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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

You see a whole lot of panic from industrialists over the birth rate drop in the industrialized world. They claim it is an extinction level event for humanity. This is not quite correct. It is an extinction level event for economic models that assume unbounded growth of the consumer base.

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This is an important distinction: what is good for ecology is not necessarily good for economy.

If we need unbounded growth to jeep our economic system to function, its the economic system that is wrong, not nature.

Hence why the die hard capitalist shills are so set on going to space.

We should help by shooting them into space.

you can save even more co2 and costs by leaving the "into space" part out

Capitalist economy.

Economies can exist in many different ways. At its core it is just a way to describe how we move resources between ourselves and that can be done in many, many ways.

What are the other ways that are proven to work over the long term at scale?

How do you mean that capitalist economies are proven to work?

Like what does "work" constitute?

Wrong question if you actually like capitalism or value keeping it going. The question should be how to make the necessary reforms to capitalism to not have people try to attempt "the other ways" you're going to try to debate. The problem, it seems, is that Capitalists can't fathom a world where they might be prevented from doing maximum extraction.

I know what I'd be using those billions for!! To virtue signal like hell that I was the most nature conservationist billionaire in existence. Not "how can I say this is conservation and monetize it", real conservation with true stewardship of the land. But also that thinking is probably why I'm not a billionaire.

What

Non-capitalist economies don't really have a better record on environmental protection. It's almost like the problem is human nature, not the specific economic system.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Environment...

It seems it may be 'animal nature'. We maximize our benefit until the environment limits us, and humans have become 'too good' at it, increasing stakes to a global scale.

They did research on how many people you need to keep the human species alive. It was not ten billion.

If you read other things these industrialists say, it’s clear that their actual argument is a xenophobic/white supremacist one. The panic is entirely political, not economic. We have no shortage of viable immigrants to keep the economy going.

It’s disingenuous to imply “industrialists” are the only ones unhappy. Anyone who doesn’t want to die a stranger in their own land is also concerned.

What does "die a stranger in their own land" mean and how does it relate to birthrate?

Probably "fewer kids means immigration is required to maintain social safety nets, but I don't like to look at people who don't look like me."

If the concern is one that sounds horribly like eugenics, perhaps this hypothetical "people" should indeed go the way of the dodo.

An agreeable platitude, but such a people are not born, they’re made as their neighborhoods close off, their favorite restaurants and stores disappear, their children are excluded from playdates with school friends, and they’re rejected from employment in favor of one of the tribe.

Also do consider that you’ve advocated for the elimination of people holding a belief that is far more common in the world in aggregate than in the few high HDI countries

None of this happen because "they are strangers in their own land" (which is just a cowardly way to complain about brown people).

This happen due to economic pressures and incentives. The neighborhoods are closed off because it became too expensive. Stores and restaurants disappear when rents gone up and most people prefer to buy shit on Amazon or use delivery apps for food.

I have no fucking idea what you are talking about children being excluded from playdates.

Rejected employment "in favor of the one of the tribe" is plain bullshit.

Yes, Native Americans ought to get their land back. (What do you mean “no, not like that”?)

Here I thought I was being more diplomatic to elide the blatant racism when discussing this topic.

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