Self-Genocide, the Decimation of the Grandchildren

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On November 18, 1978, cult-leader Jim Jones ordered members of his commune to commit suicide by drink poisoned kool-aid. Some were forced to drink it and some (such as small children) drank it unknowingly. Roughly 918 people died. The world is infected with mind viruses of overpopulation, climate change and other anti-children fears.

NOTE: Since, people are choosing to misinterpret the last sentence. Here is a clarification. Climate change is caused by 1 trillion tons of excess CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere. This can be offset by increasing the number of trees globally from 3 trillion to 4 trillion. The current efforts to grow trees are by a few dozen poorly funded groups which grow a few billion trees per year which is enough to offset about half of the deforestation of 15 billion trees lost per year. If we were to densify and increase the productivity of farms we could get all the food we need for ourselves and more people and allow the farmers to convert 20-50% of their land to growing trees. This would guarantee the success of mass scale tree growth with forest management. There are high productivity seeds grown on test fields that would triple the production of farms when they are distributed over the next ten to twenty years. Greenhouses can be built at scale which can solve mass starvation and water usage for larger human populations and be part of solving global warming.

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. Genocide is a crime under international law. When a people keeps a fertility rate below the replacement rate of 2.1, then it is committing a slow self-genocide to itself. When a person kills themselves that does wrenching damage to the community. Ethicists argue community damage must be counted among the “moral harms” of deliberate self-destruction.

Having a whole population at a total fertility rate of 1.0 means there is halving of the fertile female population every 30-35 years. Sustaining this behavior across a population causes a decimation in the number of grandchildren. Total fertility rate of 2.0 results in four couples having eight children and eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Total fertility rate of 1.0 results in four couples having four children and two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Decimation is the killing or destruction of a large proportion of a group.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian Health Service (IHS in the USA) and collaborating physicians sustained a practice of performing sterilizations on Native American women, in many cases without the informed consent of their patients. In some cases, women were misled into believing that the sterilization procedure was reversible.

Malthusianism is named for the early 19th century scientist Thomas Malthus. He stated that having too many people in the world is the inevitable cause of hunger, starvation, disease, and war. The theory suggests that the population of the world grows exponentially while food production does not with the inevitable result of massive starvation. Modern farming techniques have grown food supplies faster than population growth. The technology of greenhouses can grow ten to thirty times as much food in the same area of land. China is now making 4 million hectares of greenhouses. This mass production of greenhouses will increase the available food by 50%. China will complete making the greenhouses in 2025. Greenhouses also use ten times less water. Greenhouses have existed for hundreds of years.

Stephen Shaw describes how most couples who zero children were actually planning to have 2, 3 or 4 children but were mistaken in believing they could have children after they were 30 and had established a career. Shaw says there is a crisis of unplanned childlessness. 30-40% end up childless because they fail to prioritize having children in time to actually have children.

In fictional story of Silence of the Lambs, the evil villain, Hannibal Lector talks someone in a neighboring cell into committing suicide.

In the science fiction show SG1, there are aliens Aschen. They give a sterilizing anti-aging vaccine to the human population.

Genocide is wrong and one of the worst crimes. Suicide is wrong. Self-Genocide is wrong even if it happens over 100-200 years.

Ideally, we need to cure people of the mind virus that more humans is bad. However, failing that governments will need to maximize the use of fertility treatments and rewards for those willing to have large families. Governments will need to support healthy egg harvesting and wide scale use of surrogates and massive financial support for families.

52 thoughts on “Self-Genocide, the Decimation of the Grandchildren”

  1. Today’s genocide is within Russia as putler is sending non-ethnic Russians to the frontlines of Ukraine to be eliminated.

  2. The world would probably be better served if we assumed the appropriate carrying capacity for large hairless apes was around one billion.

    Which means we have a ways to get there from the current figure. Hopefully we can get there in the normal course of things, as now seems possible, rather than anything more drastic.

    So long as we can keep the planet inhabitable in the interim.

  3. The main reason that people don’t have kids isn’t financial like some studies claim or people say.
    It’s because people are used to a standard of living, having kids is time consuming and won’t give you free time. The financial aspect is relevant too because more expenses mean you would have to lower your standard of living. Also, people don’t want to “ensure” they commit with someone for the rest of their lives, their partner and their sons.
    This is why financial aid will always result in higher fertility rates for low class but not so much for mid or high class, lower class is used to lower standards and exposed to less enjoyable life experiences and thus put kids on a higher priority because with or even without financial aid their living standards will not drop so much compared to mid-high class people.
    Education of kids and eventually society as a whole should set having kids as a higher priority, time and money of parents should also be addressed by governments.
    People with no kids should have the perception that they share the financial burden of other people’s kids. The effect is that having kids would not decrease your standard of living so much in financial terms.

  4. Global warming mind virus?

    I was skiing near my house as a kid, because we had plenty of snow and the snow remained long enough. Sometimes it was freaking cold.

    Now snow is rare and usually won’t stay for long. Skiing? Even at higher elevations they are closing ski resorts, because even with artificial snow it is not viable.

    Even old people, who aren’t watching news a lot or tv are saying that they don’t recall such warm summers,…

    Lab grown meat seems good way to make more healthy meat. The production will be more efficient and less damaging for environment. I think rare metals will be big issue, because if you have a lot of populations with higher standard of living they have more of more tech goods and that needs enough resources for production of them.

    • Now Prove its man made, & not natural.
      That’s the killer there, assuming it’s us and not the sun, water vapor, volcanoes, etc.

    • Apparently Brian did not mean to imply that global warming itself is a mind virus, despite his text, which I also initially interpreted the same way…

      Brian, has a history of taking climate change seriously but is also sometimes careless with his writing…..

  5. I mean ok, not having children may not be a very rational response to Climate change but if you think we shouldn’t be worrying about it in general, then you’ve given up on Science and. your head is in the sand.

  6. Climate change worry is a mind virus??

    Wow Brian, I thought you had some respect for Science. Please publish your scientific article providing evidence as to why we don’t have to worry about climate change. You are sounding like a nut job with this one….

    • The mind virus is thinking more humans are bad, not worrying about the environment.

      Both ideas are conflated often, but that’s pretty much engineered into the zeitgeist by the anti-human degrowth cabal, which alas, has taken over mainstream greens.

    • Wow Marcus, I think you misinterpreted what I wrote on purpose. I thought you had some respect. I have written hundreds of articles about using trees and algae to offset a trillion tons of CO2. You have been here a lot, so you should know better. Yes, I know I was rude, but you are sounding like a nut job in your comment. I will be nice when you are nice.

      • That’s the global warming, no wait, it’s cooling, no it’s warming, no wait it’s climate change! dogma that’s built into the system.

        It is a zealous dogma that must not be questioned else you bring upon doom to us all!
        Trust the science and ignore the over 100 years of failed predictions behind the curtain!
        You should also detest nuclear and fusion (they will try mark my words!) or any solution that threatens their crisis milking jobs!

      • Ok, my apologies. But this is what you wrote “The world is infected with mind viruses of overpopulation, climate change and other anti-children fears.”

        I don’t think my interpretation was all that crazy given the text.

  7. Hi Brian
    Time to throw money at developing ectogenesis I’d suggest as well as making egg/sperm banking cheap and easy.

  8. Ah, “mind virus”. How to sound like a complete incredulous nutjob in just two words.

    People in the west aren’t having as many children because it’s too expensive. The cost of living has risen faster than wages, and why bring a child in to the world for them only to suffer poverty? Until people can be as “rich” as those in the 50s-80s in real terms, the birthrate will never be that high.

  9. I so love that wealthy individuals like Musk are concerned with the birth dearth. Yet still support policy that aggravates it:
    “After inflation eats its share, flat funding will result in fewer households accessing rental assistance, fewer kids in Head Start, and fewer services for seniors,” said Owens. “The deal represents the worst of conservative budget ideology; it cuts investments in workers and families, adds onerous and wasteful new hurdles for families in need of support, and protects the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations from paying their fair share in taxes.”
    https://www.salon.com/2023/05/28/the-worst-of-conservative-budget-ideology-progressives-condemn-biden-debt-ceiling-deal_partner/

  10. You have a brain so please use it. An exponentially growing population will eventually hit the wall of a finite universe. Technology can vastly increase the limits to growth but it cannot erase it. We will either learn to control our population or Mother Nature will do it for us. We will learn that not having too many children is a lot better than watching them starve.

    • I have a brain, and use it. I’ve watched my extended family disappear over the last two decades. So many of the young adults chose not to have children, or even find a partner. I applaud the prolificacy of Elon Musk. Perhaps his numerous children will make up for the shrinking numbers of children in my own family tree.

    • You are using some strategy of lets stop having children now for a limited universe problem trillions of years in the future. It is like the first two humans having no children because they projected a finite universe.

  11. The suicide rate among the rural population far exceeds that among the urban population. I was born and grew up in a rural village. For children, it isn’t that bad, for adults it isn’t that good.

  12. The population won’t decline drastically. Death by senescence is an option for those who know. And why share the simple secrets of eternal youth? You can tell people until you are blue in the face to stop smoking, drive responsibly, avoid hang gliding, and avoid cities. Most people have religious faith and fervent intention to die.

    • The suicide rate among the rural population far exceeds that among the urban population. I was born and grew up in a rural village. For children, it isn’t that bad, for adults it isn’t that good.

    • If everyone lived as healthy a lifestyle as possible it would only slightly delay the inevitable. Population will decline and it’s far too late to stop it.

  14. People in the developed world need to start having more kids or we are going to have a massive shortfall in labor. China is on the cusp of experiencing a nosedive in fertility rates due to two generations of OCP and it is not going to be pretty.
    I was a sperm donor and have fathered about 55 children. For my own reasons but at least I am doing *Something* to help fertility rates.

    • China is already in a nose dive, they were first to implement a one child policy, and they’ve been suffering the shortages ever since.

      The only reason you don’t hear it much is that They’re just better at lying about their problems.

  15. So, if we confine ourselves to developed countries, I think that there is opportunity to increase the greatness of a neighborhood/ city/ region by allocating resources and political initiatives to supporting high quality educational, business, and technological development – on top of private sector ideas, of course. If there are good places for people to go, then that is reason enough to undertake popualtion initiatives. Mini- silicon valleys, industrial incubators – such as semiconductors, otherwise underdeveloped, as it were, on-shoring and automating industialization and mining and energy access.

    However, to increase the population just to increase amazon customer numbers, the catchment areas for fast food joints, the opportunity for new suburban development, increase interstate usage or any other ‘fluff growth’ idea is a nonsense.
    Further, we should disabuse ourselves of some of the likely ‘fibs’ of increased populations: more people, more chance of an Elon Musk (pretending that he is a source of greatness, debtable); more people, more top 10% STEM grads; more people, better chance of maintaining GDP growth above 2%; more people, more chance of keep quality schools and businesses open; more people, greater chance of space colonization; more people, less inflation due to redcued wage pressures; etc., etc. I don’t believe any of these things are linear or even generally positive/proportional. Are there greater numbers of high quality university applicants being turned away from high quality post-secondary education due to over-application? Are there higher numbers of STEM grads going into grad school and/or top firms in their industry? Are the ratios of prison populations/ underemployed/ low-productivity/ crime rates decreasing per population? Have people even been monitoring the percentages of high schol grads that succeed versus overall school numbers? What evidence of a greater ratio of success/ to numbers?

    Why population increases or replacement numbers? Maybe it is sentimental? Lost languages, lost histories, lost genetic diversity? Closing regional malls? Are industries legitimately that short-handed from lack of applicants or lack of planning/ programs to develop talent themselves? Are hospitals no longer overwhelmed with emergencies and specialty shortages? Is every additional baby another square mile of lost nature or ruined land?
    The alarmism and emotional black-mail of population crash or employee crash or untended seniors or abandoned industries is simplistic. That being said, there are untold numbers of econometric studies on the quality of the economy and its sectors with population growth and distribution. Also, I lean toward the idea that a well-planned (but not fascist) and pro-initiative/ pro-incentive system can better allocate people, skills, and training for increased numbers – but how successful that is generally, is debatable. Also, having sperm and egg banks with improved ‘fertility’ options, encouraged at an earlier age may be a benefit.

    • As long as we are not aligning ourselves with the De-growth pseudo-Anarchists of Europe.

      I have always felt that having more boarding schools, H.Potter-style was always a good way to raise kids, while off-loading some of the costs. It seems like a better way to spend child-raising subsidies (and school funding); into a 200-bed facility, ages 8 to 16, than 200 families individually and an inefficient day-school system. Having to see the kids 3 – 4 times a year plus summer seems like just enough. Plus, if you space them 5 years apart, larger overall numbers with minimal costs and drama.

      • Well. Some estimate that 50% of office workers are remote at least 2 days a week. Could be a boost to interest in having/ managing kids.

    • A product of the British classist (in a good way) school system, grammar schools, modern schools, and comprehensive schools were an excellent way to ‘stream line’ kids based on their future career potential. Free of typical high school distractions, conflicts, and drama, kids went on to better fits: life, career, and community. Better people, stable population. Get the kids right and the appropriate population size will follow.

  16. Somebody posted a good comment in a thread before here, he said that when there will be more houses available cheaper due to less population in some time, the eased cost of living would probably support fertility rates again. I feel much for this scenario as well, housing makes up a big portion of everybodies cost of living and I gues that adds up in the mind of people for not having children. That and the fact that people are too soft and far fetched nowadays. I think that its all a big wave, when the urge is there fertility will pick up again, its all mindset. Like after the 2nd war here in europe, my grandfather had 12 brothers and sisters !

    • Having lived through the housing market after 2008, I doubt that.

      When houses are abandoned and there’s nobody available to move into them immediately, they tend to end up in ruins remarkably fast. Minor problems like a roof or plumbing leak, that would be resolved quickly if somebody was there to notice snowball. Squatters move in and casually bash holes in the walls for fun. Broken windows let in the weather. Even renters can be hell on a house if there’s nobody doing regular inspections.

      I watched the local housing stock shrink after 2008, when I had to move for a new job, and a short sale resulted in me not being able to immediately replace it. House after house we visited because it looked good in the listing, and was affordable, turned out to be uninhabitable when we checked it out.

      The idea that a declining population will make housing affordable is wrong. It’s not happening that way anywhere I know of.

      • You’re not talking about the same situation. A strong recession/weak depression such as 2008, especially one that specifically affected new homeowners, is not at all the same thing as a generational decline in population. Think about it this way: did rampant immigration cause house prices to go up? You bet your ass it did.

      • Yup. Houses go from overpriced to ruins real fast, without even an intermittently inhabited phase.

        People prefer to cling to their properties until they die, before renting them for cheap, which would mean basically giving them away for someone to ruin them instead. If these people have no descendants, the houses will just go to ruins.

        Also, not all places are made equal. Plenty of charming Italian and Spanish medieval towns are going to waste, because everyone left for the city and there’s nothing left to do to earn a living or for enduring life.

        A town or a city is a delicate balance of needs and wants of a community of people, wanting to remain and make a life there. Missing that, it’s just a ghost town,

    • As Brett said- the housing crisis was in 2008 and fertility rates plummeted because of the concomitant financial crisis.
      I doubt housing costs would occur in a vacuum, esp with a smaller pool of labor like we are seeing.

    • I remember hearing a report that Japan has a startling number of empty houses, by far the largest in the world; and that hasn’t caused the Japanese fertility rate to increase, so there is a counterexample to your conjecture.

  17. People say all sorts of things about why they make major decisions: culture, fear of climate change, environment stuff, whatever.

    In reality, it is financial.

    In places with weak government care plans for old people, you have more children so they will take care of you.

    In places where children produce useful labor at a young age, you have more children.

    In places where life is expensive, especially where each square foot of housing is expensive, you have fewer children.

    No amount of talk has ever moved birth rates.

    If you want to increase population, you have to make having children a financial win – covering the cost of raising economically unproductive children all the way to adulthood, covering the cost of the lost wages of the parent(s) who spend their time to raise them, and covering the extra cost of housing.

    Think in terms of millions of dollars per child. This is why incentive programs with values of thousands of dollars per child in Europe to raise the birth rate have been ineffective.

    • Yes, this: Studies have shown financial incentives do work, it’s just that they’re usually tried at a tiny fraction of the level necessary to make having kids a rational financial decision.

      The problem is, JUST heavily subsidize having children, and you’re going to get the Marching Morons scenario; Most of the subsidized reproduction will be on the part of people who you ideally don’t want reproducing! You can already see that going on as a result of welfare.

      The subsidies would have to come with things like minimum educational requirements, that would be politically explosive.

      • In Canada, we’re moving towards a bureaucratic elite system, where the most educated people get nice overpaid government jobs with lots of time off. This is a de facto incentive for smart people to reproduce. And I’ve also observed that wealthy families do tend to have more kids than average. The only people who will go extinct are the working class.

        • You have presumed that the “most educated” people are the smartest. In Canada over 90% of physicians have taken multiple Covid vaxxes and promote them. The Canadian truckers figured out the scam despite or because they avoided university. There are financial considerations, of course, but few of my former colleagues have families with more than two children, except one couple who have triplets.
          Look at the actual reductions of births in highly-vaxxed western countries (5-10%). With work-from-home I would have hoped for more opportunity for reproductive activities unless the pre-existing imprisoned children, or the reproductive damage from the Vaxxes, impeded such outcomes.
          If you are still working, I understand your situation. I was fortunately in a situation to decline the clot shot. Have a look at Dr. William Makis’ review of the dead Canadian physicians. I am not aware of a similar tally for dentists. For a bonus have a look at his presentation this weekend in Victoria at the WeUnify conference when it becomes available.
          This “bureaucratic elite” is a phantasm. The actual elite own the money, the land, and the jets; the bimbocrats in power now are disposable but don’t know enough history to recognise the term “useful idiots.”

  18. Technological progress goes hand in hand with population growth and that rule has held since the beginning of civilization. A shrinking population loses its dynamism, becomes inward-looking and very much prey to natural disasters. I don’t expect AI to save us from ourselves because AI will be a refection of what we are and a facilitator of our wants and if our wants are to decline then AI will make that happen.

  20. > we need to cure people of the mind virus that more humans is bad.

    With current technologies and available resources, more humans at least *doesn’t seem* sustainable, and doesn’t seem conductive to goals such as having clean air and clean water etc. Most people aren’t aware and don’t understand technological potential even in the short term, let alone a few decades out or more. Even those who do, can’t really say how things will pan out.

    We can probably survive in good shape as a species with just 1 billion people, especially with AI and automation improving and spreading over the coming decades. So the people saying “we don’t need more people” are probably not wrong.

    But this sort of thinking will likely reduce as we address the root causes of such negative sentiments: global pollution, habitat destruction, resource shortages. The more we reduce our environmental impact on a global scale and address the other problems that are linked to a large population, the less a large population will seem like a problem.

    And if global population does decrease, our total impact will also decrease. So there’s a natural negative feedback there. Beyond that, it’s mostly a question of finances.

    What we really need to do, is continue addressing those core problems. The mind virus will sort itself out.

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