It makes sense to me. When women have more choices, they tend to put off having kids or they raise their standards - for their economic situation before kids, for partners, etc.

I think this is good; insofar as women have children, it should be because they want to, not because they're pushed into it.

I'll say - it also wouldn't kill us to have slightly fewer people on the planet. We're already taxing much of our systems/ecosystems past their breaking points. Smarter people than me, entire groups of scientists, are saying that what we're doing now is badly unsustainable and we're heading for trouble.

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bryanlarsen 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Slightly fewer is good. A rate of around 1.8 kids per woman seems slow but it's an exponential so it's still quite significant.

Parts of the world have reached 1.0 kids per woman, which is a halving of the population per generation, which will put a massive strain on our resources

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Windchaser 2 days ago | parent [-]

> which will put a massive strain on our resources

True, but again, scientists are saying that we're already putting massive strain on our ecological resources, and the strain is only increasing. Not just climate change, but ocean acidification, modification of biogeochemical balances, habitat destruction, etc.

We are at genuine risk of accidentally wrecking the ecosystems we depend on.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

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bryanlarsen 2 days ago | parent [-]

Population degrowth may do more harm than good. One billionaire with a private jet does more harm than thousands.

	▲	derdi 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Can you expand on the harm of degrowth? I usually see it framed in terms of "our state retirement system is an obvious pyramid scheme that is about to collapse, we need to keep the scam going as long as we can". Are there better reasons to worry?

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clates 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'll say - it also wouldn't kill us to have slightly fewer people on the planet. We're already taxing much of our systems/ecosystems past their breaking points. Smarter people than me, entire groups of scientists, are saying that what we're doing now is badly unsustainable and we're heading for trouble.

If you believed this, would you be against sterilizing third world populations to limit the overall population growth ( given those are the populations which continue to grow in this environment ) ? If not sterilizing - what about propagandizing their younger population to not reproduce? Would that be a net-good?

If not, why not?

	▲	johnny22 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Their populations will follow the same pattern with increased education.
	▲	derdi 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		"X is bad" is obviously not a license to commit genocide to lessen the effects of X. Easy, very affordable access to birth control (both information and actual physical stuff) for all humans is a very good idea.
	▲	Windchaser 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> If you believed this, would you be against sterilizing third world populations to limit the overall population growth ( given those are the populations which continue to grow in this environment ) ? ...wow. Is this a serious question?