Technology and Population Decline
For a long while, the worry was that the human population would grow well over 12 billion people. Feeding everyone would be tough. Maybe a we’d all eat soya? It was a great trope for science fiction. Except human population is in decline. Not collapse, decline.
With this decline, comes an ageing population, which puts added pressure not just on the economics of affordable healthcare and pensions, but on the potential for growth, managing complex sociocultural systems and more. Some forecasts estimate that by 2064 it will be the first time in centuries that less babies are born than people dying.
The one area seeing growth is Africa, where the population is estimated to double by 2050. India is another, but as India, like other countries who become wealthier and develop, it too will see population declines. We can see this happening in China already.
A significant upside to declining populations is that as they become more advanced with the use of technologies, women too become more educated. They participate more in society. As they should. And there is less poverty. Greater gender equality. Good wins all around.
Central to our survival as a species may well be a number of digital technologies. In this article I’ll look at the population issue and touch on some of the larger concerns and then explore the…
