3 ms·

Yes, I'm the one who brought up race first. Got me there. I feel like you're borrowing trouble, though. Populations with more resources are less fertile, for

Yes, I'm the one who brought up race first. Got me there. I feel like you're borrowing trouble, though. Populations with more resources are less fertile, for now. But unless and until global population falls below two billion humans, it's not really our problem to solve. Any number of things could change socially by that time. In the meantime though, dropping below replacement rate increases our odds of survival as a species, as we can avoid the potential Malthusian catastrophe. Our current falling birthrate has to be socially constructed. Having children used to an economic advantage, but this is no longer the case. Anything that changes that equation can reverse the trend, be it a social safety net, more technology, cheaper education, or more housing availability.

philwelch 8y ago
The entire point of futurism is to borrow trouble from the future. Sometimes the trouble of the present is just too boring ;) My basic point is that, insofar as the more liberalized and secular cultures of the present developed world can't sustainably maintain their current populations, there's a limited amount of runway for these cultures to persist. Eventually, we will either run out of immigrants and turn the entire world into one with a fertility rate below replacement, or some other, more fertile culture will out-reproduce or convert us faster than we can convert them, and that will be the culture of the future. Perhaps it's possible that improvements in economic circumstances will allow fertility to rebound in secular cultures, but they've had the opposite effect so far. It's also worth pointing out that, by necessity, we're going to need some lead time to get the fertility rate back up. A fertility rate of 1.4 means that each generation is 70% the size of their parents' generation, and half the size of their grandparents' generation, and we're already having a hard time affording pensions as it is. China, in particular, may have a massive self-inflicted demographic crisis on their hands due to the one-child policy. If Chinese parents during the one-child era had a strong preference for girls, maybe it would have worked out, but as it happened, they had a strong preference for boys. They might be able to handle the problem of caring for larger elder generations with smaller younger generations by offsetting the population decline with strong per capita economic growth, but the demographic issues involved with having large numbers of excess men will persist. I'm also curious about the math that leads you to the two billion number. A Kardashev I civilization on Earth could sustainably support much more than that, and a civilization that advanced beyond Kardashev I, even more. By the time we run into the long term sustainability issues of our current population, or even of a population of 9-12 billion, it's entirely likely that we will be at such a level of technology that we can solve those issues anyway.

philwelch 8y ago

The entire point of futurism is to borrow trouble from the future. Sometimes the trouble of the present is just too boring ;) My basic point is that, insofar as the more liberalized and secular cultures of the present developed world can't sustainably maintain their current populations, there's a limited amount of runway for these cultures to persist. Eventually, we will either run out of immigrants and turn the entire world into one with a fertility rate below replacement, or some other, more fertile culture will out-reproduce or convert us faster than we can convert them, and that will be the culture of the future. Perhaps it's possible that improvements in economic circumstances will allow fertility to rebound in secular cultures, but they've had the opposite effect so far. It's also worth pointing out that, by necessity, we're going to need some lead time to get the fertility rate back up. A fertility rate of 1.4 means that each generation is 70% the size of their parents' generation, and half the size of their grandparents' generation, and we're already having a hard time affording pensions as it is. China, in particular, may have a massive self-inflicted demographic crisis on their hands due to the one-child policy. If Chinese parents during the one-child era had a strong preference for girls, maybe it would have worked out, but as it happened, they had a strong preference for boys. They might be able to handle the problem of caring for larger elder generations with smaller younger generations by offsetting the population decline with strong per capita economic growth, but the demographic issues involved with having large numbers of excess men will persist. I'm also curious about the math that leads you to the two billion number. A Kardashev I civilization on Earth could sustainably support much more than that, and a civilization that advanced beyond Kardashev I, even more. By the time we run into the long term sustainability issues of our current population, or even of a population of 9-12 billion, it's entirely likely that we will be at such a level of technology that we can solve those issues anyway.