious cycle in which the harder we work to pay our rent the higher the rent goes. We thus would inevitably have a harder time paying for children the richer we grew in commodities. Maybe instead of taxing people without children, we should tax land.
Absolutely! Progressively as well... the bigger the land holding, the more aggressive the tax rate.
Small is beautiful!
no, we can't discuss this topic because the answer is ending housing commodification
Yep. Instead of spending £20 billion per year on enriching the private landlords, spend it on providing actual housing, for free, to those with the greatest needs.
@@happinesstanSame. Imagine if a 200 year old population decline leads to lose of all these landlord wealth.... Nothing better!!!?
How did us baby boomers do so well?
It wasn’t like this in the old days.
Things were a lot easier; e.g. secure, reasonably paid, full time jobs; free university education; affordable housing ...... etc ....
Young people are getting the full benefits of neoliberalism.
1) Sky high housing costs have created generation rent
2) Student loans
3) Low wages and precarious part time jobs
4) A minimum wage specified at an hourly rate that won’t pay a living wage in a part time job
5) It’s all about investors, so people with money can make more money, and young people haven’t got any.
All the cards have been stacked against today’s young people.
They just can’t get anywhere in life.
I can readily compare what things were like for me, and what they are like for my daughter.
Superficially things are much better, but underneath its much worse.
She has just left University with a very good degree, but loaded up with debt.
This is where it starts getting difficult.
Getting a home and starting a family, I just can’t see how she is going to get there.
Personal experience has helped me understand the demographics problem.
@@krcalder so well said
Superficially better captures it perfectly!
Capitalists had to share because USSR was an alternative system. Once they've collapsed, no more sharing was needed
Honestly, I couldn't finish listening to the garbage he came out with.... I'm gobsmacked at how someone obviously THIS SMART can be so oblivious to so many issues....
Carbon capture...? Give me a break.... Technology is part of the problem. Food availability? Our current diet has ALREADY started and epidemic of metabolic diseases. Which is something else he's ignored, life expectancy is starting to drop.
Demographers all concentrate on birth rates and never discuss death rates..
AND he doesn't understand economics either.
No wonder we're fucked.
Spot on.
The Catholic Church used to be keen to breed as many sheep as possible, now it seems the billionaires that need more consumers.
Religions don't spread the teaching of having children because they need "sheep".
It's the other way around. The religion spreads because it has teachings that result in human survival & reproduction.
Any culture that doesn't reinforce the idea of raising children, is a culture that will die out & it won't spread.
Well back in the day they needed as much drones as possible to toil in the soil ;)
When you look at how wealthy they got... its basically just a different form of Capitalistic business model!
Who's going to take care of all the old people?
@@Stoddardian According to the "Corporate Utopia" that is Republican's Project 2025? Old people don't need to retire! You work (for men) or pump babies (for women) and are of no use to society anyways once you cannot fulfill these roles...
Seriously though, if we keep the current model of infinite population growth + infinite resource exploitation + infinite production? There won't be a livable planet left for people to retire on...
Having a child is a massive, lifelong responsibility: some people just do not want to carry that responsibility.
Lifelong? They become adults and become independent.
It's not as bad as it's made out to be.
@@vmoses1979 Yeah, cause kids just suddenly become independent at 18 with the ability to pay for their own rent and look after themselves as well. Ignoring the fact that your child could be born with disabilities and thus need life long care too.
The result of individualism
@@sameerdodger Whether they become independent or not you have the ability to kick them out of the house and never see them again. The state doesn't require you to support adult children. 18 years is not lifelong. Not difficult to understand.
"things are so much better now than they were when I was born..."
Nonsense, adjusted for inflation: wages are much less then 50/60/70 years ago... the rich and poor wealth divide is now greater than in the robber baron era of the 20's, cost of rent and housing is higher than back then, education is much less affordable than back then.
I think he is talking about his life, personally
I saw his comments in the context of 1880s Britain and Germany, childhood mortality rates, education opportunities, etc
Yeah, that's the Hans Rosling angle. Cherry-picked, everything's-fine bollocks to desperately keep the wheels from falling off the middle class cart... at least until the Boomers are too feeble to be angry at.
Sigh...
Don’t be a clown. He’s talking societal wide and he is correct
I'd argue that things are better in some ways, worse in others. Wealth inequality has never been higher, but our lives have improved in other ways because not everything revolves around the amount of wealth you have.
On balance I'd prefer to have lived 40-60 years ago though. A blissfully ignorant time.
It is a bit arrogant viewpoint to claim that "the world is better than it ever has been". Speaking from my experience as a Korean, I can say that Korean society has not necessarily improved. While the national economy has grown, this improvement seems to benefit only the wealthy. Many people struggle with long working hours and a lack of work-life balance which has been going for decades. With little government support, many people I know are hesitant to have more than one child.
Personally I believe that having fewer people would reduce the amount of energy we need to extract from the Earth, including oil, gas, water, and electricity. This would be beneficial for the environment.
I live in Japan, where population decline is the reality and already big news in large parts of the country. So its good to hear someone talk about the subject in other First World countries, even someone with a prominent blindspot about climate issues and sustainability, so I'm pleased Aaron has had this discussion. Population size and composition affect far more aspects of our lives than we realize. The middle class' favourite subject, housing and its value/cost, being just one of them.
He thinks people are historically naive if they don't want to have children. Which makes sense if you believe we're on the up and up and infinite growth is desirable and possible. I'd put forward that the last wee while has been a blip and HE is historically naive. Life has gotten easier by some measures but it won't stay that way. And in any case we're absolutely lost.
Concentrating too much on religion and not enough on wealth inequality .
Because the data doesn't support your conclusion
It does support that we wouldn't need to worry so much about the demographic crisis if we shared wealth. And that those in charge would have to care more about these problems and help solve them if they weren't so wealthy they could afford to ignore them.
@@Mr91Jmay neither does data support the theory that the cause of low birth rate is due to less people having a religion.
@firstnamelastname7003 still not enough people to do all the work required to look after old people. Pure numbers game.
@@Mr91Jmayhaven't the experts been telling us AI is replacing us anyway?
He’s ok with “tax the childless” but offended by “battle of sexes” Conservatism never changes. Never see the cause but look for solutions to the symptoms.
Indeed. They never met a palliative they couldn't embrace if it continued the mythos of the market.
Yet women still want more kids than men. Is that your point? Men decide how many kids? I dont believe that.
Your society is dying. A Failed society is one that produces death
@@hustler3of4culture3 You can certainly criticize the market, but birth rates collapsed in the USSR and other Eastern Bloc states. Of course, after the neoliberal shock therapy it collapsed even further, but still, communism doesn't seem to be able to solve this issue.
@@Stoddardian we'll see how China handles it then.
Paul seems to think he lives in a world where it's not the majority opinion that they want kids. Paul, most people are still having kids, the next generations might just be smaller - get over it. People are still going on and on about how rewarding it is to have kids - there's no stigma against it. If anything it's still a little unusual not to have kids, though much less so than it was previously. Those people having kids might actually have more kids if we didn't live in such an unequal society where the majority have so little wealth.
47% of US adults younger than 50 say they are unlikely to ever have kids.
"The next generation might be just smaller." But that is just his point. It's the consequences of that we need to face. He's also a demographer not a sociologist. So don't criticise him for not stepping outside the particular issue he's raising. It doesn't matter why people do or do not have children, for the purposes of this statistical analysis. What he is highlighting, however, is the challenge for policy makers.
Noone asks young women why they don't want to be mothers.
It's mostly men that have this Diskussion.
I Just don't want to ruin my body with pregnancy and I want my life for myself.
Great, as long as you don't reach out for a pension paid by my children's taxes.
They'll do anything but be real fathers and do half of childcare to alleviate women's burden. Not that population decline is even a problem in the first place.
@@ten_tego_teges Your children don't like you and they'll go socialist
Economic insecurity and the consequent inability to afford to bring up children is a big reason for lowering fertility. That’s a direct consequence of neo- classical economics.
When my mum had us she could afford to take a couple years out of the workplace and dad's salary alone cover the bills. No way my husband and I can do that, at best one of us can go temporarily part time (after the maternity period).
There's a weird gap in the UK between small baby and nursery where there is neither childcare provision, nor statutory leave. My parents aren't in a position to do childcare. So how's that all supposed to work then?
Why no women to discuss an issue totally dependent on women's bodies and the issue of choice? And the enormous impact of conception-blocking medication and abortion? And patriarchy and forced childbearing? And maybe we should ask women how and why they make the decision on whether or not to choose to bear a child? And what social changes and support might convince a woman she and her child would be supported by society at large if they do make that decision? Please ask some women about these critical issues!
It's not a panel discussion. Can't a man even express their opinion without someone hounding him for not being a woman?
"They" do ask women! And no woman, anywhere (!), has come up with a solution. To turn a general demographic, population reality into only a 'feminist's' issue is utterly hypocritical. Shame on you!
@@ChrisKasper-wc7cf"nO WomAn AnYwHaErE hAs CoMe Up wITH a solUtIon"
actually they have come up with many, menjust dont listen to them because they dont want to fix the problem unless its done on their own terms
also it is objectively and fundamentally a feministissue. Because at the end of the day, no matter what the cause of the birth decIine and what the solution is, the entire things falls on womenand whether they decide to have kids or not.
It's irked me for ages that any self-respecting leftist could seriously think it is empowering that we are forced to work rather than have a family life. Capitalism is the most anti-natalist force on earth. Given our species' uniquely long childhood, we are evolved to live communally and share the burden of child-raising. It needn't be so stressful to be a parent. They should be able to rest. Infants in hunter gatherer societies get held by an average of 20 different individuals each day. In Western societies today the average is ONE. Even in the West that is super recent. Such a dramatic change in child rearing would be recognised as an extinction threat in any other species.
I don't think any leftist is arguing that it is empowering to work rather than have a family life, I think you're perhaps framing a different argument uncharitably?
@matt69nice Really? There is a lot of anti-child discourse on the left, setting up a false dichotomy between having children or having personal freedom. Maybe I'm assuming the link between personal freedom and career goals but it's often implicit if not explicit. This view is inherited from liberals but it is still v much present on the left and should be shed.
@matt69nice Honestly look at the comment section for exhibit A.
Hear hear!
@@matt69nice
You haven't talked to many "leftist" women, it seems to me.
Many Western countries already have tax credits, deductions for being married, and having children. Thus, a tax cut compared to single people. So simply saying "increase" taxes for childless people is a bit redundant.
Not really, because the state doesn't have the resources to care for the childless.
@@polybian_bicycle but the state is the one preventing marriages and child birth with its no fault divorce laws
@@wamnicho
Well, perhaps, but I'd rather blame industrial society itself.
Academic Demography clearly tortured by the same lazy predilections of classical Econ. Why bother asking people why they have stopped having children when you can make sweeping generalisations via interpolation, applied to empirical observations that you've already decided are explanatory factors.
A shrinking population is mainly a problem if we are expecting more growth. If the population shrinks, we dont need more growth. We can get by with doing less if we expect fewer people in the future, and the available resources could ultimately increase per person relative to today.
We could choose to shrink to align with planetary boundaries. Choosing to overshoot even more seems counterproductive as a species.
I think the issue with this is that there is demographic change associated with a shrinking population, and that if the population shrinks rapidly, the working age population gets older and wants to retire, and there are fewer younger people to support them. I don't think this is necessarily a reason not to want the population to shrink, but it is a risk and an issue we should expect and be prepared for if/when the population does shrink.
“Resources” in the sense relevant to the modern world are largely dependent on labour, there's not a bunch of free stuff just hanging around on the land. If birthrates plummet, and the ratio of working age to elderly decreases along with it, you have much fewer resources per head, not more... A society that has 5 workers for every 1 older person has significantly more resources per head than one with only 1 worker per 1 retiree. Unless you're talking about going for some kind of TNG "Half a Life" (or Logan's Run) type situation, no, below replacement birth rates will not increase resources per person at all…
Looks like you completely failed to hear Paul's basic message. Our populations are shrinking, but the shrinking is happening in the young cohorts that are economically active and productive. Older population cohorts (>65) are definitely NOT shrinking. They continue to grow as life expectancy increases. These cohorts don't work. And they consume huge amounts of resources from the productive parts of the economy in the form of pensions and very expensive healthcare to treat the diseases of old age: cancer, cardiovascular pathologies, dementia, diabetes, obesity, CKD etc etc.
@@matt69nice there would indeed be challenges thrown up by the lag effect as we adjust to a new trajectory. However, ignoring overshoot would throw up even more challenges.
If we are not organising for growth, there would be other goals we could choose. None of these problems are unsolveable if we put our minds to it.
We can replace soulless social care with more intergenerational living, build more community support, etc. Post growth could bring many positives if we make choices in advance, instead of having them forced upon us through failure to act.
We expect there will be significant migration in the future due to the changing climate. In this context, supply of workers need not be a problem in the UK.
There are no workers without energy to feed them with. Energy and labour are both primary drivers of the turning materials into useful stuff. It is not labour alone.
If Aaron is correct about automation replacing workers, then a reducing workforce is likely to happen anyway. At least with an ageing population there would be fewer lay-offs due to AI and robots taking jobs. However, we'd also need more energy to power more machines...
@@baltasarnoreno5973 There are enough resources on this planet to take care of everyone. We just choose to not distribute it. Pressuring people to have children they do not want or cannot afford is a cop out solution no one is falling for anymore.
Good luck solving all the problems that humanity have right now without a resource based economy.
As the ancient Chinese proverb says, knowledge that our species has never had it so good butters no parsnips.
explain?
@@baddreams4368 Have you not read your Sun Tzu? I keep a copy within 1m of my eyes at all times.
@@RandallSlick lend it
😂
@@Funsizeskatezgir123 It's my gift to you with love xXx
What about how many people WANT children and have fertility issues? The lowering fertility rate is not just about choice. It's about the environment, poisoned food, etc.
On the flip side of the comminism bad regime, how is Capitalism a good system for maintaining birth rates if its created conditions globally which are actively making people decide to not have kids because they cant afford them, or in a more long term sense that its too dangerous because of its incessant need for growth at the expense of the health and sustainability of the planet. I think the data would show that there is a very strong correlation between the expansion of capitalist based economic models and those figures about falling birth rates. It seems to me that a system like that which will always lead to extraction type behavior will always create this kind of crisis because its fundamental premise is built on that very contradiction, it creates it own gravediggers.
Natalism is a capitalist support, that protects capital, not people. We would, ironically, become wealthier if more people were gay and marxist.
Income has little to do with the birth rates. It's more the narcissistic and nihilistic culture that modernity and capitalism have given birth to.
@@polybian_bicycle lol, right
Maybe write a book that will convince your posh mates to evenly distribute the wealth, and then people will be able to AFFORD to breed. 😉
did the guest imply it is entirely ethical to pump chemical waste however they wish unless someone can prove it is the leading cause in their death?
Intersting video but the current problems are there’s mass austerity & homelessness in the UK & US, there’s a genocide of Palestinians, there’s a famine in Sudan, there’s slavery in Congo. We need Marxism, & to work towards Marx’s idea of global peace & communism/anarchism. But to get to this we need to expropriate the billionaires & bankers & end imperialism by running our countries democratically where every human in the country has a say.
Instead of saying, "we need to work towards this specific political ideology because of x y and z", can't we say "people need to be able to afford to live to want to have children, if they see difficulties will be created from choosing to have children, such as being unable to escape from poverty, they will be reluctant to make such decisions, as they are intelligent enough to understand the difficulties that will arise from doing so". I just think saying we need to change the entire foundation of our political landscape is unrealistic (not that I disagree with the core thesis or marxism), instead, if we explain the situation and say to our leaders "this is why you should care about this, this is what the problem is, this is what will happen if we don't do something about this", it's a much more palpable way of enforcing change.
I enjoyed reading this back and forth. Toward the end of your comment you say that people just need to explain to those in power what needs to be done... But people have been talking for years and decades about all the problems... And much of it is answered with half hearted responses, scapegoats, hand waving, victim shaming, or fear mongering.
By design, they won't ever look at the system that put them in power. And the incentives once in power to ignore the core issues wrong with our society and world itself are too tempting. And even if a strong willed person in power refused the temptation... They would be standing alone against the machine that wants power and wealth above all else....
But having 15 million people refuse to pay taxes and refuse to work and refuse to move and refuse to say yes sir... That could make a difference @@anicebitofbreadtomopupthel7144
@@anicebitofbreadtomopupthel7144 hmm thank you, very constructive feedback
@@roscojenkins7451 brilliant comment, I 100% agree
We’re not going to run out of oil? We need to stop using it now, because we have already exceeded a safe amount of CO2 to put into the atmosphere. 8 billion people is way too many people for the ecological carrying capacity of the earth, never mind the predicted peak 10-11 billion. Ecological networks are already going into collapse. UK is already one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet and insect populations are crashing, forests unhealthy. Yes, a cliff edge in terms of population is not good for us and we shouldn’t be relying on high immigration to fill gaps in the labour market - although the flow of refugees is not likely to lessen in an increasingly unstable world. Relying on technology to get us out of the mess, which has largely been created by technology, is delusional - although technology will still have an important role to play.
Having kids is not where people should aim to convince people. It is very shortsighted. They work on the principle "once you have the kid, you're there", instead of convincing people that raising kids won't ruin them over 2 decades. If they are convinced their life will not be significantly worse due to the extra costs, stress and societal penalties (including by employers), then they will have as many kids as they would ideally want, instead of the number of kids they can marginally afford (one or less).
The demographic trends in Israel and the reasons behind them are not "anyone's guess", the reasons are known. Fertility treatments are free for everyone and you are financially incentivized to have more children. When the child payments went down, the ultra orthodox birthrate went down. It's disappointing that you get into this without knowing the ABCs of Israeli demographics
But similar policies in other countries have not delivered anything like a fertility rate of 3
What about the glaring fact that the state of Israel is a Western colonizing project in the form of an Apartheid settler state? Are high birth and fertility rates not a basis prerequisite for displacing a population and illegally seizing more and more land?
@@PaulMorland-ff8ip and the ultra orthodox in the US have lots of children without any of those incentives. Perhaps the OP shoukd give a tad more respect to someone who's done academic work on this topic and written a book.
If this was all there was to it, sure a place like Hungary would have a much higher birthrate? He has a pretty strong argument that the ethnic conflict factor is a relevant one in Israel (and in Palestine for that matter), as it was with the ROI vs NI case
@@vmoses1979 Except we still know why ultra-religious people tend to have more children. Reasons like believing birth control is a sin, not having access to birth control in religious and rural populations, believing your people are the chosen people and it is your duty to grow the religion, as well as what was mentioned above, like free fertility treatments. You can find similar patterns in ultra-religious groups in the US. It’s at least partially based in racism, sexism, and belief in ethnic superiority.
He keeps going on and on about the joys of having children as if people without children don't want that joy. Joy is a luxury many can't afford. THE PROBLEM IS CAPITALISM.
Then why low birth rates in China, Cuba and in pre-1989 Eastern Europe?
Friend, it seems the “luxury” of having children is reserved for the poorer countries of this world and poor members of society even in the UK. I’m not sure wealth has so much to do with this.
This'll be interesting... to see if Aaron (or even Novara in general) can tear themself away from their Infinite Growth apologism. The video's title, focusing on 'collapse' rather than 'reduction' doesn't suggest so. I love your work, but this always strikes me as a serious error in thinking; the daydream concept of infinite growth is the driving force behind settler colonialism, resource exploitation, inequality and capitalism. You know, the sort of nonsense that Chicago School economists believe and that is fucking the environment.
Look at things from a larger perspective. Humanity has gone from digging up roots with sticks, to the present world-spanning techno-civilization. It is not likely that we are going to stop at the technological level of 2024. You should embrace progress, by which I mean technological progress. Read some sci-fi, and warm to the idea. It is compatible with having flourishing ecosystems.
Please tell me how you embed links
Thanks
@@browncow7113 Agreed. I think it's important we look at things such as built-in obsolescence and other tricks of the trade that lead to over-consumption to no real benefit to the consumer, (and, indeed, to his or her detriment), rather than take the brute force approach of decrying consumerism and technological advances outright. I'm waiting for someone to invent a mobile phone with plug-and-play upgrades for example.
I think you are confusing the collapse of the population with the collapse of economic growth.
A population with a birth rate below 2.1 is a population that is collapsing & isn't sustainable.
Industrialised countries with collapsing populations tend to be the ones with large economic growth.
While industrialised countries are exploiting poorer nations, they are simultaneously experiencing a population collapse.
@@browncow7113 We will stop technological advancement because all industrialised nations inevitably result in unsustainable birth rates.
This is because the technology produces addictive entertainment & the spread of individualistic ideas.
The cultures that will survive are the ones that reject technology & prioritise the needs of the community above the desires of the individual.
These cultures will be like the Amish. Their birth rates are extremely high because their culture rejects individualism & reinforces holistic & communal teachings.
What a smug, condescending interview. We have an emergency climate crisis. Why don't you concentrate on the likely future of your children and grandchildren and what can be done to ensure that they have a sustainable world into which they can can live and procreate.
You didn’t watch this and don’t really understand much if you did eh?
Paul Morland seems kinda annoying. Appreciate Aaron defending prior socialist projects. We don’t live in particularly optimistic times, fertility will drop.
Fertility HAS dropped, sharply, globally. Those numbers started skyrocketing downward in 2021.
Guess why.
@@sculpy2758skyrocketing downwards eh?
submarining perhaps? 🙃
@@Muzikman127 I mean, if your rocket is deorbiting...
His argument about emissions going down in the UK etc is not correct per capita, it's just been outsourced to China etc.
He’s fine with that
He has a very smug, blinkered view of certain issues, perhaps arising from seeing every problem through a demographic lens. His ludicrous, straw man, argument about Gaza in his article for the Spectator is a prime example; railing against a view that practically no one holds whilst offering absolutely no insight into the actual causes of the conflict. His "pro natal" prescription is only justified if one believes that a continuously growing human population is a good thing, i.e. sustainable on a finite planet. There is practically no exploration of alternative models to proactively deal with a shrinking human population that would be kinder to the planet.
Human life on average is far better than it was true but looks at the catastrophic impact on biodiversity, natural resources, the environment - the price of improving the lives of billions of humans on environment, flora and fauna is simply too high. Pro natalist humans seem never to care about this trade off
And the decline in mental well being due to isolation and decreased community in our capitalist model.
There is no link between population and climate disaster. We have the technology to sustain billions of people without burning fossil fuels or using land for animal agriculture - our politicians are just choosing not to.
We are overpopulated now, in 1950 there were 2 billion people on earth, now we are closing in on 9 million, and the environment is suffering; in fact, it will collapse and so will the economy.
Tax the hell out of the 1%. Distribute the money to healthcare childcare education housing for the general population.
When you say we are a rich country you forget most of that wealth is concentrated in a small number of hands. To make matters worse the hands with the wealth, wether intentionally or not, are increasing the cost of living for those they are impoverishing by suppressing income, reducing housing supply and decimating health care and education. It is only governments that can fix this but in order to be elected and govern effectively they depend on the patronage of the very wealthy that need a hefty tax increase. The ownership of health care provision for the elderly by large corporations, for instance, has massively increased the cost to local goverments which they have no choice but to pay and which is a major contribution to many facing bankruptcy and the general collapse of vital services. The problem is not so much the number of elderly but the fact they are seen as an income stream that can be maximised at the expense of everyone else. That, and a similar situation with health care and the NHS that is seeing huge numbers of working age people along with the elderly being denied the treatment that would keep them fit, healthy and productive rather than a drain on the public purse.
You don’t adapt material circumstances to fit economic policy, you adapt economic policy to fit material circumstances.
Taxing the childless would be disproportionally hard on queer and disabled people
So?
I dunno about the disabled. They don’t tend to be taxable due to low income. But as for gay people - don’t you think that’s probably what he wants?
Only if it excludes people with adopted or fostered kids. Ofc it is harder for lgbt ppl to adopt/foster tho.
@@baltasarnoreno5973 Disabled people and other minority groups are already paying more due to discrimination, increased cost of living for those with disabilities, treatments for infertility or assisted reproduction, etc. Having children is not ethical for some people, and they should not be penalized for making responsible choices for their situation. In other cases, having children is not possible, and those people should not be penalized for a condition that is not their fault. Last I knew discrimination based on an inherent characteristic was supposed to be illegal.
And women... Most children fatherless will be raised by women and that is expensive men just need to pay childcare and that doesn't cover 50% of cost Most of the time
I’d agree, falling fertility rates isn’t the most prescient question. Wealth inequality and violence against women is a starting point. Plus younger women are choosing not to get married and have children because they are free not to. Address the societal impact of that. I’ll give you a clue. Give us respect and equality
This is a big aspect he didn’t mention. South Korean women are saying this is huge part of it. As are many women the world over. Many women have also been saying that it’s extremely difficult to find a mature man ready for commitment at a young enough age for a woman to still biologically have children. There are many cultural issues all over the world. Economic inequality and gender inequality are huge parts of the picture.
Aaron no robot will ever be able to change your baby’s nappy and cuddle her afterwards.
Unless they become sentient 👀👀👀
No, baby will just have to go without either in the brave new world!
Me and my girlfriend are in our early 30's and both know we dont want children.
One thing I'd like to see talked about more is taking some responsibility for looking after your health to ensure we dont need as much care when we're old.
Granted, some diseases are unavoidable. But we have an ever increasing overweight /obese population, none of the aged 50+ people i know do ANY form of physical activety aside from walking. We know that a lot of diseases and cancers are brought on through bad diet (too much saturated fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar) and lack of exercise. But nobody does anything to prevent them!
If we were in much better health as we aged, we'd be able to support ourselves better, both financially and physically, and this aging population issue would be lessened..
Read The China Study and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. It is animal protein that is the leading cause of cancers.
Morland misses the two most important facts that brought about the enormous increase in agricultural production in the 20th century - the mechanization of farming and the synthesis of nitrogen on an industrial level. There will be a global population collapse this century due to climate change, ecosystem collapse, and the exhaustion of accessible fossil fuels.
He certainly did mention the Haber Bosch process of Nitrogen Fixation (rather than Synthesis) which I think you are referring to. I think he may have also mentioned mechanisation.
To be fair to Morland, he does explicitly mention the Haber-Bosch process of nitrogen production when explaining the boom in agricultural productivity.
1:30:40
Thanks. My bad.
Thanks. My mistake.
That guy thinks people don't want to have kids because it'll be another person consuming more. What Aaron should've said, and it's disappointing that he didn't correct him, is that people don't want to bring children into the world where their baby has to breathe in micro plastics and toxic fumes from cars, swim in sewage filled rivers and seas, face a future of disrupted food supplies, face floods, droughts, sea rises and heatwaves.
That's not an opinion, it has a consensus across climate science. This guy just refuses to believe it. The classic technology will fix it and Aaron gave such a tepid push back
Totally agree with you.
Just because life has challenges doesn't mean it's not worth living and treasuring. Your perspective is imbalanced and lacking in healthy hope.
My god don’t have kids then
Back in the day, when wealth/income inequality was through the roof. When war, famine, pestilence, and grinding poverty were daily realities. You'd wonder, why any woman would wish to give birth. Then you remember how societies were arranged. How gender inequality was also rampant. How social demands reigned, and how the power of the church was all-encompassing. Add in zero contraceptives, zero education, and nothing remotely in the way of 'career opportunities'.
But modern life is different. Mostly. What men like Paul and Phillip can't grasp is why people might not be wanting to start families. What roadblocks are standing in their way. As for what frustrates those two. Is the old social pressures aren't what they were.
"Liberalism is Weak demographically". Pretty much sums it up.
In France, macron is very much seen as a right wing figure. And his policies and use of police are seen for some as extreme right/authoritarian.
An interesting idea that a child is just a biological mechanism to fulfil the biological goal of getting grandkids.
I always have two questions for pro-natalists. First, what technology is going to stop the mass extinction we are currently causing. Second, when the human population starts to get close to one trillion (about 300 years at one percent growth) how will those people deal with the inevitable population reduction.
All growth forecasts show population numbers will fall in the next hundred years so what are you on about. 1 trillion 😂😂😂
@@XavierJAlexander What I'm asking for is a change in thinking for pro-natalists. Very often they will raise economic issues as justification for continued population growth. If the population stops growing, our current economic system might collapse. Instead of finding increasingly destructive technology based solutions so that we can stuff as many people on Earth at one time, maybe we should find a way for our economic system to deal with a declining population without cratering. The one trillion number is meant to be ridiculous to illustrate that infinite growth on a finite planet is the philosophy of lunatics or economists.
Paul does some good analysis, but still ends up smoking the hopium on climate change….
Climate change is the whole reason... you can't just discount that to make your point. This guy couldn't be more of a white upper middle class boomer if he tried. Lovely that his life has been so untarnished by tragedy or significant difficulty, but i can't help but feel that his whole perspective is informed by an experience of life that many many people do not have for one reason or another.
Haber-Bosch, a process that caused our population to rocket from 1.5 billion to current numbers, but has been progressively destroying global fertility for a century. Not a solution, a trap that we are only just starting to reckon with.
If we want to increase fertility, we need to make IVF and other fertility treatments free, and to treat parenting as a full time job, worthy of a living wage.
Nononono, you see, mothers are supposed to raise the next generation of workers/soldiers _at no expense to the state_. Otherwise how will the next generation of CEOs get positive returns on their capital?
How dare you suggest an actual solution 🤬
If we want more children we need to enable people to be parents? Hm, novel idea this.
@@noorlita Literally the only thing that could tempt me into becoming a parent.
These two policies as well as some cultural shifts towards positivity around parenting and family life, would be really effective in increasing the population. I never really understood the justification for contraception and abortion being state funded, but not IVF and other fertility treatments. If it’s about genuine choice, family planning must include financial support to grow families as well as to limit them.
I cry pretty regularly thinking about how I will never own a home, have children or retire. If my taxes got bumped up because of my greatest regrets I would *verbs*.
As solo parent to two children… paying 25% tax on 39k and renting … I would be mad to ever consider another baby … wish I could … interesting interview
I got 2 kids and 3rd one coming,,,barely floating but still enjoying life 😌
The UK could fix this with inheritance tax reform. Heavily tax larger estates, but give tax breaks for each child and grandchild. The rich would have 10 kids each, with the bonus of being able to afford them, without being a drain on the state.
nobody saying that you'd have a lot more people for essential labour if we got rid of non-essential labour?
Simple solution! And I imagine our mental health would improve as people like to have a meaningful purpose.
@@riveranalyse the interviewee seems to be advocating encouraging an increasing birth-rate, without saying the quiet part, which is "to maintain the structures of capitalism".
@@mattdavies8153 Totally. I said elsewhere in these comments that there was a total lack of imagination in this interview.
What I can see in my own extended family is a progression towards less children. The better educated the less children ensue.
What?
People have gone over this for a while. What we need is to tax capital to fund the welfare state, not continue to rely on payroll taxation and encourage more births.
That said, if we adopt the features of the strong welfare state, including maintaining free social care, free childcare, council housing, public transport, living wages etc. the economic dis-incentive to having kids that currently exists would go away.
So maybe things will even out in the end. But of course, the rich do not want that to happen.
Higher taxes, and then a substantial universal child benefit . Tax cuts do not mean much to lower income families. A family friendly society, lower work hours. And normalise some people having more children and others none. Some people like raising children
Instead of complaining about the situación, better to deal with lower birth rates and older populations... economic growth is a no go once we run out of resources and specially fossil fuels, so we better get into our minds this trend wich will also help us get out of ecological overshoot.
45:00 I heard that the kurdish population is very unhappy because the syrian population has an incredible fast growing population in the same regions where kurds live.
Tax assets and not work, sooner we realise this the quicker we can address wealth inequality.
I try not to comment but since Novara have clipped his part against having fewer children and shared it around social media, I'm more than annoyed this time. The UK is not making great strides if you count the consumption based emission trend, and besides that, there are early relatively easy wins to be had, in fact early cuts should have been much greater than they have been in order to leave space in any given carbon budget to figure out the hardest problems in time. His vision for progress and how we will mitigate climate change, suggesting our yet to be born children will innovate their way to zero emissions with new tech, is not only far fetched and dangerous but it's also actually a political choice you're presenting as if it were the only choice. I know I'd have to write a lot more than this to explain properly but I also know it'll be ignored again so.. Enjoy your race to the future with farming asteroids etc.
Hope that it is. We need fewer people on the planet to preserve nature and resources, and stop the destruction of natural habitat. The world is overpopulated.
No it isn’t there’s plenty of space, there’s just been a Palestinian genocide & more people would help us colonise Mars. There’s no reason we need to live in poverty so that billionaires can have infinite money.
The problem is resource distribution under Capitalism. Continuous economic growth with finite resources. Capitalism will kill us all.
No the world is not over populated. 🤦♂️ Resource distribution is INEFFICIENT under capitalism.
@@hustler3of4culture3 THANK YOU! 🫂
I'd hardly think that our problems are inefficiency of distribution...
Willingness to distribute perhaps...
Necessity of importation perhaps...
Incapacity to meet one's own needs perhaps...
Efficiency is bandied about as an unalloyed, perfect solution to any problem and does not consider the oh, so human complexities. Efficiency is often the driving cause of the problems we face, enabling extraction and greed whilst disrupting our relationship between want, work and reward.
Nevertheless, Capitalism is wank, obvs. Totally agreed there.
We're also seeing a thousandfold increase of wealthy people's capital, and a constant increase of efficiency of productivity that is mainly responsible for the former. That's where you get the saving of the welfare state.
Stopped watching at 18:56, after the statement that "anyone who's worthy[!!!] or able to take advantage of a good education" in Japan already has.
Morland isn't arguing that WE need more people/labour: He's arguing that THE PERPETUATION OF EXISTING HIERARCHIES - which he obtusely sees as reflecting natural hierarchies of ability and worth - requires more people...:
1) People to work, to provide goods and services, in ways defined and apportioned by the institutions that establish and perpetuate inequalities (of reward AND of capacity - the latter engineered in modern capitalist societies as surely as in Huxley's Brave New World), and
2) People to do enough work, provide enough in the way of goods and services, to ensure that an absurd and unsustainable superfluity of rewards still goes to those in privileged positions.
Neither of those conditions - the unequal apportioning of education, of social and cultural capital, etc., with the apparent bottlenecks in productivity this entails, or the need to support conspicuous over-consumption on the part of privileged minorities (the announcement of their 'ability' and 'worth') - is natural, inevitable, happy-making or sustainable.
Distinguish society as a agglomeration of people from society as a set of institutionally-defined hierarchies, and Morland's work is revealed as nothing but a scaremongering strategy to shore up the latter.
yes, I think he'd enjoy speaking to Jordan Peterson, they'd have a lot to agree on.
well except China is a Confucius country which values the family the most deep down, Japan has the legacy of clan based feudalism carried all the way to the modern economy (Zaibatsu) as well as the social structure which shares a lot of commonalities with South Korea, South Korea itself is almost a Christian country in its own right.
the fertility rate drop has much to do with the economy advances, wealth distribution and the influence of Western liberalism rather than culture and religious reason, none of these countries are fundamentally Buddhist countries to begin with, Japan has a mixture of Shinto and Mahayana/Zen Buddhism but the combination has very little impact on the fertility rate throughout their history, China culturally is predominantly Confucius it only contributes rather than impedes on fertility rate, not commenting on South Korea in this regard, but overall, your stand of religious/culture reason impacting on fertility rate in East Asia countries is a bit far-fetched and groundless.
People don’t have kids because they are poor. Most couples need money to establish a household before they think of churning out kids. Taxing the childless would very possibly have the opposite effect
What is a "tax on the childless" but making people pay for other people's kids. It's like being forced to make child maintenance payments, when you're not the mother or father.
An analysis of a decreasing human population in first world countries and the associated problems is a cause for concern. We have to address this critical issue, and the fact that is often overlooked in mainstream discourse is concerning. Declining birth rates, aging populations, and the demographic imbalances that many nations face, especially in the developed world, are beginning to face isn’t discussed. Why?
A shrinking population will have severe consequences for economic growth and sustainability under the current capitalist framework. As birth rates fall and life expectancy rises, the ratio of working-age individuals to retirees diminishes, placing enormous pressure on social services, healthcare systems, and especially pension schemes. This imbalance threatens to destabilise economies that rely on continuous growth and a large, active workforce. We need to rethink our economic models to adapt to these demographic realities, rather than clinging to outdated assumptions about perpetual growth.
The social and political challenges that come with a collapsing population, as populations shrink, rural depopulation, labor shortages, and the decline of community structures will likely accelerate, leading to increased isolation and inequality. Let's get thinking about solutions, such as embracing automation, improving social safety nets, and encouraging policies that support both younger and older generations. We need a more global perspective, as population decline in wealthier nations contrasts with rapid population growth in poorer regions, necessitating international cooperation and a fairer distribution of resources and Immigration.
Neoliberal orthodoxy needs to evaluate itself, which often fails to address the deeper implications of demographic collapse. What we need is transformative policies that emphasise sustainability, redistribution, and technological innovation, ensuring that society can thrive even in the face of these demographic shifts. Managing decline of population is one aspect. but what about seizing the opportunity to build a more equitable and resilient world.
The challenges of a collapsing human population requires not just awareness, but bold, visionary thinking. Human welfare, sustainability, and justice are crucial, I am concerned about the future of society in an age of demographic change.
I'm glad Aaron is talking about this 😊
I cant se declining birth rates as a problem. One have to adjust society acordingly. You think life will be easier with increasing climate change?
See Prince Philip comments. I struggle to picture they're this incompetent and that is not in fact a design feature rather than a flaw. The rich and powerful will be somewhat insulated for longer and will get to build the world again in their image, it'll only be us plebs that'll likely get fucked. By design.
Well said. Rarely in the history of species do they recover from declines like this. I fear humanity is headed for the same path. This could just be part of the story of the earth. Is humanity as we know it merry another entry in that story?
You're preaching to the wrong people.
Most reading this have been psychologically manipulated into believing that humans are bad, that climate change is real, and that population collapse is a good thing.
@@robertpedersen6831it’s like you’ve not even understood the argument being made
My respect for Aaron went down after this podcast :(
I’m going to assume that he has no concept of anthropogenic climate change & doesn’t mind that our bosses are paid 700 times more than us.
He does, he simply recognises that that doesn't devalue life nor the pursuit of its precious continuation.
@@damarcuscolfer1485are you a god botherer?
@@deanmcinerney2324 Nope
Only recently saw Aaron tell Trigonometry pod that ageing population was an issue we weren’t paying enough attention too.
This has been a great podcast so fa, Aaron knows his stuff. Great to see someone on the left give this issue the serious attention it deserves
Positive reinforcement is much stronger than punishment. We need people to feel a sense of community, belonging, agency, optimism, freedom, opportumity
I’m more than halfway through watching and I don’t think they’ve yet mentioned the research suggesting that many childless people say it wasn’t their choice. People with only one child, or with none at all, say it was just how circumstances turned out.
This conversation reminds me of some thoughts i’ve had about horses.
When you advocate for cycling infra, people ask you want to go back to the days of the horse and cart.
It occurred to me that horse are actually pretty great, because if you own a male and a female horse you not only own the vehicle you also own the factory that makes more vehicles and you can just breed yourself a 3rd and 4th horse.
The fuel for the horse is also lying around everywhere.
Once you move to using a car in stead of a horse, you need someone else to build you your transport and some one to bring you the fuel to make it move.
It seem to me that the technologist wet dream is to convince us that we don’ t need children because their machine can replace human labour.
I think the issue with pro-natalist policy is that families are communist units. The more we support the family the more we push back the boundary for the state and the private sector.
This is a 180 degree change in direction, where the state and the private sector have increasing been taking the functions of the family. That is why it is difficult. our culture is currently misanthropic
"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", Friedrich Engels
Also, neither children nor horses exist to be enslaved and exploited by you.
@@plurabelle5tbf I own an e-cargo bike that I power from my own roof top Solar. So something of a halfway house between the dependence of a car and the freedom of a donkey. But my feeling is, that maybe many people are being exploited by the 'conveyance' of industrial society.
I guess we don't want to turn the clock all the way back, but we also need to get out of the technological fur lined trap. And find a way to make this stuff work for us, rather than the other way round
Listening to smug stories of how having children is the most wonderful thing you can do, was almost nauseating at times. It's all very well talking from the perspective of the middle class where you can afford great childcare and you don't have to worry how you will feed and clothe your children or pay the bills. It's like he's unaware that 1.6 million people in the UK are living in poverty. Not enough pushback from Aaron in this discussion.
Right, cause it's the middle class that is known for high fertility.
"tax the childless" ie punish the poors for not creating more labour for the owning class to exploit. Perhaps we tighten wealth distribution so that the working class can procrate without less uncertainty about their future ability to support families.
There's and will be overpopulation under capitalism as a structure, due to the fact that even if 1 human can produce food for 3000 humans with machinery everyone has to "earn a living" creating something or working for some company that does, and problably in something that we dont really NEED, so hence waste of human potential,land, resources..etc
Ppl have just not been shown different structures to be able to imagine different worlds.
Lucky or unlucky for me i did, and theres no turn back to normality within a broken/mindless society.😬
It seems to me that one of the main reasons young people are not having kids is because they just can't afford it. Disparity of wealth is a key factor in this and much of that follows on from the introduction of trickle down economics introduced by the likes of Thatcher and Ragan. I child is an investment in the future and if you can afford that investment or you don't have faith in the future you are less likely to have kids. When the population falls to a critical level hopefully we will see a rebalancing of wealth, such as happened after the plagues of the middle ages.
Down a shot of absinthe every time Aaron says 'I'm on the left' or 'petit bourgeois' 👾
Aaron is petty bourgeois. He owns a successful business with a small number of employees called Novara Media. I don't understand why Aaron and others at Novara regard petty bourgeois as 'bad'. It's like he hates the good qualities in himself because his God Karl Marx told him to. The fact Aaron had the political freedom and personal talent to set up his own business and make it a success and earn a decent living from it is a good thing in my opinion. I would hate a world where differences of opinion are forbidden.
In a new study in the USA, 63% of young men refuse to date or get married. 😅
I highly doubt he has any standards for the extent of non-anthropomorphic biodiversity there should be, considering he's both against human population decline and also mentions "going back to the caves" in a belittling tone, implying he has takes the longevity of high resource consumption for granted. That nullifies a priori 2/3 of the multipliers of a population's environmental effect for the worse and leaves solution solely for innovation à la Julian Simon - which has a solid track record of grooming people into ever increasing levels of consumption and insidious generationally shifting baselines for people's awareness of biodiversity degradation.
Mind you, that sourcing the foundations of one's lifestyle "out of sight, out of mind" has never been healthy anyway.
No, dying between 50 and 60 years of age suits this Finn better. New innovations I rarely find myself caring about as I've never had a future horizon beyond two weeks anyway. But restoring all waterways to their natural state I care about, as well as setting most territories formerly covered in old-growth forests up for the latter's long-term renewal. I also prefer proximity to actual wildlife and residential buildings lower than trees for all human settlements, so decline trumps density for me.
The day rich people will understand they have to share a lot will change.
Otherwise that will carry on like it is.
It is just a normal way, we are not living in community, we are living to abuse of others.
Every single time we do it because we are in deny, we carry on.
Human is stupid that the way it is and the more it has talent or intelligent the more dangerous it is for the rest of the world.
So imagine the future when you see what you can watch on tv...
This is why they didn’t codify Roe versus Wade.
i don't have kids and feel super happy about my situation. why provide free labor units to a country characterized by severe income inequality, rising poverty, super expensive housing, and completely unaffordable healthcare?
Demoghraphy is talked about by Peter Zeihan all the time.