# Is There Any Practical Way to Increase the Birthrate? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 6, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655 "2025-01-06T20:41:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 51
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1001 "2025-05-15T17:05:19Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I sure am. Contrary to the tech-will-save-us crowd overrepresented here, I think reducing the human population to less than a billion would be the very best thing that could ever happen in the life of this planet, and yes, that means having few children. Among other things. Very best thing _for who_? What kinds of lives are these fewer-than-a-billion people supposed to live? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1002 "2025-05-15T17:16:00Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Very best thing _for who_? > > What kinds of lives are these fewer-than-a-billion people supposed to live? 1. Planet Earth, where we live and where everything else we know of lives. 2. Any life they want. Why do you imagine we have to destroy everything else in order to have nice things? We crossed that billion mark in 1804. The flowering of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Renaissance, the Mughal Empire, the Maya, Mesopotamia, had already happened. In California, the indigenous peoples spent most of their time sitting around playing games and gambling, because food was so easy to gather and hunt. So many people believe that the only way to live well is to live exactly the way we live now, although most of the world labors in vile conditions to produce our living standard which is poisoning all life, and we are increasingly ill, lonely, and wholly disconnected from the actual reality world of living things. I really cannot understand why, and I do not suppose I ever will. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1003 "2025-05-15T17:36:41Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Planet Earth, where we live and where everything else we know of lives. Planet Earth is a big ball of rock, mostly. It’s surface is a bit damp, and moldy. Planet Earth doesn’t give a flying fuck about pollution, or anything else humans can do. It doesn’t give a fuck about anything short of the sun entering a red giant phase and swallowing it up, or a rogue planet smashing into it and causing the molten core to shoot out into space and form a moon. But that happened already. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > Any life they want. Why do you imagine we have to destroy everything else in order to have nice things? **I** don’t imagine we have to destroy everything else in order to have nice things. I think we can have really, really nice things and also cool nature that we manage. You’re the one who seems to think growing human populations, or even the current population, necessitates destruction. And history shows us that nature is plenty capable of destroying _everything_, to a _much_ greater extent than we can even _dream_ of, all by itself. If we all disappeared tomorrow, every last species and ecosystem on Earth would still eventually go extinct and be replaced by something completely different. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > We crossed that billion mark in 1804. The flowering of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Renaissance, the Mughal Empire, the Maya, Mesopotamia, had already happened. In California, the indigenous peoples spent most of their time sitting around playing games and gambling, because food was so easy to gather and hunt. The child mortality rate for the United States at that time was 469.2 deaths per thousand births. That’s in one of the most developed nations in the world at that time. The indigenous Californians may have had plenty of time to sit around and gamble, but they _also_ had tons of dead babies. And dead moms during childbirth. And dead random people who got an infected cut or bacterial infection in the lungs and croaked as a result. You’re welcome to go into the woods and live just like those people did; I’m going to stick with civilization, thanks. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > So many people believe that the only way to live well is to live exactly the way we live now, although most of the world labors in vile conditions to produce our living standard which is poisoning all life, and we are increasingly ill, lonely, and wholly disconnected from the actual reality world of living things. I really cannot understand why, and I do not suppose I ever will. Your example of a better, simpler time is one where - in the most advanced nation on the planet - having your kid make it to their fifth birthday was a coin flip. I really cannot understand how some people are cool with that sort of existence, and I do not suppose I ever will. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1004 "2025-05-15T18:20:48Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Planet Earth is a big ball of rock, mostly. It’s surface is a bit damp, and moldy. > Planet Earth doesn’t give a flying fuck about pollution, or anything else humans can do. My house is a bunch of concrete, wood, plaster and asphalt. It doesn’t give a flying fuck about me. That doesn’t mean that neglecting it, or moving 30 people into it is a good idea. The current population has already significantly changed the atmosphere, we have changed the surface of the planet, we have driven other species to extinction. We had to make a concerted effort to change our behavior in order to protect the ozone layer, to stop rivers from catching fire, to stop dumping pollutants everywhere, not to protect the big damp insensate rock, but to protect the only home we have. There is no reason to think that we can’t have a functioning civilization with 1 or 2 billion people instead of 8. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1005 "2025-05-15T18:22:06Z")
I reject both anti-natalism and pro-natalism. I’m pro-“Trust women, protect choice.” Let each woman decide her own family size. I’m anti-sticking-your-nose-in-other-people’s-private-business. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1006 "2025-05-15T19:03:39Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > You’re welcome to go into the woods and live just like those people did; I’m going to stick with civilization, thanks. This post highlights the basic fallacy of your position, which is the assumption that high tech and growing population are linked like love and marriage. (OK, bad analogy – the two _are_ in fact linked like love (which can easily exist without marriage) and marriage (which can easily exist without love).) ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1007 "2025-05-15T19:16:59Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The indigenous Californians may have had plenty of time to sit around and gamble, but they _also_ had tons of dead babies. You actually do not know this and neither does anyone else. The US culture in 1800 was extremely oppressive for women. Women commonly bore children one after another until they died of it. That’s not how every culture lived. We do know that the indigenous people of California controlled pregnancies through abstinence taboos. Women had only a few children in their lives. These and most other cultures lived so differently than colonial Americans that they truly cannot be equated, and to try to do so in order to make a case for life then being brutal and short for everyone is unconvincing at best. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1008 "2025-05-15T19:32:42Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You actually do not know this and neither does anyone else. The US culture in 1800 was extremely oppressive for women. Women commonly bore children one after another until they died of it. That’s not how every culture lived. We actually _do_ know this. [Hunter-gatherer societies lost around 25% of infants and 47% of children.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513812001237) If you are making the claim that a particular hunter-gatherer society was so mystically in tune with nature that their child mortality rates were significantly lower - say, around the 1% our disgusting evil immoral nefarious modern industrial world manages - then that is an extraordinary claim that requires an extraordinary amount of evidence, not a handwave. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > These and most other cultures lived so differently than colonial Americans that they truly cannot be equated, and to try to do so in order to make a case for life then being brutal and short for everyone is unconvincing at best. Is 1804 America generally described as “Colonial America”? I’ve never heard the term used that way. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1009 "2025-05-15T19:44:32Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > _Regardless_ of whether the population falls or not, the _only_ way we can stop global warming is with large scale geoengineering. First off, you asked if I was talking about global warming and I answered, very clearly, only as one aspect. Why ask if you are going to ignore the answer? Second. Nice that you have more knowledge and certainty than do the panels of experts. Consensus has not coalesced around geoengineering as the only solution to global warming risks, or even a smart one, and we are talking probability not certainty on any case. The expert panels see plenty of other options if only there was the international agreed upon will. Remember though my concern about carrying capacity based on the ability of our fish bowl to manage our waste is _not_ global warming alone. Third. You keep making comments like this: > [@Babale](#): > > will require immense amounts of technology and resources to solve. So we need _more_ of those things, not less; and a prosperous, growing population is part of how we accomplish that. No one here is arguing against better technology. One rejects an argument for, but even that poster is not against better technology. I however completely fail to see how more people ties to smarter technology. Avoiding upside down demographics matters to prosperity which matters to innovation perhaps. But global population does not need to increase to accomplish that. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1010 "2025-05-15T19:54:33Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > (OK, bad analogy – the two _are_ in fact linked like love (which can easily exist without marriage) and marriage (which can easily exist without love).) It’s an illusion. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1011 "2025-05-15T19:56:16Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Is 1804 America generally described as “Colonial America”? I’ve never heard the term used that way. The culture – for women – wasn’t any different in 1775 than it was in 1801, so that’s a distinction without a difference. Your link was behind a paywall so I have no idea whether it verifies your stated fact. I am not making any such claim as you imagine. I was making the point that in a historical, non-European culture I have some familiarity with, they lived very well without an industrial revolution, in fact without metals, or wheels. They’d managed their ecosystem sustainably for thousands of years. They had far more leisure than we do. I could go on, but it’s pointless. I don’t believe your vision of a possible future is, in fact, possible. And if it did come to pass by virtue of human nature being completely transformed – which is what it would take – I would rather die than live in it. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1012 "2025-05-15T20:30:31Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > First off, you asked if I was talking about global warming and I answered, very clearly, only as one aspect. Why ask if you are going to ignore the answer? I’m not aware of any other form of pollution that’s at risk of poisoning us like that, and would have said so if that’s what you meant; your phrasing just didn’t sound like global warming, so I was curious. > [@DSeid](#): > > Second. Nice that you have more knowledge and certainty than do the panels of experts. Consensus has not coalesced around geoengineering as the only solution to global warming risks, or even a smart one, and we are talking probability not certainty on any case. The expert panels see plenty of other options if only there was the international agreed upon will. I certainly don’t have more knowledge than experts; I base my opinion on what I’ve heard credible experts say. > [@DSeid](#): > > I however completely fail to see how more people ties to smarter technology. Avoiding upside down demographics matters to prosperity which matters to innovation perhaps. But global population does not need to increase to accomplish that. Who makes technology and scientific development? If you have more of the things that make something, why wouldn’t you expect to have more of the something you’re making? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1013 "2025-05-15T20:31:04Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I am not making any such claim as you imagine. I was making the point that in a historical, non-European culture I have some familiarity with, they lived very well without an industrial revolution, in fact without metals, or wheels. They’d managed their ecosystem sustainably for thousands of years. They had far more leisure than we do. I could go on, but it’s pointless. What was their childhood mortality rate? > [@Ulfreida](#): > > I don’t believe your vision of a possible future is, in fact, possible. And if it did come to pass by virtue of human nature being completely transformed – which is what it would take – I would rather die than live in it. I’m sorry you think so lowly of human nature. That’s truly tragic. If I held such a low opinion of humanity, I probably wouldn’t want so many of us around, either. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1014 "2025-05-15T23:03:32Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I think we can have really, really nice things and also cool nature that we manage. What is “managed” by humans is not actually _nature._ ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1015 "2025-05-15T23:07:58Z")
We can pretend to experience nature in our fully immersive VR, so drill baby drill! ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1016 "2025-05-15T23:11:29Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > What is “managed” by humans is not actually _nature._ Then there hasn’t been any nature left on the planet for about fifty years. You are aware that hunter gatherers and pastoral societies “managed” vast areas of land long into prehistory, yes? By your standards, very few humans past the Agricultural Revolution have ever seen _anything_ natural. > [@Zoobi](#): > > We can pretend to experience nature in our fully immersive VR More like “vastly expanded national parks”. > [@Zoobi](#): > > so drill baby drill! More like “build solar, wind, hydro, geo, and nuclear power plants at scale across the country”. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1017 "2025-05-15T23:35:36Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I’m sorry you think so lowly of human nature. That’s truly tragic. If I held such a low opinion of humanity, I probably wouldn’t want so many of us around, either. My opinion is more nuanced than that. Humans evolved to live in small groups, where they know almost everyone. We can’t adapt to the society that we ourselves created. We spent three hundred thousand years one way, and now we imagine this new way just needs a few tweaks and it’ll be fixed. It just isn’t so. The fact that so many believe it is so is a testament to just how not so it is. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1018 "2025-05-15T23:49:22Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > We spent three hundred thousand years one way And most of those years were spent in wretched misery, prey to animals with larger teeth, dying in childhood or childbirth, or of minor infections. During these three hundred thousand years you speak so glowingly about, [a vast number of people - perhaps **the majority** - shat themselves to death](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5719695/). Let that sink in. Three in four people, desperately writhing in agony on the ground at the end of their life, shitting their guts out, as their loved ones watch helplessly, without understanding. People with just as much capacity for love and other tender emotions as we have today; watching their loved ones dying painfully and spewing out the vectors of further death. > [@](#): > > The first encounters began about 8000 generations ago in the Paleolithic era when approximately 75% of deaths were caused by infection, including diarrheal diseases that resulted in dehydration and starvation. Life expectancy was approximately 33 years of age. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > We can’t adapt to the society that we ourselves created. Considering how overwhelmingly _better_ life is today than it was then, I genuinely don’t understand how anyone could say we aren’t _adapted_ to our society. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > The fact that so many believe it is so is a testament to just how not so it is. “My cite is that many people disagree with me” is not convincing, at all. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2025, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1019 "2025-05-16T00:01:23Z")
I guess taking us back to those days is the conservative position. https://www.youtube.com/embed/EWiap4dmA_A?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&list=RDNSEWiap4dmA_A ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1020 "2025-05-16T00:34:03Z")
I looked at your cite, and I’m struggling to understand what “first encounter” means. There have been humans for well over 8000 years. Is that when people started farming and living in their own filth? Something else? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=50) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=52)