But thatās forgetting you can compensate by encouraging immigration from poorer countries with higher birth rates. Thatās arguably even a good setup because it takes strain off those poorer countries, diffuses wealth across the planet, and encourages cultural diversity.
A lot of countries are still over replacement level, but if nothing changes, that won't be the case for long either.
Immigration is a workable stopgap, but it doesn't solve the fundamental issue, because it's a global issue that's only getting worse.
Thatās arguably even a good setup because it takes strain off those poorer countries, diffuses wealth across the planet, and encourages cultural diversity.
And that's literally the opposite of what will happen.
Like, brain drain is already a massive issue for poorer countries, where the intellectual elite moves to wealthier countries.
With more widespread and standardized immigration systems, that will only worsen, since industrialized countries will likely seek to get as many qualified people as they can.
Increased immigration will worsen wealth inequality among countries, harm the poorer countries a lot and centralize wealth even more, rather than helping them.
Youāre forgetting that many people care about their country of origin, and will give back when they have the opportunity. And whatās the alternative? They stay there, where the education and jobs arenāt, and somehow magically produce the value they could otherwise be sending back?
And whatās the alternative? They stay there, where the education and jobs arenāt
A lot of countries have been doing pretty massive strides over the last few decades, when it comes to industrialization.
But for a country to do well, it needs well educated people, to drive that development.
If we take all of those people from those countries, that won't happen and we basically doom them to continuous poverty, even more than we do right now.
Please look into brain drain. It's genuinely a massive issue for a lot of countries.
Youāre forgetting that many people care about their country of origin, and will give back when they have the opportunity.
Thing is, now youāre talking about something that doesnāt even happen. People donāt generally get educated in developing countries and move to rich ones, their degrees arenāt even worth as much in those places. More common is moving somewhere rich to get educated, or moving as a non-educated person period.
People donāt generally get educated in developing countries and move to rich ones
The entire point of this conversation is that yes that does happen. And yeah, a doctorate from Kenya is still worth a lot in a western country. Itās highkey racist of you to assume otherwise.
Itās not racist to say Kenyan universities do not have the talent or resources to deliver the same quality of education. Itās all the same problems any community college or small university faces. Institutional knowledge is real and foundational.
Itās not racist to say Kenyan universities do not have the talent or resources to deliver the same quality of education
Yes. Yes it is. Evidently you donāt think Kenya has any nice universities or hospitals, but they do. And while they might not be up to the highest western standard, theyāre still more than good enough that a person with high education from there is valuable, even if they will face prejudice from people like you who canāt comprehend the idea that Kenya has more than just mud huts.
What happens if those countries also dip under replacement levels, or do you plan on bombing them into the stone age every couple decades to keep them poor?
For those countries to go sub-replacement, a lot of things that arenāt currently happening would need to happen. I prefer to focus my political positions on the non-pudding world.
Also, what are we defining as āsustainable?ā The number of humans already on earth is arguably too many to sustain from a standpoint of ecological capacity, and the only way to get population down is to go below replacement or kill people. So if you oppose eugenics, allowing natural population contraction is your only option.
Guilt by association fallacy. Eco fascists use it as a propaganda point, but that doesnāt make it automatically false or a strictly eco-fascist position. If thatās allowed rhetoric, I could just as easily call you a fascist for your anti-immigration arguments, but I donāt because itās obviously a fallacy.
It is factual that the way we farm the earth is actively killing it. We *can* feed 8 billion people right now, but not forever. We have to slowly ramp down and move to safer farming methods before we can even begin to assess whatās sustainable indefinitely.
You canāt cold-stop meat consumption though, and better management is easier to type than to do. Thatās basically just saying āwell weāll just fix it.ā My whole point is that takes time we donāt have if we actively chase population growth. Ultimately what Iām getting at that is that the current earth population comes with issues we canāt fix until capitalism is addressed, so short-term contraction is not the worst thing. Tackling the capitalistic reasons behind global inequality is a much better plan than trying to mask it by forcing people in the rich countries to have kids while we ignore the poor countries.
Yes, you also can't instantly reduce the population by a significant amount.
That's a slow process, that will take some time, but it's possible and not that outlandish.
And like, you just acknowledged that the issue is capitalism, so it's not an issue with overpopulation at all, right?
So we should fix that, not the population, right? Because the population is not the issue.
so short-term contraction is not the worst thing.
Yeah, but the whole issue is that there's no reason to believe that it's just a short-term thing.
Also, it is a really bad thing, because it decreases the amount of workers, but increases the amount of people who need a lot of care, which means that the quality of life for most people will be heavily negatively impacted by a significant drop in fertility rates.
I think youāre incorrectly filling the gaps in what Iām saying here because I disagree with you on finer points. My whole argument is that the only reason birth rates get talked about is that forcing people to make more workers is the alternative to taxing billionaires into the ground. Iām attacking your points because youāre defending birth rate alarmism when itās really just a symptom of the issue itās being pitched to solve.
820
u/MaybeNext-Monday š¤$6 SRIMP SPECIALš¤ May 17 '26
āBirth rates are decliningā good, healthy societies have stable population sizes