Degrowth

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Discussions about degrowth and all sorts of related topics. This includes UBI, economic democracy, the economics of green technologies, enviromental legislation and many more intressting economic topics.

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There Are Many Threats to Humanity. A Low Birth Rate Isn’t One of Them. (www.currentaffairs.org)

submitted 2 days ago by relianceschool@slrpnk.net to c/degrowth@slrpnk.net

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Far-right authoritarian pundits and political actors, from Matt Walsh to Elon Musk, all seem to have gotten the same memo instructing them to fixate on “low” fertility and birth rates. Musk has claimed that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming” and that it will lead to “mass extinction.”

Some liberals are flirting with this narrative, too. In a February New Yorker essay, Gideon Lewis-Kraus deploys dystopian imagery to describe the “low” birth-rate in South Korea, twice comparing the country to the collapsing, childless society in the 2006 film Children of Men.

It’s not just liberals and authoritarians engaging in this birth-rate crisis panic. Self-described leftist Elizabeth Bruenig recently equated falling fertility with humanity’s inability “to persist on this Earth.” Running through her pronatalist Atlantic opinion piece is an entirely uninterrogated presumption that fertility rates collected today are able to predict the total disappearance of the species Homo sapiens at some future time.

But is this panic about low fertility driving human population collapse supported by any evidence?

https://archive.ph/rIycs

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[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.vg 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

You're in c/degrowth. Retirement from economic growth "generating" "passive income" isn't a feature.

[–] hellofriend@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I'm well aware of the community I'm in. My support for reorganizing our society doesn't change the facts of our current reality. And maybe I'm a cynic or a pessimist, but I don't see developed nations shifting to degrowth until all us peons have been milked for ever last drop of energy we can muster. Even though we need to shift to a model that isn't dependent on infinite growth, there is little likelihood that will happen in the remainder of my lifetime.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Degrowth supports UBI. Isn’t that a form of passive income?

People eventually retire whether they want to or not. Their body breaks down and they can no longer work. These people need some kind of support or they’re going to die in miserable circumstances.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The only way not to die in miserable circumstances is to die suddenly, and retirement homes typically take away people's ability to choose even that.

I would not wish my grandmother's "well-earned retirement" on my worst enemies.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

No, there are many circumstances in between.

My grandparents both lived in a retirement home for the last few years of their lives. My grandfather died suddenly but my grandmother did not.

My grandmother had a long, gradual decline with dementia. We visited her often and took her out of the retirement home for tea. Her accommodations there were very nice and our family would visit several times per week (grandma had 6 adult children). We would have lunch there and the food was very good. Her dementia meant she could not remember people visiting her but she was not unhappy. She was always happy to see us!

I’m so sorry your grandmother faced miserable circumstances. In Canada we now have legal MAID which I am a supporter of. No one should be forced to live in constant pain without a choice.

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 19 hours ago

retirement homes are not what almost anyone means when talking about retirement, most are simply talking about a form of quitting where you never work again (or never need to).