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Comment by mekkkkkk | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to see population growth being listed as one of the prime factors, and that "Girl's Education" is proposed as a solution to this. I get why sex-ed and more widespread access/knowledge/acceptance of contraceptives might help the situation slightly, but aren't there much more deeply rooted problems than "girls don't know what a condom is"?

And further, it brings up interesting moral questions touching on eco-justified anti-natalism. Would it be morally justified to have a hundred kids?

EDIT: I largely take back the first paragraph, but I'll leave it for posterity. Helping girls to create a career for themselves probably has a larger impact on population growth. The anti-natalism thing is still interesting though.

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Girls education is not about sex-ed, it's so they can get a job and have opportunities other than being a mom.

You are right, I glossed over the description and saw mentions of sex-ed, but it's apparently just part of it. Thanks for the correction!

This. All nations have followed a population curve and with increased education and social mobility, the birth rate drops. It was only a couple of generations ago here in the UK that people had large families, and another couple of generations before that that women were allowed to vote.

Reading general comments on the web about the likes of the UK only have a tiny part to play and it being 'almost pointless' to combat climate change and conservation (vs larger population countries) seem to forget we've been industrialised and polluting for a quarter of a millenia. On the same token, the technology acquired over that time can solve the problem.

Overshoot day is a good reminder that we're still living above our means.

Less kids in industrialized nations will never matter though, as the missing people will be imported. If eco-anti-natalism were really justified they would be anti-immigration.

We instead need to get sustainable holistically and need technological advancements and policy changes. It doesn't matter much if we are 6 or 8 billion (currently) or 11 billion (UN forecast for 2100) people on the planet if the smaller number already overshoots resources x-times.

> It doesn't matter much

But it does matter, because the world won't end on 2100, the world healing from current damage will take several centuries at minimum, the less damage that is done to the ecosphere during this period of heavy growth will help the recovery and healing process on the upcoming centuries

If you follow Silvio Gesell's argument for a mother's dividend he argues that women are too reliant on men for income (remember this was at a time back when women didn't work at all) and therefore cannot choose to have less children.

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