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Whats even more fun is there other major problems approaching on roughly the same timeline... - Less developed nations will be transitioning to a population cr

Whats even more fun is there other major problems approaching on roughly the same timeline... - Less developed nations will be transitioning to a population crunch (WSJ 2050) with huge ramifications on global economics/politics - fossil fuels (especially oil) reaching depletion or becoming too expensive to extract - climate change impact in full swing, serious disruption to even domestic agriculture - Ubiquitous AI, and all the associated social unrest of a deprecated generation of workers Ultimately there's just too many people. Society doesn't need 8 billion humans anymore, the US doesn't even need 300 million... Arguably what youre describing is an emergent solution to that problem. Now we've reached the point where the next generation will need to support their parent's slow death instead of raising the next generation of children... That's going to wreck society's ownership of the future in a big way. (Mobile, excuse the poor formating)

toosmart4u12 11y ago
lol. Recent college grad, naive + propaganda sponge? Have done 0 research, and know practically nothing on the topic - but watched a few documentaries on Netflix? Every generation has gone through the same type of existential angst. Sell your house, liquidate your 401K. Buy gold bars, grow your own food, live out of a cabin. The economy is going to crash, the world is going to fall apart - it's different this time. Nah, probably not. Not in your life time. Most likely, the machine will keep on rolling. Some of the problems we have will be solved. Some will turn out to be less dire than the alarmists anticipated. There has NEVER been a better time to be alive. This was true of the previous generation, too. But, unfortunately for you, you now live out of a wooden box. But hey, at least you got those gold bars. Surely they will be worth something when the economy melts down (it's just around the corner!).
jczhang 11y ago
Right, the issue of overpopulation is huge. It's going to need a different kind of society with very different values than the ones we have today. Capitalism can't grow like it has been once we realize the issue of overpop and work to reduce it. We have a crazy new world coming. And the transition has be fast.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  Or alternatively human ingenuity adapts and overcomes - Malthusians have been consistently proved wrong in their constant cries of overpopulation. There is still plenty of land, plenty of ability to grow food to feed us and plenty of advances being made in areas which will allow that to increase. We've already seen a vast decrease in the number of people living on less than $1 a day across the world enabling many countries to start reaping a demographic dividend. If the pessimists can quote fossil fuel depletion then surely I can optimistically promote fusion, carbon capture etc. Capitalism has been one of the greatest success stories of humanity.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    I never understood how one could embrace prophecies of doom in this day and age. We live in a near golden age of plenty, and the train hasn't slowed down yet.
    - timr 11y ago
      "We live in a near golden age of plenty, and the train hasn't slowed down yet." If by "we", you mean "citizens in the most prosperous cities of the world", then yes. If you mean "people in most of the USA", then I have some news for you: the train's wheels are locked, and sparks are flying while everything skids to a stop. It's absolutely shocking how much of the country has declined in prosperity in my lifetime. The smaller cities near where I grew up -- places that were thriving small towns as recently as the 1980s -- are nearly all trapped in downward spirals of poverty, debt and addiction. If you mean "the citizens of this planet", well...for most people, the train never left the station. Even in modern "success stories" like China, you don't have to try very hard to find appalling levels of poverty and despair. A few have become incredibly wealthy, but mostly, people are struggling to keep up. In the third-world? Forget it. Yeah, people can pay for cellphones now, while they're dying of preventable diseases due to filthy water. Optimism is one thing, but it takes a Silicon Valley (aka Leibnitzian) view of the world to claim that this is a "golden age". Mostly, a select group of people are getting richer, while everyone else stagnates (or just barely inches forward).
toosmart4u12 11y ago
Recent college grad, naive + propaganda sponge? Have done 0 research, and know practically nothing on the topic - but watched a few documentaries on Netflix? Every generation has gone through the same type of existential angst. Sell your house, liquidate your 401K. Buy gold bars, grow your own food, live out of a cabin. The economy is going to crash, the world is going to fall apart - it's different this time. Nah, probably not. Not in your life time. Most likely, the machine will keep on rolling. Some of the problems we have will be solved. Some will turn out to be less dire than the alarmists anticipated. There has NEVER been a better time to be alive. This was true of the previous generation, too. But, unfortunately for you, you now live out of a wooden box. But hey, at least you got those gold bars. Surely they will be worth something when the economy melts down (it's just around the corner!).
jsprogrammer 11y ago
>Society doesn't need 8 billion humans anymore This is self-contradictory. Society is exactly the humans that exist.
- kyllo 11y ago
  It think it's more like, human society is collectively deciding that optimum human population size is less than current size, and adjusting reproductive behavior accordingly.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Isn't the human population increasing?
    - kyllo 11y ago
      It is still increasing, but the slope of the curve is decreasing. It will peak in the next few decades and then start to decrease if current reproductive trends continue.

toosmart4u12 11y ago

lol. Recent college grad, naive + propaganda sponge? Have done 0 research, and know practically nothing on the topic - but watched a few documentaries on Netflix? Every generation has gone through the same type of existential angst. Sell your house, liquidate your 401K. Buy gold bars, grow your own food, live out of a cabin. The economy is going to crash, the world is going to fall apart - it's different this time. Nah, probably not. Not in your life time. Most likely, the machine will keep on rolling. Some of the problems we have will be solved. Some will turn out to be less dire than the alarmists anticipated. There has NEVER been a better time to be alive. This was true of the previous generation, too. But, unfortunately for you, you now live out of a wooden box. But hey, at least you got those gold bars. Surely they will be worth something when the economy melts down (it's just around the corner!).

jczhang 11y ago

Right, the issue of overpopulation is huge. It's going to need a different kind of society with very different values than the ones we have today. Capitalism can't grow like it has been once we realize the issue of overpop and work to reduce it. We have a crazy new world coming. And the transition has be fast.

cmdkeen 11y ago
Or alternatively human ingenuity adapts and overcomes - Malthusians have been consistently proved wrong in their constant cries of overpopulation. There is still plenty of land, plenty of ability to grow food to feed us and plenty of advances being made in areas which will allow that to increase. We've already seen a vast decrease in the number of people living on less than $1 a day across the world enabling many countries to start reaping a demographic dividend. If the pessimists can quote fossil fuel depletion then surely I can optimistically promote fusion, carbon capture etc. Capitalism has been one of the greatest success stories of humanity.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  I never understood how one could embrace prophecies of doom in this day and age. We live in a near golden age of plenty, and the train hasn't slowed down yet.
  - timr 11y ago
    "We live in a near golden age of plenty, and the train hasn't slowed down yet." If by "we", you mean "citizens in the most prosperous cities of the world", then yes. If you mean "people in most of the USA", then I have some news for you: the train's wheels are locked, and sparks are flying while everything skids to a stop. It's absolutely shocking how much of the country has declined in prosperity in my lifetime. The smaller cities near where I grew up -- places that were thriving small towns as recently as the 1980s -- are nearly all trapped in downward spirals of poverty, debt and addiction. If you mean "the citizens of this planet", well...for most people, the train never left the station. Even in modern "success stories" like China, you don't have to try very hard to find appalling levels of poverty and despair. A few have become incredibly wealthy, but mostly, people are struggling to keep up. In the third-world? Forget it. Yeah, people can pay for cellphones now, while they're dying of preventable diseases due to filthy water. Optimism is one thing, but it takes a Silicon Valley (aka Leibnitzian) view of the world to claim that this is a "golden age". Mostly, a select group of people are getting richer, while everyone else stagnates (or just barely inches forward).

toosmart4u12 11y ago

Recent college grad, naive + propaganda sponge? Have done 0 research, and know practically nothing on the topic - but watched a few documentaries on Netflix? Every generation has gone through the same type of existential angst. Sell your house, liquidate your 401K. Buy gold bars, grow your own food, live out of a cabin. The economy is going to crash, the world is going to fall apart - it's different this time. Nah, probably not. Not in your life time. Most likely, the machine will keep on rolling. Some of the problems we have will be solved. Some will turn out to be less dire than the alarmists anticipated. There has NEVER been a better time to be alive. This was true of the previous generation, too. But, unfortunately for you, you now live out of a wooden box. But hey, at least you got those gold bars. Surely they will be worth something when the economy melts down (it's just around the corner!).

jsprogrammer 11y ago

>Society doesn't need 8 billion humans anymore This is self-contradictory. Society is exactly the humans that exist.

kyllo 11y ago
It think it's more like, human society is collectively deciding that optimum human population size is less than current size, and adjusting reproductive behavior accordingly.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Isn't the human population increasing?
  - kyllo 11y ago
    It is still increasing, but the slope of the curve is decreasing. It will peak in the next few decades and then start to decrease if current reproductive trends continue.