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I personally believe a lot of that stuff cannot be further studied unless we are able to divert solutions to other problems in our society first. I'm saying tha

I personally believe a lot of that stuff cannot be further studied unless we are able to divert solutions to other problems in our society first. I'm saying that we need to have things like mass quantity sustainable energy, significant automation, global unification and standards, higher minimum education levels. I'm saying that imagine 50% of the population works in blue collar general labor or semi-skilled labor fields. Now in this hypothetical worlds, all those jobs are managed by autonomous robots. Also we have a green power that is sustainable, storable, sufficient for even double the population, and can be held in high densities at low volumes. So there are now innumerable sectors within the economy that we don't need people themselves to learn. That leaves more time for people to take extended amounts of time to learn and study. I mean quite literally a Star-Trek "post-scaricity world" in a lot of ways. People use time to further themselves and expend time on cultural or scientific endeavors. Life is no longer about struggle and survival since money clearly would have no value if any and everything can be made or consumed for free. I mean it's really interesting to think that the only "conflict" that would exist is between people trying to min-max life in terms of achievement. There would be no achievement in religion, money, or ownership since everybody can do it. Ultimately what I'm saying is that a lot of our advances are contingent upon other sectors becoming automated and allow for more people to get into academic sectors.

ethbro 7y ago
Where does population control enter into this hypothetical? Because that's the only way you get to post-scarcity.
- krastanov 7y ago
  Pretty much any study of the past century and any projection from reputable sources says that populations reach equilibrium and stop growing as the level of education, in particular education of women, rises. This is a non-problem that has always taken care of itself in any developed country and we have no reason to believe it will not take care of itself in the developing world as well. The UN for instance does not believe there will be 10 billion humans on earth ever (where "ever" means "as long as projections have any value").
  - ethbro 7y ago
    The belief that world population will self-level at some point does not mean that it will self-level prior to resource exhaustion. The fact that we're cooking the planet with ~8B does not bode well for what even 10B looks like.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Fertility is heritable. Population will probably continue to rise.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      And yet, basically every developed country is below the replacement rate.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        How many countries are "developed"? And how quickly will the remainder join them?
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        Below replacement fertility is a recent phenomenon (last couple of generations). Evolution works in multiples of generations. We’re at the very beginning of evolving resistance to modernity.
  - unishark 7y ago
    I wouldn't quite call world population growth a non-problem, considering it is already a problem. The future predictions may well turn out correct, and have some solid reasoning behind them, but the numbers still look fairly crude to me. Plots of historic growth rates are bouncing up and down, while the prediction is they will suddenly turn a corner tomorrow and drop monotonically to zero and all will be peachy. How often has that happened? Considering the current record-breaking population numbers, the ultimate answer is it has never happened, at least not permanently. There's a lot of risk in betting on things to just work themselves out. Development can actually work against us in a sense, as new food production technology and cures allow faster-than-ever growth in new regions and populations.
- taneq 7y ago
  Education, quality of life and equal opportunities for women. As these increase, the birth rate goes down. Most countries that score highly in these areas actually have below replacement birth rates and only grow in population due to immigration.
taneq 7y ago
The 50% of the population who are blue collar workers aren’t going to retrain as particle physicist or theoretical computer scientists one they get their UBI.
- MaximumYComb 7y ago
  I'm much more concerned about how we keep that portion of the population entertained enough to not cause trouble.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    I am inclined to say the real problem is that smart people don’t have kids. But we’ll probably figure out how to make all babies intelligent before that becomes a problem. Incidentally, the problem you mention will also be solved in the same way.
    - morog 7y ago
      genuine question - what do you mean by smart people? High IQ? Deep knowledge about mankind's place in the Universe / natural order? or their ability to maximise their own personal happiness over their lifetime? If the last point, then personal experience would suggest that having kids makes you happier person (once they are sleeping through the night)YMMV
      - taneq 7y ago
        Probably a high 'g factor' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) ).
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        High IQ.
        seedie 7y ago
        The criticisms section in the Fertility and intelligence article on Wikipedia is interesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#Criticisms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#C...

ethbro 7y ago

Where does population control enter into this hypothetical? Because that's the only way you get to post-scarcity.

krastanov 7y ago
Pretty much any study of the past century and any projection from reputable sources says that populations reach equilibrium and stop growing as the level of education, in particular education of women, rises. This is a non-problem that has always taken care of itself in any developed country and we have no reason to believe it will not take care of itself in the developing world as well. The UN for instance does not believe there will be 10 billion humans on earth ever (where "ever" means "as long as projections have any value").
- ethbro 7y ago
  The belief that world population will self-level at some point does not mean that it will self-level prior to resource exhaustion. The fact that we're cooking the planet with ~8B does not bode well for what even 10B looks like.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Fertility is heritable. Population will probably continue to rise.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    And yet, basically every developed country is below the replacement rate.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      How many countries are "developed"? And how quickly will the remainder join them?
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      Below replacement fertility is a recent phenomenon (last couple of generations). Evolution works in multiples of generations. We’re at the very beginning of evolving resistance to modernity.
- unishark 7y ago
  I wouldn't quite call world population growth a non-problem, considering it is already a problem. The future predictions may well turn out correct, and have some solid reasoning behind them, but the numbers still look fairly crude to me. Plots of historic growth rates are bouncing up and down, while the prediction is they will suddenly turn a corner tomorrow and drop monotonically to zero and all will be peachy. How often has that happened? Considering the current record-breaking population numbers, the ultimate answer is it has never happened, at least not permanently. There's a lot of risk in betting on things to just work themselves out. Development can actually work against us in a sense, as new food production technology and cures allow faster-than-ever growth in new regions and populations.
taneq 7y ago
Education, quality of life and equal opportunities for women. As these increase, the birth rate goes down. Most countries that score highly in these areas actually have below replacement birth rates and only grow in population due to immigration.

taneq 7y ago

The 50% of the population who are blue collar workers aren’t going to retrain as particle physicist or theoretical computer scientists one they get their UBI.

MaximumYComb 7y ago
I'm much more concerned about how we keep that portion of the population entertained enough to not cause trouble.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  I am inclined to say the real problem is that smart people don’t have kids. But we’ll probably figure out how to make all babies intelligent before that becomes a problem. Incidentally, the problem you mention will also be solved in the same way.
  - morog 7y ago
    genuine question - what do you mean by smart people? High IQ? Deep knowledge about mankind's place in the Universe / natural order? or their ability to maximise their own personal happiness over their lifetime? If the last point, then personal experience would suggest that having kids makes you happier person (once they are sleeping through the night)YMMV
    - taneq 7y ago
      Probably a high 'g factor' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) ).
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      High IQ.
      - seedie 7y ago
        The criticisms section in the Fertility and intelligence article on Wikipedia is interesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#Criticisms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#C...