Date: August 19th, 2026 2:20 PM Author: indecent plaza
I really don't think people appreciate the hit population decline is going to have on society over the coming decades. It's not just that there will be fewer people, it's the ones still around will be old as fuck too.
Keep in mind there is no mission to colonize Mars or the moon with a massive declining population at home. Currently global population peaks in 2080. However, UN estimates have serverly undershot the estimations before and population collapse happens much faster than predicted. South Korea is a perfect example. It's basically a dead society and at this point it would take 50 years to recover if changes were implemented today.
I did a few long road trips this summer and I saw lots of old abandoned towns. That's going to more wide spread and a normal occurrence for our kids and grand kids.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:37 PM Author: indecent plaza
Sorry, that was for California
But ...
Data from the 2020 Census officially confirmed that the under-18 population has become "majority-minority," making non-Hispanic white children a minority within their own age group for the first time in modern American history.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:32 PM Author: indecent plaza
South Korea is at .7 replacement. That's a terminal death spiral. Nobody cares or really talks about it. AInis the panacea but who's having kids? Is it the smart cohort driving AI development and maintaining the system. It's not.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:40 PM Author: indecent plaza
China, Japan and Korea are basically done. That's also why Russia invaded Ukraine. Population-wise, this is their last shot at a ground offensive. Same with China and the 2028 Taiwan outline.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:45 PM Author: indecent plaza
Yeah that's why I call bullshit on the China scare. It's the new boogeyman like the USSR. Neither were ever really a threat based on gdp and dynamic economic factors. China is done for.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:34 PM Author: indecent plaza
It's still basically a third rail for politicians.
A good example is data centers. If you pay attention you know the bet is that AI will be needed to offset the decline in population. But nobody tells the communities that will host the data centers. It's all couched in economic development and profit seeking for big tech. That's not the issue at all.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:44 PM Author: indecent plaza
I think policy circles are confronting the issue. My take is that trump was allowed to limit immigration because we're shifting over to AI as the solution. That's the impetus for a lot of our foreign policy now. I've read lots of think tank type summaries on the topic.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:44 PM Author: Cream field
Population decline alarmism is highly overrated. It’s mostly just an excuse to let sexual deviants like Noah Smith fixate on teen sex (or lack thereof) and pretend to be an intellectual while doing so. In fact, come to think of it, I haven’t heard a single alarmist argument about population decline that doesn’t tacitly circle back to an economic pyramid scheme collapsing.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:51 PM Author: it's all so judaic
the average westerner's materially high QOL is dependent on the ponzi scheme
people do have a personal interest in the system continuing without decline or collapse. there are very few westerners whose QOL would go up if the ponzi failed (there are some, though)
it's a sad state of things but that is the reality
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:17 PM Author: Richard Ames
I think the argument that we must keep the ponzi scheme going is a bit off tbh. If markets were allowed to actually correct, asset prices would come down and the economy would adjust to the reality on the ground (as opposed to the ongoing never ending finance spigot that drives activity today).
Like yeah, you'd have fewer people hauling around in 100k GMC Yukons...but most of the people doing this activity are just debt slaves anyway.
People might end up technically poorer, but have more freedom overall.
Date: August 19th, 2026 4:25 PM Author: Richard Ames
All "fixes" to these systems make the broader Ponzi issue worse, IMO. Meaning, we can keep them going, but it requires the population to be further enslaved to debt.
Date: August 19th, 2026 5:19 PM Author: indecent plaza
Yes the programs designed as a safety net will eventually fail. But the broader issue is that we're going to have a very old population. There are other consequences that come with that beyond paying for social security. Maybe less war etc but also less innovation and fewer resources dedicated to the more productive elements of our society and so on.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:00 PM Author: indecent plaza
I actually wanted to move the family to Perth (actually Margaret River area) but we gave up. I tell them not to rely on institutions in the future and seek out and cultivate their own communities. A new Dark Age is already taking hold.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:37 PM Author: indecent plaza
I never said anything about ponzi schemes. I think a healthy population meets at least replacement levels traditionally. If my kids are healthy and successful that's certainly better for our society. Overall, I think as demographics change and we retract more, localized communities of self identification will become far more prominent.
Date: August 19th, 2026 5:12 PM Author: indecent plaza
We only have 7 seat vehicles. A minivan, two land cruisers and a cx9. I guess I have an old jeep too but that's not for daily driving. So 5 cars total but one is my wife's, one for Seattle, one for at home and another for my daughter.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:03 PM Author: gunneratttt (gunneratttt)
It's interesting that people so strongly default to maintaining the economic ponzi scheme that they never ever consider whether depopulation might be a good thing. Even though it has to be at some point: endless growth is unsustainable so long as there is finite space we can inhabit.
You're right that either way it's a valid concern. I think what's most interesting is thinking about why the population is declining. The decision, or the capacity to comfortably have children is rooted in things like outlook on the future for those kids, whether you can afford them, or even just weather people are happy and fucking instead of just being depressed and scrolling.
Few people ever delve into this and think about how we can improve things so that people can and want to reproduce. And I think you're right that the issue is largely about "How do we get dem #s UP!" even if the solution is importing 3rd worlders, because most of our leaders are only considering the very short term.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:14 PM Author: Opaque party of the first part
if you seriously think we're running out of land then not worrying about/encouraging climate change and possibly genociding 95% of Africa should be options on the table
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:34 PM Author: gunneratttt (gunneratttt)
I don't think we are I'm just saying that endless growth is objectively unsustainable forever (outside of space colonization), so it's weird to me that people default that it *must* always be a good thing, even if we haven't approached that limit yet.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:59 PM Author: Opaque party of the first part
genociding Africa and letting climate change make the massive amounts of this planet that are currently too fucking cold to live inhabitable would make a dent in that whole problem if it even is one
Date: August 19th, 2026 4:21 PM Author: Cream field
An Economist, a Biologist, and a Physicist walk into a bar and watch a single cell bacterium start dividing and multiply.
The Biologist: "Infinite exponential growth is impossible. The population will overshoot its carrying capacity, deplete resources, and trigger a catastrophic die-off."
The Physicist: "Infinite exponential growth is impossible. It violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as it would eventually require more energy than exists in the observable universe."
The Economist: "Hold my spreadsheet. If we simply adjust the interest rates, substitute the depleted resources with digital assets, and assume a spherical cow of infinite technological innovation, we can hit 3% growth quarter-over-quarter until the heat death of the universe."
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:16 PM Author: it's all so judaic
depopulation will have positive effects. but it will definitely lower material QOL for almost everyone. and in modern society, that's what people overwhelmingly care about. and i don't think it's unreasonable for them to be that way, since there's really nothing else to cling to in modern society: no community, no homogeneity, no positive culture, no optimism or vision for the future, no religion
we know why population is declining btw. it's a combination of children being an economic burden and women becoming dominant over men. and there is nothing that can reverse these trends except a total collapse of the current system, so worrying about it is honestly kinda moot, even though it is a really bad thing
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:38 PM Author: gunneratttt (gunneratttt)
I think it reveals how hopeless the situation right now. When things collapse it is often preceded by a looting stage. This happens in big and small ways: from the Roman elites to workers looting their employer that's on the verge of bankruptcy. Once people lose faith in an institution continuing and benefiting them it's pretty rational to extract what you can and not sink more resources into preserving it.
Date: August 19th, 2026 2:48 PM Author: indecent plaza
I'm not debating the merits or morals of the topic, just noting that right now the information available is pretty clear. Europe is dead and I think we're seeing recognition of this in American foreign policy. So it's not just economic. The EU is also pathetically behind on compute infrastructure.
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:11 PM Author: Cream field
If anything, Europe undermines the population decline alarmists’ arguments. Despite its moribund economic growth (which has nothing to do with population decline; it’s population is actually still rising), it manages to deliver higher quality goods and services to its citizens than America does. Same goes for Japan, which has seen large per capita growth in its GDP despite being the poster child of both a frozen economy and a declining/aging population.
The argument that guys like Musk are putting out is that the capital stack of most corporations (and countries) is structured in a way that requires long term growth in demand. A decline in population would reduce demand and cause an economic collapse. However, economies recover from recessions regularly and corporations/people are adaptable, and there’s no indication such a collapse would happen anyways; it’s pure speculation
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:11 PM Author: Opaque party of the first part
no one watches porn you tranny retard except for internet addicted actual losers like you who will never and should never reproduce. stick to your tds twitter spam and stay out of threads where actual humans are interacting.
isn't it mostly solved by people just concentrating more? i.e., the global population is shrinking but urban populations are growing. you can stay out in the country if you want but you're on your own. that's what's going on in japan.
First, fertility has fallen very fast everywhere: rich and poor countries, east and west, north and south, conservative and liberal societies, religious and non-religious societies (with the exception of the Jewish population of Israel; fertility has also collapsed among the Muslim population within the pre-1967 borders), you name it. Even in sub-Saharan Africa we see fast and unprecedented drops in fertility (alas, from a high initial level).
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:53 PM Author: it's all so judaic
really good paper btw. i just read the whole thing (it's not very long, most of the 60 pages are citations and supplemental info)
i think it's the only academic paper i've ever read that has addressed this topic openly and honestly. they call out modernity as hostile to human reproduction and do not shy away from the recognition that women's rights have directly led to lowered fertility because men are the ones who want children, not women, who resist having children if they can (almost no one is willing to admit this)
Date: August 19th, 2026 3:58 PM Author: Thriller People Who Are Hurt Piazza
saw a twitterer recently point out that this is global and this is absolutely new, never seen in recorded human history. (oh wait, its the guy linked just above)
could easily spell doom.
- Overweighting the chart with elderly / inform could topple any ability to maintain civilization protections. Rapid disappearance of welfare bucks could trigger massive unrest, crime, riots, property destruction, interrupted trade. We got make believe version of this for a few days during Covid, but this could last months with no real hope for resolution, with zombie nigs rampaging across cities, police forces abandoning posts, etc.
- what babies are being born very much depend on social stability so there could be a death spiral with larger and larger numbers of babies just dying or being aborted. Baby numbers could approach meaningful zero
- the demo collapse is indeed hitting africans and their ilk, but in a delayed fashion, so when the worst of it is hitting the west, places like Nigeria will still be 10-20 years behind. Not an impossible walk from Nigeria to Europe if you have 20 years to get there.
tldr it could be the end
Otoh, it could be some NEW SHIT. Humanity has certainly lived through NEW SHIT even if it has never seen THIS SHIT. If each occurrence spelled doom, we would be a pussy species and we really are not, all things considered. What a piece of work is a man. Most likely we come out of it, just very seriously altered... likely part cyber. What I think is immune from change is our need for mytho-religio-narrative, so whoever tf we are in 100 years, we will need a really new story. Great biz opportunity there for storytellers. You could be The Prophet
Date: August 19th, 2026 4:06 PM Author: Thriller People Who Are Hurt Piazza
im always thinking about the little news during covid that the govt would ensure that all psych meds would still be available... even as those meds are manu'd in China. lol. Imagine some fiscal crisis, accelerated by an inverted taxpayer chart, coupled with debt crisis and/or hostility with chinks, such that we have no psych meds for a month +.
Date: August 19th, 2026 5:22 PM Author: indecent plaza
No it's 4 billion old fucks that will be with you in a nursing home. That's your future. It's not the quantity it's the quality. Why don't people get that.
A million people less of a normal population distribution is something humans have managed. A million people less but it's the 18-40 cohort is not something we've ever seen. Look at nyuug.