currently we're not because of of just generally low birth rates almost worldwide uh
civilization is not headed to have a population that is an order of magnitude greater than
where where we're kind of we're currently headed towards a population decline uh and this is almost
everywhere in the world you know it basically seems as as though as soon as you have like
urbanization um and and and education beyond a certain level and income beyond a certain level
birth rates plummet um and so as countries get get wealthier their birth rates plummet it's
somewhat counterintuitive because people will say like well it's too expensive to have a baby nope
the the wealthier they are are the fewer kids you have um the more educated you are the fewer kids
you have so um it's it's a it's it's the inverse um uh this by the way is i think the biggest
single threat to civilization uh right now is the why do you think societally people just make those
decisions when they become more affluent is it that they just become more selfish or there's
more things for them to do and they have more money to spend on themselves and they say you
know what i don't want to have a large family i want to you know go to coachella
yeah well there is this like weird like mind viruses thing where some people are they think
like having fewer kids is is like better for the environment yeah that's crazy total nonsense
the environment is going to be fine they're going to be fine even if we if we doubled
the size of the humans um this is and i know a lot about environmental stuff so um you know uh
you that we can't have civilization just dwindle into nothing um and you know
japan's leading indicator here like the japan's population declined by 600 000 people last year
that lowest birth rate in history uh it's you know it's pretty bad um so so this one element
of is is a lot of people just think that having kids is somehow bad for the environment i want
to be clear it's not it's essential for me for maintaining civilization that we at least maintain
our numbers we don't necessarily need to grow dramatically but at least let's not uh you know
gradually dwindle away until uh civilization ends with us all in adult diapers and in a whimper like
we don't want civilization to end in adult diapers with a whimper that would kind of suck yeah leak
no this there's literally i've heard many times how like how can i bring a child into
this terrible world i'm like have you read history because let me tell you it was way worse back then
oh so the data overall is showing us for the world as a whole back in 1960 an average couple
had five children that's a whole world now they have a little less than half that 2.4 children
that doesn't sound too bad it's still over replacement but when you dive into specific
countries like the us like asian countries you see the situation is a lot worse and surprisingly
mark everybody is declining all countries are declining in fact the countries you think well
they're not declining like east african countries they're actually declining at a sharper rate
because they're starting at a higher point right so um you have this overall decline in fertility
and normally the shape of the population in terms of age is a pyramid so very few on top
a lot on the bottom a lot in the middle and the middle supports the top and the bottom right but
what's happening now and you can see that in the pyramid in asian countries is that the bottom is
shrinking pretty dramatically there's a bulge in the middle and the top is growing hugely because
people have longer life spans so longer lifespans is a great thing i approve of that of course
but um in terms of support they're not going to have the money for social security that's
already a threat in this country they're not going to have the money for medicare they're
not going to have the resources to support this older population in terms of you know
medical treatment and you're not going to have the labor force necessary to
drive the economy it's that middle sector that drives the economy and it's going to have huge
economic implications and and many economists are looking at that now it doesn't look good
oh well i've thought for at least 10 years that the biggest problem in 50 years will
be that there's just not enough people i remember hearing you say a few years ago
that you thought we'd peak at about nine billion yeah we probably won't hit nine yeah and i think
about stats because think about how crazy it is to think that we might be living on earth right now
at a time with the most number of humans that are ever going to exist at one time ever yeah that's
highly probable and you know and the popular mind the population collapse in developed countries is
precipitous right it's like it fall we fall off a cliff i mean all the all the countries in the
west are way below replacement korea is way below replacement south korea japan way below
replacement yeah yeah i think the number one not good number one on the planet it might be chad
chad the country in terms of growth uh eight children on average yeah i
think nigeria will have more people in it than china by the end of the century
yeah well and this idea that the planet has too many people on it this is
there's no sentiment more implicitly genocidal than that statement
so what do you mean too many people exactly and what do you mean the planet and what do
you propose to do about that exactly mass abortion is that your answer or should we
do something a little more dramatic maybe we'll just shame people out of
having children and i've seen people do that literally i saw a professor when i was at a
ted i think it was it doesn't matter it was a number of professors talking to
a couple hundred students and one of the professors who was an environmentalist
activist type and he got up on stage and shook his finger to the whole young crowd saying that him
and his wife had only decided to have one child and he told all the young people there if they
had a shred of ethical decency that they would lim severely limit their reproductive potential and i
stood up and said that i thought that was the most one of the most appalling things i'd ever heard
anyone in academia say to young people which is really saying something because they say plenty of
appalling things and it was a very uncomfortable moment and he huffed off the stage but you know in
a frenzy talking about how you couldn't talk about such things without being pilloried on ethical
grounds and yeah that's for sure you come out as a what emissary of the academic establishment you
tell young people that humanity is so corrupt that they should seriously consider not propagating
because that violates the deepest of ethical norms and you think that's a good thing and that that's
your right and it was just beyond comprehension it's beyond comprehension but it's associated with
like a deeply rooted existential self-hatred and and i mean hatred at the level of humanity is like
a virus on the planet that we're a cancerous growth step stein calls this human racism
right right right it's that yeah well we're a cancer on the planet you know unchecked growth
just like a cancer it's like that's us a cancer it's okay we know where your heart is located
because what's what's the implications for for a doctrine like that what do you do with the cancer
cut it out yeah that's for sure poison it or whatever whatever there's nothing you don't do
to a cancer so you're gonna use a metaphor like that there's too many people on the planet you
can use a metaphor like that you know and then you're gonna you're gonna also decide that you're
virtuous while you're using it because you're on the side of the planet whatever the hell that
means so yeah it's it's unbelievable and a huge part of it's rooted in this existential shame and
and and horror at the condition of being human and the fact that life is raped with suffering
and a lot of it's unjustified and you know it's a mephistophelean position so mephistopheles was
laid out portrayed in girth is faust that's the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil for
knowledge it's a story of intellectual pride and gurtha stands in relationship to german literature
in the same manner that shakespeare stands in relationship to english literature and
girth is mephistopheles says straight out twice in in the play once in the first
there's two books and once in the first book and once in a second girth that hasn't restated twice
existence is such a foul thing because of all its suffering essentially that it would be better if
it was merely enough annihilated and that's the mephistophelian stance this whole show should just
come to a halt look at how corrupt people are evil reigns everywhere it's nothing but will to power
we're destroying the planet um with our unchecked ambition all of it rooted in greed and and and
machiavellianism and jockeying for position and we're so contemptible that we should just roll
up and die and we should shame women into not having children and we should shame men
so they never manifest any planet destroying ambition and it's it's unbelievably appalling
it goes all the way down to the bottom the bottom of things that's what's tearing our
culture apart this dispute about the nature of existence at the most fundamental level
my kids make me very hopeful for the future you know i mean like a lot of
people say i wouldn't want good people i know i don't want to bring kids into this world
like my age no kids don't do that [ __ ] if you if you think you're a good person please
have a kid put all your good ideas in that kid so that the world will be better
hi thanks for watching this episode of after skool
i'm shanna swan i'm a reproductive epidemiologist and i study how chemicals in the environment
affect our reproductive health for more than 20 years i've been studying how these
chemicals can affect sperm count whether they're causing it to decline and why
you can read about this and other scary declines in my book countdown thanks for watching
and i really enjoyed making this video thank you i hope you found this animated lecture selection
engaging and useful and would like to thank the after skool team for their work and their
generosity i would also like to extend to all of those watching and listening a sincere invitation
to further explore what my team and i are offering on this youtube channel my podcast and in my books
your engagement is most welcome and your attention and interest most genuinely appreciated
you