4 ms·

Security, food availability, housing, job market, social security, etc. You can't just increase the population of a country and assume everything will continue

Security, food availability, housing, job market, social security, etc. You can't just increase the population of a country and assume everything will continue to work: many parts of the economy have momentum and need time to adapt, and a sudden change may break down existing balances.

whoknowsidont 3y ago
>many parts of the economy have momentum and need time to adapt, and a sudden change may break down existing balances. I don't think there's any formal understanding of such mechanics (or concerns)? Seems like personal conjecture. We're basically past post-scarcity by every conceivable measure, current allocation structures can quickly be adjusted -- we even saw this happen with COVID. We saw it in the U.S. with 9/11.
- mattashii 3y ago
  > I don't think there's any formal understanding of such mechanics (or concerns)? A woman can birth a normal baby in 9 months, but no matter how many women you assign to this you won't be able to reduct that time to 1 day. Same with education (teaching capacity is limited), building buildings (incl. factories), etc. A given number of medical specialists can only treat so many patients and train so many new specialists. A population's growth whilst keeping the current quality of life is thus limited by several factors, including construction (for new housing, facilities for new jobs), education, and healthcare. > current allocation structures can quickly be adjusted -- we even saw this happen with COVID And the impact of these sudden adjustments to the allocation schedules are still felt across the world. Chip scarcity due to bulk order changes/cancellations took a long time to ebb (assuming it has subsided by now, I haven't checked recently), health services are still not back to the levels they were before COVID, shipping prices across the atlantic doubled, etc. And that is with only a temporary change in local supply/demand. I'd expect permanent changes in supply/demand to have much more severe and long-lasting effect. Note that post-scarcity is only applicable assuming the current population of the country. Adding 700 million population across EU/CA/USA (the equivalent of ~50% of the population of Africa) will eclipse the local food production capacities, re-introducing food scarcity. Note that production existing somewhere on earth doesn't mean everyone on earth has access to that, not in the least due logistics. As an example: Ukrainian grain is having trouble with getting to Africa in the high volumes from before Feb. '22.

whoknowsidont 3y ago

>many parts of the economy have momentum and need time to adapt, and a sudden change may break down existing balances. I don't think there's any formal understanding of such mechanics (or concerns)? Seems like personal conjecture. We're basically past post-scarcity by every conceivable measure, current allocation structures can quickly be adjusted -- we even saw this happen with COVID. We saw it in the U.S. with 9/11.

mattashii 3y ago
> I don't think there's any formal understanding of such mechanics (or concerns)? A woman can birth a normal baby in 9 months, but no matter how many women you assign to this you won't be able to reduct that time to 1 day. Same with education (teaching capacity is limited), building buildings (incl. factories), etc. A given number of medical specialists can only treat so many patients and train so many new specialists. A population's growth whilst keeping the current quality of life is thus limited by several factors, including construction (for new housing, facilities for new jobs), education, and healthcare. > current allocation structures can quickly be adjusted -- we even saw this happen with COVID And the impact of these sudden adjustments to the allocation schedules are still felt across the world. Chip scarcity due to bulk order changes/cancellations took a long time to ebb (assuming it has subsided by now, I haven't checked recently), health services are still not back to the levels they were before COVID, shipping prices across the atlantic doubled, etc. And that is with only a temporary change in local supply/demand. I'd expect permanent changes in supply/demand to have much more severe and long-lasting effect. Note that post-scarcity is only applicable assuming the current population of the country. Adding 700 million population across EU/CA/USA (the equivalent of ~50% of the population of Africa) will eclipse the local food production capacities, re-introducing food scarcity. Note that production existing somewhere on earth doesn't mean everyone on earth has access to that, not in the least due logistics. As an example: Ukrainian grain is having trouble with getting to Africa in the high volumes from before Feb. '22.