That said, here's a fine poem in support of your angle: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...
It's just something that was previously seen as a virtue (or for example for Catholics almost a holy priority) is now becoming a hobby. And if not everyone takes up that hobby we can be sustainable for a lot longer. Even a population decline wouldn't be bad after we've been growing so hard as a species.
Of course we can't keep growing forever. And hoping the future comes up with a magical answer is exactly how we got into the climate mess we're in right now.
We've seen the same here in Europe. My parents' generation usually had large families, my generation had mostly 1-2 kids, and these days many families have no kids.
Of course poorer countries and countries that are still very religious are a bit behind but they will catch up too. Humanity won't go extinct, there will always be people happy to have children.
And if we can't, is that fair to future generations? Aren't we condemning them to a more miserable life? (On the other hand, if 8 billion people leads to destroying the environment, that also leaves them more miserable...)
Food will be a bigger problem but less people also means less food needed.
That's what they told us in the 60s/70s/80s and we're still working as much while our standards are lowering but ok, we'll automagically fix things, we're just waiting for the right time
The only reason we could have so many people on the planet at once is because almost half of them live in poverty, close to animal standard with some human technology sprinkled in some place...
It's just shortsighted to believe that having so many people was sustainable in the first place.
I guess if you don't care about your country or continent legacy that could work yes
And that position can still be reassessed in the next 30 years.
I am still not convinced that a globally aging population is a big issue in the long term.
Such a phase sucks but it's temporary. Eventually the wave of old people is gone and things are back to normal. It's not something we can't overcome.
What do you mean by back to normal ? The African demographic boom, even if we didn't have our own fertility problem, will ensure there will be no back to "normal". History is never about going back to normal
If you care about quality of life, employment, pensions, shortages, smooth transitions, immigration, it's a whole other story
Am I wrong to interpret it like that?
The ones who insist on having children as an ultimate virtue, I find them to be just as wrong.
Either choice is fine, and the moral objections to either one are unreasonable.
Edit: edited to expand the last sentence.
In fact I really hate moral judgments of people's personal lives, like is being done to the LGBT community in the US at the moment.