Why Is Population Growth Seldom Discussed?

[Warren DeMontague]

113. Because in economically developed countries where people are free and have access to contraception

birth rates do a fine job of managing themselves.

That's the simple fucking fact.

"but but but but but 1st world people use more resources"- that's a resource utilization problem, not a population one. The idea that somehow all the 1st world people are going to go away, is ... well, they say a rich fantasy life is healthy--- under some circumstances, I suppose.



So basically in these sorts of 'discussions' one either actually arrives at the geographical facts around where population rates are an actual problem- countries like Burundi with a reproductive rate of around 6- of which the implications *understandably* piss off advocates for the poor and 3rd world peoples of the world- or else folks try to spin idiocy about global population being fungible, arguing that somehow the solution to population problems in, say, Africa is for folks in North America to have less than zero babies.

It's stupid. The actual answer is to improve standards of living, personal freedom (including freedom of conscience, vs. fundamentalist religions) worldwide... then, yes, we have energy and resource problems, but those are a separate issue which will need to be addressed no matter how many humans live on Earth.