In addition, I find it rather hilarious that someone seriously thinks humans procreate because of long term thinking 😅

I mean, kids are a lifetime investment. Most people think about whether they can afford to feed and educate their kids over the next few decades, and what kind of life the kids will have after that. In countries without social safety nets, children are often the only retirement plan. I think the decision to have kids (or not) is the longest term planning the average person will ever do.

I'm not saying it's necessarily good planning, but it's certainly thinking long term.

With that being said, I think this article isn't claiming not having kids is a problem in itself. It's a symptom of the real problem - despair for the future.

People choosing not to have kids for positive reasons? Because they have a vision of the future with a lower population and choose to live their values? Great! No problem there.

But when people choose not to have kids because they think the world is collapsing around them, that they can't give children a good life, that there's no hope for the future and it would be immoral to expose a child to the coming tribulations - those decisions are made because people give up on the future.

The despair is the problem - the decisions made out of despair are just the symptoms.

And it's hard to motivate people to work for a better world now when they have no hope for a better world in the future. If we're all doomed anyway, why not burn all the oil you want and let the fascists take over?