Their worth to the world and humanity. This is something people should be asking themselves.
Apparently the one clarifying how the population would be distributed, yes.
It’s been common knowledge for ages that developed world fertility rates were hovering at replacement-ish; but that there’s an unpleasant period between the ‘have zillions of kids, few of which survive’ stage and the ‘don’t actually breed like rabbits, now that it’s optional’ stage, where you still have zillions of kids and most of them don’t die.
If labor were entirely fungible across borders, cultures, languages, and skill levels; this would all work out rather neatly. Since that’s just a trifle not the case; you can have old people trying to invent robots to wipe their elderly asses and restive unemployed youth bubbles at the same time; and we do.
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They would take regional housing cost differences into account, right? For example, there’s pretty much no such thing a non-jumbo mortgage in SoCal.
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Yes, but over time wouldn’t it even out? Residential real estate, anyhow.
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An actual, currently living person is infinitely more valuable than any number of hypothetical future people.
If I were traveling through space and came across two planets—one with fewer inhabitants living in abundance, comfort, freedom, and leisure, the other with many more inhabitants short on space, food, and opportunity, beset by varying degrees of conflict over these things—I know which I’d feel better about, and which I’d want my own world to become. I’d never consider suggesting the second world cull their population. But I’d sure as hell point to them as a reason the first world should be happy with their birthrate.
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That’s an odd point of reference, alien invasion. How about this, a young person ( or 2 or 3 ) growing up with aspirations of curing cancer, or whatever their little minds dream for, and what has made us human and driven all progress, than an 80 bastard lounging on a golf course?
So End the Fed already. Can I get an Amen?
Invasion? I was only describing two of our possible futures, as if they already existed elsewhere, to show I take a quality-over-quantity stance on sentient life.
As for your scenario, what about it? Both cancer curing youngsters and lazy golfers are more likely to actually achieve their dreams if the population is in balance and they aren’t distracted by poverty and war. Both are certainly equally valuable as people.
But I’m pretty sure you aren’t arguing that we maximize the birth rate and cram the world full of people until all other species are extinct and literally every last bit of land has a human on it. So we really only disagree on when we should choose to stop growing. I would prefer a lower population so people can experience the world as abundance and opportunity. It doesn’t bother me even slightly if life expectancy stays around 90 and problems like cancer take a few extra centuries to solve.
EtA: And just to be difficult, I’ll mention I don’t believe in Progress, either. 
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Instead of encouraging people not to have kids, as people are want to do for people from other areas, we decide on a personal level we should not be around as long as medical science can manage to keep us alive.
Is this utopia you describe a real possibility? Or is it just wishful thinking while we dismiss away the populations of others? Because the later is happening, right now.
So, should we get the rest of the world up to the standard of living of the developed world, in order to stabilize population? I think that’s doable, but it’s gonna take lots and lost of cheap electricity to do it.
Luxury…
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That is a dangerous and false myth on every level: average time on welfare is measured in months, not decades; the majority of recipients (especially the longer term ones) are white and rural, not black and urban; and other than individual outliers no one is “raised that way”, not even people who don’t happen to share your color/ethnicity/religion/etc.
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You seem to be assuming that the retirement rate is an unchangeable given.
If people start consistently living to 120, then they shouldn’t be retiring at 62. Or at least, they shouldn’t be drawing full Social Security checks if they do retire that early. At that point, it’s middle age. It’s the equivalent of people retiring at 40 or 45 now.
The minimum age for retirement needs to match the type of work, though: a 62-year-old bricklayer does not have the same physical work requirements (and thus productive work years ahead) as a 62-year-old bank president who spends half of every day at lunches, napping in their private office, and meetings on the golf course.
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Unfortunately, the increasing average lifespan is maily driven by the richest people living longer.
Increasing the retirement age is going to take social security away from the people who need it most.
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Yeah, exactly. Retirement age has to match the lifework – which is a basis for socio-economic disparities – or it’s not fair.
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Nonsense! Early death is just ontological laziness(unless it’s someone we care about, then it’s a tragedy); and we cannot incentivize laziness!
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They sure went out of their way to mistake regions for wealth, didn’t they?
I don’t think I’m hoping for a Utopia. Canada’s already there for most of the population. The obstacles for the remainder are entirely sociopolitical. Flawed wealth distribution, systemic obstacles for non-straight-white-cis-males, and long-standing mistreatment of the First Nations are the big problems here and there’s a pretty big and growing appetite to fix them.
And I don’t think I’m dismissing away other populations. I strongly endorse every existing person’s right to life. I just don’t get concerned when a story like this one points out a new source of downward pressure on birthrates. Fix the housing-as-commodity problem of course. Just don’t do it for the futurebabies.
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I wasn’t advocating either position. I just stated it was odd in world population discussions someone always bring up the children of others, but not a peep on how we keep chasing the idea of living older and older.
We can continue to grow and achieve zero hunger now, it’s economic disparity that is the barrier.
As for the world living the western consumptive life, no , that is unsustainable and unachievable.
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Free market? I thought overpriced real estate was due to zoning laws aimed at keeping out “riffraff.”
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