We don't want to reverse the causes of declining birth rates.
1) Car culture (and trespassing culture) eradicated free roaming
areas for kids. This resulted in
2) parenting time is 20x higher than a few generations ago
because
3) children live in adult-curated boxes, under 24/7 adulting
because
4) they have no where to go. See 1.
In the US, a depopulated civilization would be allowed before we abandoned ~mandated driving.
Also in the US, some of the kids that are the most independent, roam the most, spend the least time in parental monitored boxes, are those in rural areas that are the most car dependent.
I think people take the idea that birth rates will stay low for granted. It’s entirely reasonable as a hypothesis that people are simply responding to environmental pressures against having children, and that these pressures will subside as the population shrinks. Not factoring in technological change, I think we’re just responding to our planet’s comfortable carrying capacity without really realizing it. This makes me think we’ll eventually see birthrates stabilize as space and resources become less scarce to future generations.
The arguments for why we want the birthrate to be higher seem to be:
1. More people, more "ideas"
2. There are things that need to be done that have fixed costs, more people, cheaper per person
3. Basically, more people is better because human life is good
The second to last huge population decline was the Black Death. The loss of population made labor scarce, frayed the knot the feudal system had on people, eventually resulting in increased mercantilisme, urbanisation and ultimately The Renaissance.
The first, was of course, The Great Dying of the Americas. So things really could go either way.
Places like the UK have right to roam laws, making it okay for people to wander one other people’s land, yet they also have super low birth rates.
There are too many counter examples for your anti-car argument.
The first, was of course, The Great Dying of the Americas. So things really could go either way.