> That...doesn't seem unreasonable?

Financially, no it isn't unreasonable. But it's an added bit of friction to a decision we are already on the fence about.

I think that's the entire point of the article. Adding friction to the decision on whether to have more kids leads to people having fewer kids.

> but we know overpopulation is a thing

Overpopulation is not a thing anywhere in West.

We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex.

> We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex.

Do you have any citations for this? Not snarking—genuinely curious, not arguing, but I was under the impression that most population growth in developed countries like the U.S. was due to immigration rather than above-replacement fertility rates.

If you think globally, the population still appears to be on the rise.

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

{Edited for typo}

It probably depends on the metric you're trying to optimize. I was curious about that as well, but I was thinking in terms of the maximum number of humans the earth can support. We certainly haven't hit that yet, we have large swaths of land allocated to relatively inefficient means of producing food (i.e. cattle).

Also, don't we need some level of population growth for Social Security to function correctly? We could replace Social Security, but it would be difficult and expensive.

The world overall might have too high a birth rate but almost all Western countries have a birth rate below the replacement level of 2.1 (e.g. US, UK, AUS all at 1.7 [0] and falling [1]).

Unless you make up this difference with immigration, you have a declining population, which creates all sorts of short term issues.

Given that western countries have become increasingly hostile to immigration, especially from developing countries, trying to increase birth rate in western countries is a reasonable thing to explore imo.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

Let's explore that after we figured out how to live without destroying the planet.

The economy will collapse if there are 2 pensioners per employee

Because its built on bullshit. With the automation we have today we could easily satisfy the needs of everyone with fewer workers. Its the obscene demand for constant growth that causes these issues.

The economy will also collapse if climate change keeps going, the oceans are empty, topsoil is gone, aquifers depleted, insect populations decimated...

> The economy will also collapse if climate change keeps going, the oceans are empty, topsoil is gone, aquifers depleted, insect populations decimated...

Yeah, there's a tension here it seems. But it's harder to fix a pension system with technology, and the system is much more socially fragile. There are policy approaches available in the US that might not be available elsewhere (e.g., lifting income caps on social security and medicare taxes) that will kick the can a bit further down the road, but it's challenging to make diverse societies peaceful and cohesive.

On the other hand, private enterprise and technology have a bevy of tools that aren't as readily available to policy makers. Government in principle can encourage more environmentally-friendly energy and food production, but they're not in the business of actually innovating.

Most developed countries have a declining population, most of europe has a fertility rate of 1.5. We are propping it up with immigration, and if it goes too low, the pention system would collapse - there would be not enough people in work to support the elderly.

>"problem isn't that complex."

It's a very conplex problem, people, especially women, had a tectonic shift in their priorities, culture and family size.

All developing and developed countries are on the same trajectory of declining birthrates, and I have not seen any policy that can raise it succesfully.

The only places with high birth rates are Africa and SE Asia. These days complaining of birth rates has a tinge of racism. Wouldn’t want too many more brown and black people would we? Especially with white birth rates in a free fall that doesn’t seem to have a bottom.

A lot of the "too many people" complaints are directed at the West and 1st-World countries. So not complaints about "too many black/brown people", but rather "too many White/Western people", which is obviously not racist at all!

Ironic if true since given current trends there won’t be many white/western people left within a short amount of time.