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Children are pensions, that's why poorer nations have lots of children because lots are needed to look after people in their old age. Thus, many of these comments on HN and elsewhere, "make the nation better", only have led -- and will lead -- to fewer children.

When the old don't need households of the young to provide for them, there won't be any.

But this, and the education of women, and increasing productivity etc. are the barrier --- this isnt some "indictment of our culture" -- a sentiment no better than "we're being punished by god"-thinking which turns every weather event into a didactic lesson on people's pet peeves.

You're implying that people incapable of planning next Thursday are thinking about their pensions. Poor countries reproduce a lot because they still have a lot of people functioning on the level of biological impulses rather than rational thought.

That...may be pushing it a lot. People in poorer countries are just as capable of rational thought as anyone else. The difference is in the education they've received, the resources they have access to, and the rights individuals have. Mentally, there's little difference - minus effects of things like malnutrition in severe cases.

I grew up in the rural South (America's Third World) (N. GA) in the late 80s / early 90s and tons of children were born out of wedlock because kids were bored and fooling around. Bored, horny kids like to have sex. Now there are so many way to occupy yourself digitally that I think these is happening less. It's not that poorer areas are dumber, it's that they had less access to entertainment and sex is free.

poorer nations have for the most part also slipped below replacement birthrate already, or will shortly. hell, Bangladesh is at ~ 2.1

Everyone is talking about it like a problem that need correcting. Why? Less people seems like it could be better for everyone and everything already here, assuming "great social systems" are in place.

I think it's that assumption is the problem. Most social systems are predicated on having enough net contributors to provide for net recipients, but with a declining population the ratio of contributors/recipients can get small. There may be solutions to this, but current social systems will likely fail if left unchanged. That doesn't mean the only solution is population growth, but we do need to do something

If there's no force that pushes it towards stabilization - then the eventual conclusion is extinction. And so far, it definitely seems like it doesn't trend towards equilibrium. People aren't like animals that reproduce based on availability of resources or predators. If the population drops, nothing forces it back up again.

And lower birth rate -> smaller young population -> higher ratio of retirees to taxpayers -> less free money to invest in new businesses/infrastructure/etc. That means a worse quality of life for everyone. Worse pay, higher taxes, less city/state/federal investment.

That's called a death spiral and eventually ends a civilization, if it goes uncorrected. There's no fancy monetary trickery that magically fixes it either. The only real hope is alleviating the burden completely - via something like incredibly advanced robots powered by real AI (not LLM garbage).

That would free up the resources to allow each new generation to do new things, instead of being less and less able to just maintain status quo.

> it could be better for everyone

Unless the life-expectancy also falls significantly, the rising dependency ratio would become an even larger problem.

Yes, exactly. I think the real reason why we don't see aliens is that once the population reaches certain level of intelligence and awareness, it takes only one generation thinking "this is not worth it" to cause dramatic population collapse which might wipe out entire species. And the thing is, "life isn't worth it" might actually be true, as much as evolution does everything to convince us otherwise.

But now that I think of it, there might be solutions. The problem is, they're incompatible with individualism. Imagine passing a law that everyone is obliged to take care of a child. Sure, this would cause issues, but would instantly solve the population crisis. The problem is, such a law will never be passed in a democratic society, because everyone votes according to what they believe is their own best interest, not the best interest of the group. But an absolute regime could potentially do this.

Now that I think of it, maybe the problem is that human societies grew too big too fast and our brains didn't adapt. We're capable of self-sacrifice, just in a group of max 20, not 20 million. We need a completely new paradigm of organizing the society.

Following your argument, another solution would be simply to enact measures to revert that "certain level of intelligence and awareness", and it seems that some countries are doing just that, if not exactly for the sake of reproduction :-) . So there's hope for population growth I guess?

> Now that I think of it, maybe the problem is that human societies grew too big too fast and our brains didn't adapt. We're capable of self-sacrifice, just in a group of max 20, not 20 million. We need a completely new paradigm of organizing the society.

This however is something I agree with, fully.

What you're proposing is awfully dystopian. If people don't want kids anymore, then let them not have kids. Society should adapt to the will of its members, not the other way around. And with all our technology we can live very decent lives even with declining birthrates. Maybe we'll have to do with less travel, less cheap garbage and so, but I'm fine with that.

"People in their 20's will see peak world population in their lifetime. It will be fascinating to see how society changes over the decades that follow that."

I am 45. I have fairly big* chance of making the global population curve actually drop!

*OK, not really, but you get the point I hope....

All projections show world population growth until at least 2100, thanks to Africa birth rate above 4.

No, they don't. That's the UN prediction, because they assume that somehow, magically, all countries below replacement will simultaneously, near-instantly increase in fertility rate by huge amounts over the next couple of years. Look at the graphs, they're nonsensical.

If you look at the actual trends of those rates, peak population is ~2050, maybe sooner.

> near-instantly increase in fertility rate by huge amounts over the next couple of years

Nothing like this on Wikipedia. Do you have a better link?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_projections

That's the population project, not the fertility projection - which means it will appear smooth. However, I can no longer find the original data I was looking at, so I can't back myself up either.