Are We at the Beginning of the End of Homo Sapiens?
The probability that the human race will be drastically reduced in magnitude has risen meaningfully in modern times.
As an economic historian, I have always been fascinated by big changes occurring over time. The ultimate change, over the longest possible passage of time, relates to the creation and destruction of galaxies, planets, and related celestial debris. Confining ourselves to Earth, it relates to the creation and destruction of various forms of life over time.
Arguably, we are at the beginning of the end of Homo sapiens. Put differently, planetary human populations are peaking in the range of eight to nine billion, and are already starting to fall in large swaths of the Earth. Like the dinosaurs, are we about to disappear? If so, why? Falling birth rates? A sudden violent rise in death rates caused by humans (for example, from nuclear or deadly chemical or biological weapons), or perhaps by some extraterrestrial event, such as collusion with a large asteroid? My sense is that the chances of these things happening is rising. Maybe Elon Musk is right: We need to get to Mars because human life on Earth could be ending.
Worldwide, there has been a pronounced decline in birth rates, pronounced in prosperous areas, but seen even in poor areas of Africa. To maintain a constant population, the fertility rate needs to be about 2.1 children per female. Yet in roughly 100 countries, the actual number today is below that, sometimes radically so. China, for example, has a birthrate of about 1.2, and South Korea’s birth rate is below one — more strollers are sold there for use by dogs than by human babies. In the U.S., the birth rate of about 1.7 is continuing to fall toward levels found in Europe (1.5 or lower in Germany, Russia, Italy, and Spain, for example).
In prosperous modern societies, children are what us economists call “inferior goods.” As income rise, people want fewer children, just as they take fewer bus rides because they can now afford cars or travel by air. Children are viewed increasingly as expensive annoyances with high opportunity costs: They prevent us from taking exotic trips or buying nice luxuries. Kamala Harris (who has no children) is hammering Republicans because many of them oppose abortion, the most aggressive form of birth control. The declining role of the churches probably also contributes to the new anti-children milieu.
The longer-term impact of all of this gets scant attention. However, uproars have occurred in France and probably soon will in China over much-needed increases in the retirement age — there simply will not be enough younger workers to feed the population, a problem aggravated by rising life expectancy. In the U.S., when Social Security began, there were over five working-age persons per senior citizen (over 65); now there are only three. Medical advantages increasing longevity and making birth control cheaper contributed to the problem. Worsening the forthcoming crisis is extreme fiscal irresponsibility arising from massive federal budget deficits. This is creating the defining domestic issue of the next decade, one completely ignored in this presidential election year.
With a reduction in parenting comes reduced concern about the welfare of future generations. Most of us with children and grandchildren want our progeny to live in prosperous safety. With fewer kids, we are becoming a more selfish generation, concerned about our own future but relatively indifferent to life in America 50 years from now.
But this is not the only potential cause of a diminished human presence on Earth. For nearly eight decades, there has been no use of nuclear weapons against human beings, for much of that time largely because few possessed such weapons. But the nuclear weapon club has grown worrisomely, and some members, certainly North Korea and no doubt soon Iran, have shown through their disregard for the lives of their own citizens that they would have little hesitancy about rendering vast amounts of human destruction.
Moreover, through other technological changes, new means of mass destruction are evolving, including human attacks from space stations, poisonous gas attacks using drones, deadly diseases spread by human created viruses, etc.
The human ingenuity that helped expand the human race could well work to destroy it unless we start heeding the injunction included within the Ten Commandments: Thou shall not kill. Technology and a decline in virtue and morality might literally kill the human race.
Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Ohio University, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, and author of Let Colleges Fail, out next spring.
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