27 ms·
What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the populatio
by i_idiot 3mo ago
What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.
- Ajedi32 3mo agoWell, in the extreme case, human extinction seems like a pretty bad thing.
- kranke155 3mo agoa large organism (human populaton on earth) reaching equilibrium and ceasing to grow does not equal to human extinction... it far more likely is just a temporary contraction that will then reverse when the conditions are set for it.
- calepayson 3mo agoYa but I’m 28 and have had enough with these contractions. For Christ sake can I get a sane decade so I can actually build a career. :)
- AndrewKemendo 3mo agoI mean you can always be a farrier, lineman, septic sumper, cobbler etc… What’s stopping you from being a welder or dentist?
- liglam 3mo ago[dead]
- calepayson 3mo agoI feel like this is a joke but honest answer: I worked ocean rescue for 4 years then lived with some tech folks in sf who were making literally 5-10x my salary. What’s stopping me? Probably some combo of wanting to one day afford a home and a family without having to move to Memphis and the a sense that I’d get bored as a welder and therefore be a bad one. Man, septic pumper tho…
- M95D 3mo ago> some tech folks in sf who were making literally 5-10x my salary Don't worry. It's temporary.
- AndrewKemendo 3mo agoNot a joke, I tried to start a trash company and be a handler on the back, but unfortunately my epilepsy got in the way
- kranke155 3mo agoits unlikely that will happen. If you read Arrighi, his hegemonic cycle narrative says that the interregnum between two hegemons is decades of chaos as the system reorganises. We seem to be heading for a US to China transition. The last transition was British Empire to US and that was 1900-1945. We can only hope for something better.
- calepayson 3mo agoYay.
- btilly 3mo agoPopulations do not tend to grow to equilibrium and then stop. They tend to overgrow their environment, outstrip resources, and then collapse. The result may not be extinction. But losing 90% of the human population won't feel that different if you're living through it. A relevant book recommend, https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009/ https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Rev.... It walks through a variety of past examples of human societies that went through this. There is no reason to believe that our current world-wide society will fare better.
- Ajedi32 3mo ago> They tend to overgrow their environment, outstrip resources, and then collapse. That's not what's happening here. Birth rates are below 2.1 in many countries who are no where close to "outstripping their resources". There are other factors causing the contraction which have nothing to do with resource limitations. In fact it seems like it's the opposite: richer nations with more resources tend to have lower birth rates. That's the scary part because it means there's no equilibrium to be reached. Birth rates could, in theory, remain low until humanity ceases to exist.
- kranke155 3mo agoHas any organism ever extinguished itself as you describe ? This whole human extinction thing… isn’t that catastrophising? We are a 7-8 billion individuals away from extinction.
- btilly 3mo agoYes. Read through https://www.the-scientist.com/universe-25-experiment-69941 https://www.the-scientist.com/universe-25-experiment-69941 to see that, given a good enough environment, mice can wipe themselves out. Here is a particularly telling passage: Eventually Universe 25 took another disturbing turn. Mice born into the chaos couldn’t form normal social bonds or engage in complex social behaviors such as courtship, mating, and pup-rearing. Instead of interacting with their peers, males compulsively groomed themselves; females stopped getting pregnant. Effectively, says Ramsden, they became “trapped in an infantile state of early development,” even when removed from Universe 25 and introduced to “normal” mice. Ultimately, the colony died out. “There’s no recovery, and that’s what was so shocking to [Calhoun],” says Ramsden. Like the mice, our population is going into reverse. And that description of behavior, looks awfully prescient when I compare to humans on social media today...
- Ajedi32 3mo agoThe population is not "reaching equilibrium", it's shrinking. If it was reaching equilibrium you'd expect the births per women to be slowly reducing until it approaches 2.1 and then staying there. It's dropping substantially below that. And there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the contraction is temporary, the causal factors seem largely unrelated to the existing population size.
- phendrenad2 3mo agoThat's... not how equilibrium works. A self-balancing segway or robot doesn't reach the balance point and then freeze in place. There are oscillations. And it isn't a pretty sine wave either. Considering the massive number of factors that go into something like "global population growth", expect a VERY chaotic graph indeed, like the stock market, but worse.
- kranke155 3mo agoYeah fair so what. The argument is - our current economic system can’t handle it. Well then that’s an argument for changing it.
- phendrenad2 3mo agoActually I was replying to someone who said that we weren't reaching equilibrium, and I contended that we are. I said nothing about "our current economic system can’t handle it".
- kranke155 3mo agoHow can you say it’s not temporary if it’s just started?
- Ajedi32 3mo agoBecause all plausible theorized causes (birth control, global reduction in poverty enabled by technology, women's rights) are not temporary conditions. (Or at least we better hope they aren't.)
- BrainInAJar 3mo agohuman extinction is far more likely if we keep reproducing than if we slow down. See: climate change etc
- saulpw 3mo agoHumans are the second most populous animal on the planet. We are in no danger of extinction.
- Ajedi32 3mo agoIf the trend doesn't reverse, it's mathematically guaranteed. But realistically, I agree. Civilizational collapse would happen long before extinction, which seems like it would almost certainly return the birth rate back to pre-industrial levels. I just don't think that's a desirable outcome either. Or, even more realistically, nations with state religions that effectively outlaw birth control and/or women's rights will take over the world, and nations which don't do those things will collapse. That also seems like a bad outcome to me. Point is, I don't think it's wise to treat this like it's not a problem.
- Legend2440 3mo agoIt's not a problem. Go look at a graph of historical world population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File%3APopulation_curve.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File%3... It's virtually flat for eons, and then in the last 100 years it shoots up like a rocket. We didn't hit the first billion people until 1800, but the 8th billion took only 11 years. (2011-2022) This rate of exponential growth was never sustainable, and it's normal and natural that it's leveling off now.
- BobaFloutist 3mo agoI don't know where you got that idea, but we're not even the most populous species of vertebrates on the planet (that might be chickens). If you include arthropods, ants make it not even remotely close.
- saulpw 3mo ago"Land vertebrates", #1 is chickens, #2 is humans. But colloquially "animal" does not include ants or fish.
- vachina 3mo agoThe top 1% is freaking out at the thought of population shrinking because the cogs of the machine won’t turn itself.
- theflyinghorse 3mo agoTop 1% are too divorced from the real world to have ever seen a cog.
- OutOfHere 3mo agoIsn't that what AI and robots are intended to be for? As for the customers, B2B could still work.
- Ajedi32 3mo agoIf the "cogs of the machine" freeze up and economy tanks the top 1% will be fine. You might not be.
- danny_codes 3mo agoDepends what we mean by freeze up. Revolutions usually mean some part of the elite class gets killed or exiled. Happens all the time.
- Enginerrrd 3mo agoRevolutions almost always involve one faction of the elites using the masses against another faction.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- marcuskaz 3mo agoThe basis of capitalism is on growth. How can you continue to grow revenue constantly if there aren't more people to buy products or use your services. Additionally tax revenue decreases as fewer people are working, so less government services and employment would be available. Schools is a good example, as there are less children, you need less schools and consolidate. So there are less jobs for teachers, now it looks like an equilibrium issue since over time it will balance out. But those teachers who are losing their jobs are adults, tax payers, consumers now and the loss of spending has a cascading effect.
- arbll 3mo agoI don't think it's specific to capitalism. Any system needs workers to produce enough for retirees and children. If you have more retirees and less workers any system is going to struggle.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3mo agoGrowing, biological organisms need growth. Because once they stop growing, now they're in dying mode. It won't happen instantly, of course, but they're going to die. And it's this way with civilizations too. Rather than being one of the "disadvantages of capitalism", it may actually be a principle of life itself.
- red-iron-pine 3mo agoe.g. how do you sell 100 million smartphones when the population is only 50 million, and can hardly afford to buy 1 (and certainly not more than 1)? this leads to layoffs how do phone shops like verizon or t-mobile stay open if people aren't buying? same for phone repair places? more layoffs more laid off people means less people going out to dinner, ordering pizza, taking trips, buying new cars. those businesses close, and layoff people. less workers means less tax revinue, either income tax, payroll tax, or sales tax (cuz people ain't buying shit). government offices cut bodies (layoffs) and reduce services. there are now less cops and more potholes. how do billionaires, whose wealth depends on publicly traded companies and their stocks, keep making money when no one can buy anything? spacex and tesla can make up numbers and stay afloat, somehow, but most stocks will tank.
- stavros 3mo agoThat's the same question I have as well. We're a cancer that's spreading on the earth and we're worrying we aren't spreading fast enough. Yeah, I get that we want to support the aging population, but at this point we're doing it at the expense of humanity as a whole.
- Paradigm2020 3mo agoInstead of such generalizations which are meaningless anyway ( if you had cancer you'd get treatment to kill it, hence if you claim to be part of a cancer with the capability to kill yourself...) Choose to be the change you wanna see in the world and find other who want to do that and stop saying "woo be us" in public as it just doesn't help. The world is the way it is because we complain and consume too much and act & care too little. But change always starts with you and first your attitude. And then well inspire others with your actions to make this world (one of ) the best versions it can be
- willmarch 3mo agoNot having kids is choosing to be the change they want to see in the world, no?
- Paradigm2020 3mo agoNot religious at all but... "To those who is given much..." If all they do is not have kids and claim that we are a cancer the minimum they could do is that other classic Speaking is silver but silence is gold... And well I firmly believe the biggest problem is the pervasive desire to be weak and complain by those who have the possibility of actual impact. The battle is lost before it's fought and all. But yeah we are being led by people with "inferior" visions for the world ~ Plato... But calling ourselves shit ain't gonna help it's just giving yourself and easy exit.
- willmarch 3mo agoYou might not like it, but by choosing not to reproduce they ARE having an actual impact on the world (as this debate about their actions demonstrates). Maybe we, as a species, would have better long term outcomes if we reflected more before blindly charging forward exactly as our parents did (and their parents before them). Maybe they feel we should choose a different course and look for better/different ways of living and being as a species. There is no such thing as infinite growth, we should probably act accordingly.
- calepayson 3mo agoShot in the dark but my sense is that a lot of our economics presumes growth and, if we don’t get it, a lot of terrible stuff happens. I feel pretty confident that ai will eventually be a large driver of growth but I do worry about whether it'll come soon enough.
- throwaway613746 3mo agoTerrible thigns like....cheaper housing and....higher wages. The horror.
- happytoexplain 3mo ago>a lot of our economics presumes growth and, if we don’t get it, a lot of terrible stuff happens What does this actually mean? Every time I try to wrap my head around why it's bad e.g. for a business to make a constant profit, rather than an increasing profit; or for the population to dip to some number and settle there, rather than increase; the explanations seem to become circular very quickly. I know it's partially my fault for not having a very strong economic education, but it also feels like something is fundamentally wrong with the theories - like they are making some underlying assumption about what is "good" that I don't share. But I can never seem to get down to it. The only thing I understand is that as the ratio of old to young grows, more taxes are needed, of course. But that would only be painful during a significant rate of change, not after the number is stable, no? Is that really somehow apocalyptic?
- calepayson 3mo agoHonestly great question. I think of it as: I invest my wages to take advantage of compound interest. It’s kind of my only hope of having a family / owning a home / retiring. If stuff stops compounding, I’m fucked. Multiply by however many millions of people are on the same position. I don’t necessarily think the theories are making any assumption about what is good (except for the “greed is good dicks”)but more acknowledging that this is how our system currently works and the first generation to step off this ride will have a horrible time.
- 3mo ago
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3mo ago>What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, Because you're not "dwindling the population" in the way you think. You're not taking an "8 billion" number and changing it to "4 billion". You're taking this growing organism, and switching it into a shrinking mode. Worse, you're changing it to "shrinking mode" in a way where you can't switch it out of that mode. It will, by necessity, shrink to nothing. And it shrinks quicker than you could imagine. When fertility rates are at 1.0 (China), each generation is one half the size of the previous. It doesn't seem like much has changed... there are 4 or so older generations that are still large (but non-reproductive). When you have a 0.5 fertility rate (South Korea), each generation is one quarter the size of the previous. Human extinction only takes about 12-14 generations at that rate. Less than 350 years. Even before it gets that far though, things get awful really quickly. It's not as if it's 350 years, and then everyone's gone. Those last few generations have no technology, they're huddled around in the dark trying not to starve. >If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. This isn't as true as it sounds. Some of our technology does not scale downward. If you need a nuclear power plant, this has a minimum number of workers. Even if you only want half the power, you can't get away with "half the workers". So, as there's less population, some technology will have to be abandoned. If you just employ people at the power plant despite that, then you're by necessity pulling those people from some other industry... it's an opportunity cost thing, and you have fewer opportunities. Sub-replacement fertility is human extinction. Not in 10,000 years, but in just a couple of centuries.
- ahtihn 3mo ago> Those last few generations have no technology, they're huddled around in the dark trying not to starve. At that point, the birth rate would quickly rise again, no? Because if you're back to living in a pre-industrial society, kids suddenly have value again. So it's likely that either there's a point of equilibrium or the population keeps swinging up and down. Total extinction seems unlikely.
- geodel 3mo agoIndeed. And in context of India since that's what Economist's article is about. Having higher population growth is just insanity to me. After destroying land, water, air, forests, mountains and still barely enough for hundreds of millions souls I am not sure how population deflation can be a important concern at this point.
- ndiddy 3mo agoThe problem isn't if the population gradually shrinks, it's if there's an uncontrolled downward spiral in fertility. If the birthrate gets below a certain point, then most people won't have any experience whatsoever interacting with babies or young children in their day-to-day life, and cultural norms will shift to make childlessness the default option. This marginalizes people who choose to have children, which pushes the birthrate down even further. This has happened in South Korea, where children are barred from many public places and it's hard to find housing in urban areas if you have children because the noise they make will piss off the neighbors. The birthrate is currently ~0.7 births per woman, meaning that every 100 South Koreans will have around 12 grandchildren. Here's a good article if you're interested: https://archive.ph/bM4Ff https://archive.ph/bM4Ff A few quotes: > Very little in Korean society seems to give young people the impression that child rearing might be rewarding or delightful. I met a stylish twentysomething news reporter at an airy, silent café in Seoul’s lively Itaewon district. “People hate kids here,” she told me. “They see kids and say, ‘Ugh.’ ” This ambient resentment finds an outlet in disdain for mothers. She said, “People call moms ‘bugs’ or ‘parasites.’ If your kids make a little noise, someone will glare at you.” She had recently vacationed in Rome, where adults drank at bars while their kids ran amok. She said, “Here, people would say, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ > An artist named Daum told me that, when he was young, “if you kicked a ball into someone else’s property, you went and rang the doorbell and got it back.” That city no longer existed: “Now you get yelled at—‘You could’ve broken my window!’ ” There’s a special word for noise between floors. Complaints forced Daum and his wife, Dani, to leave their previous building; one neighbor said, “I can’t stand your children anymore!” > In the southern city of Gangjin, I stopped at a coffee shop and encountered a sign on the entrance that read “This is a no-kids zone. The child is not at fault. The problem is the parents who do not take care of the child.” The doors of Korean establishments are frequently emblazoned with such prohibitions. The only children I saw on Seoul’s public transit were foreigners. Kim Kyu-jin, who is by all accounts part of Korea’s first openly lesbian couple with a child, told me, “Five years ago, we didn’t think too deeply about ‘no-kids zones.’ Now we think it’s discriminatory. We always call places beforehand to ask if we can bring our daughter.”
- UtopiaPunk 3mo agoIs the concern that we'd marginalize parents and kids? As a parent of little kids, that's a concern that wasn't even on my radar. I had no idea that that was a major concern of people. Wild. I'm not saying it is a fabricated or unfounded fear, I just don't have that concern at all for myself. As a parent of little kids, I worry much more about them living fulfilling lives as they grow up in the future. I'm concerned about climate change, wars, and an economic system that will allow them to live self-actualized lives. I have no doubt that the population number plays some factor in that, creating problems that must be solved. But ultimately, humans have created amazing technologies and the Earth is bountiful. We can support whatever number of people is on the horizon (whether that number is larger or smaller), but society must choose to do so and adapt. My greatest fears are that governments and corporations consolidate their wealth and power to only an elite few, bending society to serve that elite. That is a fear exists regardless of the fertility rate. I think Charlie Chaplin's speech at the end of The Great Dictator is relevant and inspirational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20&t=2s Thank you for sharing your article. It's from a view so unlike my own, and it's been eye opening.
- phendrenad2 3mo agoPeople are replying that it'll lead to uncontrolled population collapse, and it'll disproportionately affect the poor. But the alternative is to keep growing the population until we run into a much harder problem to solve (water, food, climate) and then collapse. And won't that disproportionately affect the poor? And won't it be much worse, because the population will be much larger then?
- ianm218 3mo agoWhat is your case at all? AI could usher in a post scarcity world so why not have more humans who can enjoy better lives? You just said AI Armageddon as if there is an already predetermined ending that is widely agreed upon.
- red-iron-pine 3mo agoit could. but it won't. ai only solves labor, it doesn't solve human greed.
- pelotron 3mo agoI love how "post scarcity world" is tossed around as if the earth has infinite natural resources.
- ianm218 3mo agoWith renewables and nuclear we have basically unlimited energy, which can solve a lot of resource related issues. What are you concerned we would run out of?
- Daishiman 3mo agoHelium? Rare earth minerals? Having to mine ever deeper because there are essentially no easily accessible mineral deposits? The fact that mining has enormous costs and the potential to permanently destroy sources of fresh water?
- ianm218 3mo agoRare earth minerals are not particularly rare or needed in huge quantities. Helium is probably more limited but for most cases there is alternatives I.e. I believe people use argon. Idk none of this seems overly pressing in terms of preventing a lost scarcity world
- iamnothere 3mo agoTopsoil (the oncoming train nobody has noticed yet)
- bryanlarsen 3mo ago> other than supporting aging population? Isn't that enough? Imagine a world where a large percentage of the population are in nursing homes. A humane goal for a nursing home is 10:1 24/7. So that means 1 nurse for every 2.5 residents. Besides that, it's all about the speed of change. Current Korean levels of population halving every generation is going to cause tremendous upheaval. Shrinking and growing populations aren't necessarily problematic. What's problematic are populations that shrink or grow too quickly. Infrastructure adapted for N people works well for a number close to N, but not so well for 2N or 0.5N. There aren't too many people besides Elon Musk that are significantly worried that the US's replacement rate is 1.8 compared to the 2.1 constant population level. But numbers much below that do alarm many.
- Hongwei 3mo agoOur entire social contract relies on the a redistribution of wealth from young to old. Boomer Communism, it's currently called. If you are currently paying taxes, you are funding Medicare and Social Security (insert whatever name for your country). The deal is that when you retire, the next generation funds your entitlements. If the next generation is not large enough, that deal breaks down, leading to almost impossible political choices. Do we increase taxes on the remaining working population to fund the larger retired one? Do we defund entitlements and tell retirees to figure it out, when they themselves paid into the system that is now bankrupt?
- trumpdong 3mo agoForget even the finances, the allocation of labor is a problem. Imagine 1 billion young people and they're all farmers, the next generation is 100 million young people, but they still have to feed 1.1 billion. No amount of financial shenanigans will avoid facing this basic fact.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3mo agoWe only have one modern example of demographic crash to study... Japan. Total economic stagnation, spiraling population numbers, loss of anything anchored to manual labor, and an aging population. So far, it looks to be a way for slow extinction of a culture.
- guyzero 3mo agoJapan, a country famous for no one knowing what its culture is.
- dyauspitr 3mo agoReading about it in books and watching anime won’t prevent them from going functionally extinct in less than 200 years.
- guyzero 3mo agoNo one cares. Japanese culture today is nothing like it was 200 years ago.
- functionmouse 3mo agoI care
- kordlessagain 3mo agodoubtful
- dyauspitr 3mo agoI care. I don’t want the country of Japan to be a bunch of starving geriatrics a few decades from now.
- triceratops 3mo agoI don't believe that will happen.
- dyauspitr 3mo agoYeah but logically unless people start matching the replacement rate at some point it’s a lot of pain until you go extinct. Isn’t South Korea supposed to be functionally extinct in less than 100 years at this rate?
- mystreamlincar 3mo agoYou need consumers to buy whatever an economy builds, regardless of AI involvement. As people retire they consume less.
- illiac786 3mo agoI think you’re missing the point, you’re assuming this brief moment will stop. Why would population stop declining?
- akudha 3mo agoI don’t know what the right number is, but 8+ Billion doesn’t seem sustainable. It might be, if humans respected the environment, are nicer to each other etc. Since that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, the next best option might be to just have less humans, which hopefully might lead to less pollution, less exploitation of the environment etc
- ericmcer 3mo agoIf you believe extraordinary individuals are a product of nature and we don't know how to nurture them into existence then it makes sense. Whatever confluence of events triggers an Einstein has the greatest number of chances to occur. Either way it seems dumb to structure our entire economy and future around elder care. I guess that is what you get when people older than 60 have 65% of the wealth and people under 40 have 7%.
- InsideOutSanta 3mo agoYeah, a large portion of this is caused by better access to birth control, anyway. This is a good signal of a society becoming healthier and wealthier and should be celebrated. Given the constant productivity improvements, elder care is not something that can only be solved by having constantly growing populations.