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- [00:00]
Leo
You've probably heard of the declining birth rate crisis.
- [00:03]
Abu
Like Japan and many other countries, the United States is facing a low birth rate.
- [00:08]
By 2050, I think three quarters of the countries in the world will have a declining population.
- [00:13]
The record level decline last year is leading to fears there may not be enough children to sustain the next generation.
- [00:20]
Leo
The magic number is 2.1. That's how many children need to be born per couple to maintain the current population. Which makes sense. It takes two people to create a baby, so I've been told. And so they need to create at least two babies to replace themselves. But here's the problem. More than half of the world's population currently lives in a country or region that isn't hitting that number.
- [00:50]
Abu
South Korea's not close. Last year its rate was 0.72. Japan is at 1.26. The EU average is 1.53, and the UK is at 1.49. And that is a record low.
- [01:05]
Leo
This trend of fewer and fewer babies being born doesn't seem to be slowing down. The global population has been increasing for decades, but the number of children being born has been declining. And while we aren't at a crisis point yet, things are not looking optimistic. There are a ton of theories about why people are choosing to have fewer babies or no babies at all.
- [01:28]
But in today's episode, we're not going
- [01:31]
to look at the past or present and try to answer the whys and hows of it all. Instead, we're more interested in the far future and in asking the question, what if?
- [01:44]
Character from Children of Men
I can't really remember when I last had any hope. And I certainly can't remember when anyone else did either. Because really, since women stop being able to have babies, what's left to hope for?
- [01:57]
Leo
Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 sci fi film Children of Men takes this existential question of fertility to its dystopian. The year is 2027, and the final generation of humanity is holding on by a thread in a world where the entire human population is has become infertile.
- [02:19]
Character from Children of Men
Genetic experiments, pollution. Why do you think we can't make babies anymore?
- [02:24]
Doesn't matter. It's all over in 50 years. It's too late.
- [02:28]
Abu
Move along.
- [02:29]
Leo
Welcome to RetroScan, a series where we look back at fictional futures that have already passed to examine what these stories predicted about humanity.
- [02:40]
Character from Children of Men
Your baby is the miracle the whole world has been waiting for.
- [02:44]
Leo
What did they get right? What did they get wrong? And what can we learn from how close or far reality ended up? Today, we're Revisiting Children of Men
- [02:59]
Character from Children of Men
we're almost there, kid. We're almost there.
- [03:08]
Leo
Well folks, there you have it. That is the opening to a teaser episode that we just released over on our Patreon to our supporters. This episode is an example of the types of things we'd create for our ambitious new project, which for the moment we are calling codename Reanalog. This is an ambitious new venture that Leo and I are setting out on. The hope is to release a new podcast and magazine about the incredible world of science fiction, analyzing it through our Abu and Leo lens of deep research, historical context, and of course, a lot of laughs along the way. So again, check out that link in the show notes below. Patreon.com comp jabbar if you sign up to be a supporter, you'll get access to the full 40 minute conversation we had about Children of Men and the magazine article that goes along with this episode. As always, we are incredibly grateful for our nerdy little community and we hope to keep creating things that we love making and that you love listening to for many years to come. Thank you all so much and we'll be back soon with another update on Project Reanalog.