Depopulation and terminal ecology

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Are we many? Are we few? Are we too many? Since the first edition of Thomas Robert Malthus's Essay on Population (1898), apocalyptic fantasies have proliferated in which the planet is drowning in overpopulation. No one expected that mischievous reality would conjure the opposite specter: that of a progressively depopulated world.

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In the debate about whether population is a blessing or a curse, one certainty emerges: without population there is no work or consumption, and without these, there is no development or hegemony. The current great powers—China, the Russian Federation, the United States, and emerging countries like India, Pakistan, and Iran—boast considerable populations spread across similarly vast territories. Moderately sized nations with abundant populations, such as the two Koreas and Japan, have become quasi-powers due to the extreme industriousness of their citizens, but they are limited by their modest territories and scarce resources.

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This leads to inevitable conclusions. Regions with moderate sizes and populations achieved the status of major powers through national unification into modern states and the plunder of large territories with dense populations, which they then subjugated, exploited, and nearly exterminated. Spain owed its hegemony to the invasion of the Americas; the United Kingdom to a similar operation against North America, prolonged by the plunder of Africa and much of Asia. France and Belgium enjoyed periods of prosperity with similar origins. The two world wars were disputes over the colonial division of the planet; defeat in them stripped Germany of its great power status. Even tiny Portugal experienced a brief period of splendor thanks to a global network of enclaves that included the vast territory of Brazil. Brazil, along with Mexico and Argentina, forms the trio of Latin American powers: all with extensive territories and large populations. As their densely populated colonial empires disintegrated, the Old Continent lost its status as a major power. Not even the EU managed to prevent it.

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A new situation is reversing the proliferation trend: greater development is leading to lower fertility and greater longevity. Demographic decline is taking hold in the developed world, and with it, the loss of hegemony is accelerating. Two and a half children per woman are needed to maintain a stable population: this is known as the replacement level. Globally, in 1960, each woman had 2,6 living children; by 2024, this figure had fallen to 1,3. This difference is even more pronounced in developed countries. The total fertility rate in the European Union fell from 2,6 live births per woman in 1960 to 1,34 live births per woman in 2024: almost half. (data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=EU)

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A similar phenomenon of declining population replacement rates is occurring across almost the entire planet. Between 1990 and 2023, the decline in Europe and Central Asia was from 2,6 to 1,6; in East Asia and the Pacific, from 2,6 to 1,3; in South Asia, from 4,1 to 2,0; in Latin America and the Caribbean, from 3,3 to 1,8; and in the United States, from 2,1 to 1,6. The decline is directly proportional to income level. Between 1990 and 2021, in low-income countries, the population replacement rate fell from 6,5 to 4,5; in middle-income countries, it decreased from 4,6 to 2,6; in upper-lower-income countries, from 2,9 to 1,5; and in high-income countries, from 1,8 to 1,4. (wdi.worldbank.org/table/2.14) Lacking workers, high-income countries open their doors to discriminated immigration, or export their capital to factories that operate with workers without labor rights.

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Against the threat of overpopulation, there are two solutions: the rational improvement of living conditions, which slows fertility, or the brutal Malthusian reduction, which reserves resources for an exterminating elite. We offer the opinions of proponents of the latter: David Brower: “Procreating children should be a punishable offense against society, unless the parents have a government license.” Margaret Sanger: “The most merciful thing a large family can do for its new child is to kill it.” Prince Philip: “Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.” Henry Kissinger: “Depopulation must be the top priority of our foreign policy toward the Third World, because the US economy will require large and increasing quantities of minerals from abroad, especially from the least developed countries.” Mikhail Gorbachev: “Cutting the population by 90% would not leave enough people to cause ecological damage.” Jacques Cousteau: “To stabilize the world’s population, we must eliminate 350.000 people per day. It’s terrible to say it, but just as bad not to.” Bill Gates: “We can lower CO2 levels by reducing the population” (globalresearch.ca/list-30-elites-that-support-promote-depopulation/5825634).

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There are two reasons why global elites harbor such infamous views. The first relates to the warnings of the study *The Limits to Growth* (1972), which essentially posits that unlimited growth is impossible on a finite planet. Instead of planning for moderate resource consumption, recycling, and the replacement of non-renewable resources with renewable ones, neo-Malthusians advocate appropriating all resources for unlimited consumption by an elite, or a population so small it could be considered an elite, and eliminating the rest of humanity through unspeakable methods. The same methods Malthus preached: plagues, famines, wars. This opens the door to a terminal ecology, whose ultimate victim is humankind.

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The second driving force behind this terminal ecology is that the elites foresee a future in which computerized machinery will render the employment of large masses of workers an unnecessary expense: the final genocide is a matter of cost-cutting. The Gaza Strip is the practical model of this process. However, no apostle of terminal ecology dares to practice what they preach by eliminating themselves first.