8 ms·

So what's the long-term plan here? A country's population is just supposed to keep growing... forever?

by foreigner 6y ago

FiReaNG3L 6y ago
Yes, same as the economy, too many things depend on infinite growth (retirement funds being the main one).
- ben_w 6y ago
  Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners — you could also sort that with a higher retirement age. (Long-Term question I’ve had: how does this compare with UBI, which is kinda like a pension but for everyone?)
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    >>"Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners [..]" That's not necessary. They require that the active workers (plus capital) are productive enough to keep life standards for everybody. There is not theoretical limit for how many workers are necessary. In the extreme it could be with one or zero workers.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      Until we get fully automated luxury communism, capital can only be productive with workers. Cows can milk themselves these days, but the cow self-milking machines can’t make themselves yet.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Actually, retirement funds only require capital growth in real terms, which means the economy growing faster than inflation, because the principle of a retirement fund is to invest current contributions to pay future pensions. More workers than pensioners is required when the system works by using current contributions to pay current pensions (which is usually how state pensions work). [Which should also provides some information about how (un)realistic UBI is]
  - yulaow 6y ago
    Retirement age cannot be pushed higher much longer, we already have too many too much old people doing _badly_ their work because they are not sharp enough / willing enough / energic enough to do any better (so destroying any productivity value for that position + not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations). I am in a country which has the s.k. problem since a decade and since then tried to push retirement age over and over with extremely bad results (one of the higher young unemployment rate in the whole eu area). Add to this that already now losing your job, especially if low-skilled, in your 50ies it's basically a sentence to never find another one and live under unemployment benefit until you get your small state pension. For my generation (Born 1985-1995) it is already planned we will have to retire minimum at 74yo in the most optimistic situation. I mean, I don't even see myself capable of doing well my work at 65, and probably no one will want to keep me after 60, doesn't matter how sharp I will be. All supposing I am not gonna get pretty sick around that age, which is highly probable.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      > not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations False dichotomy. First: Employers which don’t allow people who are better suited to a role to have better chances to be hired for those roles, don’t grow as fast as those companies which do allow better candidates to get those roles. This is basically what causes the situation in your 3rd paragraph, and is still more appropriate than relying on eternal population growth. Second: Unless they are literally destroying value in their work (not merely being cost-ineffective, but actively damaging), then the economy still benefits from having more people working — the more value an economy creates, the more any given currency unit can buy, the more people are available to be customers, the more business can be supported by their spending, in a virtuous cycle. This is why everyone is encouraged to work in the first place instead of jobs being treated as luxury or status symbols available to only the elite few.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  Most economic growth comes from technological advance. Do you expect technological advance to stop before the Baby Boomers retire? It's possible, but it's not obvious to me.
  - sideshowb 6y ago
    What's your source for "most"? I'd always thought a small fraction was technological advance while a large fraction was unsustainable use of resources
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nayaketo 6y ago
  Theoretically, if immigration wasn't an option, what would happen in this case? Just imagine entire earth is well developed, so this issue is present on every single nation on earth. What would happen then? Would economy just slow down or would everything come crashing down? Would automation see widespread adoption? Anything else?
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Economic growth would slow down because it would be based purely on productivity gains rather than productivity gains and producers/consumers base growth (and automation would likely have a big part to play in that). But that would not necessarily be a bad thing as that would force to indeed focus on productivity growth and growth of indicators per capita instead of overall indicators.
tooltalk 6y ago
unification with the North, which has higher birth rate (1.9) than the South (1.1)?
- leereeves 6y ago
  How would that work? The South isn't going to submit to Kim Jong-un, and he isn't going to give up power.
- absolutelyrad 6y ago
  Why does the north have such a low birth rate? I thought this was a phenomena exhibited by women's rights/education and increase in wealth. All of which the north lacks.
  - oblio 6y ago
    Don't women have equal rights in the North? Almost all other Communist states did this right, despite their many other flaws.
    - lasagnaphil 6y ago
      On paper (in law) and in national policy, women's rights advanced a lot faster than South Korea (for example, in inheritance and marriage/divorce laws.) In practice, although it is hard to know extensively because of the secrecy of the nation, it's studied that there are still some economical/cultural inequalities (although North Korea's human rights for both sexes isn't isn't really a thing to show off overall...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_North_Korea
      - oblio 6y ago
        Well, I wouldn't be completely surprised. In dictatorships there's the official doctrine and there's "do whatever the dictator tells us to do". Many of the recent advances in human rights are from people protesting, convincing other people that their plight is real, and slowly turning the tide. In dictatorships this doesn't happen for obvious reasons so social progress can be frozen by 1 person or maybe a 1 group for decade after decade. Similar story from Romania, where I'm from. Not necessarily with women's rights, but with other kinds of human rights.
albertgoeswoof 6y ago
Automation of almost all food and consumable production, combined with unlimited energy sources (renewables, fusion etc) and the need for continued population growth goes away. Until we get there we import people from other countries.
akmarinov 6y ago
Yep, colonize other planets, spread humanity across the stars.
- albertgoeswoof 6y ago
  Getting a human to another star is probably not going to happen without some crazy physics breakthrough. They’re just so bloody far away
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    Even if you would manage to bring a few humans far away, it doesn't solve the problem for the rest of us. As long as we depend on dwindling supplies of fossil fuel to send things in space, we're certainly not going anywhere.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Currently it indeed seems impossible to get a human being from Earth to another star system because the trip is too long for a human lifespan. But if we accept that the people leaving will never see the end of the journey then the problem is one of keeping a liveable, self-contained environment in space for 100+ years, which does not require crazy physics breakthrough at all, just technological advances. This is not going to solve Earth's problems, though.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  No need to go to another star. There is plenty of space around our star (1). (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)
op03 6y ago
Reunification with the North.

So what's the long-term plan here? A country's population is just supposed to keep growing... forever?

FiReaNG3L 6y ago

Yes, same as the economy, too many things depend on infinite growth (retirement funds being the main one).

ben_w 6y ago
Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners — you could also sort that with a higher retirement age. (Long-Term question I’ve had: how does this compare with UBI, which is kinda like a pension but for everyone?)
- RobertoG 6y ago
  >>"Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners [..]" That's not necessary. They require that the active workers (plus capital) are productive enough to keep life standards for everybody. There is not theoretical limit for how many workers are necessary. In the extreme it could be with one or zero workers.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Until we get fully automated luxury communism, capital can only be productive with workers. Cows can milk themselves these days, but the cow self-milking machines can’t make themselves yet.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Actually, retirement funds only require capital growth in real terms, which means the economy growing faster than inflation, because the principle of a retirement fund is to invest current contributions to pay future pensions. More workers than pensioners is required when the system works by using current contributions to pay current pensions (which is usually how state pensions work). [Which should also provides some information about how (un)realistic UBI is]
- yulaow 6y ago
  Retirement age cannot be pushed higher much longer, we already have too many too much old people doing _badly_ their work because they are not sharp enough / willing enough / energic enough to do any better (so destroying any productivity value for that position + not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations). I am in a country which has the s.k. problem since a decade and since then tried to push retirement age over and over with extremely bad results (one of the higher young unemployment rate in the whole eu area). Add to this that already now losing your job, especially if low-skilled, in your 50ies it's basically a sentence to never find another one and live under unemployment benefit until you get your small state pension. For my generation (Born 1985-1995) it is already planned we will have to retire minimum at 74yo in the most optimistic situation. I mean, I don't even see myself capable of doing well my work at 65, and probably no one will want to keep me after 60, doesn't matter how sharp I will be. All supposing I am not gonna get pretty sick around that age, which is highly probable.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    > not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations False dichotomy. First: Employers which don’t allow people who are better suited to a role to have better chances to be hired for those roles, don’t grow as fast as those companies which do allow better candidates to get those roles. This is basically what causes the situation in your 3rd paragraph, and is still more appropriate than relying on eternal population growth. Second: Unless they are literally destroying value in their work (not merely being cost-ineffective, but actively damaging), then the economy still benefits from having more people working — the more value an economy creates, the more any given currency unit can buy, the more people are available to be customers, the more business can be supported by their spending, in a virtuous cycle. This is why everyone is encouraged to work in the first place instead of jobs being treated as luxury or status symbols available to only the elite few.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
Most economic growth comes from technological advance. Do you expect technological advance to stop before the Baby Boomers retire? It's possible, but it's not obvious to me.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  What's your source for "most"? I'd always thought a small fraction was technological advance while a large fraction was unsustainable use of resources
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nayaketo 6y ago
Theoretically, if immigration wasn't an option, what would happen in this case? Just imagine entire earth is well developed, so this issue is present on every single nation on earth. What would happen then? Would economy just slow down or would everything come crashing down? Would automation see widespread adoption? Anything else?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Economic growth would slow down because it would be based purely on productivity gains rather than productivity gains and producers/consumers base growth (and automation would likely have a big part to play in that). But that would not necessarily be a bad thing as that would force to indeed focus on productivity growth and growth of indicators per capita instead of overall indicators.

tooltalk 6y ago

unification with the North, which has higher birth rate (1.9) than the South (1.1)?

leereeves 6y ago
How would that work? The South isn't going to submit to Kim Jong-un, and he isn't going to give up power.
absolutelyrad 6y ago
Why does the north have such a low birth rate? I thought this was a phenomena exhibited by women's rights/education and increase in wealth. All of which the north lacks.
- oblio 6y ago
  Don't women have equal rights in the North? Almost all other Communist states did this right, despite their many other flaws.
  - lasagnaphil 6y ago
    On paper (in law) and in national policy, women's rights advanced a lot faster than South Korea (for example, in inheritance and marriage/divorce laws.) In practice, although it is hard to know extensively because of the secrecy of the nation, it's studied that there are still some economical/cultural inequalities (although North Korea's human rights for both sexes isn't isn't really a thing to show off overall...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_North_Korea
    - oblio 6y ago
      Well, I wouldn't be completely surprised. In dictatorships there's the official doctrine and there's "do whatever the dictator tells us to do". Many of the recent advances in human rights are from people protesting, convincing other people that their plight is real, and slowly turning the tide. In dictatorships this doesn't happen for obvious reasons so social progress can be frozen by 1 person or maybe a 1 group for decade after decade. Similar story from Romania, where I'm from. Not necessarily with women's rights, but with other kinds of human rights.

albertgoeswoof 6y ago

Automation of almost all food and consumable production, combined with unlimited energy sources (renewables, fusion etc) and the need for continued population growth goes away. Until we get there we import people from other countries.

akmarinov 6y ago

Yep, colonize other planets, spread humanity across the stars.

albertgoeswoof 6y ago
Getting a human to another star is probably not going to happen without some crazy physics breakthrough. They’re just so bloody far away
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  Even if you would manage to bring a few humans far away, it doesn't solve the problem for the rest of us. As long as we depend on dwindling supplies of fossil fuel to send things in space, we're certainly not going anywhere.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Currently it indeed seems impossible to get a human being from Earth to another star system because the trip is too long for a human lifespan. But if we accept that the people leaving will never see the end of the journey then the problem is one of keeping a liveable, self-contained environment in space for 100+ years, which does not require crazy physics breakthrough at all, just technological advances. This is not going to solve Earth's problems, though.
RobertoG 6y ago
No need to go to another star. There is plenty of space around our star (1). (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)

op03 6y ago

Reunification with the North.