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.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    So, as long as some humans are successfully making new humans, whether or not the rate is exactly 2.3 is irrelevant. World population has been skyrocketing for the past 100 years. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for that to backslide a bit. It can probably go down 5x and we’d still feel like the place is crowded.

    The only thing to worry about is some widespread event that affects fertility workdwide. Like what if these micro plastics are really getting into our testicles and reducing sperm counts? They are getting everywhere. If men everywhere started shooting mostly blanks then we would all be in a panic.