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Not in 200 years. What we're seeing now is a partial die-off. Eventually, evolution will re-assert itself. The sub-populations who, for whatever reason, conti
by Snargorf 10y ago
Not in 200 years.
What we're seeing now is a partial die-off.
Eventually, evolution will re-assert itself. The sub-populations who, for whatever reason, continue to grow in population will come to dominate the numbers, after the non-breeding groups die off.
E.g. in America, fertility is passing below replacement rates - on average. But the Amish population still doubles every 20 years. In 200 years, there will be hundreds of millions of Amish.
We could be looking at a world of Amish, Quiverfulls, poor tribalistic Africans, religious Muslims, and orthodox Jews. There will be very few left-liberals, the childfree movement will be gone (like the Shakers already are). Gays and other queer people may breed out of the gene pool if their modern freedom reduces the fertility of their genes.
Modernity may very well be self-defeating, because the future belongs to those who show up.
- collyw 10y agoReligious nuts will rule. Not a good future.
- ggamecrazy 10y agoA lot of us are all descendants of religious nuts. I'm not too worried.
- collyw 10y agoConsidering the amount of problems that religion causes at present, I am more skeptical.
- mafribe 10y agoOur religious nut ancestors didn't have nuclear weapons.
- cjslep 10y agoYou're right, and so far the only religious nuts to have used nuclear weapons are Anglican Christian Americans. When should Americans start protesting their presence in the USA?
- yongjik 10y agoYet they managed to raze cities just fine. If anything, modern religious nuts are quite tame compared to our ancestors.
- ittekimasu 10y agoDigression: There is some reason to believe that "religion" has no real epistemological grounding outside the Abrahamic world.
- speeder 10y agoThis is not coincidence. The "traditional" policies and politics that many people claim that are "backward" or "evil", came from eras where the most important thing was breed soldiers like there is no tomorrow to fight against other tribes, then cities, then countries... The point of allowing men having multiple wives, but not women with multiple husbands, prohibiting homosexual relationships, virgin marriage, encouragement of marriage, prohibition of adultery, prohibition of divorce, militarism, and a long string of other policies, are geared to one simple thing: make women "pop out" babies that can pick up weapons and fight (as soon as 12 years old if needed) the fastest as possible. Those that follow these rules, will on long term always win, out of sheer numbers and resiliency.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoExcept that a few billion people can be exterminated by a few people if it comes to that, which is a very new situation.
- mrexroad 10y agoLikewise, having a population of 1-2B also introduces the risk of scaling beyond the food production capabilities of the land. Obviously an overpopulated country can (and likely will) take from an underpopulated country, but modern weapons create a new dynamic if an invading force attempting to occupation farm land or capture grain stores is viewed as mortal threat.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoThat's exactly it, and it creates a situation in which relatively poor, very densely populated countries fight with each other for resources, rather than attempting to take from an underpopulated country armed to the teeth. I think we've seen a preview in the Middle East and North Africa, and gotten a hint of how Western nations are going to respond to the inevitable influx of refugees.
- Natales 10y agoMy biggest concern is the direct correlation to the reproductive rates and lower education in virtually every culture. More than specific concerns about particular religions or ethnic origins, I fear for a world where the uneducated rules.
- toasterlovin 10y agoThen you should have lots of kids! And encourage your intelligent friends to do the same.
- ginko 10y agoWell, it's not as if you can just choose to have kids.
- toasterlovin 10y agoTrue in the technical sense that a person cannot just unilaterally decide to have children RIGHT NOW. But most people, over the course of their life, have the opportunity to have children. In the developed world, a huge portion of these people decide to have 0 or 1 child.
- sdfin 10y agoHa, that's the starting premise of Idiocracy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
- Snargorf 10y agoIt's not in every culture, it's between cultures as well. Africa adds 30 millions people every year. Pretty much everywhere outside of Africa is below replacement fertility. In the 20th century, Africans were 10-15% of the world population; by the end of the 21st the could be >50%.
- int_19h 10y agoThe same problem was posited for China. Yet, as their quality of life improved, the problem had, essentially, resolved itself. Similar trends have been observed elsewhere. There's no reason to believe that Africa will be an exception from that rule.
- noobermin 10y ago>Gays and other queer people may breed out of the gene pool if their modern freedom reduces the fertility of their genes. By that logic gays shouldn't exist today.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoFor most of history whatever your sexuality, you married and had children. Period. You also did whatever else you did, and maybe you had a terrible marriage, but that probably wasn't unusual for straight people for most of history either.
- noobermin 10y agoLet me expand my objection, homosexuality not only exists in humans but in many other animals, many of which do not have social stigma of homosexuality.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoIt may just be that in any system as complicated as sexual aim and expression, you will have variations like homosexuality.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoActually no, historically large percentages of the population (whatever their sexuality), especially the male population, did not marry as it was very expensive to start their own household. That's one reason why so many gifts were traditionally given for weddings. Though you do have a point WRT divorce being very uncommon.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoThat... seems wrong, but I don't know enough about this to dispute what you're saying. :|
- amargherio 10y agoHe's not saying that they shouldn't exist today, just that their genes will never make it back into the collective gene pool, stopping their traits and characteristics from ever propagating forward.
- adamsea 10y agoUntil the posthumans and transhumanists and left-liberals and queers get their baby-birthing clone facilities up and running.... #cyteen #arianeemory #reseune
- toasterlovin 10y agoYou still have to want to have children. Children are a hassle, even after they're out of the womb.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JabavuAdams 10y agoWhy do we assume that non-majority sexualities are genetic? As society relaxes wrt sexuality, we may see that many more people who do not identify as gay per se may openly display flexible sexuality. E.g. saying you're left-handed is no big deal anymore. One day one's sexuality may be equally irrelevant.
- int_19h 10y agoWe don't assume it; we are still studying this extensively, and so far more evidence seems to be in favor of nature vs nurture. If it were a matter of "relaxing", you'd expect that children raised in homosexual families would tend to be more open about flexible sexuality, and more would identify as gay, or at least as non-hetero - but that is not the case. The ratio of children becoming homosexual vs heterosexual is the same in both homosexual and heterosexual families, insofar as our studies can identify. At the same time, there have been some observed correlations between sexuality and specific genetic markers. Really, the more interesting question at this point is whether it's mainly genetic, or mainly epigenetic.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoThis is just myopic. The reason why many of those groups have more children is because in any agrarian household, more children = more free labor = more productivity. This can kick in at even a very young age. In more urban centers, however, more children often means more cost for the family. It has next to nothing to do with religion, and in fact, most of the religious teachings that seem to encourage more fertility are probably just a case of putting the cart before the horse. Those teachings were emphasized because the households that listened to them already had a strong incentive to have more children. The future, as far as anyone is able to predict, will still have much more urban, educated, and "liberal" people than not, even if those households have fewer children individually. And this will be true so long as we remain an urban rather than an agrarian society.
- flashman 10y agoYou're extrapolating current trends as if they won't change in the future. Who is to say the Amish will continue to have as many children in the future? What if it turns out that reproduction is intrinsically tied to economic success, and the most successful groups of people always have declining birth rates?