How Pronatalism Feeds The Economy | Nandita Bajaj

[@wildmatters8578]

I love to hear Nandita on this channel. We need more attention to the subject of pronatalism

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

The whole "right to live in better standards" is kind of ironic considering 50% of people over 45 years old to 65 years old in the U.S. have NO retirement savings yet the U.S. corporations have 50% of the world's economic wealth. Economics is such a scam.

[@krubahn]

I like the episode very much. It gave me a lot of insights into different arguments. And I like the idea that no woman probably wants to have 10 children. Taking this as a starting point and trying to achieve the same rights and prosperous living along with education, we need to empower more women to actively participate in deciding to give birth to one or more children. And as a society, we should take all responsibility for the children that exist. It is not necessary to have your own, you could give a hand to your neighbours or relatives and help them with their young ones. I am a mother, and there are a lot of pros and cons about having a child, but our societies have a significant influence on what we do; I very much agree with Nandita.

[@3392-r5w]

There is so much great discussion in this video. Thank you.

[@davidpeppers551]

Great and very thoughtful guest!

[@winstonjen5360]

Excellent video. We should be imprisoning breeders, not rewarding them.

[@stevebreedlove9760]

Abolish prisons. But definitely stop incentivizing it.

[@The_First_Sean]

Woah but what abiut white women?

[@winstonjen5360]

@@The_First_Sean Are you afraid that the whites will be outnumbered, and that Democrats will be elected to office?

[@jonquiljones]

At least we could start removing the tax breaks they receive for each little bundle of energy suck they produce.

[@KateFrancis-eo2rp]

LOL!

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

Please get Nandita back. Regularly. Please.

[@jonquiljones]

Fascinating interview - thanks to you both!

[@TennesseeJed]

Love my Planet Critical reports!!

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

ah no wonder you posted that comment on environmental coffeehouse.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 Yes, I support Rachel's synthesis work on the subject...the biggest and most complex issue in the history of humanity.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@TennesseeJed Here's what I just posted. well in terms of meditation I rely on full lotus padmasana because our minds are not to be trusted. I mean for example our sense of smell is quickly repressed once our prefrontal cortex adapts to it. So Poonjaji pointed out that in fact it is our very first thought upon waking that is this self-aware consciousness turned around to its origin. He called it the space between thoughts and in terms of listening, as Ramana Maharshi called it "mouna" or silence samadhi, yes Physics professor Guenter Nimtz has stated that superluminal sound signals are an everyday phenomena - we just are not aware of it. So in my own research, starting out around 16 years old, I noticed a logical error in music theory. It turns out that commutative geometry originates from this wrong music theory - what I call the "rotten root" or wrong foundation of reality. So as we work, we work to decrease the entropy of matter and we call this "progress" but Roger Penrose points out that gravitational entropy is the opposite of the entropy of matter. Life is due to a decrease in gravitational entropy, as negentropy or negative entropy from a negative frequency and time-reversed signal. Louis de Broglie was the first to discover this in modern physics - that since momentum is from frequency in quantum physics then as a particle goes towards the speed of light, the frequency goes up, but the time, as per relativity, also gets bigger (time slows down). Therefore there HAS to be a time-reversed signal from the future as a negative frequency that is eternally guiding matter. Now it turns out, as per tinnitus research, that indeed the highest sound we can hear externally resonates the brain internally as ultrasound. This also means we can hear up to ten times faster than Fourier Uncertainty (the mathematical origin of Heisenberg Uncertainty). So the quantum consciousness research of Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose was corroborated by Aniriban Bandyopadhyay realizing that ultrasound creates quantum coherence of the microtubules inside the neurons - via tubulin as a negative refractive index. This means that the source of our thoughts originates from this "superradiance" of acoustic phonons with the future guiding the past. This is why in deep meditation we have precognitive visions and externally time slows down relative to our internal perceptions. Also these negative frequencies as virtual photons can be absorbed back into the body-brain and converted into increased biophotons internally with this inherent gravitational mass of the future - the negentropy that Penrose refers to. So we can actually create a spacetime vortex via deep meditation since this nonlocal noncommutative asymmetric time that is in eternal motion is before linear time of primitive causality for relativity/ This also explains the deep ecological crisis of modern science because we are increasing the gravitational entropy of life on Earth since mass originates from frequency as Penrose explains. So while it is true that we have to work and exist in our perceived notion of "progress" - the truth of science increasingly documents an acceleration of doom. For example the Oceans already, since 1995, have overheated by 250 Zettajoules, and counting. That means a 5 degree Celsius, minimum, increase of atmosphere temperature is in our near future as the oceans release that heat. The oceans are melting the arctic ice from below and soon the arctic will be ice free for the first time in 3 million years. There's a 500 gigaton pressurized methane reserve in the largest ocean shelf in the world, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, that has a high probability of abrupt eruption in the near future. Just a 5 gigaton release will double global warming. Also the Aerosol Masking Effect means any decrease in sulfur pollution increases the heat. So a 40% decrease in sulfur pollution by shutting down coal plants and cleaning up diesel will heat up EArth another 1 degree Celsius global average. 50% of the near term temperature increase will actually be from attempts to decrease CO2 emissions that currently are at 100 times faster then any time previously in the history of complex life on Earth, the past 550 million years. So you can keep working and indeed you must to cover basic needs but soon it will be too hot to grow food at scale, as already is happening in Africa and on occasion in the north.

[@zuni7852]

This interview is the best for me so far. Keep up the great work, Rachel. Our love is with you for asking the hard questions.

[@dustyhendrix1218]

I’m starting to believe ever more strongly that all of our problems come from the patriarchy. I would honestly be in favor of a matriarchy.

[@gedofgont1006]

I've got bad news for you: there's no such thing as 'the patriarchy'. Men and women have never been more equal, in the whole of history.

[@dustyhendrix1218]

@@gedofgont1006 Patriarchy: a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Yes, patriarchy exists. No, it is not nearly as universal historically as you might think.

[@richardallan2767]

While the patriarchy exists, and sucks, i'm sorry to say that a matriarchy, almost by definition, would be profoundly pronatal.

[@dustyhendrix1218]

@@richardallan2767 Why would you think that? Women having control and power over their bodies would not lend itself toward pro-natalist tendencies. Literally the point of this video. And in places where one specific feature of the patriarchy (polygyny) is reversed (polyandry), we see historically very low birth rates among women.

[@richardallan2767]

@@dustyhendrix1218 Being pedantic and sematic, the current patriarchal conditioning was based around monogamy though. And people of both sexes made kids in and outside of those binds. Semantically matriarchy means "ruled by mothers" so childbirth is. by extension, still central to that idea. What i mean though, is if we all go "this is a matriarchy now", it wouldn't really be addressing, at it's core, surpassing our biological programming to breed and use all available resources. Something beyond the ideas and framing of mothers and fathers would surely be needed?

[@iceman7207]

Love your channel, Rachel, always such great guest. Couple of points to add. 1. reproduction was/is a biological necessity to keep the species alive. In the past disease, wars, famine etc. created a natural check on population growth, even though women had more children. 2. The only reason we are now in over-shoot is the use of fossil fuels, especially oil and gas that have allowed the Green Revolution. The moment that oil supplies becomes tight and the price goes up will be the beginning of the end of civilization and population growth as we know it. 3. Climate change, which is one of the symptoms of Overshoot, will create a brake on population growth as food production get more and more erratic. 4. We are on the path of the standard model in Limits to Growth which shows a decline in many areas around mid century. 5. In my opinion one of the big root causes of our dilemma, aside from Religion and the Patriarchy, are economist who have no understanding of the Natural World and promote infinite growth.

[@davidpeppers551]

We had one child and only one child on purpose, and we were very careful and deliberate in coming to this decision. The environmental chaos looming on the horizon played a large role in our decision. Is it selfless to actively work at diminishing your child's future opportunities and quality of life as you set about making the world's problems that much more difficult to solve? Our decision was made 20 years ago. Our daughter is a wonderfully generous and compassionate person she is our one and only. The only child of my wife and my only child too. I recommend no kids now. If you love kids, adopt one or be a God parent to one or sponsor one who could use some more caring adults supporting them. Don't procreate yourself. As far as I know, no one has listened to me. My cousins keep having them. My friends keep having them. It is so much later than we think.

[@danielvonbose557]

I made the decision of zero offspring back in 1985 and got my vasectomy. I am 71 now and do not regret my decision.

[@rodjayoma7085]

Would've been nice if Nandita had time to expound on the relationship between population and the value of labor in the last part of the discussion. I've read somewhere that a declining population will shift the balance of power from capital to labor. A global labor shortage will also drive up cost for goods and services thus decreasing consumption.

[@linmal2242]

A lot of this push for labour increase, perhaps not so much in the third world, will be ameliorated by the trend and move to robotics and A I .

[@rodjayoma7085]

@@linmal2242 I suppose, however AI and robotics are energy intensive and in a world were resources are declining full automation may not be feasible in the long run. It also doesn't solve the demand problem if more and more people lose their jobs to automation.

[@DrSmooth2000]

​@@rodjayoma7085yes such as Abraham Lincoln who was not what we'd call anti racist today. Was popular argument that free labor of white men for hire couldn't compete with profitability of slaves. From employer/owner standpoint Thus in best interests of white men to contain or roll back slavery, and deport slaves,Thus reducing supply of workers and increasing hourly rates via supply ad demand Saw in WW2 USA where govt made wage maxima because of inflation concerns, employers had to offer insurance as workaround way to compete for scarce fit labor. Became foundation of our system

[@jennysteves]

A vital and greatly underrepresented (silenced ..) component of any useful systems analysis of current predicaments and Earth’s future. I hope we hear a lot more from Nandita.

[@suucastro6928]

Thanks for sharing this! Excellent presentation!

[@dodiewallace41]

It looks like the most effective as well as the most humane way to lower our birth rate is prosperity. Lower poverty = lower birth rate.

[@j.s.c.4355]

Here’s a conundrum: I understand that the cutoff to be in the top 10% globally is around $40k/year. I make that, so I accept that I’m in the global 10%. Why then, am I living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to stay housed? I could have nearly the same standard of living in Costa Rica for $5k/year. The value of a dollar is variable, and isn’t a good measure of wealth between countries or even within regions inside a country.

[@davidpeppers551]

We are eating away our soils, we are drinking away our aquifers and glaciers, we are grinding down our forests into cheap furniture and poorly built homes, and then there are the fossil fuels. That principle took hundreds of millions of years to build, and we are on a path to use up all the accessible fossil fuels in a few centuries. Sure, we have used fossil fuels for thousands of years, but not that long at a massive scale.

[@KylieBling1]

Brilliant chat! I'm definitely going to look into Nandita's work on this! I recently listened to Corey Bradshaw on Nate Hagens' channel who also talked about this topic in light of overshoot and the 6th extinction event. He mentioned a recent study where they found that even more decisive than education etc, the level of infant mortality is a hugely important predicting factor re women's fertility. Would maybe be an interesting guest on the show! He is the Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Director of the Global Ecology Laboratory at Flinders University in South Australia.

[@michasosnowski5918]

10 000 years ago population of humans was about 1 mln. That is mind blowing. Its about as much as some average big city in Europe. I appreciate the guest and intelligent and stimulating conversation. Happily found your channel few days ago and I am very interested in all off these topics. About pro natalism. I think you could find some value in exploring Daniel Mackler's channel. He was psychoterapist in NY for 10 years, created few documentaries about treating schizophrenia without medications and talk about the topics of social pressure to have kids and overpopulation from time to time in his videos. Major topic of his channel is childhood trauma and healing. Maybe it would be good idea to get him as a quest, becouse I find lots of similar values and ideas in both of you(he may get at them from a different perspective).

[@davidpeppers551]

It is most important that the rich of the world don't have kids because their kids will generally cause more harm and consume way more than their share. I don't see any of those billionaires living simply.

[@DrSmooth2000]

Equally important to block them from coming to First World as refugees where quickly assume same energy intensive lifestyle

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

"In 2017, author Britt Wray felt forced to confront the climate crisis on a personal level when she and her husband began seriously discussing having a baby. By then, Wray had been absorbing grim news of planetary destruction for years as a biology student-turned science communicator. The question of whether or not to bring a new life into a seemingly doomed world caused the fear, frustration, and anger that had been simmering below the surface to boil over." I really like these stories of privileged people suddenly starting to have 2nd thoughts. She's giving a talk that just got uploaded - this Ph.D. researcher Britt Wray - she still doesn't seem to have done enough science research to realize just how doomed we are. She's fixated on how she feels sad and she needs to fix her sadness and how her sadness is the real problem from having to hear all this bad news. haha.

[@brendanvierk7039]

Perhaps you should interview Stephen J. Shaw on the population question. He is a data analyst who has focused the last seven years of life in the population dynamics of various countries. I understand the negativity around constructs and policies developed by the different societies across the world to promulgate parenthood. Regrettably, in his travels around the world, he found that a great number of people are presently grieving over their inability to have even a single child - let alone the smaller family size your guest mentioned as a trend.

[@TheOverpopulationPodcast]

Please check out our project BirthgapFacts.org that debunks the false assertions made by Stephen Shaw in his film Birthgap.

[@j85grim4]

This was a great interview Rachel, well done. I hope to see Bill Rees on here.

[@PlanetCritical]

He's booked in!

[@j85grim4]

@@PlanetCritical Nice!

[@roberthornack1692]

If Matriarchies had ruled, would they have been as cruel to mother Earth?

[@jackson8085]

I'de love to know where this 75% too many people come from. How do you know that without predicting the future?

[@eddycurrant1380]

elon musk wanting to populate mars says all you need to know about his blind spots - notwithstanding his genius in other areas.

[@JohnnyBelgium]

Elon is a conman.

[@KateeAngel]

He isn't genius in anything. Some of his employees probably are, and he takes all the credit

[@triplikeido75]

Musk is a degenerate psychopath.. and not a genius at anything.

[@j85grim4]

​@KateeAngel Exactly. This comment did not age well lol. Tesla stock plummeting, Twitter is now a disaster, his cyber meme failure 😅😅. I can't believe how many people bought into his bullshit.

[@richardallan2767]

I went to a talk about ecocide, and one of the panel was a female green party candidate who thought mentioning overpopulation was evil, because any growth of life/the process of mothering and birth is the greatest good there is. A matriarchy would lead to the same problems as we have now, maybe worse since a "mother system" would surely lean towards mothering. Male, female, the problem is we have forgotten we are still animals, and let our basic drives drive our collective cultures. We need to evolve, really quickly, to notice our blind-spots. Any reduction in birth rates, while essential, should be voluntary or it is just as bad a coercion as the one to have kids. Maybe worse because people mistake their drives for free will.

[@richardallan2767]

And yeah, one kid, per life (not per major relationship) is what to aim for.

[@manoftheroad55]

Is answer more production effencie OR less consumption ... Or thinning out of non productive .. i.e UK example.. those sitting in pubs 9am in the morning or filling up Doctors waiting rooms same faces week on week

[@life42theuniverse]

The 75% is fossilized carbon from ancient ice ages. Oil is limited. Every litre used is a litre gone.

[@matthewdolan5831]

Neander had it about right for 300000 years.. our weakness is our intensity.

[@roberthornack1692]

We've unfortunately become a parasite that has killed it's host.

[@linmal2242]

'Not yet'...but we are working on it. But we need more people to colonise Mars and beyond ! Going to de risk our existence from the nasty wide Universe out there that can wipe out Earth in a blink. So we need a backup of our civilisation by terra-forming Mars!

[@mba321]

@@linmal2242 You forgot the /s at the end of that comment, little buddy.

[@dalewolver8739]

So basically men treat women as livestock

[@sudd3660]

women also treat other women as lifestock

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

Some cultures in India did have matrilineal focus - not sure if they are still around. Farming did create patriarchy or vice versa - archaeologists call it the "symbolic revolution" whereby the infinity of Nature can be "contained" by symbolic left-brain dominant planning to hoard wealth using rectilinear geometry. This happened worldwide - as patriarchal cultures. The male pathology as physiology is an addiction tied to violence and cortisol spiking - the Aztecs, Incas, Papua New Guinea - it spread worldwide. "children receive their mother's last name, husbands move into their wife's home, and the youngest daughters inherit the ancestral property...an ancient Austric race in South-East Asia who descended from a Mon-Khmer group of people in the remote Burmese jungles....Even after her marriage, she never leaves home. She looks after her parents and eventually becomes the head of the household after her mother's death.... An organisation called Syngkong Rympei Thymmai, a sort of modern-day men's-liberation group, is fighting to end the matrilineal system. "

[@FrankHamersley]

Yep - that is one of the (cheap shot) arguments that is dangerous to promote as a root cause which if treated will fix everything! Pronatalism is baked in to our DNA and given we are (presently) a dimorphic procreating organism there will always be positive pressure for fecundity. That said the techno bros/gals with the 10+ strategy isn't likely to work unless they can find a horde of willing eunuchs to run their personal security ops before decamping to Mars etc! (Me reaches for flammable pitchfork)

[@lowelovibes8035]

men=/patriarchy... common sense 101

[@stevebreedlove9760]

The ideal population size is going to be only slightly more than the preindustrial population. Look at global fossil fuel consumption and global population graphs. They are identical. I say slightly more because there are better ways to meet our needs than we have used and technology and knowledged unlocked by fossil fuels doesnt necessarily disappear without fossil fuels even if we will have to abandon most of those technologies.

[@mahlong2809]

It's truly heartbreaking that Nandita, hailing from the most populous nation on Earth, finds fault with the sacred right to bring new life into the world. Reflecting on what might have happened if her mother had chosen to terminate her existence before birth, it's difficult not to feel a deep sense of sadness. It's truly disheartening that she now despises the very culture that granted her the opportunity to exist. Such a situation can only be described as truly unfortunate.

[@mba321]

The worst type of troll is a concern troll. She states numerous times how her decision has been the right one for her. That should be more than enough for you.

[@briangain9836]

The more intelligent among us that decide not to I have children will have a profound effect on humanity going forward .. Everyone else is at it full bore .,

[@donk1634]

Inventing a label, pronatalism, is not really a solution.

[@pabsmanhere]

I have 3 children under three and plan on having at least 3 more. Children are a blessing, and anti-natalism is a death cult.

[@prettynoose888]

Thanks for caring about nature and the planet😒

[@Bookhermit]

You STILL overestimate the # of people we should have on the planet. I'd say 2 billion would be an absolute MAXIMUM for long-term civilization without serious resource problems. One billion would be much better. After all, people are NOT going to limit themselves to the current European average of resource use - probably not even the current American level! We need to maintain a large surplus of reserve capacity, not try to push the limits.

[@dianewallace6064]

Agreed. No more than 2 billion. I'll do my part and die someday. LOL. That is my go-to population joke but, seriously, I agree, 2 billion, max.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

Our original human culture, the San Bushmen females, practiced infanticide if they got pregnant while still breastfeeding - they breastfeed till the baby is two years old. It was well known to keep the population low so it doesn't overwhelm ecology. Oops too late now - agriculture ended all of this with the rise of patriarchy and hoarding wealth - worldwide. Doesn't matter if it was Aztecs or Incas or Papua New Guinea - or Near East wheat monoculture - they all created an insane culture based on war and male physiology as pathological addiction.

[@celestialteapot309]

George Monbiot also climbed onto the anti semitism bandwagon which undermined Jeremy Corbyn leading to a far right UK government,

[@iamthebearjew96]

Ya, of course our unusually intelligent brains made it possible to cognitively decide we don't want to have children. That's why we also evolved to have lust, so that we would have children even if we don't actually want the kid. The fact that wasn't even discussed is ridiculous.

[@JohnnyBelgium]

Never seen a cat in heat?

[@swapanghosh9867]

Patriarchy has a role different to support matriarchy. Woman has visionary role beyond much like a grand master in a chess boalrd.But instinctively mn are more connected to the immediate rather than the future.its a woman who makes the home and man brings Home food .

[@kated3165]

Patriarchy cannot, by its nature, support matriarchy... nor women. It is all about creating and maintaining power imbalances that depend on suppressing women in order to artificially uplift men. Its not our nature that is the main reason we cannot plan for the future, our Capitalistic world demands that we consume endlessly/produce endlessly/exploit endlessly and endlessly funnel wealth from the bottom to the top. We can't plan for the future because our car is being driven by someone else... who happens to be a psy.cho driving us all right off the ledge.

[@linmal2242]

But we need more people to colonise Mars and beyond ! Going to de risk our existence from the nasty wide Universe out there that can wipe out Earth in a blink. So we need a backup of our civilisation by terra-forming Mars!

[@Nitzpitz]

Wow, is she seriously claiming that having only one child means you have experienced everything there is to experience about parenthood? I am very sorry, but that is so not true. The interaction between siblings and seeing different persons coming into adulthood all in their own way, is something that adopting a dog just could not give you. One child policy was stupid. People should make their own choice about having a family, but 2 children per woman would still mean a decrease in population. I think making people scared of having children because of the environment is equally flawed as forcing people to have a family

[@matthewdolan5831]

Promote dendrophilia perhaps?

[@davidbarry6900]

This episode comes across to me as mostly copium, along with mixed-up arguments and priorities. (I would respect Bajaj's ideas more if she were speaking as a mother, given how massively the experience changes a woman's perspective on life and values - refer to Mary Harrington.) The biggest single weakness of the pronatalism discussion is that it is a completely dead and irrelevant issue in industrialized countries. Those societies have spoken: women are having few if any children; nearly all of industrial countries have birthrates below replacement rate; and EVERY measure attempted by national governments to try change this has failed dramatically. (The Russian incentives mentioned apparently resulted in a huge number of babies abandoned or being given up for adoption; the initiative was halted after a few years. China is in demographic collapse but birthrates are declining even faster after the government there tried increasing the two to three-child policy and encouraging more children.) The REASONS for industrial country women having fewer children are complicated socially. In part, the Pill made it easier to postpone having children, often to the point where it was no longer possible (women who are childless at age 30 have only a 50% or lower chance of ever having a child even if they want to; biology is a harsh mistress). In part, industrialization means urbanization, and city living is EXPENSIVE, and since raising children is expensive and people are not dumb, people choose to have fewer children. In part, women's liberation (and feminism) has largely succeeded in giving women many more options for their lives. Exploring options like higher education takes time and energy, and women often don't realize that having a demanding career may simply preclude other choices (e.g. having children), until it is too late. Refer to an interesting interview of Stephen J Shaw by Chris Williamson: there are an increasing number of women who are childless not through choice, but through circumstance. That is, there are definitely some (10%) who choose NOT to have kids, some (10%) who CANNOT have kids, but 80% of childless women always intended to have children, but simply were not in the right situation with the right person at the right time. (Stats are from a research paper that was mentioned.) Interestingly, the number of women (about 6%) who really wanted to have several children (and did so) has not changed much over time, but rather, it is all the other women who were open to having children maybe at some point, and in previous generations might have had a few kids, who are instead ending up childless or having far fewer children than they expected these days. In any case, the end result is that virtually all countries outside Africa are in demographic decline. This then confuses me as to why someone might want to push the narrative of Pronatalism as an important issue (to combat), i.e. other than the usual factors of "because it's my job and I [Bajaj] earn my living from this cause". Clearly, it's irrelevant in "the Global North"... but it is perhaps still relevant and important in Africa? Oddly enough, Catholics have been ignoring the Pope for many decades about his demands for people of that religion to have more children; and birth rates have been declining even in Hindu and Muslim countries, albeit slower than in "Christian" populations. So, is Bajaj perhaps using her Canadian education's perspective to prescribe a solution for issues being experienced by Muslim and African women? To me, this seems not only arrogant, but going at the problem the wrong way around. First you need to figure out how to get girls more education, which usually requires increasing the prosperity (ie. standard of living) of everyone (and especially boys first, surprisingly) in the poor countries, which usually requires getting roads, reliable electricity, banking, and safe drinking water everywhere, which also first requires making the place secure from bandits, warlords, and gangs. (You educate boys first because unemployable young men are troublemakers, who tend to form gangs and wreck the rest of society.) None of this is easy - but once you have a safe environment in which families can afford to educate their daughters, all else follows. THAT should be the priority.

[@yeshuamusic5102]

Thank you for writing this because I came to the comment section to write a lengthy reply when, after 10 minutes of listening, I thought "why is this even a topic we're discussing?" for all the reasons you've listed. Appreciate your sensitive, well-thought out and nuanced response. Wish this comment section had more engagement, or Rachel replied because I think these are important points you've raised that I doubt are in the podcast.

[@davidbarry6900]

@@yeshuamusic5102 Rachel was trying to raise some of these points herself in this interview, actually. The guest did not really address them though, and kept moving the discussion off into new tangents. I listen to most of the Planet Critical episodes because Rachel has had amazing guests on in the past. Unfortunately, some are a bit of a flop, or focused on ideas that are perhaps a bit too wooly.

[@dianewallace6064]

I believe in living by example. I am 57 and never had a child from my body. Why don't folks adopt? Is it too expensive to adopt? Seems like adoption solves many of these issues.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

depends who the audience is. I had coworkers from Mexico farms - they had ten siblings!! So they move to the U.S. - it's expensive. So they have two children. It's a huge difference. But there's still a generation in the "third world" having those farm big families to do child labor. For example 70% of chocolate bought in the U.S. is from child labor in Africa - most of that is "family farm" businesses where the children don't go to school. Why? Because Cargill is owned by a private family of billionaires so the refuse to pay the farmers in Africa a living wage that doesn't require a big family of child labor. Instead Cargill claims the Africans need "technical training" so they are more "efficient." Bunch of b.s. Platonic Freemason philosophy that people buy into.

[@PlanetCritical]

@@davidbarry6900 Interesting points, for sure. Of course the answer is nuanced, but the point remains that around the world pronatalism underpins many cultures, some of which readily enslave pre-pubescent young girls into marriage. I love Nandita's message that female emancipation leads to a better standard of living for both sexes. Such an approach is critical given the upcoming crises.

[@gedofgont1006]

We don't have an overpopulation problem; we have a global resourse allocation and misuse problem.

[@JohnnyBelgium]

If Nigerians keep growing at the rate they do now, there will be 105 Billion Nigerians in 5 generations.

[@KateeAngel]

overpopulation and overconsumption are a problem as two sides of one coin. And yeah, I think one species appropriating 25-40% of all primary production on the planet is a problem, no matter how this is later distributed. We simply rob all other life forms of their resources. That is selfish and disgusting that most people think that it is acceptable

[@donk1634]

I am childless, and old, and alone. Makes me wish I had several children, and many grandchildren. I couldn't have predicted the feelings when I was in my twenties.

[@rudela9900]

I don't know what you mean by "old," but as a 60something who never reproduced, I could not be more liberated, happy, and sadistic about seeing my friends go from one crisis to the next with no end in sight. So please appreciate everything you have.

[@KateeAngel]

nice anecdote. There are also plenty of childfree people who don't regret anything when they are old, and many old people, who have kids and grandkids and never see them

[@radscorpion8]

@@KateeAngel yeah that's what youtube comments are all about. Sharing your anecdotes lol

[@robmusorpheus5640]

Population in nations which have better education and social security, have small growth, even decline. The carrying capacity of earth is based on consumption, and capitalism is driven by consumption for profit. Earth can carry massively more people, if we do not consume and waste so much. A lot of production of products is wasteful, just pushing the natural resources we all share, into landfill. Stuff breaks, because it is cheap and profitable, even though we have the technology to build better products. Disposable products are profitable to capitalists, lasting products are not. When a culture develops (is developed) to treat this waste as normal, for private profit, it is not their fault, it is the fault of the capitalist profit motive. From farming to electronic goods, and more, profit determines the practices, not rationality. Capitalism is eating the world, not me. Capitalism requires population growth (often through immigration) to grow the consumer pool and the market. So much stuff to sell, and so little need... in the imperial core. Just a lot of manufactured desire to consume things we do not need. So little money or stuff to buy, in the imperial victim nations. Don't let the capitalists blame their victim nations where most resources come from, for their manufactured wasteful consumer culture. If I have little money, I may buy a cheap toaster. It will be landfill in two years. Even if I had a lot of money, there is no toaster on the market designed to last 20 years. That's consumer capitalism. Renewing productive, food producing land is not profitable in the short term, because yields are lower, and not economically viable. It can be done, it just won't be in a market pricing system. The problem is not population, it is practice. Population can be stable if we create stable conditions. This would require the end of capitalism, and would require actual central planning based on needs, not sales. You don't have the right to a new phone, if that means another person cannot be fed. I can't watch the rest. Grrr.

[@sudd3660]

population is always an issue, larger it is the larger the problem, but the monetary problem is great insight on your part. so in conclusion we must lower the population by order of magnitude before we can start to figure out what sustainable carrying capacity of the earth and environment is.

[@robmusorpheus5640]

@@sudd3660 No. Population as a problem is relative to consumption to get to carrying capacity. The richest economies consume the most per capita, and so treating population as the problem makes a linear value judgement on all lifestyles, when different lifestyles consume vastly different amounts of resources. Again, consumption is a problem relative to carrying capacity. Try to be less misanthropic, and more dialectical. FFS stop speaking of wiping people out to get to a magic number. It's lazy thinking.

[@sudd3660]

@@robmusorpheus5640 are you on a phone, because you do not get anything. you young shits are broken

[@robmusorpheus5640]

@@sudd3660 It is likely population is growing in an S-curve, not merely exponentially. Presently growth is slowing, so leash your inner Thanos, and focus on systemic problems which reward and demand over consumption for the private profit of a few.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

exponential growth is not capitalism it's Platonic philosophy.