In spite of clear evidence that demographic winter is upon us, population reduction protagonists refuse to give an inch. Nevertheless, over 25% of the world’s nations have pro-birth policies to replenish shrinking populations. Meanwhile, population reduction hawks push policies and practices to stop reproduction. ⁃ TN Editor
Elon Musk and a new generation of pronatalists are warning of falling birth rates, but some say fertility decline should be celebrated
Soon after China reported that it saw more deaths than births last year, its first population dip in 60 years, Elon Musk, father of 10, again sounded the “population collapse” alarm, tweeting that a decline in birth rates globally heralds an “existential problem for humanity, not overpopulation!”
The billionaire Twitter owner is perhaps the highest profile figure associated with a resurgence of pronatalism, a new generation of “pro-birth” activists and anxious governments spooked by declining birth rates. Pronatalists fear the world is on the verge of “demographic collapse” and that if something dramatic isn’t done, the consequences will be dire. Among them, a rapidly aging world with fewer working-age bodies to support social programs and growing populations of pensioners; innovation will suffer, economies and living standards will stagnate or collapse. Civilization, Musk has warned, “will crumble.” It’s all a much bigger risk than global warming, the Tesla CEO has tweeted. “Mark these words.”
The reborn movement, Business Insider reports, is “taking hold in wealthy tech and venture-capitalist circles,” led by billionaire business elites and people like Malcolm and Simone Collins, the Valley Forge, Penn., founders of pronatalist.org. According to the Collinses, “humanity has a very real chance of experiencing an extinction event.” Life-extension therapies likely won’t save us, the couple says, despite the vast sums poured into “rejuvenation” tune-ups and young blood transfusions by Silicon Valley types. What could save us, they say, are artificial wombs that would make childbearing truly egalitarian, or a reproductive process, currently being tested in mice, that could permit the creation of human embryos using skin, muscle, liver or blood cells that have been coaxed into behaving like egg and sperm cells. Embryo screening and selection also figure into their plans.The couple has three young children and aspires to have at least four more. “If you are committed to a high birth rate and building a healthy culture for your family,” they state on their website, “we want to talk!”
Declining birth rates merit serious consideration, economists have said. Children play a crucial role in economic growth and “intergenerational fiscal sustainability,” wrote the authors of a recent paper in Fertility and Sterility that makes a case for publicly funded, medically assisted reproduction. According to some forecasts, 183 of 195 countries will have total fertility rates — the number of children a woman delivers over her lifetime — below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, by 2100. “When you’re slightly above 2.0 or 2.1 versus slightly below, that’s the difference between the population growing forever and the population shrinking forever,” Charles Jones, a professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business said in an interview last month. Negative population growth, Jones said, “could be a problem.” If birth rates continue to collapse, Musk has warned, “civilization will indeed die with a whimper in adult diapers.”
But some say the new generation of pronatalists is operating from a warped bubble of techno-utopia, that its leaders are more interested in populating the planet with their own genes and artificially assisted “super babies” than collapsing cultures, an image pronatalists reject. “Imagine if there really were some secret cabals of rich dudes trying to just make more of themselves,” Malcolm Collins told the National Post. “Wouldn’t that be outrageous and wild?”
“What we find ironic about this is that, for the first time, there’s a pronatalist movement that is not about preserving any particular culture, but rather one about preserving as many cultures as possible and avoiding a hard landing on demographic collapse,” said Malcolm.
More than a quarter of the world’s countries have pronatalist policies aimed at boosting fertility rates and encouraging people to have more babies. Critics, however, argue the “humanity is going to collapse” trope is creating unnecessary alarmism and that the planet’s most pressing problem is that there are already too many of us consuming too much. If there’s any collapse to be feared, “that would be environmental collapse,” said Nandita Bajaj, the Toronto-based executive director of Population Balance, an organization that works to fight environmental degradation that it says is a result of human expansionism. The world’s population hit the eight billion mark in November. “Globally, we’re still adding about 80 million people every year to the planet,” Bajaj said. “That growth stems from pronatalism, which is all of the cultural and institutional pressure that promotes or even coerces childbearing.”
Patrick Wood is a leading and critical expert on Sustainable Development, Green Economy, Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda and historic Technocracy. He is the author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation (2015) and co-author of Trilaterals Over Washington, Volumes I and II (1978-1980) with the late Antony C. Sutton.
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Elle
January 30, 2023 12:53 pm
Well, let’s see WHY birth rates are declining. I think it was AU that officially reported a 63% drop in fertility in the last year after kill-shots were forced onto the Aussie population. Japan is reporting a huge gap in breeding with no workers to run the country. These are recent admissions; Japan has been aware of their problem for a long while.
There is NO good reason to bring a child into this mess now or even before covid–I did not. So, what is your beef here Elton? I’m a little confused by your comment as it does not address the focus of mine. No one said anything about bringing new life into this world, only the reason(s) that can be applied to the fertility declination of today. You project too much and ass-u-me the rest.
(If you’re going to use unnecessarily mean words, at least get them right–asinine.)
Last edited 7 months ago by Elle
Susan
January 30, 2023 3:18 pm
geoengineering is our biggest threat and nano tech, and the 5g, 6g,7g that emit frequencies to activate all that nano self assembling technology that we are being seeded with…… more people need to wise up and keep up with what is really our biggest threat!!!
Blah, blah, blah
January 30, 2023 5:30 pm
Who in their right mind would want to bring a child into this world? Maybe a total collapse is what the human race needs?
Elton Melon
January 31, 2023 5:20 am
The first and most humane thing I could do right now is to go and make babies. Babies that will grow up with no understanding of real life, and I’d have to isolate to keep them from becoming ideologically corrupt.
Please, grow up, and pay attention. Having children became idiotic around about 2005; earlier if you were paranoid enough to see what was coming.
Stupid article that’s basically trolling the readers.
HisPlanWillSucceed
February 5, 2023 6:07 pm
God’s command to “Be fruitful and multiply” has never been rescinded, although there may be Biblical grounds for not marrying due to a time of distress. May God give blessing and grace to His children who dare to obey this command, and may He be glorified with the fruit of their labor!
Well, let’s see WHY birth rates are declining. I think it was AU that officially reported a 63% drop in fertility in the last year after kill-shots were forced onto the Aussie population. Japan is reporting a huge gap in breeding with no workers to run the country. These are recent admissions; Japan has been aware of their problem for a long while.
In any case, today this article appeared; apply it to reproduction, too. Take a good look at it, everyone. American Heart Association–American Heart Association Reports COVid -19 VAXXines Cause Myocarditis Injury & Sudden Death (drrobertyoung.com)
Tell me one good reason to have children right now. What so they can become property and subjects of the state? That’s Asinine.
There is NO good reason to bring a child into this mess now or even before covid–I did not. So, what is your beef here Elton? I’m a little confused by your comment as it does not address the focus of mine. No one said anything about bringing new life into this world, only the reason(s) that can be applied to the fertility declination of today. You project too much and ass-u-me the rest.
(If you’re going to use unnecessarily mean words, at least get them right–asinine.)
geoengineering is our biggest threat and nano tech, and the 5g, 6g,7g that emit frequencies to activate all that nano self assembling technology that we are being seeded with…… more people need to wise up and keep up with what is really our biggest threat!!!
Who in their right mind would want to bring a child into this world? Maybe a total collapse is what the human race needs?
The first and most humane thing I could do right now is to go and make babies. Babies that will grow up with no understanding of real life, and I’d have to isolate to keep them from becoming ideologically corrupt.
Please, grow up, and pay attention. Having children became idiotic around about 2005; earlier if you were paranoid enough to see what was coming.
Stupid article that’s basically trolling the readers.
God’s command to “Be fruitful and multiply” has never been rescinded, although there may be Biblical grounds for not marrying due to a time of distress. May God give blessing and grace to His children who dare to obey this command, and may He be glorified with the fruit of their labor!