• GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    A non-growing population doesn’t mean the species is going to end. This isn’t the economy we’re talking about here…

    • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Except capitalism requires infinite growth, and will go catabolic and destructively consume modern “infrastructure” if it cannot grow. Such catabolic consumption and destruction is already in play, and the leading edge of which can be seen in the “pullback” of GenZ from any hope of home ownership and parenthood.

      This significant reduction of a next generation of workers and consumers will cause a spiral of increasingly catabolic destruction as capitalism will go through increasingly desperate attempts to extract more and more profit from smaller and smaller spending-age populations, thereby exacerbating the economic decline and the lack of children.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Well, in the big picture, we will either have a civilization collapse or we will find a sustainable way to maintain civilization. This isn’t a new phenomenon, and hopefully nukes aren’t part of the equation. It would make the recovery much harder.

      • Endward23
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        9 months ago

        capitalism is not the problem here, sorry.

        The same problem would arise in a hypothetical socialist socity.

        • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Sorry, but no.

          Capitalism is growth based. It requires infinite growth in order to operate normally, and we are on a finite planet.

          Nothing within socialism points to growth of any kind, and well-structured socialism can even function well under degrowth conditions.

          It is impossible for capitalism to function at all under degrowth conditions.

          • Endward23
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            9 months ago

            Capitalism is growth based. It requires infinite growth in order to operate normally, and we are on a finite planet.

            I see your point but for “academic reasons”, is there any proof of this claim.

            Nothing within socialism points to growth of any kind, and well-structured socialism can even function well under degrowth conditions.

            have to disagree strongly.

            • Older individuals needs help from the socity in order to survive and have goods like clothes and so on.
            • The help in questions has to be provided my at least middle aged individuals. They must spend resources like money, energy etc. on it.
            • If you have significant more older individuals than younger ones, you got a really problem with the resources.

            Even a socialistic society has to follow this logic since their resources, like the workforce of younger people, are limited.

            The situation we’ll face in the near future, the situation of having more and more older individuals, while we need resources for a lot of other fields like AI, political stuff and clima, would be problem in any human society. In every society which suffer the problem of limited resources.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, but it’s projected to start shrinking after the static point, because people also die and birth rate continues to drop in the remaining countries above replacement.

      Like, we have billions and could probably get by with millions, so we have a couple centuries at least, but eventually we’re going to have to figure something out.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        This is as reasonable as Malthus’s predictions. Continuous exponential growth in a finite space is as reasonable as assuming the population will collapse instead of stabilizing. I’m not saying it will stabilize, I’m just saying that most other populations of other species have.

        If you look at the reasons why people are having fewer kids, it’s easy to see what would change that. And assuming it simply won’t over the span of centuries is absurd.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          9 months ago

          If you look at the reasons why people are having fewer kids

          They don’t want to, and now have contraceptives? It’s a pretty across-the-board phenomenon, there’s no reason to think a different time would change it any more than a different place. Developing countries have dropping birth rates, collapsing countries have dropping birth rates; as do both rich and poor.

          Throw around “absurd” all you want, you’re not an expert demographer either.