Overpopulation is not a problem.

Maybe in a couple countries. But not for the world, and not for the west and definitely not for America.

As the population has grown poverty has decreased.

geye1234 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yep, absolutely right.

Energy is very easy to produce cleanly (nuclear, and solar is looking better and better). The barriers to doing so are political and financial, not technical. They will be made worse by having an aged-heavy population, which is less innovative, less willing to invest in the future, and less willing to try new things. And it makes a poorer society, obviously.

Malthus has been proved wrong at every juncture. Lack of children is about to bite us very, very hard.

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epicureanideal 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Lack of children is about to bite us very, very hard.

Could it have an effect like the Black Plague, where labor becomes more expensive?

	▲	geye1234 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		All things being equal, probably yes. But remember: the uber-rich are allowing millions to immigrate to the rich world, to prevent precisely this. (I'm not commenting here on whether immigration is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, simply noting that large-scale immigration brings wages down, and that the low birthrate is consistently stated as its main driver.) Also, remember that paying for all those unproductive old people will consume enormous amounts of wealth, something that didn't apply during the Black Death.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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xnx 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> As the population has grown poverty has decreased.

True, but not obviously a causal relationship.

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throw-the-towel 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is a problem, because all these people want a good standard of living which strains the environment.

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jppittma 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Each marginal person produces more than they consume. As a whole, everyone is better off for having more people.

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HappySweeney 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Only if you average it all out. The over 65 crowd does not produce more than they consume.

	▲	Razengan 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The over 65 crowd does not produce more than they consume. So that's the end goal our species should aspire to? Produce™ and Consume™? Eternally without relent?

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KPGv2 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Each marginal person does not produce more environmental benefits than they consume. It's dramatically the opposite. My butt is not a carbon capture device.

	▲	sph 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Technically your mouth is.

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deeviant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a huge problem, it's just not a problem to economic model, but the ecological one.

	▲	KPGv2 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's a problem to the economic model, too, but of course no one cares about more than a couple fiscal quarters in the future. The looming ecological disasters will irreversibly destroy the global economy in some of our lifetimes if nothing happens to stop it pretty soon.

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fakedang 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> As the population has grown poverty has decreased.

This is like comparing apples to oranges to find a correlation, and arriving at an incorrect causation.

Falling populations are largely due to better education, specifically of women, as well as integration of women into the workforce, which has been one of the bigger drivers in curbing poverty. The latter is so significant in the west and the far east (double income households mean rising costs of living, meaning SAHM households become unviable in the West for the middle class), resulting in a significant population decrease.

But in places such as the Middle East or Africa, ever increasing populations have only meant even more financial trouble for those economies. Case in point Pakistan and Egypt. In other economies such as India (which I assume is one of the "couple countries" you mentioned), overall birth rates are falling significantly to near replacement level, and in the few states/regions with high birth rates, poverty is rampant and the people reliant on subsidies from other more prosperous regions.

The problem with most of the world is that while we are able to sustain a huge population as a whole globally, most of the population growth is extremely localized, resulting in population sparsity in some comfortable regions (Canada, the US, Central Asia, southern Russia) and population unsustainability in other regions completely unsuited to population growth (sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia, the Middle East).

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Razengan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Overpopulation is not a problem.

That is such a privileged first-world take.

You haven't lived in overpopulated places.

Just try it for 1 fucking year and then see if you still wish that hell upon anyone.

I swear I'm starting to wonder if that's a take pushed by ultracapitalists so they can have an endless supply of labor and consumers, like the bans on abortion etc.

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geye1234 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No, corporations want people without children, since they have more disposable income to spend on the pointless tat they want to sell you, and are willing to work longer hours to make rich people even richer.

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littlexsparkee an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think so - children are drivers of consumption and they also reduce the agency of workers by eliminating their financial slack (less ability to jump jobs / take it easy due to higher spending floor e.g. daycare expenses, larger apartment, etc).

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Razengan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ah but you're forgetting the lucrative Education™ pipeline that conveniently funnels everyone into a lifetime of debt :)

	▲	geye1234 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well usury is another problem entirely :-D