The Global Fertility Crash
I have mixed feelings about this: Julian Simon did a pretty good job of supporting the anti-malthusian thesis, and that more people implies more opportunities for creativity.<p>On the other hand he didn&#x27;t disprove such a theory either -- we might have been just moving up a curve towards a critical point, where hysteresis then screws us.<p>But in general I&#x27;m pretty neutral: if people want more kids, great; if they don&#x27;t, that&#x27;s great too.  So this sentence right at the front of the article really disturbs me:<p>&gt; Population growth is vital for the world economy.<p>Most people seem to agree with this statement, which is the very definition of a pyramid scheme (see my point about hysteresis above).  We&#x27;ve defined the goalposts such that this statement is in some sense tautologically true, but it leaves me with a profound sense of &quot;so what?&quot;<p>If fewer people are born, ultimately fewer houses will be needed, but why should that presume that less house construction will happen (perhaps there will be lots of renovations, or removal and new construction, or house builders will simply move to new fields as horsecart makers did).<p>We already know our growth metrics are crude and wrong, though we don&#x27;t know really how much and in what ways.  But there are plenty of potential scenarios where economic growth and human wellbeing does not require massive, or perhaps any population increase.