Dean Spears does not want to alarm you. The co-author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People argues that alarmist words such as crisis or urgent will just detract from the cold, hard numbers, which show that in roughly 60 years, the world population could plummet to a size not seen for centuries. Alarmism might also make people tune out, which means they won’t engage with the culturally fraught project of asking people—that is, women—to have more babies.

Recently, in the United States and other Western countries, having or not having children is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re either in league with conservative pronatalists, or you’re making the ultimate personal sacrifice to reduce your carbon footprint. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Spears makes the case for more people. He discusses the population spike over human history and the coming decline, and how to gingerly move the population discussion beyond politics.

When republicans are using the same exact language along with christian fascism to justify banning abortion your damn right it's political. People also aren't not having children as some sort of noble self sacrifice you dipshit we can't afford to have kids if we want to. If the population does plummet that much in 60 years it would be because you ghouls are killing us, starving us, and destroying the planet.

I fucking hate Dean Spears so much. Someone should throw him in a swamp in the everglades and film him getting ripped apart by alligators.