If the Conspiracy Failed

[Justin Isis]

So what would happen if Ligotti-style Pessimism caught on, and the great majority of the world's population lost interest in not only reproduction, but most things that Ligotti isn't particularly interested in? 

Would capitalism just stop? Would anyone care enough to maintain complex industry and trade? It might seem like there'd be less wars and conflicts, but modern society requires an incredible amount of maintenance for us to have things like supermarkets (thanks, truck drivers). Would society gradually revert to monastic-style life in antinatalist monasteries? Or would everyone struggle to maintain the current model until it became no longer feasible due to the lack of new workers? (something like the latter is currently happening in Japan). Widespread antinatalism would eventually lead to a population bottleneck in which the elderly population would vastly outnumber everyone else, and the amount of care workers would gradually decrease to nothing. Would this necessitate some kind of "suicide booth" solution or voluntary euthanasia?