The world population is expected to start shrinking within this century after hitting a peak in the mid-2080s due to lower fertility levels, particularly in China, according to the latest projection by the United Nations.

  • Copernican@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Wtf. So instead of the rich eating the poor the poor should just eat the poor to improve the labor market in their favor?

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Start with the rich and then move into each other. The rich have all the resources so eating them will free up vast amounts of wealth that will solve the problems of all of us. Food, housing, work; we live in a potentially scarcity free world - it’s just the rich getting in the way.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      If you strike and there’s no scabs for them to hire or the scabs are even more expensive (because they aren’t desperate for a job) then it becomes cheaper to actually give the workers what they want.

      It is the opposite of the poor eating the poor. Being educated, having fewer kids later in life makes getting out of the poverty cycle a lot easier for anyone.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Did you read the comment I responded to saying that the black death was good because a lot people died and as a result created a better labor market? That’s saying death is a good thing to cull surplus labor.

        • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I think you’re reading too much into what’s not there. The poster is talking about how less people resulted in the improvement of labor conditions. In the past this has only happened noticeably through large scale death. The black death is probably the most drastic but similar has happened after both WWI and WWII. The difference is that the current labor supply reduction won’t be from death but from reduced births. However, increased power of laborers should at least be similar whether the cause is through death or reduced births. China, Japan, and South Korea are experiencing/are going to experience this first without drastically increased immigration and the rest of the western world isn’t far behind.

          • Copernican@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            At literally every point of modern history, a reduction in the amount of humans was beneficial for the vast amount of humans in the long run.

            Like, even the Black Death led to reduced wealth inequality and the beginnings of workers rights.

            I don’t see how someone can claim that the mass death of people is simultaneously beneficial to that people.

            There’s a difference in reduction of humans by events that cause death at large scale vs decline in rates of reproduction. Clearly catostrophic death is being used as an example of “a reduction in the amount of humans.”

            • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              Large scale death events are the only reference we have for the type of population reduction that we are/will be seeing.

              Labor supply being reduced while demand remains means that labor is stronger. Whether that supply reduction is due to death, population decline, or other causes is not really relevant.

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Just don’t breed like rabbits and stay away from religions and political parties that like to forbid anything that goes against popping out babies.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Can’t believe we have someone getting so many up votes for saying that the black plague was a good thing? Would you say that about all the deaths during COVID? This upvoted edgelord callousness is nuts.

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          It’s perhaps a bit callous but throughout history tragedy always brings change. Sometimes that’s good change, sometimes it’s bad, mostly it’s a mix of both.

        • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          It’s nuts (kinda sounds like Nazi speech to me) and it’s also not really accurate.

          Let’s look at a metaphor with money:

          My mom and dad work. They give me a little bit of money every day. One day they die and I get a chunk of money from their life insurance, but this amount isn’t as much as if they’d stayed alive and had stayed working. Because they died, in 30 years my family’s total net wealth will go down compared to the potential because my parents weren’t able to contribute.

          Now imagine that en masse. There is ABSOLUTELY a loss of money, progress, etc, etc, when people die prematurely. Let alone the human cost itself.

          • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            What about if people don’t die prematurely, but the population isn’t replaced? Because that’s the scenario this article is talking about. Not additional deaths, but fewer births.

            • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I take issue specifically with the verbiage the commenter was using regarding the black death and wars. And the idea that more people = bad working conditions; less people = good working conditions when that’s not the case of what was happening (which was more something like an inheritance/windfall).

              In the case of babies not being born in modern times, there are a few things to consider.

              • One, that speech doesn’t get weird and start advocating for a Handmaid’s Tale Dystopia (forced repopulation for the sake of repopulation).
              • Two, that likely poorer people and probably certain groups will be affected disproportionately by this which is the equivalent of a silent genocide or several silent genocides
              • Three, that we acknowledge there are many sad factors at play as to why people aren’t having children and those factors will likely get worse
              • Four, that we acknowledge that AI could very well bridge the worker shortage gap for some time until climate change kills everyone

              The pressure we are feeling is from climate change and the rich. Hoping that there will be less humans to give everyone a break is delusional, especially because the past HAD less humans and workers had shit rights then compared to now. We aren’t getting saved by anything, not even if we die or sacrifice our would-be children to the sun god.

              • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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                4 months ago

                Well, that’s all well and good, but that has little to do with anything the other person, or the article were talking about. It’s all well and good to disagree that a reduced population will lead to more wealth equality, or that climate change or AI will derail these predictions, but accusing the other person of eugenics or genocide is hyperbolic at best.

                Also, for the last century, the less educated have been disproportionately increasing the population, typically because people with less education are living in poorer countries, which leads to more child mortality, and children are basically the only retirement plan people had prior to the last century. Why you would think this would change is beyond me, because we still have no indication even today that the more educated or wealthy are interested in having more kids, outliers like Elon Musk and Nick Cannon notwithstanding.

                • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  What? First off, they brought it up first, so it has quite a bit to do with them. Second, I quoted the part that is the core of most genocidal beliefs including the Nazis: Believing people are better off when people are killed off.

                  Climate change is why this will change. It will disproportionately affect the poor and already has started. I already explained this. Get with the end times.

                  The reason the rich are doing that is because they believe they will need to repopulate the earth. People like Elon have very odd religious beliefs due to survivor bias.