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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

The evidence is to the contrary. Folks in developing countries are not having sex for reproduction in statistically growing numbers. Japan, Germany, France and now the US are in or going to be in population decline.

I'd say, unless we advance our timeline, we're in danger of becoming extinct. So let's hope the article is not all hyperbole.

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>I'd say, unless we advance our timeline, we're in danger of becoming extinct.

Sure but this does not contradict what I wrote. I don't think designer babies is the way out of the unwillingness to reproduce we witness in industrialized countries. Maybe baby-care robots, maybe minimal basic income.

You're confusing "not reproducing" with "reproducing using non-sexual means". The notion that we'll go extinct because of low fertility rates when the world is vastly overpopulated also seems incorrect to me.

I do think he has a point though. Wherever people are wealthy enough to spend money on vacations and other activities, they seem to value leisure time over reproduction.

Currently, the world population is still growing, but that's mostly due to poorer countries and sub-populations. AFAIK, not even the US's whites are enough to sustain the population size:

"Expected lifetime births have also fallen for White non-Hispanic women from 1.91 in 2007 to 1.75 in 2013. U.S. White non-Hispanic births have been below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman for decades." (http://www.unomaha.edu/news/2015/01/fertility.php).

It is even worse in Europe and Russia.

> It is even worse in Europe and Russia.

Maybe it is a question of a middle ground?

I see a slowly declining population as being positive for humanity.

I think 1e9 children having a materially secure future is much better than 1e11 children fighting wars for the last scraps of resources.

Also if those children are not mine.

But the result is an erasure of the first world. Leaving the huddled masses in Africa as inheiritors of an exhausted earth?

> France (... is) in or going to be in population decline.

French INSEE (national statistical institute) doesn't seem to predict any decline here (although it reports a decrease in the rate of growth, and ageing):

http://www.insee.fr/en/themes/document.asp?ref_id=projpop055...

> If recent demographic trends continue, France’s population will reach 70 million by 1 January 2050, 9.3 million more than in 2005.

I'm curious to know what are your sources?

Read that link more carefully (particularly Table 1). The predicted increase is attributed to migration not procreation.

If I got my definitions correct, natural population growth means without migration. So the parent comment is correct, France population is still growing from procreation alone and will do so until 2045.

"Around 2045, natural population growth will be negative (-26,000 in 2049), the number of deaths exceeding the number of births. The population will however continue to grow until 2050, thanks to net migration." [paragraph 4]

Seven billion people on earth with an annual global population growth rate of 1.2% = danger of human exinction.

Edit: Since it was unclear, I was trying to be sarcastic. There is no evidence that the human race is in imminent danger of extinction.

Can you explain that?

I was trying to point out that there's no evidence that the human race is in imminent danger of extinction.

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