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When creating this document, our goal wasn't to give people the impression that our populations should expand in number indefinitely (especially not on Earth alone). You're right that expecting the planet to shoulder indefinite population growth is impractical.

We're just trying to highlight the hazards of population decline that hits humanity like a tidal wave and produces unnecessary suffering and damage. There are ways for populations to sustainably decline without wiping out entire cultures, for example.

We, personally, care a lot about memetic/cultural diversity and worry that a population collapse for which we don't prepare will eliminate loads of perspectives that would otherwise contribute great new innovations and technologies to humanity's future.

We also think it's important that people know that population decline will affect certain fundamentals upon which their lives are based (e.g. "I put all my retirement savings in the stock market because on average the stock market always goes up" isn't going to be a healthy thought when population decline accelerates).

discuss

DemocracyFTW2|3 years ago

I'm happy to hear that the overall perspective is relatable and sober although I can not agree on 'tidal wave' and 'apocalypse'. 'Antideluge' or 'negative tsunami', anyone?

You know, you could even blame Russia's current war on its declining population (their leader desperately trying to keep together the country and the people) but I know of another Great War that was fought under the pretense of having the right to expand b/c of a growing population (and they happened to have laid their eyes on the same stretches of fertile farmland). I do not believe in either, the reasons being in both cases largely unrelated to demographic growth or lack thereof. Given that this former event did cause stocks to take a plunge, well, that's what trouble and disorder give you, trouble and disorder. And that can have so many reasons that I'm not afraid of the shrinking population => economic setback linkage, even if and so far as it does have predictive value.