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At the end, the author says: > In fact, the greatest threat to long-term economic growth might be the slowdown in population growth. Without more brains to pus

At the end, the author says: > In fact, the greatest threat to long-term economic growth might be the slowdown in population growth. Without more brains to push technology forward, progress might stall. It should be noted that the vast majority of human brains do not today get the opportunity to work with ideas or push technology forward. Many people don’t even get enough to eat or drink. We have a loooong way to go on the basics of organizing human society before we need to worry about the intellectual constraint of total population size.

dgs_sgd 4y ago
You don't have to wait until the entire world has this opportunity before ringing the alarm. If population growth is going down in the areas where the ideas are worked on, namely the developed world, which it is, we should still worry.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  No we shouldn’t, because “the developed world” is not a fixed thing. We can make the entire world developed.
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    But who'll work the sweatshops then?
    - munk-a 4y ago
      Nobody. Who ever said sweatshops were a necessary part of a functioning economy?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      If only we could have developed some machine that are good at doing repetitive work. One can only dream. /S But yeah, I get your point. The fact that we still rely on sweatshop imports proves there's something wrong with our society.
  - dgs_sgd 4y ago
    I agree with you. But development doesn't happen overnight and it's the people who control the ideas and technology that have the power to develop the rest of the world. And if that population growth is in decline at the same time it's needed to push development forward, isn't that cause for concern?
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      It’s not a cause for concern. The rate of population growth in highly developed areas can be turned up or down simply by admitting or denying immigrants.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Only if you assume that the developed world has some special sauce that requires you being born here to work.
- brokencode 4y ago
  That’s one of many reasons why it’s important to keep on investing in underdeveloped countries. There’s no reason why people there couldn’t contribute in the same ways that people in more developed countries contribute. And immigration is a good way to help keep the population of developed countries growing. There really isn’t any reason why we can’t tap into the incredible human resources available in the world if we try.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    There’s two problems with that argument: 1. “People in developed nations don’t breed due to stress, but meh we can just replace them” is a monstrous way to think. 2. You can’t import people as replacements above a certain rate, because it’s the culture of the developed nation which causes the success — and without maintaining that culture, the benefits cease.
    - a4isms 4y ago
      Citation needed for both of your claims, especially the second. What do you mean "it's the culture?" There are democracies everywhere, white people everywhere, protestants everywhere, people speak English everywhere, what is magically special about "the culture" that makes America a powerhouse of innovation? How do you know it doesn't have a lot to do with having two oceans to protect it, and bunch of things that happened 400 years ago to federalize it and create what amounts to a massive economic union? How do you know it isn't one of those things where a little bit of growth magnifies over time if not disrupted by war, just as what makes SF special is that a little bit of growth started there, and the concentration of intellectual and financial capital attracted more intellectual and financial capital? Both of those explanations have nothing to do with a hand-wavey claim of "the culture." And what do you mean that immigration is "a monstrous suggestion?" It sounds an awful lot like you're equating high rates of immigration with genocide. What on Earth is "monstrous" about immigrants? And why is that monstrous, but gentrification of SF by techies not monstrous? Really, this comes across as generic nativism.
      - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
- a4isms 4y ago
  If only there was a way to get more people into the developed world without people in the developed world creating new people twenty+ years at a time... The secret to America's success has always been immigration, whether by violent colonialism, accepting of refugees from persecution or war, or inviting talented people to become citizens.
  - cseleborg 4y ago
    Not just America. Europe, and other civilisations in the past, always benefited from immigration.
    - inawarminister 4y ago
      Europe benefited more from emigration (AKA colonization)
      - a4isms 4y ago
        And forced emigration, aka “transportation to Australia.”
  - anamax 4y ago
    > The secret to America's success has always been immigration, Actually, no. Every few decades, American has mostly shut-down immigration for a few decades. The last opening was in 1965.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
zmgsabst 4y ago
I think that’s wrong: The fraction of humanity in poverty has dropped as our population has grown — because those larger, more capable nations have more means to feed themselves and greater wealth to care for the poor. A stall in population growth or a population decline runs a serious risk that our standards of living regress and those conditions worsen. We need to maintain our growth to impact the issues you care about: More people -> More wealth -> Less hunger
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Poverty alone doesn't mean getting your brains to do brain stuff. Most devs don't live in poverty, but most devs also aren't doing innovative work. They spend their limited intellectual stamina trying to make the boss richer, not modeling out a cancer detection algorithm.
  - californical 4y ago
    But even working on a simple CRUD app can push an industry forward. There is so much more incremental progress to be made, which pushes the economy upwards, than just the “big name” hot ideas (like cancer). There are still so many low hanging fruit that even simple technology can improve
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      Yes, a lot of "simple CRUD apps" can push an industry forward. A lot of simple stuff can also devolve into downright predatory practices which, despite making money, are anything but progress in the grander scheme of things. There's also the argument tons of "simple CRUD apps" exist because of a focus on the short term, rather than the long term. Or they exist to fill a "perceived hole" which is really just bureaucracy being bureaucracy. To name a different example, management has absolutely exploded. It's arguable whether this explosion has freed up brains more, or instead sucked up brain power. Meanwhile, most management jobs do pay well, to the point it's hard to consider a manager living in poverty. Personally, I believe we could easily slash management in half, permanently destroying those jobs and the accompanied bureaucracy to free up the brains, but that would result in those individuals having to compete for different jobs, maybe even less desirable jobs which put them back into poverty. Regardless, the point is poverty and freeing up brains for innovation aren't necessarily correlated or even causal. They can even be negatively correlated. Solving poverty isn't the only requirement to free up brains, if that is a societal goal. That's all.
RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
My pessimistic and perhaps over-simplistic view is that growth is largely enabled by modern-day's squeezing of every last drop of people's disposable income. As the population becomes poorer in general (due to lack of breakthroughs in fundamental science and productivity, growing and aging population, widening inequality, etc.), the growth may eventually slowdown.
jwagenet 4y ago
I think the limiting factor is traditionally considered the lack of new productive (physical) labor, not necessarily lack of new brains.
- erispoe 4y ago
  Automation shifts productive labor to intellectual labor. A century ago value productive labor was probable 99%+ physical labor, but it's probably now much less.
deltaonefour 4y ago
This is optimistic. Consider the fact that the physical limits on growth cannot be moved or surpassed no matter the amount of brain power thrown at it. For example. The speed of light. How much brain power do you need to surpass that speed? Many limits are actual limits and if you think anything can be achieved just by surpassing it with technology, then I think you're not looking at the problem realistically. If you look at the amount of progress for the last 3 decades we are literally in the same place. Still driving cars and riding trains. The only area with massive progress is IT, but every other technology (including IT itself) looks like it's hitting some sort of hump in the curve. This is despite the increasing normalization of IQ scores across the world. On average, A person with 100 IQ today would have a higher IQ then the past. Something like fusion which is the biggest technology changer I see on the horizon still requires targeted a huge amount of government effort and resources to achieve. Such ventures are less likely to arrive purely out of the commercial sphere.

dgs_sgd 4y ago

You don't have to wait until the entire world has this opportunity before ringing the alarm. If population growth is going down in the areas where the ideas are worked on, namely the developed world, which it is, we should still worry.

snowwrestler 4y ago
No we shouldn’t, because “the developed world” is not a fixed thing. We can make the entire world developed.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  But who'll work the sweatshops then?
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Nobody. Who ever said sweatshops were a necessary part of a functioning economy?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    If only we could have developed some machine that are good at doing repetitive work. One can only dream. /S But yeah, I get your point. The fact that we still rely on sweatshop imports proves there's something wrong with our society.
- dgs_sgd 4y ago
  I agree with you. But development doesn't happen overnight and it's the people who control the ideas and technology that have the power to develop the rest of the world. And if that population growth is in decline at the same time it's needed to push development forward, isn't that cause for concern?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    It’s not a cause for concern. The rate of population growth in highly developed areas can be turned up or down simply by admitting or denying immigrants.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Only if you assume that the developed world has some special sauce that requires you being born here to work.
brokencode 4y ago
That’s one of many reasons why it’s important to keep on investing in underdeveloped countries. There’s no reason why people there couldn’t contribute in the same ways that people in more developed countries contribute. And immigration is a good way to help keep the population of developed countries growing. There really isn’t any reason why we can’t tap into the incredible human resources available in the world if we try.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  There’s two problems with that argument: 1. “People in developed nations don’t breed due to stress, but meh we can just replace them” is a monstrous way to think. 2. You can’t import people as replacements above a certain rate, because it’s the culture of the developed nation which causes the success — and without maintaining that culture, the benefits cease.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    Citation needed for both of your claims, especially the second. What do you mean "it's the culture?" There are democracies everywhere, white people everywhere, protestants everywhere, people speak English everywhere, what is magically special about "the culture" that makes America a powerhouse of innovation? How do you know it doesn't have a lot to do with having two oceans to protect it, and bunch of things that happened 400 years ago to federalize it and create what amounts to a massive economic union? How do you know it isn't one of those things where a little bit of growth magnifies over time if not disrupted by war, just as what makes SF special is that a little bit of growth started there, and the concentration of intellectual and financial capital attracted more intellectual and financial capital? Both of those explanations have nothing to do with a hand-wavey claim of "the culture." And what do you mean that immigration is "a monstrous suggestion?" It sounds an awful lot like you're equating high rates of immigration with genocide. What on Earth is "monstrous" about immigrants? And why is that monstrous, but gentrification of SF by techies not monstrous? Really, this comes across as generic nativism.
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
a4isms 4y ago
If only there was a way to get more people into the developed world without people in the developed world creating new people twenty+ years at a time... The secret to America's success has always been immigration, whether by violent colonialism, accepting of refugees from persecution or war, or inviting talented people to become citizens.
- cseleborg 4y ago
  Not just America. Europe, and other civilisations in the past, always benefited from immigration.
  - inawarminister 4y ago
    Europe benefited more from emigration (AKA colonization)
    - a4isms 4y ago
      And forced emigration, aka “transportation to Australia.”
- anamax 4y ago
  > The secret to America's success has always been immigration, Actually, no. Every few decades, American has mostly shut-down immigration for a few decades. The last opening was in 1965.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

zmgsabst 4y ago

I think that’s wrong: The fraction of humanity in poverty has dropped as our population has grown — because those larger, more capable nations have more means to feed themselves and greater wealth to care for the poor. A stall in population growth or a population decline runs a serious risk that our standards of living regress and those conditions worsen. We need to maintain our growth to impact the issues you care about: More people -> More wealth -> Less hunger

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Poverty alone doesn't mean getting your brains to do brain stuff. Most devs don't live in poverty, but most devs also aren't doing innovative work. They spend their limited intellectual stamina trying to make the boss richer, not modeling out a cancer detection algorithm.
- californical 4y ago
  But even working on a simple CRUD app can push an industry forward. There is so much more incremental progress to be made, which pushes the economy upwards, than just the “big name” hot ideas (like cancer). There are still so many low hanging fruit that even simple technology can improve
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Yes, a lot of "simple CRUD apps" can push an industry forward. A lot of simple stuff can also devolve into downright predatory practices which, despite making money, are anything but progress in the grander scheme of things. There's also the argument tons of "simple CRUD apps" exist because of a focus on the short term, rather than the long term. Or they exist to fill a "perceived hole" which is really just bureaucracy being bureaucracy. To name a different example, management has absolutely exploded. It's arguable whether this explosion has freed up brains more, or instead sucked up brain power. Meanwhile, most management jobs do pay well, to the point it's hard to consider a manager living in poverty. Personally, I believe we could easily slash management in half, permanently destroying those jobs and the accompanied bureaucracy to free up the brains, but that would result in those individuals having to compete for different jobs, maybe even less desirable jobs which put them back into poverty. Regardless, the point is poverty and freeing up brains for innovation aren't necessarily correlated or even causal. They can even be negatively correlated. Solving poverty isn't the only requirement to free up brains, if that is a societal goal. That's all.

RyEgswuCsn 4y ago

My pessimistic and perhaps over-simplistic view is that growth is largely enabled by modern-day's squeezing of every last drop of people's disposable income. As the population becomes poorer in general (due to lack of breakthroughs in fundamental science and productivity, growing and aging population, widening inequality, etc.), the growth may eventually slowdown.

jwagenet 4y ago

I think the limiting factor is traditionally considered the lack of new productive (physical) labor, not necessarily lack of new brains.

erispoe 4y ago
Automation shifts productive labor to intellectual labor. A century ago value productive labor was probable 99%+ physical labor, but it's probably now much less.

deltaonefour 4y ago

This is optimistic. Consider the fact that the physical limits on growth cannot be moved or surpassed no matter the amount of brain power thrown at it. For example. The speed of light. How much brain power do you need to surpass that speed? Many limits are actual limits and if you think anything can be achieved just by surpassing it with technology, then I think you're not looking at the problem realistically. If you look at the amount of progress for the last 3 decades we are literally in the same place. Still driving cars and riding trains. The only area with massive progress is IT, but every other technology (including IT itself) looks like it's hitting some sort of hump in the curve. This is despite the increasing normalization of IQ scores across the world. On average, A person with 100 IQ today would have a higher IQ then the past. Something like fusion which is the biggest technology changer I see on the horizon still requires targeted a huge amount of government effort and resources to achieve. Such ventures are less likely to arrive purely out of the commercial sphere.