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> Also, if that small farm is something you dream about, I strongly suggest actually working on a farm for a while. I've both done that, and I sit in an office

> Also, if that small farm is something you dream about, I strongly suggest actually working on a farm for a while. I've both done that, and I sit in an office chair 8 hours a day. Anyone who prefers the latter has a different set of maladaptive personality defects than I do. > This is likely not an answer. Small-scale sustenance farming is not enough to support humanity at scale. It's ok. No one really needs to think about that anymore. When fertility rates went sub-replacement, humanity became functionally extinct, at least in those regions. Everyone's planning a future for their species which it no longer has. > I know "I'm gonna have a farm" is a popular escapist things for many folks in tech - it is for me as well, the fantasy is great Not a fantasy. I'm a few weeks/months away from buying a combine. I have a particular model in mind (John Deere model 42), but the used market is a little difficult to deal with. I may end up paying a few thousand to have it shipped from out of state (or even Canada), but no one can tell me if it's narrow enough to fit on a flatbed trailer. I have less of a clear idea about what tractor to pull it with, I really need something up around 100hp, something gen ii probably. A 4230 with a cab sounds nice, but it's like 9 gallons of diesel an hour. I'd grow sunflowers for the fuel, and I'm experimenting with a chloralkali machine for the soda lye (there are places not far away with salt springs, so I'm looking for real estate like that for salt). Currently assembling a larger machine I've got half-designed. Would use butanol instead of methanol. Not sure I could survive in a place where all I can do and hope for is "a balcony with some houseplants". Sounds soul-crushing.

groby_b 3y ago
> When fertility rates went sub-replacement, humanity became functionally extinct, at least in those regions. That is... also a way to look at it. 1) Migration is a thing, so unless total fertility is sub-replacement, "functionally extinct" is a tad bit premature. Turns out that across the world, we're still above replacement rate. 2) Fertility rates do change over time. E.g. the fact of group size temporarily inducing stress-related infertility until a population is below a certain level is well-known and understood. Here's a great experiment on it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11100725/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11100725/ It's at least plausible that sub-replacement rates in humans are a similar self-regulation mechanism. I'd suggest that "functionally extinct" is maybe a bit of a premature judgment.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > That is... also a way to look at it. Yeh, the mathematically correct way. There are only about 4-5 generations of humans on the planet at any given point in time. Only the youngest of those can create the next generation. If each generation is getting smaller than the previous because the fertility rate's low, why would you expect population to stabilize? > Migration is a thing, so unless total fertility is sub-replacement, Outsourcing your fertility to countries with rapidly declining fertility probably isn't a long term (or short term) fix for the problem. > "functionally extinct" is a tad bit premature. In less than 25 years, it will be global. Unless you believe that in a handful of African countries that it will stay above 5 forever, even though it was twice that less than 80 years ago. > the fact of group size temporarily inducing stress-related infertility until a population is below So, you believe that all the little girls who exist today, who grow up as only children, who have no aunts or cousins, who see their school teachers childless, all their role models childless... they'll grow up themselves and say "Wow, I want 9 children of my own!"? I think you're confusing the models here. The moose don't have low fertility, it's as high as ever, but the wolves eat so many offspring, or the food sources so sparse they starve. In the stress-induced models like Calhoun's mice, population never recovers. The mice become extinct. Even though there's plenty of food, plenty of water, plenty of entertainment. Even after the population crashes, and there's no overcrowding, even then their fertility rates are so low that they just go extinct. I have no doubt that unless you're in your 60s, you'll one day come to understand that I was correct. This is coming, and nothing other than underwhelming horror at the thought of me being correct explains why you choose to argue about it. HN is filled with people who understand how to predict trends with lines on a chart, and you know or could quickly verify which way fertility numbers are trending. Which direction it is that they can only trend, at this point. "Functionally extinct" is indeed the perfectly correct term for this. It's what you call a species that still has living extant specimens, but for which there is no realistic way for the species to survive in the long term. That's humans.

groby_b 3y ago

> When fertility rates went sub-replacement, humanity became functionally extinct, at least in those regions. That is... also a way to look at it. 1) Migration is a thing, so unless total fertility is sub-replacement, "functionally extinct" is a tad bit premature. Turns out that across the world, we're still above replacement rate. 2) Fertility rates do change over time. E.g. the fact of group size temporarily inducing stress-related infertility until a population is below a certain level is well-known and understood. Here's a great experiment on it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11100725/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11100725/ It's at least plausible that sub-replacement rates in humans are a similar self-regulation mechanism. I'd suggest that "functionally extinct" is maybe a bit of a premature judgment.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> That is... also a way to look at it. Yeh, the mathematically correct way. There are only about 4-5 generations of humans on the planet at any given point in time. Only the youngest of those can create the next generation. If each generation is getting smaller than the previous because the fertility rate's low, why would you expect population to stabilize? > Migration is a thing, so unless total fertility is sub-replacement, Outsourcing your fertility to countries with rapidly declining fertility probably isn't a long term (or short term) fix for the problem. > "functionally extinct" is a tad bit premature. In less than 25 years, it will be global. Unless you believe that in a handful of African countries that it will stay above 5 forever, even though it was twice that less than 80 years ago. > the fact of group size temporarily inducing stress-related infertility until a population is below So, you believe that all the little girls who exist today, who grow up as only children, who have no aunts or cousins, who see their school teachers childless, all their role models childless... they'll grow up themselves and say "Wow, I want 9 children of my own!"? I think you're confusing the models here. The moose don't have low fertility, it's as high as ever, but the wolves eat so many offspring, or the food sources so sparse they starve. In the stress-induced models like Calhoun's mice, population never recovers. The mice become extinct. Even though there's plenty of food, plenty of water, plenty of entertainment. Even after the population crashes, and there's no overcrowding, even then their fertility rates are so low that they just go extinct. I have no doubt that unless you're in your 60s, you'll one day come to understand that I was correct. This is coming, and nothing other than underwhelming horror at the thought of me being correct explains why you choose to argue about it. HN is filled with people who understand how to predict trends with lines on a chart, and you know or could quickly verify which way fertility numbers are trending. Which direction it is that they can only trend, at this point. "Functionally extinct" is indeed the perfectly correct term for this. It's what you call a species that still has living extant specimens, but for which there is no realistic way for the species to survive in the long term. That's humans.