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These predictions are laughable because they ignore the fact that fertility, like everything else, is heritable. The people who aren't reproducing will die out

These predictions are laughable because they ignore the fact that fertility, like everything else, is heritable. The people who aren't reproducing will die out. The people who are reproducing will do so, and their kids will keep reproducing too. These are separate sub-groups of the population. As a very simple example, the Amish population doubles roughly every 20 years because of their high and early birth rates. It's not hard to calculate that there will be billions of them within a few centuries because of the power of exponential growth. Any analysis which doesn't separate sub-groups by fertility, or handle the heritability of fertility, is meaningless. All we're in now is a temporary state caused by rapid introduction of birth control and porn and other such technologies which suppress fertility. No different from hitting a bacterial colony with a drug that stops 90% of them from reproducing. It reverses growth for a few generations, but the logic of evolution and exponential growth always wins in the end and the population hits its carrying capacity once again. Which for humanity with modern tech, is going to be a very, very ugly situation.

jessaustin 7y ago
It's far more likely that the Amish will have disappeared altogether in "a few centuries" than that they will number in the "billions". There is no Amish gene.
- jlawson 7y ago
  You can just flatly assert that, but it'd be more interesting if you supported your assertion with some kind of argument. What exactly do you think is going to dissolve the Amish that didn't do so already? Do you not think fertility is heritable, and if not, how not? Also, who said anything about genes? Sub-groups can be separated by culture, religion, genetics, or any combination of the above. Amish are separated by all 3. Religiosity is also linked to genetics; this is scientifically established (though not totally proven yet).
  - iamnothere 7y ago
    Not the person you're replying to, but I'll give a hypothetical argument. The Amish have an extremely successful culture right now because their society positions them advantageously versus the predominant culture. Their practices are excellent for building strong communities and providing efficient, effective mutual aid in a form that is lacking in society at large; and unlike what most people think of the Amish, they do adopt some modern technology, but only that which strengthens the community. As the Amish community grows, they will face the same challenges faced by all growing, successful "challenger" cultures: envy and resentment, followed by active undermining of their culture and attempts at assimilation through popular media, fashion, and a hostile legislative environment. (This presents itself as a sort of "embrace, extend, extinguish" effect, with the end product being ethnic restaurants and kitsch once the culture has been fully digested.) The Amish may be able to adapt to face this challenge, but what often happens is that the process of adaptation ruins the good and unique things about the culture, and the assimilation happens anyway. Cultures that resist this effect stay small by necessity. An example of a culture recently reaching this "breakout" point where pushback is encountered is the Hasidic community in New York. A good example of a culture that is left alone due to its small size is the Sikh-American community. An example of a fully digested culture is the Italian-American community, which no longer exists as a separate identity.
    - jlawson 7y ago
      Well I'm not saying the Amish are "successful" in any sense of morality or human flourishing; I'm making no claim on that. I'm just saying they multiply fast. Not a judgment, just an observation. I agree the pathway would definitely change. You'd see pushback. It's not like the Amish will be 300 million in their exact current format. So let's say that does happen and the Amish start getting targeted for "embrace, extend, extinguish", or some variation of semi-forced immigration and assimilation. Amish aren't homogenous. Some of them would be taken by this, assimilate, and drop birth rates. Some would not. Whatever characteristics made that last part not assimilate would then get replicated into a larger and larger population share. And the process continues. We may see several phases of this, but at the conclusion of the process, the evolutionary logic leads to a certain result: A population who are absolutely, totally immune to any influence that would assimilate them into a negative-birthrate culture. And that population will rapidly expand until it hits physical limits. The reason I think this is inevitable is because evolution is relentlessly adaptable, while the countermeasures are fairly static. It's like a new antibiotic. Even if it works really well, the bacteria's evolutionary process will just keep trying and trying until it finds a new replication pathway. The replicators can adapt forever while the force that is stopping them cannot.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    I flatly assert that the Amish are like the thousands of other weird "traditionalist" isolationist minority subcultures who have existed throughout human history. None of those ever made it to "billions" either, and lots of them were even more pro-procreation than the Amish. If the Amish were a larger population, they'd have to mingle more with the rest of us. They make a big deal about their rumspringa, but their culture will not survive repeated mingling. Video games are fun. Tinder is fun. Air conditioning is comfortable. Let the robots pick the turnips.
- haihaibye 7y ago
  "rate of boiling off of young Amish each generation might act like truncation selection in favor being Amish, whatever that might be" https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/inferring-an-aq/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/inferring-an-aq/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/draft-of-paper-about-amish/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/draft-of-paper-abo... “[T]he difference in mean AQ [‘amishness’] between young Amish men and their non-Amish neighbors is about 2.8 standard deviations. In the IQ world this would correspond to a group different of 42 points. In the stature world this would correspond to a height difference of about 8 inches.”

jessaustin 7y ago

It's far more likely that the Amish will have disappeared altogether in "a few centuries" than that they will number in the "billions". There is no Amish gene.

jlawson 7y ago
You can just flatly assert that, but it'd be more interesting if you supported your assertion with some kind of argument. What exactly do you think is going to dissolve the Amish that didn't do so already? Do you not think fertility is heritable, and if not, how not? Also, who said anything about genes? Sub-groups can be separated by culture, religion, genetics, or any combination of the above. Amish are separated by all 3. Religiosity is also linked to genetics; this is scientifically established (though not totally proven yet).
- iamnothere 7y ago
  Not the person you're replying to, but I'll give a hypothetical argument. The Amish have an extremely successful culture right now because their society positions them advantageously versus the predominant culture. Their practices are excellent for building strong communities and providing efficient, effective mutual aid in a form that is lacking in society at large; and unlike what most people think of the Amish, they do adopt some modern technology, but only that which strengthens the community. As the Amish community grows, they will face the same challenges faced by all growing, successful "challenger" cultures: envy and resentment, followed by active undermining of their culture and attempts at assimilation through popular media, fashion, and a hostile legislative environment. (This presents itself as a sort of "embrace, extend, extinguish" effect, with the end product being ethnic restaurants and kitsch once the culture has been fully digested.) The Amish may be able to adapt to face this challenge, but what often happens is that the process of adaptation ruins the good and unique things about the culture, and the assimilation happens anyway. Cultures that resist this effect stay small by necessity. An example of a culture recently reaching this "breakout" point where pushback is encountered is the Hasidic community in New York. A good example of a culture that is left alone due to its small size is the Sikh-American community. An example of a fully digested culture is the Italian-American community, which no longer exists as a separate identity.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    Well I'm not saying the Amish are "successful" in any sense of morality or human flourishing; I'm making no claim on that. I'm just saying they multiply fast. Not a judgment, just an observation. I agree the pathway would definitely change. You'd see pushback. It's not like the Amish will be 300 million in their exact current format. So let's say that does happen and the Amish start getting targeted for "embrace, extend, extinguish", or some variation of semi-forced immigration and assimilation. Amish aren't homogenous. Some of them would be taken by this, assimilate, and drop birth rates. Some would not. Whatever characteristics made that last part not assimilate would then get replicated into a larger and larger population share. And the process continues. We may see several phases of this, but at the conclusion of the process, the evolutionary logic leads to a certain result: A population who are absolutely, totally immune to any influence that would assimilate them into a negative-birthrate culture. And that population will rapidly expand until it hits physical limits. The reason I think this is inevitable is because evolution is relentlessly adaptable, while the countermeasures are fairly static. It's like a new antibiotic. Even if it works really well, the bacteria's evolutionary process will just keep trying and trying until it finds a new replication pathway. The replicators can adapt forever while the force that is stopping them cannot.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  I flatly assert that the Amish are like the thousands of other weird "traditionalist" isolationist minority subcultures who have existed throughout human history. None of those ever made it to "billions" either, and lots of them were even more pro-procreation than the Amish. If the Amish were a larger population, they'd have to mingle more with the rest of us. They make a big deal about their rumspringa, but their culture will not survive repeated mingling. Video games are fun. Tinder is fun. Air conditioning is comfortable. Let the robots pick the turnips.
haihaibye 7y ago
"rate of boiling off of young Amish each generation might act like truncation selection in favor being Amish, whatever that might be" https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/inferring-an-aq/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/inferring-an-aq/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/draft-of-paper-about-amish/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/draft-of-paper-abo... “[T]he difference in mean AQ [‘amishness’] between young Amish men and their non-Amish neighbors is about 2.8 standard deviations. In the IQ world this would correspond to a group different of 42 points. In the stature world this would correspond to a height difference of about 8 inches.”