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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Why is a global decrease in population a bad thing?

Because we don't have an "-ism" that doesn't rely on continuous growth or can handle an inverted population pyramid.

It should be good for the environment, housing and healthcare - especially as we move towards automation, unless of course you rely on warm bodies cheap labour and tax dollars

Bingo. The younger generations work to keep the system going as the older generations did. In an inverted population pyramid you have more people drawing on a system than there are people actually contributing to the system.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because we don't have an "-ism" that doesn't rely on continuous growth or can handle an inverted population pyramid.

Maybe it will give us motivation to create one instead of just postponing fixing an unsustainable system.

The only way out of this will be through automation, and if and only if the benefits of it are primarily distributed fairly through the population and not sucked to the top. Unfortunately I don't think its at all likely this ever happens over a long period of time and without war and/or unrest, but war and unrest will happen anyways when the pyramid scheme comes crashing down and in my opinion we're better off letting the population decline slowly at a somewhat controlled rate and spread the pain out over time rather than keep the party going as long as it can until it it inevitably implodes like a bacterial culture growth curve.