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Scary part is population collapse is a slow moving train wreck that is hard to avoid. The population projection for decades from now are set in stone. Yet we

by pcurve 3y ago

Scary part is population collapse is a slow moving train wreck that is hard to avoid. The population projection for decades from now are set in stone. Yet we are powerless to anything about it.

aylmao 3y ago
IMO calling it "population collapse" and a "train wreck" is the wrong way to describe it. This isn't so much a collapse, it's a leveling-off. A train isn't supposed to wreck, but populations are supposed to reach a maxima. The fact historical short-sightedness meant we didn't plan for it properly is an issue. The problem here should be framed around our economic system though, not fertility rates.
- chii 3y ago
  > populations are supposed to reach a maxima. This is an assumption. In nature, a population reaches a maxima but it's a survivorship bias metric. Populations that _didn't_ level off struggled to find the now scarce food, and died off too fast to re-populate, or some other reason died off. Humans are the only species so far to be able to exploit more resources as population grew, and have the technology to prevent such a collapse (by constantly expanding the resource acquisition game). In the future, i would expect space exploration to be space resource collection. Therefore, we will not reach maxima because there's no such thing. No natural force should be able to kill off humans or their expansion.
  - tsunagatta 3y ago
    > No natural force should be able to kill off humans or their expansion. I will believe this once a way is found to reverse entropy.
    - NemoNobody 3y ago
      I don't think we will get there while we are burdened en masse by the 9-5... but, if entropy itself were ever to be the "last problem left" - I've no doubt that we would solve that problem also. We are far closer to literally living Star Trek lives (without space travel) than we are away from it. Before millennials die we will hear terms like "post scarcity" - assuming we live long enough and society doesn't fall apart.
- pyuser583 3y ago
  We aren’t really reaching a maxima. There are no constraints preventing population from growing other than people not wanting to have kids. That’s not a normal constraint. That’s … kind of bizarre.
  - aylmao 3y ago
    I wrote about this in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36161277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36161277 I've come to believe this is what reaching carrying capacity is supposed to feel like. A gradual desire to have fewer kids due to stress, rather than an abrupt calamity that cuts of populations all of a sudden.

by pcurve 3y ago

Scary part is population collapse is a slow moving train wreck that is hard to avoid. The population projection for decades from now are set in stone. Yet we are powerless to anything about it.

aylmao 3y ago

IMO calling it "population collapse" and a "train wreck" is the wrong way to describe it. This isn't so much a collapse, it's a leveling-off. A train isn't supposed to wreck, but populations are supposed to reach a maxima. The fact historical short-sightedness meant we didn't plan for it properly is an issue. The problem here should be framed around our economic system though, not fertility rates.

chii 3y ago
> populations are supposed to reach a maxima. This is an assumption. In nature, a population reaches a maxima but it's a survivorship bias metric. Populations that _didn't_ level off struggled to find the now scarce food, and died off too fast to re-populate, or some other reason died off. Humans are the only species so far to be able to exploit more resources as population grew, and have the technology to prevent such a collapse (by constantly expanding the resource acquisition game). In the future, i would expect space exploration to be space resource collection. Therefore, we will not reach maxima because there's no such thing. No natural force should be able to kill off humans or their expansion.
- tsunagatta 3y ago
  > No natural force should be able to kill off humans or their expansion. I will believe this once a way is found to reverse entropy.
  - NemoNobody 3y ago
    I don't think we will get there while we are burdened en masse by the 9-5... but, if entropy itself were ever to be the "last problem left" - I've no doubt that we would solve that problem also. We are far closer to literally living Star Trek lives (without space travel) than we are away from it. Before millennials die we will hear terms like "post scarcity" - assuming we live long enough and society doesn't fall apart.
pyuser583 3y ago
We aren’t really reaching a maxima. There are no constraints preventing population from growing other than people not wanting to have kids. That’s not a normal constraint. That’s … kind of bizarre.
- aylmao 3y ago
  I wrote about this in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36161277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36161277 I've come to believe this is what reaching carrying capacity is supposed to feel like. A gradual desire to have fewer kids due to stress, rather than an abrupt calamity that cuts of populations all of a sudden.