- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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But think of billionaires’ bottom lines!
I don’t live in the US so mostly I’m thinking of who’s gonna pay for my retirement and healthcare when I’m old.
I’m paying for the current old people’s retirement and healthcare. That’s fine, it’s the social contract we have in our nation: everyone gets taken care of and those who can work, pay a lot of tax to make it happen. If the population decline gets bad enough, there will be no one to do the same for my generation.
Oh and they populist conservatives did a pension reform so you can take out whatever you’ve gathered in your second pillar even at age 20 if you want (at which point it’ll probably be in the hundreds of euros lol) and can’t resume payments (which were matched by the government - you pay 2, 4 or 6 percent and government pays 4% of your gross income) for 10 years. Worst deal ever for most people taking it out if they want to retire at one point. And a third of the population took it out. They now have to fully depend on the first pillar (government) pension, which isn’t based on past investments at all, it’s taken from the working population’s social taxes when you retire. So far more directly affected by the population decline. I’m betting they’ll eventually forcibly fuck it up for the rest of us to pay for the retirements of those who took it out.
You understand that money is a fiction, right? It’s not even numbers on a piece of paper anymore, it’s ones and zeroes.
Fewer people means more resources per person and less damage to the earth.
The “resources” we rely on require (working) humans, less working humans means less resources. The population we have today won’t disappear all at once but when they age out of the workforce, a smaller population will not be able to support them
In other words, if we are below replacement level, we will eventually have a situation where the old outnumber the young, which means that the young have to work harder to support the old
The biggest concern right now is the looming massive unemployment crisis and you’re worried about too much demand for work?
And how does fewer working people decrease resources? Fewer working peole means less land? Less water? Less energy?
The biggest concern right now is the looming massive unemployment crisis and you’re worried about too much demand for work?
It’s a two sided issue. We’re laying off a bunch of people in jobs that require thinking, but not doing stuff in the physical world. But jobs that require doing physical things are still much more difficult to automate if it requires any sort of flexibility to conditions. We’ll still need people in a bunch of roles, they’ll just be jobs people won’t want to do as much, because it’ll be dirtier and harder work. And of course in our present economic system at present time, these jobs aren’t very highly paid since we don’t have a real shortage of workers yet.
And how does fewer working people decrease resources? Fewer working peole means less land? Less water? Less energy?
Land on its own doesn’t produce much useful, you still need people to work it. Power plants need employees too. Etc. There are still so, so many things we can’t accomplish without humans physically present and moving objects. Automation makes things more efficient, but we still need humans.
If the population of the world shrunk evenly in all ages, it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s only an issue because the population is aging.
And yes, in the future we’ll probably have AI doctors, AI teachers and AI engineers to provide us mediocre healthcare, education and help invent stuff. But we won’t have AI electricians or AI plumbers anytime soon. Much harder problems to automate.
there are other humans in other countries that are looking for a better life
the problem is that countries with declining birth rates dont see them as humans
It does tend to happen that we’re pretty prejudiced, yes. Personally I’m not and most people I know aren’t either, but anyone who grew up in the soviet era is generally pretty racist towards people of color. It’ll take a few more decades for things to get better I’m afraid.
Tax-funded retirement is fucked, but like, who still thinks they’re having one.
All retirements will collapse not just public ones. It’s called the asset meltdown hypothesis.
other than rich people.
The oligarchs haven’t figured that out quite yet. They want to starve us out of existence, but still want to pig out at the government troughs. Where is that money going to come from when all the jobs are being done by AI and robots?
See that’s the neat part when it comes to tech oligarchs, specifically. They believe in TESCREAL/Transhumanism so they’re aiming to become the AI robots! YAY! /s
Then we turn them off.
By the time things reach that point, it could be too late. TESCREALists are like planetary eugenicists. You know how Thiel couldn’t answer the question about whether humanity should live in that one interview? He’s not the only one. Their fantasy of what comes next will never work, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do unfathomable harm to the globe trying to make their sick dreams come true.
trying to be at end of hal9000, where it fuses with the human to become “god-like”
So far ai seems pretty horrified by them,I don’t think they will be well received should we actually create real ai.
they think they can just have robot slaves or humans slaves in thier little enclaves. in almost all cases, fiction media goes, both groups end up rebelling anyways.
Their plans don’t include money like we have it today
More like:
Without humans Who would pay rent/dividends?
Billionaires today will be long dead before it becomes a problem.
I make it my personal responsibility in life to constantly bring up the necessity of immigration as the solution to age disparity and population decline. There are working people. There are as many as you could ever need, tens of millions, perhaps hundreds. It’s never going to be an issue which can’t be solved with immigration.
I am more than willing to fix the declining birth rates in every country but nobody is accepting my offers =/
But what about the orphan grinder? Wont somebody think of the orphan grinder?
The machine needs cogs!
cannon fodder for the military.
Become unfuckable.
Way ahead of you.
There are 8.3 Billion people on the planet and there were 7.5 ten years ago. We have enough people. We have enough resources for everyone to live comfortably and be well in their communities. We have more than enough money and other valuable things to trade.
The main thing getting in our way isn’t a low birth rate.
Anyone genuinely concerned with the depopulation of humans in 2026 is probably some flavour of breeder cult weirdo, and the only ones constantly banging on about it in politics, academia, the news, etc are imperialists, industrialists and racist patriarchs. IME.
I agree with you that there are too many people on this world, and yes, we can do with way less.
Having said that
A little bit lower that the 2.1 birthrate is fine, A very low birth rate is very bad for everyone. Sudden changed on demographics will fuck your country up and can make it disappear in a hundred years without you realizing it until it’s too late
Demographics is like a slow moving cargo train, you only hear some humming and then some blaring and then when it hits you it won’t stop or even slow down for a second
Countries like South Korea are at risk for their very existence and really should act now to avoid the day that North Korea can just walk in because they won’t have enough people left to even take care of themselves
China has a similar problem and it’s bad. They have a huge amount of people becoming old and unable to add to the economy anymore and requiring more and more help from others… That means that more money will go out to the old, and there is less money for the young to get kids and add to the next generation. This is in part why there are so few kids these days, it’s simply too expensive to have any.
Lowering your population slowly and carefully is fine. Having your population drop off a cliff like it’s happening in many counties world wide is a disaster
Then good news! Globally we’re still over 2.1
But there’ll be fewer workers for the oligarchs to lay off! How are they going to signal to shareholders that operating costs will be lower next quarter?
I hate to break it to you YuckyTom but no matter how you slice it a declining birth rate means a shittier situation for you in your retirement. Most people who think about anything other than retweets and boobs care about this.
retirement
lol. lmao even
Ok, imagine I said twilight years.
You may not “retire” but inevitably there will be a period before you die where you are less productive and generally less able than you previously were.
When you reach this period, the more people there are being productive and paying taxes the better your circumstances will be.
The more people there are being productive, the better off the billionaires will be. You are going to be fucked regardless.
Don’t you want to be less fucked?
I don’t think it matters much. My generation will have to come up with a retirement plan on its own and whether the government can cover 0, 10 or 20 percent of the basic cost of living makes almost no difference to me. I expect that I will basically have to cover everything on my own or maybe go to jail for free food.
going to jail for *free food
*slave labor is free, right?
I don’t live in a third world country like the US :) Slavery is not legal where I live, no exceptions.
You’re forgetting the positive declining birth rates bring to retirement - a lifetime of higher wages. In a society with few young workers, those that can work make bank.
Sure but aren’t you interested to know that you’re going to be more fucked than previously forecast?
Unless you’ve already retired, you likely never will.
Sorry?
I acknowledge that things are perhaps more difficult than they ever have been, but “no one gets to retire” is unnecessarily gloomy.
“Fluffy, fetch ball!”
I can assure you that our endless growth model will make things really shitty by the time I retire. In fact, it’s possible our endless growth model has already made my retirement irreperably shitty.
You mean suicide? That’s what I’m reading from these comments, that these people plan to off themselves.
I would call working into your 70s “involuntary suicide.”
Retirement is as realistic for me as finding an actual pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I’m going to die either at my workplace or right before or after being at work.
well most countries have below-replacement births anyways.
