> But as India and others hurtle through their demographic transition, the consequences will not be pain-free.
Pain for whom? The people profiting from cheap labor probably.
Why is such a massive sin to scale down? To slow down a bit, I don't think the whole world is about to collapse, but even if it was, I rather that than turning it all into the hellscapes we see on some of the most overpopulated places in the world just so a mere 1% of the population can indulge.
Well, the welfare state for most nations will suffer. The reason it's a massive sin to scale down is that with a scaled down economy you can't sustain the old without greater sacrifices by the young. So you need someone to pay the price and neither wishes to. For my part, I think. one way or the other my Millennial generation should probably give up the US welfare state. We can still save the next generations.
The world is not even close to 1% "overpopulated".
The 1% indulge? The greatest thing a person can do is raise a child and build a legacy. No class warfare or nonsense about climate change can change that.
If you want a smaller world, fine. Then give up your 401k, retirement funds, and government care in old age. Because my kids are the ones paying for 100% of that. Think of someone other than yourself.
>The greatest thing a person can do is raise a child and build a legacy.
nice opinion, but it seems you are increasingly in the minority.
if the older generations can't find it in their hearts to take the long term view on social security funding, housing, climate change... why should we feel obligated to breed so there is a nice conveyor belt of wage slaves for them the pull the ladder on?
you sound very entitled.
and i think about myself because in the US, if i don't, no one else will.
What about the pain from overpopulation and a glut of uneducated labour? Doesn't that shit roll downhill, too?
"The poor will always pay for it" is a thought-terminating cliche that is often trotted out in support of the status quo (or some mythical past status quo).
How do you know that past status quo isn't actually worse for them than the direction things are trending? Do you think we somehow stumbled upon some global maximum for them [1], and any deviation from that, in any direction is going to make things worse for them?
[1] In spite of, as you say, shit flowing downhill.
The kind you'd find in any place with a housing or food shortage, (or a job shortage if you are the sort of person who has #firstworldproblems) or really any other shortage where some public demand cannot be met by limited supply.
We don't see a lot of food shortages these days, but with climate change fucking with agriculture sufficiently, regular famines in the global south might make a comeback... Or might not, if population growth and degrowth projections solve that problem before crop yields are seriously impacted.
Pain for whom? The people profiting from cheap labor probably.
Why is such a massive sin to scale down? To slow down a bit, I don't think the whole world is about to collapse, but even if it was, I rather that than turning it all into the hellscapes we see on some of the most overpopulated places in the world just so a mere 1% of the population can indulge.