>

Social security has been a can thats been 'kicked down the road' by most governments. they're expecting the new population to pay for the old. Thats why they want zero population growth or close to it. You incur the most costs to the system in your older years(specialists aren't cheap). Obesity is actually a cost saver this way, morbidly speaking; you die before you need that level of care.
The world population is only rising because India/China/Africa.
Here in the US, my two kiddos are in public elementary school classrooms with 10 kids. When I went to school, it was ~30 to a class. Millennials born 81-95 were the children of the boomers. But on average, we're not having nearly as many kids as our parents did.
A "big family" today means 2 kiddos. Moms are frequently having only one due to explosive costs, or none at all. >

Yep pretty much. Wife and I only have 2 kids and now we're done. Jobs and careers have become so fucking stressful these days that there is no way in a thousand hells we are having a third. Had we have been planning our first child today, we would have decided to just call it quits and not have kids at all. 
Most of my higschool classmates don't even have kids. It's too expensive none of us are getting paid enough and the majority of us don't have the time due to extreme pressure from our jobs anyway. Hell, one of my classmates just killed himself earlier this month, which seems to become more common every year. >

Come live in any city in Japan other than Tokyo to experience a bleak and sad daily life. It's really bad here as villages empty out, elderly die in their homes only to be discovered weeks or months later and rust, rot and mold take over. >

That's more an issue of people moving to the mega cities from the rural ones. >

Yet another r/unpopularopinion poster who uses the sub's title as a shield from criticism. >

It obviously is an unpopular opinion though, considering how much pushback they're getting. >

Yes, of course, but that doesn't mean people can't point out the flaws in his thought process.
People do this all the time on this sub. 
They'll post the most inflammatory stuff imaginable and claim "it's my opinion" if they can't think of a rebuttal. >

I remember my old shop teacher would every now then randomly go on tirade about overpopulation.  That was 30 years ago. >

Not really...
Tge population of earth is still increasing 
The problem is that western countries population declines while everywhere else increases >

Low birth rates is a common trait of a developed country >

Abortion >

Smarter people have less kids. >

Smarter people have fewer kids. heh heh >

I have a lot of kids >

Have you never heard of the graying of Japan? >

There's precisely zero serious scientific evidence that we need fewer people. We need fewer emissions. We're not running out of resources, we're just distributing them badly. >

Lol it's not just emissions being unsustainable, it's also fishing, food, deforestation, traffic, etc >

Granted you have a point but it's worth pointing out but we can fix those problems with sustainable aquaculture, companion planting and other changes to farming techniques, reforestation programs and low emission transit and high speed rail. I agree that unchecked growth will be the end of everything but there are solutions to the sustainability issue that doesn't necessarily mean less people. We just need to be clever in how we organize it >

I study environmental science at my uni, and I agree with you that less people isnt harmful, but the desired result of a lower birthrate can get dangerous if the government starts trying to control how many kids ppl have. Dictators will most certainly use it as means of control for already under-represented people and pin it on “helping the environment.” Tbh, earth can handle more people its not the population thats a problem so much as how certain people in our population are destroying the earth. >

Every ideology or direction has a consequence. I am child free because of my stand against humanities growth. We are not effective at controlling or managing growth, we suck, as you are aware. Naturally the economy will control the growth, as we're seeing in higher affluent countries, but it will stabilize. We shouldn't be pushing for families to have more children though, or scaring the populace into having children. >

Well, idiocracy has that right.  With a better educated populace, you have a lower birth rate. >

Less young people means we can't pay for the older people.
In the past, a family would support the elders (and it wasn't even that long ago), but now people get money from the governments to live out old age. The kids don't help out anymore.
Now, with more and more elders and fewer young people paying taxes to support the elders, the old people die off, which technically fixes the problem but not in a moral way.
Different places have different family values, so it will vary between places, but what I said is true if we live in the 1st world/ western world. >


Less young people means we can't pay for the older people.

... if we assume that productivity remains the same and the availability of most necessary products and services remain at the same relative cost (which they don't: especially productivity increases, and food is more affordable than say, 100 years ago). Also, less people in the same country means more resources per person, on average. >

Tax pays for the pension old people use to survive, an overpopulation of old people and a declining young population will cause the pension to disappear... my rent is like 1.5k a month btw, so given my family tree, I'd have 4 houses to pay rent or mortgage on, so 6k, then bills, food, Internet, cars/travel, and so on.
Now, do I have to mention I don't earn 20k a month?
Need I mention people right now in 1st world countries are struggling to pay for themselves, let alone their family.
The situation OP has given is gonna be bad without a solution. >

We don’t have resource economy. People create jobs. There is no such an insane person who will build a factory producing highly tech planes f.e. if there are no tones of people to fly and produce those planes. We have enough resources. Decreasing the population will make our economy simpler - getting food and basic things that’s it. And “basic” is not what’s basic for your American life with AirPods, air flights, cars. These “basics” require big amount of consumers to be profitable. no market to sell -> no high tech. That’s rough. >

I would like to argue that resources that I'm referring to are natural, like food and water. With climate change, there will be wars over these. >

I just thought about this earlier after seeing an article about Elon Musk saying we won't be populated enough. Really, it's a problem for the rich if we aren't overpopulated more than anything. It's fun watching the rich get scared over this. Lower population is the best thing that can happen to society >

Yeah your taxes getting way higher is gonna be great >

Perhaps we could carve 5% off of the military industrial complex’s money laundering budget to fund SS and Medicare? >

Or defund all 3 and cut 90% of all taxes >

Man, I’m not happy about my tax bill, but I also don’t want all the old people to die homeless without healthcare. I’d feel a lot better paying what I pay now to fund schools and social programs benefiting families than the companies grifting off of the trillion dollars we pay to military contractors. Can’t they hire some fucking accountants to track that money?
Plus, I think at best we’ll only need the capability to bomb every square inch of half the planet, probably not the whole thing. We’re already saving money. We can probably even afford Medicare for all. >

If everyone had most of their tax bills cut they would have more money so would spend more which means more people hired which means less homeless. >

This isn’t really an unpopular opinion as much as it is just factually wrong. If you have less of the younger population and more of the older population, it puts more of an economic strain on the younger population who has to support the older population. It’s pretty basic human geography stuff. 
It’s also a basic fact that the population of earth isn’t the issue, it’s the distribution of resources that causes overpopulation. It’s honestly quite ironic that you’re calling other people idiots when you’re uneducated on highschool level human geography. >

Dk why this was downvoted. It’s absolutely correct. The reason why developed countries have high immigration rates is to sustain the population. >

The fact this is unpopular shows how stupid our populace is as a whole... We're overpopulated by BILLIONS. >

Population is a more complex problem than “oh we have too many people”. Why do you think developed countries have high immigration rates? It’s to combat low birth rates.
If no one had kids we wouldn’t be able to sustain an aging population. The population pyramid would be extremely imbalanced to the aging side. This is a HUGE problem in developed countries where life expectancy grows older but birth rate decreases. The goal is sustainable population. If you want to fix that problem first you have to start developing the countries that are the biggest contributors. Developed country = lower birth rate. >

HUGE problem.... It's really not. Its also a temporary issue while the phase of an 'aging population' exists. It won't be aging forever or humans would go extinct. It will stabilize eventually. There's enough money kicking around to fund this phase. Its just not taxed correctly. Government policy s the issue and the push back on taxes by certain income brackets. >

Stabilisation is actually having kids at the replacement rate which is not what’s happening in developed countries. More people are dying than people are being born. There’s no point where it will “stabilize” if you extrapolate current data and take out immigration. And an aging population is not a phase, it’s constantly increasing. Life expectancy is increasing in more developed countries (obviously) and more and more people are retired. 
“It wont go on forever or else humans would go extinct”
You do realise developed countries have been at this stage for more than 30 years right?? So telling developed countries to have LESS kids would actually result in their population to essentially go extinct (assuming no immigration). Population growth in developed countries have been mostly attributed due to immigration, NOT because people are having kids.
A prime example is simply Japan. Developed country but wants to retain it’s ethnic image so they’re against permanent migration as a solution. it’s not “stabilising” and will not in the future. 
You want to fix the overpopulation problem, Developed countries are not the source of it. You’re looking at African countries, India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh. Telling people to have less kids in developed countries won’t do anything significant. >

It's too bad ethics get involved when you want to practice a solution to this problem. >

Well don't be a coward. Tell us your solution. >

do we really want to know? it’d feel more appropriate as it’s own post, as it’d be its own unpopular opinion >

Some people are taking themselves out of the gene pool, and that’s a good thing in a lot of cases >

Yes and no. 
It's going a little too fast in a lot of countries. Ideally it would be a slower decline. So things could get rough in the short term. 
But as a long-term strategy, yes, keeping the population to a reasonable number will be beneficial. >

You say this now, but in a few decades, when the younger generations have to pay for the pensions of older people who outnumber them, and deal with the consequences of a much smaller workforce you will realize the error of your thinking. >

We'll see what your thoughts are when your employer says we're doing less business, you can take a pay cut.  Then when you retire, well we don't have enough workers to fund SS so here's a group home.  Then your pension, 401k, IRA all crash because the economy is shrinking and there's a panic.  Where do I sign up? >

You're already signed up to capitalism. No forms required. >

This isn't an opinion, it's just straight up wrong >

Overpopulation is a myth. With all thats happening in the world, people don't have time or the means to breed like rabbits. >

There will be a point where we will have to cut off the elderly (and ourselves) from care, if the population stops growing. Please be prepared to say that as well, when we reach that point. >

True, unemployment rate is say 5% in us. it represents those looking for a job but can't find one.
if Population declines by 10%, there are now 10% jobs available that the 5% can fit into, solving unemployment and also shifting the balance of job-searching in favor of the worker ("Im terminally stupid, but im applying for your job and no one else is so get fucked and pay me"). >

Are you joking? People create jobs, not robots. Less people less jobs. It doesn’t make sense to build a factory if it’s a city of 200 people living in it. There will be no jobs, no consumers >

Doesn’t matter. Politicians will just import more people to replace them, and then the resources they left behind will be used to have more births in their country of origin. >

Go look at pictures of cities in the rust belt in the 80s and 90s. Thats what you get when a population declines. Rot, and decay. Crime will be rampant because the economy will be in shambles, tax revenues will fall off a cliff, debt won’t be able to be paid because of deflation. 
Sounds like a great time lmao. >

Capitalism or death! >

The economics argument is that there will be a smaller group of working age people at some point expected to pay taxes to support the Medicare/Social Security of a much larger number of people. It’s not hard to see why that could be an issue? I don’t know very many people who want their taxes raised drastically >

I kind of agree with this to be honest, and humans are most definitely overpopulated. I mean there are billions of us while other populations dwindle and we take their space. I feel as if we shouldn’t just stop having children all together, and most of the comments are taking about how we need young workers and the such. Yes we do, but if we would somehow be able to chip off the younger populations one at a time, we wouldn’t have to go into debt as a generation for the large amount of older folks. I know what i’m saying isn’t making to much sense (not to good at putting my thoughts into words) but I feel that if we continue to grow we will never hit our carrying capacity. If a population has unlimited resources (which at this point we pretty much do) we will continue to grow forever. Our population is effecting the world itself with pollution, climate change, and all those so if we try to regulate our population it would be much better for other species. Or at least become a cleaner society which might be impossible, knowing humans. >

"I'm tired of idiots yelling about economics" tells us you didn't study enough economics to figure why your opinion is stupid.
Congrats, you really do have an unpopular opinion, a very stupid unpopular opinion. >

I've been reading and watching a lot about this lately and I have an odd conflict. Scientifically, with the world we have built, you're very very wrong. However, I got a vasectomy at 28, have no kids, will never have kids, I would not bring a child into this world and I wish for a smaller population world if we could repurpose it that way 😂 >

So it's more nuanced than more people good or less people good
The real problem is the sudden shift downward
If the population was being removed an equal rate across age groups even if it was being removed at a fast rate it would be easier to cope than large amount of population being removed at the bottom
If the birth rate was 0.1 below the replacement rate we would have no problems but a lot of the countries that are having problems with it are 0.4 or below That's going to cause some problems when you need that amount of young people supporting the amount of old people there's going to be
It's not about the lower number being worse it's about the suddenness of it
To be clear the same is true in the other direction we actually know how with the current technology we have in existence how to make Earth support 100 billion people without destroying the environment but it would take a long time to set up (we know how to get Earth powered completely by renewable energy(geothermal would be the primary) and we know how to grow food a hundred times more efficiently than we do now with vertical farming we know how to desalinate sufficient water we know how to build ultradense we know how to do everything we need to do with our current technology The problem is it takes a really long time to set up It took us until now to set it up the developed world good we still haven't finished setting up for the current amount of people we have to have a good lifestyle but we could with our current tech it is not issue of tech it's an issue of logistics likewise we also know how to solve global warming 100% it's just logistics not tech)