The latest University of Virginia projections show a nation losing its biological ambition. We must return to the awe-inspiring, reckless expansion that made this country a beacon of cheap labor.
When I look up at the night sky, past the orbital debris and the faint, reassuring glow of the latest commercial satellite constellations, I do not just see burning spheres of gas. I see a boundless frontier begging to be populated by an infinitely expanding workforce. And that is why, upon reading the latest 50-state population projections released by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, I felt a profound, icy chill that had nothing to do with the vacuum of space.
The data is mathematically undeniable, and spiritually devastating. By 2050, the United States population will reach an estimated 370 million people. To the layperson, or the narrow-minded urban planner, 370 million might sound like a perfectly robust number. But to those of us who understand the sheer scale of the cosmos—and the corresponding scale of the consumer retail market—it is a tragic surrender. We are slowing down. We are looking at the vast, untapped majesty of the American economy and saying, "No, I think we have enough people to fully staff the regional distribution centers."
I was discussing this very tragedy just last week over a private omakase lunch with a senior research fellow from a renowned lab at MIT. I looked him in the eye, over a delicate piece of sea bream, and asked how we lost our ambition. How did we go from a species that dared to touch the lunar surface to a species that selfishly decides childcare is too expensive to justify a third child? He mumbled something about "stagnant wages" and "natural demographic transitions," but I knew he was just as heartbroken as I was. We are stardust, after all. And stardust does not complain about the out-of-pocket cost of pediatric dental care; it simply expands until it fills the available void.
The Weldon Cooper Center report does offer one faint glimmer of astronomical hope: by 2050, more than 40 percent of this diminished population will live in the South. Some cynical sociologists attribute this migration to the pursuit of lower property taxes, affordable housing, and the ubiquity of central air conditioning. But I see it as something far more profound. It is a heliotropic migration of the human spirit. Humanity is instinctively drawn toward the warmth of the sun, and, serendipitously, toward right-to-work states with highly favorable corporate tax structures. It is a beautiful, natural alignment of celestial mechanics and quarterly dividends.
During a panel I recently moderated at the Aspen Institute, I tried to explain this cosmic imperative to an audience of policymakers. I told them that a slowing birth rate is not a "triumph of family planning," but a failure of imagination. When everyday citizens refuse to endlessly multiply, they are hoarding their biological capital. They are denying the universe the joy of experiencing itself through the eyes of a massive, hyper-competitive surplus labor pool. The audience sat in stunned silence—clearly moved by the gravity of what we are throwing away.
Yet, the scientific establishment refuses to view this data with the reverence it deserves. I reached out to one of the forecasters behind the UVA data to see if they shared my sense of cosmic dread.
The models simply reflect a maturing industrialized society where individuals are making rational choices about family planning based on available resources.
Exactly. "Rational choices." Since when did the human spirit concern itself with something as small, terrestrial, and cowardly as a rational choice? The universe does not do a cost-benefit analysis before birthing a nebula. A supernova does not check the current mortgage rates before exploding across the galaxy.
We must return to the awe-inspiring, reckless biological expansion that made this country a beacon of infinite growth. If we do not look to the stars and realize our sacred duty to produce 400 million consumers by mid-century, we will have failed the cosmos. And more importantly, we will have failed the shareholders.