2y ago

Millenials being accused of not pumping out enough babies when we can't even support ourselves

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The part I don't understand is why it's important to hit the "replacement level". Wouldn't it be better for the planet if there were fewer people living on it and competing for resources?
- but then the megacorporations can't hit their iNfInItE gRoWtH and we can't keep making the billionaires richer.
- @AnnaPlusPlus
  Consider the number of financial instruments that are essentially pyramid schemes built on the assumption of perpetual growth.
  
  Its all of them
- If there's less people than jobs it's easier to ask for better wages.
- It would be, but the economy was built on perpetual growth schemes.
  Don't forget, the economy is here to be served by us, not the other way around!
  
  The economy will crumble if we don't get to replacement levels at least, but it will also crumble, along with everything else if we do. Only way out of this is to change the whole model before it crumbles. But that would mean the rich need to get (willingly) less rich, so I'm not holding out hope...
- The Ponzi scheme, that is American “social security” (I mean actual social security, but all the rest of the social services too), would collapse if there arent more poor people pumping money into, than are taking out of it. Instead of doing shit like taxing the fuck out of the rich, or AI/robots.
  But, yes, it would solve A LOT of the worlds problems if there were less people.
  
  To be fair, I don't think taxing robots will get you far...
  
  How do you figure. If the workforce becomes by and large robotic, taxing the businesses, based on that, like you would humans, would work well enough. If not, then there needs to be some concession from businesses to pay the same or more as when humans were doing the jobs.
  
  I'm moreso being cheeky about your wording - robots don't own cash, thus can't pay taxes. You must tax businesses.
  
  Fair enough. Lol. I meant the business that own the robots.
- Yes, but our whole economy, and maybe even society itself is built on the requirement and assumption of growth.
  We steal tomorrow to pay for today.
  If we stop having enough people to grow, we will collapse under the requirements of our system until a new non-growth economy/society is formed from the ashes.
  I don't think it will be possible to have a smooth transition to a non-growth or low-growth society since very few people will willingly sacrifice the amenities we pay with in debt, which is paid for by predicted growth.
  When that predicted growth goes negative, collectively, we will not be able to afford the things we want, and that will cause mass chaos and potentially even resource wars.
- Not for capitalism. A lot of our systems were built on the concept of infinite growth.
- Actually, you're right, and I think that lowered populations are a good thing. World needs quality people, not just quantity. A world filled with a smaller amount of environmentally conscious and responsible people is better than a world filled with a large amount of meat eating, gas guzzler driving jackasses that spend all their time being racist, while overconsuming everything and yelling and shooting at anyone who even suggests that maybe they should cut down on consumption.
  
  That's true but the largest impact is caused by billionaires who fly even-more-gas-guzzling private jets, hunt and/or eat endangered species, buy gold and jewelry made with blood materials from Africa and use their spending power to influence the world negatively in multiple ways for profit.

113 comments