Adult Diapers Outselling Baby Diapers

Population Implosion is the World’s Next Big Crisis

You can talk about South Korea, Finland, Japan, France and Australia becoming increasingly infertile and people will nod their heads sagely. You can throw up a lot of facts about why testosterone is shriveling in this age of information, and men will avert their eyes and women will smile, albeit uncertainly. But then someone says adult diapers are now outselling baby diapers in Japan. And it hits you like Thor’s hammer to the gut.

That someone happens to have been Elon Musk, articulating to a bunch of guys on YouTube on the subject of population collapse. He was so articulate, in fact, that the guys he was talking to had to constantly check whether they owned opposable thumbs.

The imagery of adult diaper in use is gut-wrenching on so many levels. The sad vulnerability of age and the reminder to younger people that this is what awaits them. And the implications? Well, Elon went on to quote T.S. Eliot’s foreboding, “this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whisper.” We’re heading towards a catastrophe that overshadows every other catastrophe we’ve feared. Population implosion is the world’s next big crisis.

The average age of a community starts rising when there’s a negative replacement rate. That means that one-for-one, birth is not replacing death. There is now a negative replacement rate in 40% of nations. But the global population is rising and every time it goes up another billion, alarm bells ring about an overabundance of procreation. But the world’s population is still going up because life spans are increasing, not because babies are being born. In 77 years, the world be will facing a genuine problem.

The statistics for Population Collapse don’t lie

The naysayers about population collapse amongst you need only look at your friends and family to echo the statistics. I’m sure you know a couple or two who’ve decided not to have children. And family? Well, on the one side of my family, my grandparents had five children. My parents had four. My brother had two and his son is settling for one child only. In western society, that’s a pretty clear reflection of generational choice.

We can attribute this lessening desire to procreate to cost of living, and uncertainty about the future. Lately, of course, infertility-causing tech such as cell phone radiation is becoming a major social issue.

Can we reverse this phenomenon? There’s one thing I can suggest and I’m sure Elon will wholeheartedly agree with me. Adult diapers outselling baby diapers? Turn your mobile off. Close your laptop lid. And go and make a baby.

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