Starting with the elderly, as they naturally pass away by virtue of being human, and being old.

No-one is suggesting that we actively kill people.

The article is talking about attrition (rates of reproduction are declining - fewer people are being born and the people who are here naturally age & die)

From TFA: "The next stage of the demographic transition, after a drop in mortality, is a subsequent drop in fertility (although the relationship isn’t straightforward). Family sizes fall from 5 to 6 down towards replacement level. But then they drop further — and never come back. Indeed across most of the world, outside of sub-Saharan Africa, family sizes are still shrinking, and populations ageing."

I wasn’t asking “TFA”. This is a discussion, isn’t it?

Not forcing people to be parents when they don’t want to be seems like a good place to start. Giving kids (heck, adults, too!) the resources they need to avoid becoming parents (if they so chose) seems like another.

Ending tax exemptions for religious organizations (who historically oppose the above and encourage having more children so as to grow their follower count) could be another easy place to start.

Starting with attrition, no one is saying we should kill people and you know it.

I didn't imply we should kill anyone. If that's your read into it, that's on you.

What I mean to highlight about what's stated above is that it's always someone else who shouldn't have children, or someone else who shouldn't exist so that you† and yours† have it better going forward.

You must understand how that is fundamentally problematic.

Kind of akin to "you should not drink water, so that I may not run short in the future".

It's especially ironic to me that these kinds of opinions tend to come from the wealthiest, most materially-excessive societies on the planet. God forbid we just gear down together.

† general, abstract 'you'

Starting with having fewer children, which appears to shady be happening via mostly-uncoerced process(1).

(1) Debatably. Plenty of room for disagreement. Point is, we don't have to remove anyone if we just don't replace them.

It seems like the unborn.

Indeed, but who has to be forced to have fewer children than they’d like?

I wish I could have afforded children when I was younger. I guess I’m one of those these elevated minds have decided should not get to do that their children can have a better life. I don’t actually take it personally, but that is what’s happening here from a perspective that isn’t their own.

I don’t think our problem is scarcity. I believe our problem is living in excess.

You're making a very valid point. In the US at least, incentives are low (not zero... There's the child tax credit, but how does that stack up against an economy where two-person households work 39.5 hours each to stay in place?)

You mean fetuses?

The lawyers.