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Company cultures can get worse over time. Why couldn't that happen globally? In the past there was always a larger, younger generation coming up that would hav

Company cultures can get worse over time. Why couldn't that happen globally? In the past there was always a larger, younger generation coming up that would have enough people to make things better even if locally things got worse. But that's not true anymore. We're already seeing this in places, such as the loss in expertise in certain areas such as nuclear powerplant design, diminished ability to cost-effectively build public works projects, the looming problem of skills shortage for all of these "near-shored" industries, and the inability to keep up with housing demand because there simply aren't enough people in the construction industry. I didn't agree with some of the examples in the article, but I do think it's true that the declining population that's coming will lead to a lot of orphaned infrastructure and lost know-how.

BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
The population decline is not dramatic enough for that.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  The population decline is massive in many regions and also compounded by decades of the trend. You also have to account for that the decline in young people is larger than the total population decline, since old people live longer. So if in the past a normal year would have a 20% population increase from births and 15% decline from deaths, totalling a 5% increase, today you'll maybe have a 10% increase from births and 10% decline from deaths, which looks like a standstill, but is actually a -50% decline.
FredPret 3y ago
We also got a lot better at other things in the same timeframe. There's now a much larger volume of software that, on average, work better, which wouldn't have been possible with the number of software folks back in the day. Yes I know, Javascript frameworks, bloat, etc. In general my computers are much more reliable than before. We've invented entire tech-based industries while old ones are fading away. It's not clear that it's actually a decline, especially since the economy has shown steady exponential growth over the past couple of centuries.

BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago

The population decline is not dramatic enough for that.

carlosjobim 3y ago
The population decline is massive in many regions and also compounded by decades of the trend. You also have to account for that the decline in young people is larger than the total population decline, since old people live longer. So if in the past a normal year would have a 20% population increase from births and 15% decline from deaths, totalling a 5% increase, today you'll maybe have a 10% increase from births and 10% decline from deaths, which looks like a standstill, but is actually a -50% decline.

FredPret 3y ago

We also got a lot better at other things in the same timeframe. There's now a much larger volume of software that, on average, work better, which wouldn't have been possible with the number of software folks back in the day. Yes I know, Javascript frameworks, bloat, etc. In general my computers are much more reliable than before. We've invented entire tech-based industries while old ones are fading away. It's not clear that it's actually a decline, especially since the economy has shown steady exponential growth over the past couple of centuries.