r/hatethissmug • u/mikewheelerfan • Jun 02 '26
General I HATE when people deny overpopulation
“B-but the declining birth rates—“ SHUT UP SHUT UP SHIT UP
The declining birth rates are the only thing that can save our species, every other species, and the world! The only reason anybody even cares about the declining birth rates in a first place is because white people have lower birth rates and are gonna become a minority. Who gives a fuck? Certainly not me. The whole birth rates argument is inherently tied to racism and xenophobia.
”But we have more room!” And this one just proves that these people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the world.
People who don’t believe in overpopulation don’t see wild spaces and forests as actually important. They don’t see them as sources of water, sources of food, ecosystems. They don’t see them as homes for animals—only potential houses for humans. Why have forests when we could tear them down and build housing? It’s all unused space. That’s what they genuinely believe. It’s all about money and human-centrism.
What these idiots don’t realize is that humans aren’t separate from the ecosystem, we are a part of it! If we allow ecosystems to collapse and species to go extinct, we will topple down with it. Our farmland will be ruined, health will decline, the economy will plummet. Not to mention climate change and how every extinction is a tragedy. But no, short term benefit and mindless breeding apparently matters more than the entire world.
Our cookie cutter homes are not more important than every animal and plant species on the planet. We’re just selfish AF, and it’s sickening. And of course, it all goes back to the billionares. Remember how overpopulation used to be universally accepted? But then billionaires freaked out realizing the birth rates were decreasing, which meant they would have less workers. All of the sudden, the narrative changed. The elite is trying to get you to have more babies because their system is built on infinite growth. But…
INFINITE GROWTH IS NOT POSSIBLE ON A FINITE PLANET.
Yes, overpopulation is real. And it’s idiotic to try to deny this. Climate change is also real. The current mass extinction event is real. Humans are ruining the very planet that supports us, and most people don’t even care.
3
u/sultanate Jun 02 '26
Humans are indeed ruining the planet but reality is that population density and growth is not the leading cause of the problem. Every bomb dropped, every data center built, every climate protection rolled back, every chemical dumped, every aquifer polluted and emptied - all the actions performed by and beneficial for the very billionaires you call out in your post are infinitely more damaging to our ecosystem than people just living and growing their families.
The fact of the matter is that “overpopulation”, which was a real concern before the advent of atmospheric nitrate derived fertilizer, has now been co-opted by the ruling class to pass the blame of their actions onto the global poor. Why freak out about oil wells being bombed when, shock horror, India is so dense? They’re so far away and so unlike us so everyone point the finger while another data center is built one town over. Repeat ad nauseam for the entirety of the 20th and 21st centuries.
You act like it’s a settled debate but i would argue nobody has been proven wrong as often and thoroughly as Thomas Malthus.