Since I believe that humans have positive both instrumental and intrinsic value, I believe that depopulation in principle is bad, because if it’s an entrenched long term trend, it would lead towards extinction. That being said, short term population decline is not necessarily the worst thing in the world, and could even be beneficial in certain extreme scenarios, such as severely overpopulated and resource depleted world, which I don’t believe to be the case for our world.
Regarding instrumental value—I think we have a potential to have an extremely positive instrumental value in the Universe. If things go in a proper direction we could populate the Universe with sentient beings who live in utopian conditions. We could create digital worlds also filled with beings who live in delightful conditions. We definitely have potential for this, and I believe we have enough wisdom to actually achieve it. Not achieving this would be, as Bostrom points out, an astronomical waste. Right now we’re the only known species with such potential.
On the other hand we’re also causing a lot of farm animal suffering (but perhaps we’re also reducing wild animal suffering even more), and there’s a risk that we could export suffering to other worlds in the Universe, which would be astronomically bad.
But none of this is given or guaranteed. It depends on us. We have agency. Since we have agency, we can use this agency to produce enormous amounts of positive value both for ourselves and other sentient beings. So, I root for us, and I believe that we can and we should fulfill our potential for doing good.
Regarding intrinsic value—I also believe we have positive intrinsic value. Most of people are glad that they are alive, and they always seek to prolong their life if they can. That’s the default attitude of most of the people towards life. Not only is life filled with many pleasures (food, music, art, sunsets, reading, philosophy, friendship, love, sex, etc...) but we find many aspects of it meaningful. Even our struggles and challenges can sometimes be seen as meaningful, such as in case of mountain climbing or marathon running. This, of course, is not to say that suffering is good—the types of suffering that can be “good” and meaningful are very rare and very specific, and generally mild. (Very few people would consider marathon running to be torture)
Now to go back to depopulation itself. By default it’s bad. But it’s not only bad because it reduces population, but it’s also bad because it’s a symptom of dysfunctional society in which people struggle to fulfill one of their most basic biological functions, to reproduce. There must be something deeply wrong about society in which people struggle to reproduce. Sub-replacement fertility is one of the symptoms of such social pathology.
In my opinion, for a society to be considered healthy, it must have at least stable population. Growth isn’t the prerequisite for health of society, but stable population is.
The only exception to that rule would be an extremely overcrowded world in which people intentionally and consensually try to reduce their numbers by procreating less, until they reach a sustainable population. But that’s an exception.
As a rule, depopulation is pathological, especially if it’s unintentional, which I believe is the case in our world.
I also believe that recognizing depopulation as a symptom of social pathology could be a starting point in our efforts to improve our societies—not only in order to bring TFR above 2.1 again, but also for its own sake (as everyone prefers to live in a healthier society)
Since I believe that humans have positive both instrumental and intrinsic value, I believe that depopulation in principle is bad, because if it’s an entrenched long term trend, it would lead towards extinction. That being said, short term population decline is not necessarily the worst thing in the world, and could even be beneficial in certain extreme scenarios, such as severely overpopulated and resource depleted world, which I don’t believe to be the case for our world.
Regarding instrumental value—I think we have a potential to have an extremely positive instrumental value in the Universe. If things go in a proper direction we could populate the Universe with sentient beings who live in utopian conditions. We could create digital worlds also filled with beings who live in delightful conditions. We definitely have potential for this, and I believe we have enough wisdom to actually achieve it. Not achieving this would be, as Bostrom points out, an astronomical waste. Right now we’re the only known species with such potential.
On the other hand we’re also causing a lot of farm animal suffering (but perhaps we’re also reducing wild animal suffering even more), and there’s a risk that we could export suffering to other worlds in the Universe, which would be astronomically bad.
But none of this is given or guaranteed. It depends on us. We have agency. Since we have agency, we can use this agency to produce enormous amounts of positive value both for ourselves and other sentient beings. So, I root for us, and I believe that we can and we should fulfill our potential for doing good.
Regarding intrinsic value—I also believe we have positive intrinsic value. Most of people are glad that they are alive, and they always seek to prolong their life if they can. That’s the default attitude of most of the people towards life. Not only is life filled with many pleasures (food, music, art, sunsets, reading, philosophy, friendship, love, sex, etc...) but we find many aspects of it meaningful. Even our struggles and challenges can sometimes be seen as meaningful, such as in case of mountain climbing or marathon running. This, of course, is not to say that suffering is good—the types of suffering that can be “good” and meaningful are very rare and very specific, and generally mild. (Very few people would consider marathon running to be torture)
Now to go back to depopulation itself. By default it’s bad. But it’s not only bad because it reduces population, but it’s also bad because it’s a symptom of dysfunctional society in which people struggle to fulfill one of their most basic biological functions, to reproduce. There must be something deeply wrong about society in which people struggle to reproduce. Sub-replacement fertility is one of the symptoms of such social pathology.
In my opinion, for a society to be considered healthy, it must have at least stable population. Growth isn’t the prerequisite for health of society, but stable population is.
The only exception to that rule would be an extremely overcrowded world in which people intentionally and consensually try to reduce their numbers by procreating less, until they reach a sustainable population. But that’s an exception.
As a rule, depopulation is pathological, especially if it’s unintentional, which I believe is the case in our world.
I also believe that recognizing depopulation as a symptom of social pathology could be a starting point in our efforts to improve our societies—not only in order to bring TFR above 2.1 again, but also for its own sake (as everyone prefers to live in a healthier society)