Elon Musk says this may threaten human civilization

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said during an interview that global birthrates could threaten human civilization.

Musk, who is a father of six, spoke at Wall Street Journal's annual CEO Council and said brought up birthrates being a possible threat towards the existence of human civilization, saying that there is "not enough people" and called for people to have more children. The Tesla CEO went on to say that there is "smart people" who believe that there is too many people, and that Earth is overpopulated, but according to Musk this isn't the case, "It's completely the opposite".

"I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birthrate. And yet, so many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control. It's completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers - if people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words", said Elon Musk.

Musk gave these statements in response to questions about the Tesla Bot, which is poised by Musk as being a sustainable generalized replacement for human labor. Additionally, Musk touched on aging, saying that humans should attempt to "live for a super long time", while also highlighting the importance of death and how it plays a pivotal role in human society.

"I think it is important for us to die because most of the times, people don't change their mind, they just die. If they live forever, then we might become a very ossified society where new ideas cannot succeed. I'm not poking fun at aging. I just am saying if we've got people in very important positions that have to make decisions that are critical to the security of the country, then they need to have sufficient presence of mind and cognitive ability to make those decisions well - because the whole country is depending on them", said Musk.

Business Insider reports that according to the World Bank birthrate has been on the steady decline since 1960.