11 ms·

"But fewer people may also mean fewer new ideas". May. Or may not. My bet is fewer people mean fewer hours spent watching shit @Netflix and similar.

tim333 6y ago
Yeah us old folk have ideas too!
ThomPete 6y ago
It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely. The more people we have to more likely some of them will do that.
- dsnr 6y ago
  I disagree, most of the countries with booming populations are rather poor and don’t do much innovation or research. In the age we live in it’s almost impossible for a lone wolf to fix a big problem of the humankind because of complexities involved. What is necessary instead is team work and funding innovation. Individuals don’t count as much anymore.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    We need both and that require more not less people.
    - wsc981 6y ago
      > We need both and that require more not less people. A lot of problems would be solved 'automatically' if the world population would be reduced.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        The world will always face problems and we will always be the victim of these if we don't have the knowledge to combat them. The more people we are the more we are likely to produce the wealth, knowledge and solutions for those problems. The idea that the worlds population is a problem is in my world an antihuman stance which keeps popping up even tough it keeps being proven wrong. Wether Maltahus, Erlich or the UN.
        imtringued 6y ago
        >The idea that the worlds population is a problem is in my world an antihuman stance which keeps popping up even tough it keeps being proven wrong. Wether Maltahus, Erlich or the UN. Ok, I will stay in my pragmatically driven (being in favor of endless population growth is just another ideology, being in favor of neither is pragmatism), non population exploding enclave and become rich in the process. I'll be looking forward to seeing Africa mass produce poor people. Your ideology requires technological progress to always be faster than human population growth, sure you can keep this up another 300 years but at some point you are going to trip.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        You say it's not pragmatic yet history seems to disagree with you. Humans create resources we don't just find them. 300 years from now we are either harvesting the universe or we are just sitting ducks waiting for some giant cataclysmic event. At least my "ideology" gives us a chance where as yours just wait for us to join natures 99.9% extinction rate.
        erik_seaberg 6y ago
        The green revolution narrowly averted catastrophe by modernizing farming worldwide. How could we do that more than once?
        ThomPete 6y ago
        Not sure what you mean. How did the green revolution avert catastrophe?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >I disagree, most of the countries with booming populations are rather poor and don’t do much innovation or research. That's for different historical reasons than their booming populations. They are still very dynamic economic wise, but have to start from a very low bar. But any country that was ever important had tons of people. Franch and UK and Germany were hugely important globally when they were among the top-5 most populous countries in the world (that was the case back in 19th century). Then the US took that role, and had a good run.
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      Cause or effect?
      - coldtea 6y ago
        Cause.
- notahacker 6y ago
  We weren't desperately short of ideas when the world population was $1billion and the proportion with education, money and prospects for social advancement was still small. I think we'll cope pretty well with a small drop-off, especially if that's coupled with much of the world getting better prospects at the same time.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    we are short on knowledge not ideas. We aren't short of resources. More people make us more wealthy which gives us better chance of creating more knowledge.
  - chr1 6y ago
    One thing to consider is that the sciene problems we have to solve now are much harder than what we had to deal with 200 years ago at 1 billion population. You are correct that what matters is mostly the population living in soceities organized well enough for their inhabitants to have better prospects. But sadly becoming a country with "better prospects" is not a simple thing. In fact, population decreasing in rich western countries, has a rather deleterious effect on the poor countries. I being from a third world country see everyday how people who could help to fix my country end up emigrating because rich countries need more people. So it's not at all clear whether much of the world getting better prospects will compensate for population decreasing, or much of the world will get worse prospects because of population decreasing.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense.
  - chr1 6y ago
    Is Netherlands an overpopulated and polluted country? It is one of the best countries i have seen and its population density is 10 times higher than world average, so we can have 70 billion people living on earth without even discovering anything new. As for resource depletion, 3.5 vs 7 billion people doesn't make that much difference, both are more than earth can support naturally without us constantly finding new ways to obtain resources. After all the largest extinctions we have caused so far were megafauna extinctions 10k years ago and we managed to do that with just a few millions of people.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    >I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense. Standards of living globally are better than at any time in the past, yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. Willfully ignoring humanity's ability to adapt and overcome, that's the real nonsense.
    - antisthenes 6y ago
      The first part of it is nonsense - quantity of people does not translate into quality and innovation automatically. You have to free people from drudgery and spend tons on their education, and provide them with a stable environment in which to work, and cultural encouragement for the parents to nourish children's curiosity. Only then can you hope to generate ideas that surpass our already quite formidable body of knowledge, and it's still not guaranteed. > yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. They only have to be right once. On a geological time scale, a disaster is certainly inevitable. Not that I necessarily agree with doomsaying all the time. Population growth isn't the biggest issue we're facing.
- PicassoCTs 6y ago
  Ideas are like sand at an ocean beach. But paths to a working implementation are rare. And by now mined by great companies with patent lawyers, to prevent disruption. If you are big and successful, new ideas are the poison.The only vector for new idea implementations to make it big, is other behemoths want to eat old behemoths. Apple/Android eating Kodak. The individual does rarely factor into that. Unless s/he knows how to move giants into funny game constellations. Which becomes ever less likely, as most giants today are owned by pension funds, who prefer stability over change. Contrary what the propaganda tells us, nobody wants ideas, nobody wants change, not even those trying to emulate market capitalism to prevent political backlash. Which makes ideas worse then worthless. Its something the "No-Future"-coporate-cartel will come down upon you for.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Which is why the more people we have to work on the problem the better. The individuals DO factor into that but it require a framework the individuals best suited for solving these problems can work within which allow them to spend the time needed to create the knowledge to solve the problems which requires wealth which require growth i.e. requires society (i.e. us)
- coldtea 6y ago
  >It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely Progress takes many people working together to shape ideas and build things. And an aging society would be less inclined to change and adopt it, run by more older people resistant to some new idea, and have less young people with the dynamism to put such idea in action even if it was adopted.
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    An older, more experienced population may be less inclined to chase the latest new trend but they are better able to weigh the merits of new ideas against the harms they may induce and will generally do a better job of applying existing and new technology to the problem at hand. Experience and knowledge count for a lot and the vitality of youth is often wasted on the young.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >An older, more experienced population may be less inclined to chase the latest new trend but they are better able to weigh the merits of new ideas against the harms they may induce Theoritically. In practice they're more concerned with their own mortality, and weighing the merits of some new diet or therapy for hemmorhoids or some such...
nathias 6y ago
Not really, it means fewer new ideas if all other factors are the same. Of course, education, creativity and means to extract this ideas count as well.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Well, education and creativity will also decline in an aging population.
  - nathias 6y ago
    For the aged people yes, but not for populations, there could be an increase of education and creativity that would offset the natural decline.

tim333 6y ago

Yeah us old folk have ideas too!

ThomPete 6y ago

It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely. The more people we have to more likely some of them will do that.

dsnr 6y ago
I disagree, most of the countries with booming populations are rather poor and don’t do much innovation or research. In the age we live in it’s almost impossible for a lone wolf to fix a big problem of the humankind because of complexities involved. What is necessary instead is team work and funding innovation. Individuals don’t count as much anymore.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  We need both and that require more not less people.
  - wsc981 6y ago
    > We need both and that require more not less people. A lot of problems would be solved 'automatically' if the world population would be reduced.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      The world will always face problems and we will always be the victim of these if we don't have the knowledge to combat them. The more people we are the more we are likely to produce the wealth, knowledge and solutions for those problems. The idea that the worlds population is a problem is in my world an antihuman stance which keeps popping up even tough it keeps being proven wrong. Wether Maltahus, Erlich or the UN.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        >The idea that the worlds population is a problem is in my world an antihuman stance which keeps popping up even tough it keeps being proven wrong. Wether Maltahus, Erlich or the UN. Ok, I will stay in my pragmatically driven (being in favor of endless population growth is just another ideology, being in favor of neither is pragmatism), non population exploding enclave and become rich in the process. I'll be looking forward to seeing Africa mass produce poor people. Your ideology requires technological progress to always be faster than human population growth, sure you can keep this up another 300 years but at some point you are going to trip.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        You say it's not pragmatic yet history seems to disagree with you. Humans create resources we don't just find them. 300 years from now we are either harvesting the universe or we are just sitting ducks waiting for some giant cataclysmic event. At least my "ideology" gives us a chance where as yours just wait for us to join natures 99.9% extinction rate.
      - erik_seaberg 6y ago
        The green revolution narrowly averted catastrophe by modernizing farming worldwide. How could we do that more than once?
        ThomPete 6y ago
        Not sure what you mean. How did the green revolution avert catastrophe?
- coldtea 6y ago
  >I disagree, most of the countries with booming populations are rather poor and don’t do much innovation or research. That's for different historical reasons than their booming populations. They are still very dynamic economic wise, but have to start from a very low bar. But any country that was ever important had tons of people. Franch and UK and Germany were hugely important globally when they were among the top-5 most populous countries in the world (that was the case back in 19th century). Then the US took that role, and had a good run.
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    Cause or effect?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Cause.
notahacker 6y ago
We weren't desperately short of ideas when the world population was $1billion and the proportion with education, money and prospects for social advancement was still small. I think we'll cope pretty well with a small drop-off, especially if that's coupled with much of the world getting better prospects at the same time.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  we are short on knowledge not ideas. We aren't short of resources. More people make us more wealthy which gives us better chance of creating more knowledge.
- chr1 6y ago
  One thing to consider is that the sciene problems we have to solve now are much harder than what we had to deal with 200 years ago at 1 billion population. You are correct that what matters is mostly the population living in soceities organized well enough for their inhabitants to have better prospects. But sadly becoming a country with "better prospects" is not a simple thing. In fact, population decreasing in rich western countries, has a rather deleterious effect on the poor countries. I being from a third world country see everyday how people who could help to fix my country end up emigrating because rich countries need more people. So it's not at all clear whether much of the world getting better prospects will compensate for population decreasing, or much of the world will get worse prospects because of population decreasing.
goatinaboat 6y ago
It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense.
- chr1 6y ago
  Is Netherlands an overpopulated and polluted country? It is one of the best countries i have seen and its population density is 10 times higher than world average, so we can have 70 billion people living on earth without even discovering anything new. As for resource depletion, 3.5 vs 7 billion people doesn't make that much difference, both are more than earth can support naturally without us constantly finding new ways to obtain resources. After all the largest extinctions we have caused so far were megafauna extinctions 10k years ago and we managed to do that with just a few millions of people.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense. Standards of living globally are better than at any time in the past, yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. Willfully ignoring humanity's ability to adapt and overcome, that's the real nonsense.
  - antisthenes 6y ago
    The first part of it is nonsense - quantity of people does not translate into quality and innovation automatically. You have to free people from drudgery and spend tons on their education, and provide them with a stable environment in which to work, and cultural encouragement for the parents to nourish children's curiosity. Only then can you hope to generate ideas that surpass our already quite formidable body of knowledge, and it's still not guaranteed. > yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. They only have to be right once. On a geological time scale, a disaster is certainly inevitable. Not that I necessarily agree with doomsaying all the time. Population growth isn't the biggest issue we're facing.
PicassoCTs 6y ago
Ideas are like sand at an ocean beach. But paths to a working implementation are rare. And by now mined by great companies with patent lawyers, to prevent disruption. If you are big and successful, new ideas are the poison.The only vector for new idea implementations to make it big, is other behemoths want to eat old behemoths. Apple/Android eating Kodak. The individual does rarely factor into that. Unless s/he knows how to move giants into funny game constellations. Which becomes ever less likely, as most giants today are owned by pension funds, who prefer stability over change. Contrary what the propaganda tells us, nobody wants ideas, nobody wants change, not even those trying to emulate market capitalism to prevent political backlash. Which makes ideas worse then worthless. Its something the "No-Future"-coporate-cartel will come down upon you for.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Which is why the more people we have to work on the problem the better. The individuals DO factor into that but it require a framework the individuals best suited for solving these problems can work within which allow them to spend the time needed to create the knowledge to solve the problems which requires wealth which require growth i.e. requires society (i.e. us)
coldtea 6y ago
>It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely Progress takes many people working together to shape ideas and build things. And an aging society would be less inclined to change and adopt it, run by more older people resistant to some new idea, and have less young people with the dynamism to put such idea in action even if it was adopted.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  An older, more experienced population may be less inclined to chase the latest new trend but they are better able to weigh the merits of new ideas against the harms they may induce and will generally do a better job of applying existing and new technology to the problem at hand. Experience and knowledge count for a lot and the vitality of youth is often wasted on the young.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >An older, more experienced population may be less inclined to chase the latest new trend but they are better able to weigh the merits of new ideas against the harms they may induce Theoritically. In practice they're more concerned with their own mortality, and weighing the merits of some new diet or therapy for hemmorhoids or some such...

nathias 6y ago

Not really, it means fewer new ideas if all other factors are the same. Of course, education, creativity and means to extract this ideas count as well.

coldtea 6y ago
Well, education and creativity will also decline in an aging population.
- nathias 6y ago
  For the aged people yes, but not for populations, there could be an increase of education and creativity that would offset the natural decline.