I have wondered about this for a while. I consider myself a Malthusian. Which is to say, I worry about the Earth’s growing population and how that will strain (and indeed already is straining) the ecosystem. So it has bothered me to see the recent obsession by some, with increasing the domestic birth rate. When taken along with recent anti-immigrant sentiment, I just chalked it up to racism. But there is more to it. This video does a nice job of summing up the argument. And also why the argument isn’t that strong.

It is weird that many of the proponents of having more children are also proponents of increased automation and AI. I have a strong belief that adherence to weak arguments comes from a lack of training in logic and rhetoric. Seems all too common these days.