ZPG - Do you remember?

[finnime]

Per a NY Times article,

"A baby born this year will be 60 in the 2080s, when demographers at the U.N. expect the size of humanity to peak. The Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna places the peak in the 2070s. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington puts it in the 2060s. All of the predictions agree on one thing: We peak soon."

I remember the Zero Population Growth movement and when China adopted severe restrictions on birthrate so as to feed its people. Now it looks like we are soon to be in a global ZPG without any mandates. Interesting.

[resolution]

I remember in college I took a class in resource management, and it had a big segment about Malthusian theory and whether we would overpopulate the earth. Very doom and gloom about how our resources and innovation need to continually expand to prevent starvation.

It is kind of nice to have the opposite problem, although there will be issues with things like elder care and how our capitalist society reacts to no more infinite expansion. Hopefully societies like Japan will come up with some solutions that we can copy before it gets too widespread.

[billisonboard]

I hope their predictions will end up being accurate. I see some real possibilities for major climate issues, potentially leading to wars, which could zero growth out even sooner. 

[finnime]

Resources are The Problem, no doubt. We are not equipped now to have an increasing number of older and older people, nor are other countries. 

[TheOtherMe]

I well remember the zero population growth movement.  That was when I was living in a commune.  One of my roommates was in to combatting world hunger and climate change way back then.  

A man ahead of his time.

Our meals were intentionally planned and he had to approve before groceries were purchased.

We grew a lot of our own food, as much as we had room for.

Before you think I had gone over the deep end, we were a group of people who all attended the same church ministry on campus, so there was also worship.  

We definitely exceeded Boulder's occupancy limits but the Mayor was on the board of the church group and she got us an exemption.  She would come visit and eat with us.  

[azucena]

Sept 19, 2023 10:21:25 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

I well remember the zero population growth movement.  That was when I was living in a commune.  One of my roommates was in to combatting world hunger and climate change way back then.  

A man ahead of his time.

Our meals were intentionally planned and he had to approve before groceries were purchased.

We grew a lot of our own food, as much as we had room for.

Before you think I had gone over the deep end, we were a group of people who all attended the same church ministry on campus, so there was also worship.  

We definitely exceeded Boulder's occupancy limits but the Mayor was on the board of the church group and she got us an exemption.  She would come visit and eat with us.  

You've led an interesting and full life

[giramomma]

Sept 19, 2023 9:07:45 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I hope their predictions will end up being accurate. I see some real possibilities for major climate issues, potentially leading to wars, which could zero growth out even sooner. 

Wars with other countries? Wars on our own soil?

It's also an interesting balance of having enough folks around to work. In my area, I think the effects of the last administration are starting to soften. We're seeing diversity back in jobs/industries that before Trump, were largely filled by undocumented workers.

Not at the level was at, say 15 years ago.

A lot of places are still looking for workers. There's already serious shortages of workers in areas like teaching. Smaller families mean less people to go into these jobs.

 I don't think we're at a point, yet, where we are comfortable with introducing automation into the education of our kids.

Shortening the school day for younger kids could be an option. 4K-3rd grade purely academic work could be done in about 4 hours. The problem, of course, is that the kids have to go somewhere for the rest of the day and child care resources are already strained (which is why now we consider school essentially childcare for our kids).

Religious vocations, too, have had a hard time as families have gotten smaller. I live in a city of 250K.  We belong to the largest parish in the diocese. The young priests are in their 60s. Catholicism I think, literally, is going to die out.

I don't feel bad with regards to the fact that we have a larger family. We're pretty mindful about our consumption.

[billisonboard]

Sept 19, 2023 19:09:45 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Sept 19, 2023 9:07:45 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I hope their predictions will end up being accurate. I see some real possibilities for major climate issues, potentially leading to wars, which could zero growth out even sooner. 

Wars with other countries? Wars on our own soil?

It's also an interesting balance of having enough folks around to work. In my area, I think the effects of the last administration are starting to soften. We're seeing diversity back in jobs/industries that before Trump, were largely filled by undocumented workers.

Not at the level was at, say 15 years ago.

A lot of places are still looking for workers. There's already serious shortages of workers in areas like teaching. Smaller families mean less people to go into these jobs.

 I don't think we're at a point, yet, where we are comfortable with introducing automation into the education of our kids.

Shortening the school day for younger kids could be an option. 4K-3rd grade purely academic work could be done in about 4 hours. The problem, of course, is that the kids have to go somewhere for the rest of the day and child care resources are already strained (which is why now we consider school essentially childcare for our kids).

Religious vocations, too, have had a hard time as families have gotten smaller. I live in a city of 250K.  We belong to the largest parish in the diocese. The young priests are in their 60s. Catholicism I think, literally, is going to die out.

I don't feel bad with regards to the fact that we have a larger family. We're pretty mindful about our consumption.

"... demographers at the U.N. expect the size of humanity to peak."

The OP and my response is about global. So yes, potential of wars between the US and other countries, regional wars within the US (likely over water), and perhaps even wars which are not about US at all.

[TheOtherMe]

It's not just the Catholic church that is having problems finding clergy.  I know the local priest has 4 churches to cover.  The Methodist church is similar.  

The Methodist church where my mom's family attended is down to 14 members.  That poor minister has 8 churches.  She does 4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.

[billisonboard]

Seems like God needs to be working the phones. 

[Tiny]

Is hitting the peak and then some decline a bad thing though?

What the article says about the decline -

What would happen as a consequence? Over the past 200 years, humanity’s population growth has gone hand in hand with profound advances in living standards and health: longer lives, healthier children, better education, shorter workweeks and many more improvements. Our period of progress began recently, bringing the discovery of antibiotics, the invention of electric lightbulbs, video calls with Grandma and the possibility of eradicating Guinea worm disease. In this short period, humanity has been large and growing. Economists who study growth and progress don’t think this is a coincidence. Innovations and discoveries are made by people. In a world with fewer people in it, the loss of so much human potential may threaten humanity’s continued path toward better lives.

What if there is a limit to innovations and discoveries made by people? What if fewer humans means nearly ALL humans get to enjoy and partake in higher levels of living standards, health, longer lives, healthier children, better education, shorter workweeks and many more improvements - without continuing rapidly changing "innovations and discoveries"?

Isn't this a little of bit of wishing for the "good old days" when things stayed more or less the same for a life time or two? But where the "staying the same" stuff is nice and pleasant for EVERYONE not just those with privilege or money? I'm not sure I'm saying that right...

[finnime]

That's a good point, Tiny. In an ideal system there are plenty of resources for all. At least for humans scarcity seems correlated with larger families and fewer resources per capita. But our economic system pushes wealth=resources to a concentrated few. Maybe that will change and we will globally become more socialistic. It seems that some things must change. We can't go on with the expectation that the older generation be supported by the younger, when there are many fewer younger.

[thyme4change]

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

[nidena]

That is my thoughts, too, thyme4change.  They either get Zero growth or they get total and near-total abortion bans.  Govts can't complain about using up resources when they're not doing anything help quell population growth.  As it is, even with a pandemic deaths the US didn't cancel out positive growth.

[Pink Cashmere]

Sept 20, 2023 12:27:48 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

But if we make birth control illegal, and the a-word illegal across the entire country, that means the “undesirables” will also be having more babies. I understand that whack-a-doos are illogical in the first place, but I don’t understand how they can’t even figure that part out, about the unintended consequences of forcing more people to have babies. Many, if not most, of those babies will NOT have blonde hair and blue eyes and will be “mixed” at *best*, or even “worse”….  be a completely different race or ethnicity than what the whack-a-doos want. 

I want to ask if they are really that stupid, but I already know the answer…. Yes, they really are that stupid. 

Sir and madam, your time has come and gone. I’d like to tell you to go find another land to “conquer” so you can try to have things your way, but I don’t wish your kind of people and strange ideas on any nation or tribe of people in this whole wide world. You and yours have wreaked havoc on this earth for hundreds of years. Trying to force people to live the way you want them to live, which benefits you more than them, instead of trying to live in harmony and respecting the people that already lived in the lands you “conquered” and trying to force them to live with your idea of “civilization”, even though you were the real “savages” that you tried to describe the people that tried to defend their homes as being. 

If the chickens bred from your ancestors and still cultivated by yourself, are coming home to roost, so be it. And FUCK YOU. 

[thyme4change]

Sept 20, 2023 17:42:19 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Sept 20, 2023 12:27:48 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

But if we make birth control illegal, and the a-word illegal across the entire country, that means the “undesirables” will also be having more babies. I understand that whack-a-doos are illogical in the first place, but I don’t understand how they can’t even figure that part out, about the unintended consequences of forcing more people to have babies. Many, if not most, of those babies will NOT have blonde hair and blue eyes and will be “mixed” at *best*, or even “worse”….  be a completely different race or ethnicity than what the whack-a-doos want. 

I want to ask if they are really that stupid, but I already know the answer…. Yes, they really are that stupid. 

Sir and madam, your time has come and gone. I’d like to tell you to go find another land to “conquer” so you can try to have things your way, but I don’t wish your kind of people and strange ideas on any nation or tribe of people in this whole wide world. You and yours have wreaked havoc on this earth for hundreds of years. Trying to force people to live the way you want them to live, which benefits you more than them, instead of trying to live in harmony and respecting the people that already lived in the lands you “conquered” and trying to force them to live with your idea of “civilization”, even though you were the real “savages” that you tried to describe the people that tried to defend their homes as being. 

If the chickens bred from your ancestors and still cultivated by yourself, are coming home to roost, so be it. And FUCK YOU. 

Poor people are the most likely to start having a bunch of kids. They make desperate workers. At least that is the only explanation I have come up with.

[thyme4change]

Sept 20, 2023 17:42:19 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Sept 20, 2023 12:27:48 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

But if we make birth control illegal, and the a-word illegal across the entire country, that means the “undesirables” will also be having more babies. I understand that whack-a-doos are illogical in the first place, but I don’t understand how they can’t even figure that part out, about the unintended consequences of forcing more people to have babies. Many, if not most, of those babies will NOT have blonde hair and blue eyes and will be “mixed” at *best*, or even “worse”….  be a completely different race or ethnicity than what the whack-a-doos want. 

I want to ask if they are really that stupid, but I already know the answer…. Yes, they really are that stupid. 

Sir and madam, your time has come and gone. I’d like to tell you to go find another land to “conquer” so you can try to have things your way, but I don’t wish your kind of people and strange ideas on any nation or tribe of people in this whole wide world. You and yours have wreaked havoc on this earth for hundreds of years. Trying to force people to live the way you want them to live, which benefits you more than them, instead of trying to live in harmony and respecting the people that already lived in the lands you “conquered” and trying to force them to live with your idea of “civilization”, even though you were the real “savages” that you tried to describe the people that tried to defend their homes as being. 

If the chickens bred from your ancestors and still cultivated by yourself, are coming home to roost, so be it. And FUCK YOU. 

Poor people are the most likely to start having a bunch of kids. They make desperate workers. At least that is the only explanation I have come up with.

[giramomma]

Sept 20, 2023 12:27:48 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

Our life expectancy is already decreasing. Has been for a couple of years.

You can thank ODs and Covid for that.

www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm

[giramomma]

Sept 20, 2023 21:36:33 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Poor people are the most likely to start having a bunch of kids. They make desperate workers. At least that is the only explanation I have come up with.

Yes. It's interesting to sit where we sit.

Some of our choices align with low income folks, like having 4 kids. And then we do other things, that make us align with upper middle class and even wealthy folks.

I'd like to think that it gives me a unique vantage point, not sure what to do with it though.

[nidena]

Sept 20, 2023 17:42:19 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Sept 20, 2023 12:27:48 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The good news about the US is that our food supply and lifestyles are so rotten that our life expectancy will decrease, reducing elder care needs.

That said - if the whack-a-doos continue, they may get birth control outlawed. That will bring back some babies. Not sure why that is so important to them - but the Supreme Court has definitely opened the door for them.

But if we make birth control illegal, and the a-word illegal across the entire country, that means the “undesirables” will also be having more babies. I understand that whack-a-doos are illogical in the first place, but I don’t understand how they can’t even figure that part out, about the unintended consequences of forcing more people to have babies. Many, if not most, of those babies will NOT have blonde hair and blue eyes and will be “mixed” at *best*, or even “worse”….  be a completely different race or ethnicity than what the whack-a-doos want. 

I want to ask if they are really that stupid, but I already know the answer…. Yes, they really are that stupid. 

Sir and madam, your time has come and gone. I’d like to tell you to go find another land to “conquer” so you can try to have things your way, but I don’t wish your kind of people and strange ideas on any nation or tribe of people in this whole wide world. You and yours have wreaked havoc on this earth for hundreds of years. Trying to force people to live the way you want them to live, which benefits you more than them, instead of trying to live in harmony and respecting the people that already lived in the lands you “conquered” and trying to force them to live with your idea of “civilization”, even though you were the real “savages” that you tried to describe the people that tried to defend their homes as being. 

If the chickens bred from your ancestors and still cultivated by yourself, are coming home to roost, so be it. And FUCK YOU. 

The powers that be don't care if "undesirables" are having kids.  That's the main workforce.  It's the group that HAD to work outside the home during COVID (aside from doctors and nurses and other similar caregivers of that sort) for reasons I know I don't have to explain.  An overworked, underpaid, highly stressed population doesn't have the time or energy to revolt.

[giramomma]

So CNN Just ran this article:

www.cnn.com/us/childfree-by-choice-women-birth-rate-decline-cec/index.html

Since 2007, the nation’s birth rate had been declining about 2% each year on average. Despite early speculation about a pandemic baby boom, the coronavirus crisis accelerated the decline even further, with births falling by 4% last year.

It was the largest annual decline in the number of births since 1973, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Demographers point to a number of factors driving this phenomenon: economic insecurity, political uncertainty, shifting gender norms and a lessening stigma around the choice to remain child-free. Though the pandemic laid bare just how little support families in the US receive from the government when it comes to childcare and other obligations, some women had already made up their minds before then.