Many science fiction writers have examined the implications of a post-apocalyptic future. The imagined dystopias they posit normally being the result of nuclear war, ice age, plague or invasion by ETs. Such stories constitute a sub-genre.
The nonfictional demography/futurism team of Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox, writing at Quillette, direct our attention in another direction - depopulation due to failure to breed. We've noted the declining birthrates in developed countries. Now birthrates below replacement are being seen in places as not-developed as Bangladesh and India.
Has a species ever shown so little interest in reproduction that it died out from lack of interest? Perhaps. Even giant pandas which are notoriously lackadaisical breeders still manage to keep the species going. And yet, humans, who at least some of the time act out of considered judgment instead of instinct, may go the way of the dodo and the wooly mammoth.
I suspect what will take some of the sting out of a plummeting birthrate are developments in longevity treatments, meaning the fewer people will live substantially longer. These wonder drugs will arrive too late to do me any good but some of our younger readers may benefit.
Downstream, perhaps we humans will incubate genetically perfect humans in artificial uteri and raise them in creches staffed by patient, genial robots. Why couldn't Mary Poppins be played by a droid?
