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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

Elder care is a pressing issue, but in general isn't this good news?

For the planet? Yes. For people who have priorities other than child rearing? Yes. For economies based on endlessly borrowing from the future, overleveraging, and fractional reserve lending, most definitely not. The economy will have to adapt, as the decline curve is locked in the longer the fertility rate is below replacement rate.

This is, overall, splendid news. Commendable this was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Not for the economy

Yes for the planet and yes for the human race too, overpopulation leads to all sort of problems

The economy should adapt not the other way around

Agreed, but no one seems to know how we decouple the economy from growth without hurting or angering a lot of people. Maybe we just tear off that bandaid quickly.

The resources are there but they are misallocated and the few own most of them. When push come to shove it will become more and more obvious this is one of the problems. Until the we fight on stupid things

The number of people who would be adversely 'negatively' affected if we said "alright, we're taking control of this situation and not just going to blindly let you maximize your profits at the expense of the rest of the planet" is pretty small. A few millionaires and billionaires. The majority of us will adapt just fine.

Guess it's time to re-structure the economy away from "who can consume and produce most".

It should be who can produce the most efficient and consume the most efficient. We should go back to building solidly and everlasting. The investment may be initially more expensive but the return will compound quickly and the benefits will make a difference. We’re wasting so many resources to stir this stupid economy and it always crashes.

This just means that the strategy of keeping most of the wealth with a tiny minority and expecting the middle class to bear the cost of supporting the old people in wholly separate existences and households paid for by the young isn't tenable.

Some degree of distribution of wealth and multi generational households would render it tenable again.

I dunno, looking at the fertility rates of rich countries vs. the performance of equities, it seems like increased productivity from computerization and automation is perfectly capable of offsetting much of the economic decline from a lower birthrate.

You're not factoring in international trade. Countries are not closed systems.

Not when you realize that the economy is largely a huge ponzi scheme which requires a constant stream of new participants to prop up asset prices and generate economic activity.

The care issue is real, not so much because we need people to look after them, which potentially could be automated, but rather the new generations are the ones paying into the system and funding their pensions.

There's ways to solve that problem, for example: implementing the individualized pension system we have here in Chile.

That still requires rising asset prices and economic growth.

The longer you let a ponzi scheme run the worse it gets. So it seems better to take some pain now instead of more pain later.

Unfortunately that would require political action that would never be accepted by society until they're hurting enough that it's too late. No politician is going to win an election by promising to make your life worse now for the future generations.

Not all ponzi schemes are dysfunctional, some are sustainable in the long term.

For instance if you have an asset that appreciates over time and represents true value (say because it generates more income over time) then you can't realize that appreciation if there is no-one to buy that asset from you. That is the marginal effect of having less people.

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