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another chicken little article. worthless speculation about the future. who knows what will happen if the population declines. one thing is for certain though.

another chicken little article. worthless speculation about the future. who knows what will happen if the population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, infinite growth society must have it’s day of reckoning

steve76 6y ago
Sure. Curing cancer. Imaging black holes. All a giant scheme. In April, energy prices dropped. People stayed at home and read and just didn't mess up. If terrorists did not orchestrate the coordinated burning and looting of hundreds of USA cities, we might have kept it going. No more people telling everyone what to do from far away. Can't have that. So now we have to work our lives away again, just so some drunken mob does not cannibalize us from the inside. Why is population declining? People are awful today. Horrible and cruel to one another. People work each other to death and destroy families without a second thought just for money they spendthrift away. Sharing in service, grief, passing on wealth and knowledge to the next ones up, that's all gone. Now it's just a world of ogres. If you're kind, you're weak or weird. Everyone's looking to get one over on another. A pack of dogs cheating at cards paying monkeys to fix cars.
mindfulhack 6y ago
I support this sentiment 100%. In human population, we should be aiming for quality, not quantity. Quality also means diversity. If higher quantity unavoidably brings a higher proportion of human suffering, then we have no other choice but to promote quality over quantity. I fear for the future of our species. Our evolutionary instinct to multiply combined with the tech we've created is now bringing this planet to the brink. Everyone wants to exist. But I would rather exist in a positive way, than exist at all.
- ken47 6y ago
  People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues? Without getting into a long spiel, human intelligence appears to actually be extremely limited, compared to a theoretical perfect intelligence, and any explicit actions we may take to enforce "quality over quantity" could end up doing more "harm" than "good" as soon as 1 "move" beyond the furthest move that we're capable of calculating. IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death.
  - mindfulhack 6y ago
    > People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues? Yes, in a way. But with mindfulness, one can choose different thoughts to attach to that innate survival feeling of wanting to exist and multiply. Instead of, 'We need to always multiply / population control is evil', make it, 'We need to create a better world for our species and those around us'. > IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death. Also agreed. I've read the big AI books like Nick Bostrom's and Max Tegmark's. Given their monumental knowledge, the sentiments around population control are not so much about saving so much as managing. More importantly, it's about saving the possibility of AI and superior forms of evolution to arise in the future, which are far more significant than current Homo sapiens. One way to put this into practice is to choose to adopt a child as your own, instead of producing yet another one. I may do this in my life.
    - ken47 6y ago
      If you believe you're the sort of person who can potentially "save" the world, wouldn't you want to clone your inherited software to counterbalance the cloning of those who cannot or will not?
- Shaigyheart 6y ago
  Oh what is meant by positive way exist.
kijin 6y ago
> who knows what will happen if the population declines. Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing. Existing homeowners will do their damnedest to prop up prices by any means possible, but it can't last forever. Housing prices will crash sooner or later. It will probably happen in each country long before a its population has halved. Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declining fertility in many countries. Who has time to raise kids when they have to work two jobs just to pay rent? But once it becomes more affordable to raise a family, fertility trends are likely to reverse until it a new balance is reached. This is just one of the many factors that might come into play over the next 80 years that popular predictions about 2100 tend to glance over.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing. It won't without policy controls, otherwise, housing units will be redeveloped into other uses (including smaller numbers of larger units designed and managed in a way to foster single-family occupancy per unit.) > Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declining fertility. [citation needed]
- arp242 6y ago
  In many areas the shortage of housing isn't really one of space, lack of housing, or population, but rather that everyone wants a house in the same urban areas, mostly due to the availability of jobs. If you want a house in Ireland for example, then the country-side is dirt cheap, but if you want one in Dublin or Cork then be prepared to pay through the nose. The situation seems similar in most countries. I'm not sure what a solution for this will be, but I'm not sure if population decline will be a major contributor.
  - kijin 6y ago
    Urban areas usually have a younger population than rural areas do, so I think it's safe to assume that a dramatic change in the number of young people will affect housing prices in cities more than in rural areas. For example, that block of crappy houses near the university would be worth a lot less without a steady stream of students to rent them out to.
jariel 6y ago
"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we try to do so with climate and other things. "It will be positive for the environment" Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. " population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, " Most GDP growth does not come from resource utilisation. So there are definitly some upsides to less people, but it's also a tremendous risk. Never before in history has this happened naturally, and it's happening fast. This is a 'really big, kind of scary' issue that we have to contend with, and as your points illustrate, there are definitely many facets let alone the social one's.
- bawolff 6y ago
  > Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. That is one of the most egregious example of not controlling for confounding factors i can think of. People with high carbon emissions are in the group having less children. It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children.
  - jariel 6y ago
    "It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children." Except that it does. Literally from the article, they state "women entering the workforce, education jobs etc" - which increases income, and this is 100% correlated to increased consumption of all forms. It's consistent everywhere. FYI this is the de-facto neoliberal plan (not being conspiratorial here). It's more directly apparent in China's ambitions i.e. Belt and Road: "The stated objectives are "to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets" [1], but it's not like it's their 'new' idea. The objective of the wealthier nations is to get the remaining 4 Billion people driving cars, eating Cheetos, wearing H&M (fast fashion, ie 'disposable') and living in IKEA (i.e. trendy, but generally low-quality furniture, that can be replaced every several years). This is effectively 'the plan'. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
walleeee 6y ago
> it will be a positive for the environment It certainly would improve our chances and reduce the rate at which conditions diverge from the baseline we've experienced for the last ~10,000 years, but it's important to recognize that we would not see meaningful total population reduction until at least 2100 even if the birth rate continued to drop dramatically and disasters claimed several billion lives[0]. There is too much inertia. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111

steve76 6y ago

Sure. Curing cancer. Imaging black holes. All a giant scheme. In April, energy prices dropped. People stayed at home and read and just didn't mess up. If terrorists did not orchestrate the coordinated burning and looting of hundreds of USA cities, we might have kept it going. No more people telling everyone what to do from far away. Can't have that. So now we have to work our lives away again, just so some drunken mob does not cannibalize us from the inside. Why is population declining? People are awful today. Horrible and cruel to one another. People work each other to death and destroy families without a second thought just for money they spendthrift away. Sharing in service, grief, passing on wealth and knowledge to the next ones up, that's all gone. Now it's just a world of ogres. If you're kind, you're weak or weird. Everyone's looking to get one over on another. A pack of dogs cheating at cards paying monkeys to fix cars.

mindfulhack 6y ago

I support this sentiment 100%. In human population, we should be aiming for quality, not quantity. Quality also means diversity. If higher quantity unavoidably brings a higher proportion of human suffering, then we have no other choice but to promote quality over quantity. I fear for the future of our species. Our evolutionary instinct to multiply combined with the tech we've created is now bringing this planet to the brink. Everyone wants to exist. But I would rather exist in a positive way, than exist at all.

ken47 6y ago
People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues? Without getting into a long spiel, human intelligence appears to actually be extremely limited, compared to a theoretical perfect intelligence, and any explicit actions we may take to enforce "quality over quantity" could end up doing more "harm" than "good" as soon as 1 "move" beyond the furthest move that we're capable of calculating. IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  > People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're facing the aforementioned issues? Yes, in a way. But with mindfulness, one can choose different thoughts to attach to that innate survival feeling of wanting to exist and multiply. Instead of, 'We need to always multiply / population control is evil', make it, 'We need to create a better world for our species and those around us'. > IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is just a way of postponing death. Also agreed. I've read the big AI books like Nick Bostrom's and Max Tegmark's. Given their monumental knowledge, the sentiments around population control are not so much about saving so much as managing. More importantly, it's about saving the possibility of AI and superior forms of evolution to arise in the future, which are far more significant than current Homo sapiens. One way to put this into practice is to choose to adopt a child as your own, instead of producing yet another one. I may do this in my life.
  - ken47 6y ago
    If you believe you're the sort of person who can potentially "save" the world, wouldn't you want to clone your inherited software to counterbalance the cloning of those who cannot or will not?
Shaigyheart 6y ago
Oh what is meant by positive way exist.

kijin 6y ago

> who knows what will happen if the population declines. Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing. Existing homeowners will do their damnedest to prop up prices by any means possible, but it can't last forever. Housing prices will crash sooner or later. It will probably happen in each country long before a its population has halved. Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declining fertility in many countries. Who has time to raise kids when they have to work two jobs just to pay rent? But once it becomes more affordable to raise a family, fertility trends are likely to reverse until it a new balance is reached. This is just one of the many factors that might come into play over the next 80 years that popular predictions about 2100 tend to glance over.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing. It won't without policy controls, otherwise, housing units will be redeveloped into other uses (including smaller numbers of larger units designed and managed in a way to foster single-family occupancy per unit.) > Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declining fertility. [citation needed]
arp242 6y ago
In many areas the shortage of housing isn't really one of space, lack of housing, or population, but rather that everyone wants a house in the same urban areas, mostly due to the availability of jobs. If you want a house in Ireland for example, then the country-side is dirt cheap, but if you want one in Dublin or Cork then be prepared to pay through the nose. The situation seems similar in most countries. I'm not sure what a solution for this will be, but I'm not sure if population decline will be a major contributor.
- kijin 6y ago
  Urban areas usually have a younger population than rural areas do, so I think it's safe to assume that a dramatic change in the number of young people will affect housing prices in cities more than in rural areas. For example, that block of crappy houses near the university would be worth a lot less without a steady stream of students to rent them out to.

jariel 6y ago

"worthless speculation about the future" No really - trends are real, this is science, and we use them to actually estimate the future, in much the same way we try to do so with climate and other things. "It will be positive for the environment" Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. " population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, " Most GDP growth does not come from resource utilisation. So there are definitly some upsides to less people, but it's also a tremendous risk. Never before in history has this happened naturally, and it's happening fast. This is a 'really big, kind of scary' issue that we have to contend with, and as your points illustrate, there are definitely many facets let alone the social one's.

bawolff 6y ago
> Possibly not true. Low-birth Westerners are already the #1 emitters of Co2 by a margin, so it's not so linear. That is one of the most egregious example of not controlling for confounding factors i can think of. People with high carbon emissions are in the group having less children. It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children.
- jariel 6y ago
  "It doesnt follow they would emit less CO2 if they happened to have children." Except that it does. Literally from the article, they state "women entering the workforce, education jobs etc" - which increases income, and this is 100% correlated to increased consumption of all forms. It's consistent everywhere. FYI this is the de-facto neoliberal plan (not being conspiratorial here). It's more directly apparent in China's ambitions i.e. Belt and Road: "The stated objectives are "to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets" [1], but it's not like it's their 'new' idea. The objective of the wealthier nations is to get the remaining 4 Billion people driving cars, eating Cheetos, wearing H&M (fast fashion, ie 'disposable') and living in IKEA (i.e. trendy, but generally low-quality furniture, that can be replaced every several years). This is effectively 'the plan'. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

walleeee 6y ago

> it will be a positive for the environment It certainly would improve our chances and reduce the rate at which conditions diverge from the baseline we've experienced for the last ~10,000 years, but it's important to recognize that we would not see meaningful total population reduction until at least 2100 even if the birth rate continued to drop dramatically and disasters claimed several billion lives[0]. There is too much inertia. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111