In 2022, the world population will have broken the 8 billion mark for the first time. However, from 2050 onwards the trend will reverse and humanity will shrink. Will population decline even become a problem in the future? Barbara Bleisch asks the philosopher and population ethicist Tim Henning: How many of us should there be? Topics in this episode: 00:00 From a philosophical point of view, can there be too many people? 16:50 Population increase vs. population decline: What will be the bigger problem in the future? 25:40 What would happen if humanity no longer existed? 43:45 Are there reasons to bring people into the world? 🔔 Subscribe to SRF Kultur Sternstunden on YouTube now 👉 https://www.youtube.com/srfkultur?sub... For the first time, there are more than eight billion people living on earth. In view of climate change and famine, for some this is clearly too many. Some even go so far as to say that it would be best if humanity died out as quickly as possible anyway. But better for whom: for the planet? For the animals? Or for people already born? But what about future generations? Can we simply decide that they should not exist? Demographers predict that from 2050 onwards population growth will slow down and humanity will even shrink. So will population decline become the real problem one day? One thing is clear: questions about population ethics entangle people in contradictions and extremely complicated questions: are we even allowed to bring new people into the world without asking? When is a life good enough to be worth living? What would it be like to be the last person on earth? The philosopher Tim Henning has just written a book about population ethics entitled "The future of humanity. Should we continue to exist?" Barbara Bleisch tackles these tricky questions with him. Sternstunde Philosophie from February 12, 2023 ____________________ Program responsible: Director: Astrid Dolenc, Editor: Yvonne Sjöberg, Nora Weber, Producer: Sandra Roth, Management: Judith Hardegger, SRF 2023 ____________________ SRF Kultur Sternstunden on YouTube 🔔 https://www.youtube.com/srfkultur?sub... More culture on Facebook 👥 / srfkultur More culture on Instagram 🎨 / ​​srfkultur More culture on Twitter 🐦 / srfkultur More culture on srf.ch 👉 https://www.srf.ch/kultur ____________________ The “Sternstunde Philosophie” cultivates the in-depth and critical exchange of ideas and gets to the bottom of the burning questions of our time. The “Sternstunde Philosophie” draws a broad arc from socio-political topicality to the fundamental questions of philosophy: Who is responsible for what, what does human freedom consist of, what determines the meaning of our life? Guests include personalities from science, culture, politics and business - voices that stimulate thought and reflect on and classify our current events. ____________________ Moderation: Barbara Bleisch: / barbarableisch Yves Bossart: / bossart_yves Wolfram Eilenberger: http://www.wolfram-eilenberger.de/ ____________________ Social Media Netiquette from SRF: ► https://www.srf.ch/social-netiquette #SRFCulture #SRFCultureSternstunden #SRFSternstunde #Philosophy #SRF #Culture #growth #future #populationethics