The small amount of thinking I’ve been able to do about it has lead me to try and donate money to charities which reduce the infant mortality rate in developing countries, because I think that might help. But really, in my heart of hearts, I think we’re fucked. And I wanna have babies.

From my limited experience of places like Africa (certainly Nigeria and to a lesser extent Kenya and Tanzania) people are expected to have lots of kids there. Think 12 or so. The problem with reducing infant mortality is that those 12 in the past would have become approximately 2 breeding adults, but now are becoming 12 breeding adults.

I don’t think the modern Western “2 in, 2 out” way of having kids is the problem, it’s the parts of the world where education is still low and healthcare has rocketed that is causing significant strains on resources.

It wasn’t that different here in the UK all that long ago too. I’m currently transcribing some stories my Grandmother wrote before she died. She mentioned that her father was one of 7, her mother one of 12. She was one of 4 and she had 4 kids herself. She lost a brother, so it was only really my parents’ generation where children started surviving through to adulthood.

Saying “don’t breed” won’t solve the problem. “Breed less” would be a far more realistic proposition. I’d love to know what’s caused the rates of births to drop across the UK and Europe, and see if we can replicate that elsewhere instead.