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Comment by reidjs | Hacker News Reader

I can't read the article, so I'm just replying to the concept.

I don't see a problem with this at all. Overpopulation may be the most important issue of our lifetime. I'm not a fan of excessive government control, but incentivizing low birthrates is our only hope of saving the environment.

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Maybe try blocking some JS, it loaded fine for me and I don't pay for it (I block third party JS by default and didn't need to whitelist anything).

The incentives/disincentives don't seem nice to me, rewarding 'voluntary sterilisation'...

I suppose I agree in general the concept of such policies is.. ok... But I don't think any rewards or penalties should be based on anything permanent. Even as proposed it's only running until 2030, but people will make irreversible life altering decisions based on it, I don't know, just doesn't seem nice to me.

I used to share the concern with overpopulation, but birth rates are often below replacement in developed countries. I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity than I do about overpopulation. I expect all countries to eventually become developed and follow the same trend, and eventually the population just naturally dwindles because we become a post-survivalist society and don't care about propagating our genes anymore, and we just care about optimizing individual happiness.

It's not as if humans were an endangered species, wouldn't be bad that the population gradually decrease to 4 billions and less

> I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity

I think humanity as a whole will do just fine: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/world-population-...

Hard disagree. Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world. In some cases, it’s below the replacement level. The developing world’s birth rate is also dropping as those regions become more developed (China for example, which recently switched to incentivizing additional children).

> Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world.

India isn't the developed world.

According to the UN, the world population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.

Despite the stagnant fertility rate, growth rate is still targeted in most countries at approx 3-4%, through immigration. I mention this because everyone has a higher environmental footprint in the developed world, through consumption.

Everyone wants a home, vehicle, gadgets, good food. If not everyone in the world can enjoy 1st world experiences without encroaching on the environment and destroying it at a catastrophic rate, then we're overpopulated. Meat consumption is already under scrutiny for land-use (particularly in Brazil) as though the problem isn't the growing demand for it, but the meat itself. When scaling up, everything destroys the environment.

> India isn't the developed world.

Yes, I'm aware, which is why I included that the developing world's birth rate is also dropping, although starting from a higher baseline level.

> When scaling up, everything destroys the environment.

Yeah, I agree, but things don't tend to scale up linearly, and I think you're missing the cause/effect interplay between population growth and resource consumption. Yes, as populations grow they require more resources (as you point out), but limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth. Population growth isn't some uninhibited unstoppable force. Population shrinking forces also exist, which will likely make the net population rate of change hit an equilibrium.

> limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth.

Historically greater food and resource output could help you grow fast (particularly by intention), but for a long while now population growth is negatively correlated with production on the global scale. The 1st world is high production, the 3rd world is not, and all the while hunger and lack of infrastructure seems to be no deterrent to the fertility rate. Child mortality rate might also compel some to have more children.

If one were interested in stops on population growth, access to contraceptives and eliminating poverty would probably be the most powerful way short of a State policy to punish excess births.

I see what you're saying, namely that there's a disconnect between food/resource production and population growth in the 1st and 3rd worlds. But I would point out that there are many, many more factors involved beyond just food and other basic resources that influence population growth. Like you mentioned, child mortality rates are one, but cost of education and college are another. The Economist recently had an article about how many families don't have a 4th child because the majority of cars can only seat 2 adults and 3 kids.

I still don't see overpopulation as a serious future issue because much of the world is showing the same steady decline in birth rates to near or below population replacement levels.

It is definitely leveling off. It's just that, without intervention, it will take a long time to do so, 100+ years. The question then is whether increased demands poses a threat in the interim - maybe not. Emissions rate could probably be cut drastically through innovation in the next decade, as climate change is concerned, though it's so far gone we might require geoengineering at this point. That research is still in it's infancy, and as it stands, the options are mediocre.

incentivizing sterilisations seems like a slippery slope for a democracy.

next step is having more than 2 kids will wreck your credit score and this kid will be denied higher education. this is some text book china shit.

Climate change and population growth are separate issues.

Increase in population definitely accelerates climate change. If the world's population doubled to around 16 billion, would humanity's carbon footprint remain the same?

>Climate change and population growth are separate issues.

Sperate, but related: the latter contributes to the former.

Increase in demand doesn't just impact climate change, but encroaches on land and destroys more of the environment.

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