5 ms·

A lot of invention and innovation in the past few decades is focused around doing more with less - e.g IKEA furniture made out of wood shavings vs. real wood ye

A lot of invention and innovation in the past few decades is focused around doing more with less - e.g IKEA furniture made out of wood shavings vs. real wood years ago, apartments made more efficient and compact vs. big houses years ago, more biking and public transit vs. enough roads to fit everyone years ago. My theory is that on a macro level, the world keeps getting more competitive because we keep on churning out babies and expect their living standards to be just as good as they always were. I am not blaming anyone for that, but obviously supporting 7.6bn people (2019) at a given living standard is much harder than supporting 6.1bn people (2000) and there's no sign of stopping. As the western population ages and the period of retirement becomes longer, this becomes even harder because they need more support than someone of working age. Humanity as a whole keeps pulling miracles out of hats to make us even more efficient in the resources we consume but of course it is going to get harder and harder to do so.

crooked-v 5y ago
> and there's no sign of stopping Actually, there's every sign of stopping. Look at population growth rates from the 1970s to now: in general, the wealthier you make a population, the less kids they have.
- julienchastang 5y ago
  Exactly. The world population is expected to peak in the coming decades and then start declining slowly thereafter (presenting its own set of challenges).
DubiousPusher 5y ago
Economically speaking it is not necessarily a fact that more people will drive the living standard lower. That is basically a disproved 19th century theory. In fact, more people makes a healthy economy richer overall. Because in a healthy economy, each added person contributes more than their economic cost. This creates net wealth for the society. Some of the problem we're seeing with costs is coming from the opposite of a decrease in footprint but from an increase. A small apartment seems cheaper and compared to a modern house it is. But a modern small apartment has many more requirements than even a mansion from 1890. The safety, environmental and equipment demands of a modern home of any kind are much greater. On the other hand there has been a concerted effort to hold wages flat for the people at the bottom half of the income ladder. These two things taken together largely account for the perceived decline in quality of life for most people.
- SadCanadian 5y ago
  The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries that did more for humanity's living standards than the previous millennium. The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be? Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    We don't explicitly need growth though. Average productivity is still what it is (very high) even without growth. The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie. In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
The data very clearly shows the opposite: economic development and rising income levels are very strongly associated with decreasing number of children per mother. Birth rates in nearly all the high income nations are below replacement. Most of the middle and low income countries are on the same path, with central Africa being a notable exception. Before his dead Hans Rosling did some great talks about this sort of thing. I'd suggest watching at least one of them on youtube or such.
- ilammy 5y ago
  > Before his death Hans Rosling did some great talks You're saying it like his talks got worse after him passing away, lol.

crooked-v 5y ago

> and there's no sign of stopping Actually, there's every sign of stopping. Look at population growth rates from the 1970s to now: in general, the wealthier you make a population, the less kids they have.

julienchastang 5y ago
Exactly. The world population is expected to peak in the coming decades and then start declining slowly thereafter (presenting its own set of challenges).

DubiousPusher 5y ago

Economically speaking it is not necessarily a fact that more people will drive the living standard lower. That is basically a disproved 19th century theory. In fact, more people makes a healthy economy richer overall. Because in a healthy economy, each added person contributes more than their economic cost. This creates net wealth for the society. Some of the problem we're seeing with costs is coming from the opposite of a decrease in footprint but from an increase. A small apartment seems cheaper and compared to a modern house it is. But a modern small apartment has many more requirements than even a mansion from 1890. The safety, environmental and equipment demands of a modern home of any kind are much greater. On the other hand there has been a concerted effort to hold wages flat for the people at the bottom half of the income ladder. These two things taken together largely account for the perceived decline in quality of life for most people.

SadCanadian 5y ago
The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries that did more for humanity's living standards than the previous millennium. The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be? Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  We don't explicitly need growth though. Average productivity is still what it is (very high) even without growth. The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie. In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

The data very clearly shows the opposite: economic development and rising income levels are very strongly associated with decreasing number of children per mother. Birth rates in nearly all the high income nations are below replacement. Most of the middle and low income countries are on the same path, with central Africa being a notable exception. Before his dead Hans Rosling did some great talks about this sort of thing. I'd suggest watching at least one of them on youtube or such.

ilammy 5y ago
> Before his death Hans Rosling did some great talks You're saying it like his talks got worse after him passing away, lol.