4 ms·

Reminds me of the matrix. Agent smith said it so well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8

deathanatos 4y ago
Or perhaps Agent Smith mistook an S-curve that hasn't started to level off yet for unfettered exponential growth. > Generally, developed nations have seen a decline in their growth rates in recent decades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Population_growth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Population_g...) Or perhaps he was just evil and had a hatred of humanity that he was justifying with whatever reason pleased him.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  But has their resource consumption per capita leveled off? Population numbers aren't the scary thing about our CURRENT population. What's scary is that China and India, which is almost 3 billion people, want US-levels of resource consumption, and they are full steam ahead in doing so. Oh, so the curve will tail off around 11 or 15 billion? Who cares. Each billion is 3x the population of the US, and they all want our standard of living, or BETTER.
  - eric-hu 4y ago
    I don’t know about India, but China is undergoing major problems with their population size. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/china-population-shrink-60-years-world/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/china-population-shri... > The country’s total fertility rate decreased from 2.6 in the late 1980s – well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths – to just 1.15 in 2021. China modified their child restriction law to 3 children in 2021 only to drop the restriction altogether a few months later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy > After only two months, in July 2021, all family size limits as well as penalties for exceeding them were removed.[8]
  - mrosett 4y ago
    > But has their resource consumption per capita leveled off? Largely yes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/dematerialization https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/demateriali...
  - tsol 4y ago
    India is right below replacement levels and China is well below. I find it interesting that Americans are currently consuming that many resources-- it would seem to me it's unsustainable if everyone can't do it.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    US per capita consumption/energy also higher. Just from energy perspective, US trending towards 150M more population by 2100 is equivalent to 1.8B Indians and 900M Chinese. PRC population is set to decline, and probably India's as well. Canada is like 50% more than US baseline, Norway 300%, Iceland 500% but not much immigration there. Every individual migrating from developing world to developing world is increasing energy use of that person substantially even considering that (a typically skilled) migrant is likely a higher tier consumer in their origin country. Or that moving to a high consumption economy has greater compounding effects in terms of knockon consumption, i.e. 40% of RMB spent in PRC goes towards consumption vs 70% (?) for US. I joke that the most enviromental way to be a consumer is to buy developing countries with poor consumption or huge savigns rate because they're simply less likely to recycle that profit into more excessive consumption.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > Or perhaps he was just evil and had a hatred of humanity that he was justifying with whatever reason pleased him. For me. Agent Smith isn't coded as evil. He represents the cold rationality of the scientific algorithm - "I've been studying your species...". He's simply curious. It would never occur to Smith to "justify" anything, even to simulate pleasure. Smith represents what Kant called the limits of pure reason - the ability to measure, compute and model everything, but understand nothing.

deathanatos 4y ago

Or perhaps Agent Smith mistook an S-curve that hasn't started to level off yet for unfettered exponential growth. > Generally, developed nations have seen a decline in their growth rates in recent decades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Population_growth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Population_g...) Or perhaps he was just evil and had a hatred of humanity that he was justifying with whatever reason pleased him.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
But has their resource consumption per capita leveled off? Population numbers aren't the scary thing about our CURRENT population. What's scary is that China and India, which is almost 3 billion people, want US-levels of resource consumption, and they are full steam ahead in doing so. Oh, so the curve will tail off around 11 or 15 billion? Who cares. Each billion is 3x the population of the US, and they all want our standard of living, or BETTER.
- eric-hu 4y ago
  I don’t know about India, but China is undergoing major problems with their population size. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/china-population-shrink-60-years-world/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/china-population-shri... > The country’s total fertility rate decreased from 2.6 in the late 1980s – well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths – to just 1.15 in 2021. China modified their child restriction law to 3 children in 2021 only to drop the restriction altogether a few months later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy > After only two months, in July 2021, all family size limits as well as penalties for exceeding them were removed.[8]
- mrosett 4y ago
  > But has their resource consumption per capita leveled off? Largely yes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/dematerialization https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/demateriali...
- tsol 4y ago
  India is right below replacement levels and China is well below. I find it interesting that Americans are currently consuming that many resources-- it would seem to me it's unsustainable if everyone can't do it.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  US per capita consumption/energy also higher. Just from energy perspective, US trending towards 150M more population by 2100 is equivalent to 1.8B Indians and 900M Chinese. PRC population is set to decline, and probably India's as well. Canada is like 50% more than US baseline, Norway 300%, Iceland 500% but not much immigration there. Every individual migrating from developing world to developing world is increasing energy use of that person substantially even considering that (a typically skilled) migrant is likely a higher tier consumer in their origin country. Or that moving to a high consumption economy has greater compounding effects in terms of knockon consumption, i.e. 40% of RMB spent in PRC goes towards consumption vs 70% (?) for US. I joke that the most enviromental way to be a consumer is to buy developing countries with poor consumption or huge savigns rate because they're simply less likely to recycle that profit into more excessive consumption.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Or perhaps he was just evil and had a hatred of humanity that he was justifying with whatever reason pleased him. For me. Agent Smith isn't coded as evil. He represents the cold rationality of the scientific algorithm - "I've been studying your species...". He's simply curious. It would never occur to Smith to "justify" anything, even to simulate pleasure. Smith represents what Kant called the limits of pure reason - the ability to measure, compute and model everything, but understand nothing.