The urge to procreate is instinctual, and having children is essential not just for the survival of our species, but also for the continued functioning of society, let alone the economy. Governments should, among a great deal of other things, be supporting parents. At a minimum, parental leave and tax incentives are essential under capitalism. Otherwise, yeah, it’s easy to feel beaten down by a society that expects you to take care of multiple people with an income that is increasingly barely enough to take care of yourself, and also expects all of your time to do it, so you must choose between taking care of yourself or your family. Then to add insult to injury, they hate you for it, make memes mocking you, and devote entire forums to discussing how entitled you are.
All of that is true, with the backdrop that while we do need to have some children, we probably actually need fewer humans on the planet. The fact that society is structured so that we need to keep increasing the population is a problem that we need to admit exists and solve, but we aren’t because that also involves examining if capitalism in its current form is really the best way to run society and the billionaires have a vested interest in making sure the general populace doesn’t realize that it is not.
I don’t necessarily disagree, and I definitely don’t think we should keep increasing the population without limits. But rather than jumping to extreme solutions like limiting births or promoting depopulation, we should first rethink how we structure housing, family systems, and resource distribution. Right now, we’re trying to fit humanity into an economic system that prioritizes profit and hoarding over sustainability and well-being.
The truth is, we could support the current population, and likely even more, using far less land and fewer resources if society wasn’t organized around individualism and competition. According to the UN, a third of the food produced globally is wasted, and the wealthiest 10 percent are responsible for nearly half of global emissions. The issue isn’t raw population numbers, it’s how resources are controlled and distributed.
As you pointed out, there is a vested interest in keeping people convinced that scarcity is natural and that we’re all to blame just for existing. Media narratives often push this idea, especially through social platforms, that subtly frame nihilism and depopulation as common sense. Meanwhile, the wealthiest few continue to hoard not just wealth but the power to shape public discourse.
The idea that we’ll have more if there are fewer people serves only those who already have the most. It diverts our frustration away from the structures of exploitation and toward each other. We should be asking why we’re being told to stifle nature and make do with less while billionaires accumulate enough to support entire nations.
There are already 8 billion humans, countries have destroyed 80-90% of their forests to put plantations to feed animals to feed ourselves and our children while we waste a big chunk of it. Not to talk about the tons of rubbish we create in the process and a pollution that may already doomed us.
And we want more and more. When will be enough? At 20 billion? Or do we make infinite children? Maybe actually stopping having children before it’s too late is the essential for the survival of our species.
And for the continued functioned of society and the economy? Yeah you are right here. But again when will be enough? At 20 billion? Or do we make infinite children for infinite continuation of the economy? The economy is slowly collapsing already.
The urge to procreate is instinctual, and having children is essential not just for the survival of our species, but also for the continued functioning of society, let alone the economy. Governments should, among a great deal of other things, be supporting parents. At a minimum, parental leave and tax incentives are essential under capitalism. Otherwise, yeah, it’s easy to feel beaten down by a society that expects you to take care of multiple people with an income that is increasingly barely enough to take care of yourself, and also expects all of your time to do it, so you must choose between taking care of yourself or your family. Then to add insult to injury, they hate you for it, make memes mocking you, and devote entire forums to discussing how entitled you are.
All of that is true, with the backdrop that while we do need to have some children, we probably actually need fewer humans on the planet. The fact that society is structured so that we need to keep increasing the population is a problem that we need to admit exists and solve, but we aren’t because that also involves examining if capitalism in its current form is really the best way to run society and the billionaires have a vested interest in making sure the general populace doesn’t realize that it is not.
I don’t necessarily disagree, and I definitely don’t think we should keep increasing the population without limits. But rather than jumping to extreme solutions like limiting births or promoting depopulation, we should first rethink how we structure housing, family systems, and resource distribution. Right now, we’re trying to fit humanity into an economic system that prioritizes profit and hoarding over sustainability and well-being.
The truth is, we could support the current population, and likely even more, using far less land and fewer resources if society wasn’t organized around individualism and competition. According to the UN, a third of the food produced globally is wasted, and the wealthiest 10 percent are responsible for nearly half of global emissions. The issue isn’t raw population numbers, it’s how resources are controlled and distributed.
As you pointed out, there is a vested interest in keeping people convinced that scarcity is natural and that we’re all to blame just for existing. Media narratives often push this idea, especially through social platforms, that subtly frame nihilism and depopulation as common sense. Meanwhile, the wealthiest few continue to hoard not just wealth but the power to shape public discourse.
The idea that we’ll have more if there are fewer people serves only those who already have the most. It diverts our frustration away from the structures of exploitation and toward each other. We should be asking why we’re being told to stifle nature and make do with less while billionaires accumulate enough to support entire nations.
There are already 8 billion humans, countries have destroyed 80-90% of their forests to put plantations to feed animals to feed ourselves and our children while we waste a big chunk of it. Not to talk about the tons of rubbish we create in the process and a pollution that may already doomed us.
And we want more and more. When will be enough? At 20 billion? Or do we make infinite children? Maybe actually stopping having children before it’s too late is the essential for the survival of our species.
And for the continued functioned of society and the economy? Yeah you are right here. But again when will be enough? At 20 billion? Or do we make infinite children for infinite continuation of the economy? The economy is slowly collapsing already.