A plane at 75,000 feet can descend for a long time and then level off without crashing. Eventually population will stop declining. Everyone needs to just chill about a declined birthrate.
You don't just shrug that off and say "oh well, it'll probably be just fine."
the idea behind "population growth" is that we will need future slaves to prop up our social security and asset bubbles.
think of a country as an ant colony, what happens if population decreases? the queen will get less food
What on earth am I reading?
That's not a fantasy, it's the inevitable outcome of sub-replacement fertility, which is the state we find ourselves in (though my intuition says it will take longer than "a couple of centuries" to get to zero).