<story><title>U.S. Birthrates Fall to Record Low</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-birthrates-fall-to-record-low-11589947260</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iandanforth</author><text>Curious how many people share this opinion, but I think this is extremely good news. I would love to see birth rates drop below replenishment across the globe. We simply don&amp;#x27;t need billions of humans. We have done, and continue to do major damage to our environment and historically a tiny minority has benefited from the labor of the majority. The people who benefit most from an increasing population are those who exploit people to increase their quality of life in clean sanctuaries while distancing themselves from the effort and waste required to maintain those lifestyles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>impendia</author><text>&amp;gt; We simply don&amp;#x27;t need billions of humans.&lt;p&gt;You make an excellent point, and I&amp;#x27;ll raise a counterargument. I would claim, simply, that &lt;i&gt;human life is intrinsically a good thing&lt;/i&gt;. I believe that my life is worth living, that it is better that I&amp;#x27;m alive than if I were dead. I&amp;#x27;ll presume that everyone who reads this believes the same about their own lives. In that case, the more people alive, the better -- (if all else is equal).&lt;p&gt;That said, the philosopher Derek Parfit anticipated this and raises a counterargument to my argument above, known as the &amp;quot;mere addition paradox&amp;quot;. [1] Roughly speaking, it goes as follows.&lt;p&gt;1. Suppose you have a population of 1,000,000 people, living happy, healthy, productive lives. Let&amp;#x27;s stipulate that this is a good thing.&lt;p&gt;2. Now, suppose in addition to this, suppose you have a second population of 1,000,000 people, who lead difficult lives with a lot of hardship, but whose lives are (perhaps barely) worth living. Then, if human life is intrisically good, then it is good that these people also exist. (This is the &amp;quot;mere addition&amp;quot; part.)&lt;p&gt;3. Given these two populations, equality is a good thing: lower the standard of living of the first million people ever so slightly, and raise the standard of the second group to match the first. This, too, seems to be a good thing.&lt;p&gt;4. Repeat. Eventually you arrive at a huge population, living lives of misery and squalor which are just slightly better than nothing -- but which one has argued is a better scenario than your original million people. This is the &amp;quot;repugnant conclusion&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mere_addition_paradox&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mere_addition_paradox&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. Birthrates Fall to Record Low</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-birthrates-fall-to-record-low-11589947260</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iandanforth</author><text>Curious how many people share this opinion, but I think this is extremely good news. I would love to see birth rates drop below replenishment across the globe. We simply don&amp;#x27;t need billions of humans. We have done, and continue to do major damage to our environment and historically a tiny minority has benefited from the labor of the majority. The people who benefit most from an increasing population are those who exploit people to increase their quality of life in clean sanctuaries while distancing themselves from the effort and waste required to maintain those lifestyles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WhompingWindows</author><text>In this case, it&amp;#x27;s a good thing, because the birthrates declined most for women 24 and younger. Creating another person is one of the most carbon-intensive actions anyone can do, you&amp;#x27;re literally spawning a lifetime of energy use. Best to do that when you&amp;#x27;re SURE they will have all the resources they need to be a productive and helpful member of society...not when you&amp;#x27;re 16 and can&amp;#x27;t care for them properly.&lt;p&gt;I do think there is value to having a balanced aged pyramid, however. We don&amp;#x27;t want a China or Japan situation, where there are far too many old people, which would crush the younger members of society under the burden of caring. The one way to counteract that would be immigration, which has been a hot-button issue and is not a given or perfect remedy for population pyramids.</text></comment>