Ask HN: Why didn't people 40 years ago worry about population collapse today?
Did they not see the trend towards individualism in economically advanced countries?
There are so many broken families and it is horrible for the children. It leads to increase in crime and drug use. This is bad for everyone else who has to deal with it. It’s like that saying don’t get a dog if you can’t care for it. dog is way easier to care for than a human and people still fail at that (animal shelters full)
I think what’s happening right now is fine. Socioeconomic pressure, hopefully for better than worse, will make it so that those who are responsible and capable will have healthy and happy families, and I think it will be good that we are making progress in automation.
Last I heard she's a professor of the Quechua language in Hawaii and lives alone with a large dog and has probably aged out of her fertile window. I can't prove that her family's divorce had anything to do with the trajectory of her life and her not reproducing, but on average there is a correlation.
I completely resonate with what you said, but I don't see a connection to what I wrote/meant.
From your original comment you said “professors” making me think that some schools were pushing this message consistently.
I found this odd because I was in college 25 years ago and must have missed the memo.
I think it's the fact that 2 workers per household (or family unit) is now common.
More people working in general, generally, reduces the value of labour, people are now paid relatively less.
If people are working and have career goals, plus are struggling to pay their own way, having children is less of an attractive prospect.
The costs of childcare here in the UK are also very prohibitive. We also have some other significant factors I won't go into.
It looks like generally, the more two worker households in a society, the lower the birthrate.
There are multiple ways to address this but I believe these are the main reasons.
Some numbers (courtesy of claude 4 research):
Japan 1925 - 5.4 children per woman - ~20% women working
Japan 1950 - 3.6 children per woman - ~35% women working
Japan 1980 - 1.8 children per woman - ~47% women working
Japan 2000 - 1.4 children per woman - ~56% women working
Japan 2025 - 1.2 children per woman - ~74% women working
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth [1]
McLuhan said "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror" and there is no area like that more than gender and reproductive issues. For instance the idea that men have it better than woman still persists although it's definitely not true for those under 30. [2]
The diffusion of the idea is still suppressed because it is right wing coded, it's going to take another 20 years or so for it to be safe to talk about in mixed company. If you believe in sustainability, the reproductive rate has to be regulated to a tight band over the long term: someday "my child my choice" and "my carbon my choice" will be seen the same way.
[1] this aged better, it predicted that real trouble starts in the next few decades
[2] Girls have internalizing problems and we say they are sensitive, Boys have externalizing problems and we say they are brutes. Boys who have internalizing problems are invisible. Reviving Ophelia was actually a great book that brought Kohut's self-psychology into the mainstream but people came to the wrong conclusions from it: while teenage girls are anguished about their self-image, teenage boys are getting killed or winding up in jail.
The phrase one did hear - and fairly often - was "population explosion".
In fact, "population collapse" is a less intuitive concept. Egg heads, 40 years ago, worried about the "population explosion"; people reproduce, and there is only so much space and so much food to go around.
Incidentally, the first I heard anyone attribute "population collapse" to a "trend towards individualism" was, I think, last year.
This has everything to do with government consequences.
When egalitarianism got women working; it meant they wouldnt be having kids.
When women have an income, they are able to 'escape' from relationships which reduces kids.
When you require kids to be in child seats; and your automotive regulations are shrinking cars for 'fuel efficiency' aka reducing the number of seats for kids to sit in.
All of these things then had state propaganda to push that these were good things for various reasons. It led to population collapse or worse, the pyramid schemes of retirement and socialized systems collapse.
1) We are running out of room, need to target zero population
2) More people lead to more innovation. Grow grow grow.
I had some relatives that were convinced that population growth yielded pollution and thus damage to the environment. Therefore they had no kids. Of course, despite advocating for the environment they had a small private plane they enjoyed flying for fun.
Lagging indicators always seem to throw people off, especially one that takes a whole generation. China had an overpopulation problem and now they're facing a different kind of population problem as back then Chinese would opt for only one male child.
Longer lifespans and overpriced education led to other kinds of problems that took decades to kick in. It's really hard to model this in.
(Or... the commies pushed the button, and we all lived out a Tom Lehrer song, together)
The architects of it don’t care, as they will have secured their own feudal power .by the point things get nasty