And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
–Genesis 1:28, KJV
We humans have a less than stellar record of keeping YHWH’s commandments.
But this one. Oh boy, this one, we knocked out of the park. We went from 2 to 8,000,000,000 in about 300,000 years. Or 6,000 years on the off chance the YEC are right. We have been fruitful and we have multiplied.
Most of that population growth has happened in the last two hundred years, due to advances in nutrition and medicine. Malthus infamously predicted this population explosion would lead to calamity; he did not foresee that the means of production would keep up with the growth in population. Nor did he foresee the counter-trend. As education rises, birth rates fall. The US birth rate is well below replacement level. Earth’s human population is now expected to peak at 10 billion around 2085, and fall sharply after that. The falling birth rates in advanced societies have produced a new crop of alarmists. We now have a pro-natalist movement. It comes in a variety of flavors, from conservative Catholic to atheistic “effective altruism” types. From people who think sex is only for procreation to people who think we should colonize Mars.
What seems obvious to me–that rich countries will depend upon massive immigration from poor countries in order to maintain a functioning society–is politically explosive. I guess one way to try to counter that is to try to get your own people to have more babies. But that hasn’t worked anywhere, except possibly Israel. One thing the replacement theorists have right is that in the future, our population is going to be a lot more brown. If brown people are a problem for you, then I guess that’s a problem. But it’s not a political conspiracy–it’s a demographic reality.
Population decline creates problems. For one, capitalism depends on growth, and growth is hard if the population is declining. And if we are all old and in diapers for a second time, who’s going to change those diapers? Who’s going to perform the hip replacements? Who’s going to grow our food? Some problems can be solved; others can be survived. If we haven’t cooked ourselves or blown ourselves up, I expect we will find a way through the myriad problems that population decline will create. And I think it will be good for the planet.
Questions:
- How does your religion inform your views on population growth, population decline, and the purpose of sex?
- Is there anything wrong with sex with no intent (or possibility in some cases) to procreate?
- What are the implications of disentangling sex from procreation?
- If the human population crashes to below 1 billion in a few centuries, will that be a failure?
- Is it right for humanity to have “dominion” over every living thing on earth? Or should we see ourselves more as “cohabitants” with other creatures?
