After watching this video I am left with this question.

The video ultimately claims that humans will not disappear, but doesn’t do a great job explaining why.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but for the (or a) population to be and remain stable, the total fertility rate needs to be equal to the global replacement rate (which recently was 2.3).

And since the total average fertility rate appears to be currently at this 2.3, any drop in the fertility rate in place A would have to be compensated with a rise in the fertility rate in place B (assuming that, at some point, we would like to stop population decline)?

I guess one way for a population to remain stable, while women are having fewer than 2.3 children, would be to have fewer men? If a population has 100 women and 10 men, each woman would only have to have on average (a bit more than) 1.1 child? (Which would of course also require a collective form of prenatal sex selection.)

I realize that would be bonkers and unethical. Just wondering out loud.

  • teft
    5•5 months ago

    As the population declines we would probably reach a point where we have to go back to agrarian societies and those pretty much need a bunch of child workers working the farm with the parents.

    My thought would be no, we won’t disappear unless it’s a cataclysmic event that just wipes us all out at once. Also if we can get off this rock and establish a base somewhere else like the moon or mars that increases our chances of not being extinguished even higher.

      • teft
        3•5 months ago

        Because if the fertility rate stays the same there will become a point where societies will become too small and disconnected to maintain technology. At that point people will probably have to fall back on farming in order to survive. When that happens you’ll have to maintain large families in order to keep everyone fed.

        It’s not like our birth rates are falling due to some outside cause like disease. It’s because modern societies don’t require many children in each family. Give that reason to have large families back and the birth rates will explode.