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Comment by Xcelerate | Hacker News Reader

> but literal existential risks

Unpopular opinion (and playing devil’s advocate since I have two kids), but is it necessarily a bad thing if people stop wanting to have children and the human race just gradually disappears? There are a lot of other types of potential existential threats on the horizon that might be unsolvable and could entail a significant amount of suffering (e.g. global warming, super viruses, rogue AI)—perhaps it’s better to stop reproducing and just let things end peacefully? I can’t thing of a great argument for forcing societies to continue having children if they no longer wish to do so. Sure, you’ll have some “who will take care of all the elderly in 50 years?” but you could plan a bit for that and the problem would only last for one generation.

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I don't know why people go from one extreme to the other. There is zero risk of humanity disappearing because of a lack of birth rates.

The shrinking growth rates are problematic for wealthy old people because they realise that their money represents economic power over other people, but if those other people don't exist, then their economic power will be worth much less than they deluded themselves it is. Indulging in the desires of these special interest groups makes no sense for the continued survival of humanity. If anything it makes it harder for humanity to survive as we run the risk of faster resource depletion. If you believe in mars colonies and so on, you would want our society to survive the next 1000 years and not prioritise the next quarter so an old person can retire from their stock returns.

“Is it necessarily a bad thing if people stop wanting to have children and the human race just gradually disappears?”

People can make up their own minds on this, but I don’t think states and governments will want to stop existing.

> better to stop reproducing and just let things end peacefully?

Prisoner's dilemma, I guess. If everyone stops reproducing, the people who keep at it secure more resources for their offspring.

They don't. Look at African countries with up to seven children per family.

Reread the comment I was replying to. This is a hypothetical.

It's a pure hypothetical because the people who do reproduce under conditions of modernity will become the future population.

There is likely enough stable state populations that humanity doesn't go extinct. Now current global economy or culture might go, but if it doesn't support continued stable state existence, maybe it doesn't deserve to survive.

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