According to Elon Musk the biggest threat to civilisation is...
- Recently, Elon Musk's tweets on Japan's declining population ignited a debate about the future of the world's third-largest economy
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has yet again expressed his concern regarding the low birth rates around the world. The Tesla CEO shared an old video on Twitter, in which he is seen sitting with Chinese business tycoon Jack Ma, both of them talking and showing concern regarding the gradual decline of the world's population.
Musk captioned the video, "Population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization".
In the video, which is of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2019, Musk said, "Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually, this is an outdated view...Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse".
Elon Musk reiterated, "The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse".
In continuation of Musk's statement, Ma added, "I absolutely agree with that. The population problem is going to be facing a huge challenge. 1.4 billion people in China sounds like a lot, but I think next 20 years, we will see this thing will bring big trouble to China. And...the speed of population decrease is going to speed up. You called it a collapse...I agree with you".
Recently, Musk's tweets on Japan's declining population ignited a debate about the future of the world's third-largest economy.
In an All-In virtual summit, Musk was asked whether having fewer kids good for the environment? "Total nonsense," the billionaire replied.
Musk argued that having kids is important to save civilization and the environment would be fine even if the number of humans on the planet is doubled.
"Some people think that having fewer kids is better for the environment. It's total nonsense. The environment is going to be fine even if we doubled the number of humans," the SpaceX founder said.
Giving an example of Japan, Musk said the dwindling birth rate in the East Asian country has posed a challenge to the civilisation. Japan has negative population growth. Japan's population declined by 600,000 last year.
Musk said Japan could cease to exist because of its dwindling birth rate.
He recounted how some modern-day parents argue against having kids.
"I have heard many times. 'How can I bring a child into this terrible world? I'm like 'have you read history? Because let me tell you, it was way worse back then," Musk said.
Separately, he shared the US fertility rate chart on Twitter and addressed the common notion that the richer a person gets, the fewer children he or she produces.
He called himself a "rare exception", the world's richest person wrote, "Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids they have. I am a rare exception. Most people I know have zero or one kid".
Elon has seven children - twins Xavier and Griffin, triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damina. His latest born is X Æ A-Xii, while his former partner Grimes claimed to have had a second secret child with Elon Musk, named Y.
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First Published:27 May 2022, 01:40 PM IST
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