4 ms·

It comes down to: Are people going to responsibly manage their family sizes at a family scale; if not then either we continue as is, or start going down a dark

• dmm 7y ago
  Birth rates are below replacement everywhere in the developed world and China and most other places except the middle east and africa. There is no need for forced sterilization or whatever you were alluding to.
  • toasterlovin 7y ago
    There will be at some point though. Fertility is moderately heritable.
    • esarbe 7y ago
      Even if it is; the availability of pretty much perfect contraceptives negates that to a large degree. The use of contraceptives is cultural, not biological. So we'll hit a replacement problem long before natural selection has time to catch up. The replacement issue has already real implications, this will become much more obvious in the course of the next 30 years. Any relevant change on the population size the propensity for fertility can have; it will take (three, four, five , ...) generations to manifest.
      • toasterlovin 7y ago
        > Even if it is; the availability of pretty much perfect contraceptives negates that to a large degree. No it doesn’t. My wife an I both wanted to have large families, even when we were children. How will contraceptives affect people’s basic motivations and life goals? > Any relevant change on the population size the propensity for fertility can have; it will take (three, four, five , ...) generations to manifest. Five generations is only 100-150 years. And anyway, we have a precedent for what happens when there is significant population reduction: the Black Death. Life got way better for the vast majority of people who survived that event. So much so that it ended feudalism in most of Europe. The only problem is finding pensions. Oh well. It’s incredibly immoral to yoke our descendants with the responsibility of funding an extended retirement for us.
        • newvoiceoldphne 7y ago
          Except for the millions that died.
        • sfink 7y ago
          There is a wealth of data now that shows fertility declining with increased standard of living. (Lots of correlations obscure the exact causations, but among the correlations is female economic and social mobility.) Your example is an eminently plausible mechanism for the spread of high fertility via either genetic or social vectors - but given that it contradicts the data, I don't see how it can be any more than an anecdote. Perhaps the grandchildren of large families are sufficiently removed to revert to the social mean? I don't know. As for the Black Death, the personal and societal restrictions that result from not wanting to die from casual contact were probably quite a relief to escape and reverse. I don't know enough about history, but I could imagine that kicking off a positive chain reaction. After a cold season, people love to play in the sun. This part is just speculation on my part, though; you're welcome to continue siding with Thanos.
          • toasterlovin 7y ago
            The mechanism is that the propensity to have more children is partly genetic. So as people with those genes out-breed the rest of the population, those genes come to predominate in the population. Thus overcoming the demographic transition. Here is a recent paper that models this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513817302799 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051381... The Black Death is pretty well accepted as a contributor to the end of feudalism. I guess you’re positing that somehow that would be the result of survivors feeling elated at having gotten past the catastrophe (which is a temporary emotion), versus their facing an easier life as a result of 50% of the population dying (an effect which lasts a lifetime). Seems implausible to me. But also, that the reduction in labor supply lead to vastly improved outcomes for laborers is pretty well attested. Lords of the manor started competing for labor because it was scarce. As a result, laborers were able to transition into owning their own property. It was a big deal. And it has to do with permanently reducing the population to well below the Malthusian limit (the plague periodically re-occurred for centuries, culling the population each time).
      • tabtab 7y ago
        My friend's sister has a lot of children despite being relatively poor because being pregnant makes her feel good. It's a high. Such a trait will probably spread.
  • scanny 7y ago
    Let me rephrase: what happens when the developing world, larger in population size, reaches the wealth of the developed world. Has the problem dissipated upon reaching that point?
    • f00zz 7y ago
      Fertility rates have been decreasing rapidly all over the developing world. For instance, in Brazil it went from over 5 to around 1.7 in just 50 years. It has decreased so much that that country's very generous public pension system, created when the median age was around 18, eats most of the government's budget and has all but collapsed (current median age is 37). Back in the 1970s your typical sci-fi dystopia was an overcrowded world. Personally I'm more afraid of a world with ghost cities inhabited by a handful of elderly people
    • ip26 7y ago
      Based on what we know, the global population would crest, and then begin to gradually subside globally. The biggest question would be, what is the peak and is that number tolerable even for a short while.
    • munificent 7y ago
      The evidence is yes. Assuming the developing world also provides access to birth control, allows women to access education and jobs, etc. then it seems that cultures naturally reach a point where the birthrate lowers.