Is a low birth rate a good thing or a bad thing?

[OtterMan68]

Good: we don't need more people competing for jobs and resources

Bad thing: We need a growing population to pay into social security and medicare and create more jobs

Good, but for another reason than you listed

Bad, but for another reason than you listed

not sure/haven't considered it

[DarkLegacy]

It can be a good thing because we are suffering with a lack of resources and some will run out altogether unless renewable. We already have too much people on the planet already and this is worsening global warming and helps to spread disease.

When the worst effects o climate change take hold we will have less land due to rising sea levels and more regions becoming to hot be habitable. Too many people living in the UK is taking up services, we don't have enough housing to go round and waiting times on the NHS are ridiculously long.

However it can also be a bad thing in the present time as it is impacting the workforce but im guesing robots will help this out.

[Drumlin2001]

It's complicated. We're approaching 8 billion on the planet. That's too many. So a falling bithh rate would seem good. But in many countries they have an aging population, which means in 20-40years there's going to be a real strain on services and fewer working age people to pay taxes.

[Drewtate]

Hard to say. I don't believe in history that it's ever been an issue. It basically means that as people get older the younger will end up with a bigger burden of looking after the elderly. There's also the danger that being elderly your pension and social security is worth less if things cost more, you might own your own home but end up losing it because your pension and social security are worth less and you can't pay the huge property taxes on your home because you've no real source of income and are too old to work.

[OtterMan68]

if only we had not set up SS and medicare to where younger workers are needed to care for the older workers, and paying into SS and Medicare was enough for each person.

[Drewtate]

It wouldn't matter. If the government or corporations sees a large percentage of the population has money and resources they want then they look for legal ways to take it from them. Social Security is a big pot of money that the federal government or a company like Pfizer would love to put in their pockets.
There's been many examples of this recently. Look at the banking crisis, banks caused it, taxpayers bailed them out, taxpayers lost their homes and buisnesses, bankers got bonuses.
Look what often happens in some prime real estate areas. A couple bought their home 30 or 40 years ago and have retired, they along with other residents have spent decades making it a great place to live then some wealthy people buy a 2nd home or buy blocks of property to rent out and what happens is the local authorities decide to raise property taxes to the point ordinary people can't afford and they get evicted when they can't pay and their home gets bought up.

[Chazmatazz269]

Good for the people who have to fight for scraps off the tables of the elites while they lie about the scarcity of resources. Bad for the banks who want more people buying crap and borrowing money. Bad for the capitalists who want abundant, cheap and expendable sources of labor.

[msc545]

We have a low birth rate because men are declining to participate in this process due to the weaponization and monetization of children in child custody and divorce by women. Why would I want to participate in a process that is designed to create another human being who a woman will then take advantage of in order to extract money from me while simultaneously divorcing me? You can complain and catastrophize about the low birth rate all you want. But again, it's reflective of the maladaptive and frankly evil machinations of women in their unending quest to oppress and manipulate men.

[NaultD]

You need on average 2.3 kids for every adult to maintain society. China with one child policy, South Korea and japan having almost no immigration. With USA barely over the edge with immigration.

You always want majority of working and investing age people 20 to 50 as the largest groups with people naturally dying when it is time. You want people having kids to replace them. Of course people don't want or even can't have kids so even 4 plus are to replace other adults.

[OtterMan68]

why must the population grow? Why can't it stabilize?

[NaultD]

That's minimum to maintain stability. To put in bluntly we have a baby boomer thing with way too many people retirement who should pass on when it is time.

When you retire the infrastructure for retirement is downsizing over 1/3 if not closer to half.

When I retire it should be the same size as your retire and for my own kids retirement be similar to yours.

[OtterMan68]

so if we hadn't set up SS and medicare as pyramid schemes, would we still need the population to grow?
Do we need more people to pay for older people or to care for them?

[NaultD]

I personally hate to see senior citizens who are homeless. They devalue my property, and I would like them to be in homes. The same goes for when I am old.

You can either pay it forward as cost-effectively as possible with a plan or pay for it later with compound interest as expensively as possible, with no idea what's happening, like how we deal with our healthcare and the homeless.

We also want a little wiggle room for mass die-offs like a natural disaster. Plugging your finger in the leaking dam isn't a solution. Pay it forward as cost-effectively as possible with a plan or pay compound interest just throwing money at the problem until it goes away.

[Berethor]

It both, it's a about balance, it make Japan to die out so I would go with bad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/03/japan-low-births-population-decline-2021/

[OtterMan68]

they won't die out. Their popuation will shrink, and they are very good at automation, so they can adapt.

[exitseven]

It is good. There are already too many people. They are like dog shit, they are everywhere. There is too much traffic, all the open space is being turned into strip malls and we are running out of resources like drinking water.

[Hanrej]

No change is entirely good or bad. The population need to decrease for sustainability however with fewer people in the coming generations older people will be forced to work far longer into their last years as there simply will not be enough young people to support a functioning system otherwise. Competing for jobs is a non-issue compared to how screwed we will all be when the number of people in need of service outweigh the number of people available to provide said service.

[OtterMan68]

if only if we had not set up SS and medicare as ponzi schemes

[dolemite58]

I think it’s good, I liked the population more when it was smaller. The world is being overrun with 300 lb trans communists now.

[NathanDavis]

good for the world... bad for business

[OtterMan68]

well put

[jahaims]

The way society is set up right now it's a bad thing.

[OtterMan68]

how so?

[jahaims]

Basically, society is set up as a pyramid scheme. If you don't have higher numbers at the bottom, then a lot of systems collapse.

[OtterMan68]

yep, unfortunately, you're right: Social security and medicare are pyramid schemes

[jahaims]

Those are the obvious ones but not the only ones.

[WhiteBoyChill]

Bad thing. But high rates can be bad also if its just a bunch of baby mamas having like 6 kids and welfare checks

[OtterMan68]

why is it bad?

[WhiteBoyChill]

Too few means not enough workers. Too many children for instance means money dries up quickly and the population is hard to sustain

[OtterMan68]

couldn't automation make up for a stable or even declining population?

[WhiteBoyChill]

Automation would probably cost more than just paying a bunch of latino immigrants on work visas $10 an hour

[DrPepper12]

It depends. In India it's great, it Italy it's a national crisis.

[wiltingrosepetal]

Bad thing, very very bad thing