i think trump will need to import people amiright?
People need to be more productive organically!! Mwhahahahaa
There would be more bebes organically if people were more attractive. Time to us to start cultivating more unhealthy body image standards.
I have been wondering about this recently. Is a trend in negative population growth actually good given the decline in need for human labor? Wouldn’t this potentially lead to a greater quality of life in general given more resources/ individual?
You would be onto something here, if it weren’t for the fact that similar arguments have been made in the past during other periods of industrial automation. However, human beings have a way of coming up with new jobs that didn’t exist 20 or 30 years ago. Think of how many people in 1890 or 1900 would have been employed in some aspect of the horse-powered transportation industry. They could not fathom the idea of the automobile, and when that began to be widely adopted, scores of people would have been impacted by the “automation” of land travel. But yet at each stage, even more net jobs were created in some other industry that had yet to be invented, i.e., car dealer, mechanic, gas station owner/attendant, etc.
Human beings are, by and large, builders. If given enough free time, we will find ways to not be idle.
If more people are born, demand for labor will increase proportionally. Consumption is dependent on population size. If anything, regardless of automation, declining births mean there will be undersupply of labor, as higher proportions of non working old people consume resources for healthcare and other things.
One could argue that there will eventually be a constraint on natural resources, like farmland. However, in the US, that can easily be solved by waiting for global warming to finally make Canada livable, then invade them.
dow is on point. the malthusian theory has been discredited a bunch of times. even in the fantasy post apocalyptic world of the matrix. human population growth was used as batteries 
teehee.
Some good points were made on the population side. You’d also need to consider what we produce per a given supply of labor. If productivity isn’t up to snuff and fewer people remain in the work force, as has been the case of late, then there’s reduced prosperity overall and per capita.
baby making and marriage was the boomers. nowadays its all about the turn up!
My thinking is not so much against growth population. I agree that automation is not the enemy of individuals being able to find work. I agree with all you have said.
My thinking is more about the fact that, to greater and greater degrees, productivity is not directly a function of bodies for labor. The same amount can be produced (including services!) using a smaller population. Seems like this could be the foundation for greater wealth/ person. This makes me think there is potential, with a sub max capacity population, to not only produce more/ individual… but consume more/ individual.
Not sure what is the point here. It is pretty clear that productivity has been increasing for hundreds of years. Quality of life of almost everyone in the US today, as measured by things like food, healthcare, safety, shelter, etc., is better than the richest people from hundreds of years ago. We consume things that were not even conceivable in the past.
Like Tide Pods.
My point is, the continuation of that trajectory might coincide with population growth, but I think could also continue independently of it given labor is less of keystone in the equation.
What, why is the base assumption that labor productivity is a function of population size? I mean, it’s somewhat related, since a population of 10 million is going to invent more stuff than a population of 1000, but I don’t think it matters that much any more at this point.
Yeah I tend to side with KMD on some level that the coming job destruction will likely be partially offset by automation. Classic example is the massive driver shortage in trucking that is exacerbated by an average driver age in the 50’s. It’s setting the stage for a smooth EV transition. I think the other points are valid too, but just emphasize that there are some differences surrounding this technology surge and that the reality will likely be somewhere between the two POV’s. None of this is that shocking, World Bank has been projecting peak population around 2050 for about two decades now followed by gradual decline and they haven’ t felt the need to push that back as most population glide paths have been moving along their forecast.