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The future is always bleak. It is hard to foresee one that doesn't end with everyone dying. Maybe super-intelligent robots can push back on that (although even
by roenxi 3y ago
The future is always bleak. It is hard to foresee one that doesn't end with everyone dying. Maybe super-intelligent robots can push back on that (although even then, one day it ends).
Although it must be said, this fertility collapse is easily the best thing that could be happening in the world of demographics. Overpopulation is much less pleasant for more people. The problems with under-population are still concerning. The part that worries me it who looks after all the old people who can't care for themselves? It isn't much fun dying alone and incapacitated.
- zmgsabst 3y agoI find that a lot of future doomerism is rooted in not doing anything now: “We have to build a world where human society retreats and tens of millions die alone unsupported, because [insert warning about centuries away based on dubious assumptions].” We don’t have to, we’re celebrating failure because of nebulous future concerns that seem post hoc rationalizations. I think at a societal level, abuses of psychology in marketing, PR, propaganda, and all its euphemisms have driven us collectively mad.
- jvanderbot 3y agoMy mental model is that people look at a small amount of data we have about advanced civilizations (ours), fit lines to those few, noisy, highly clustered points, or worse, assume exponential when it's really logistic / S curve. Then you can predict any old doom you want. The future is lots of things, but stable or predictable it ain't.
- Supermancho 3y ago> The problems with under-population are still concerning. Primarily the starvation.