Conclusion found at the end of the article:

Is Hanson’s fatalism or Hess’s optimism correct? Both have some truth to them. Fertility collapse is likely unstoppable in the short term—the next several generations will face economic stagnation, social regression, and in extreme cases, internal collapse. Hess’s “fertility stack” offers hope. Targeted interventions, amplified by modern tools, could soften the blow of fertility decline for some societies.

The crisis will unfold unevenly. Brain drain and broader migration patterns will favor countries still early in the process. These nations have the advantage of observing demographic collapse elsewhere and allowing their culture to adjust naturally.

New technologies provide us with new weapons. We can distribute pro-natal messaging efficiently, and advances in sanitation and medicine have drastically lowered child mortality. We face a more manageable demographic threshold, with better tools at our disposal.

I come down in the middle. It is politically and culturally impossible to implement a coordinated set of policies today to avoid the pain ahead—but we likely don’t have to suffer a complete civilizational replacement either. A third path exists, one where increasing hardship forces difficult decisions, coupled with deliberate use of modern tools.