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> I still haven’t haven’t heard a lot of good arguments for having these babies. A larger population means bigger numbers on the everything that's on a normal
by GeoAtreides 2y ago
> I still haven’t haven’t heard a lot of good arguments for having these babies.
A larger population means bigger numbers on the everything that's on a normal distribution, like intelligence. That one genius in a 100 million? With 1B population, you only have 10 of them. With 8B population, there are 80. That's 8x more chances one of them does or finds something revolutionary, 8x chances that person is not perishing somewhere in a cobalt mine as a kid. It slashes times waiting for a genius to appear 8x.
A bigger population also enables extreme specialisation in very niche fields. It enables bigger recruitment pools for complex processes and manufacturers like, for example, ASML.
It's, in a short word, massive parallelism.
Now, a counter-argument to everything I said is looking at the demographics of geniuses, revolutionaries, specialists and noticing most of them were well-fed, well-educated and raised in stable, liberal societies (liberal as opposed to, say, taliban-like societies). So, in theory, we could get by with a smaller population, if it was a rich, western-like, population. In that case, the only constraint would become genetics; so an 100M population would have to wait a couple of generations for their genius, instead of a 8B pop potentially getting them all at once.
- netsharc 2y agoSeems like a balancing act... If all 8B people have western living standards, we'll boil the planet up even more quickly than at the current rate...
- GeoAtreides 2y agoWell-fed, well-educated and safe doesn't necessary imply western living standards.
- imtringued 2y agoI always hear this from people who are unwilling to fix current problems. They always push it onto some future genius that is going to pop up and act as the second coming of Jesus. In reality the average person is already more intelligent both in terms of education and IQ than people from a hundred years ago. The difference is that you are no longer losing them to mining accidents. Meanwhile the growth strategy glorifies the mining accidents as something that can be compensated simply by having more people. It's ok if our "geniuses" die, because we have eight times more. There is a deeply misanthropic logic behind this since one is discounting vast amounts of the population.
- GeoAtreides 2y agoThe average person has a higher IQ, true, but the problems we face also require a higher IQ (and higher specialisation) than in the past. It might sound misanthropic, but the average person is average. Nothing wrong with it, morally or otherwise, but they won't be doing revolutionary work in specialist fields, they will be raising families and be happy. Like I said in my original comment, we can get by with a smaller population with western levels standard of living, and then only be constrained by genetics.
- PorcelainSmile 2y ago[flagged]
- gmerc 2y agoChances are the Genius will never get to actually do anything. It’s not like we select for Geniuses in roles that have power
- GeoAtreides 2y agoand that's exactly the thing with having a bigger population: more geniuses, more chances one of them actually fulfils their potential.
- gmerc 2y agoAs opposed to optimizing the Genius efficiency by making structural changes. It’s the most stupid of arguments for growth. Everyone in funnel optimization knows that.
- GeoAtreides 2y agoLike I mentioned in my original comment (weird how many times I had to type this today), we can get by having a smaller population with western levels standard of living; there's a bit more detail on this in my last paragraph of my comment.
- shrimp_emoji 2y agoOn the bright side, we're probably a couple of centuries away from being able to genetically engineer geniuses and avoid having to play the numbers game. Genetic engineering might also be a way out of the reproductive Ponzi scheme. Grow ready-made adults in pods! No painful stupid 25-year investment period with uncertain payoff.
- javcasas 2y agoYour generation's genius is currently wasting his life on a 12 hour minimum wage job to barely pay the rent on his shitty old tiny flat. He will not have the brainspace and time left to invent hyperspace interplanetary travelling. Fix the former first if you want the latter to happen.
- GeoAtreides 2y agoI feel like my original comment fully addresses your point, but I will restate here in a shorter form for your convenience: 1) bigger population means more chances a potential genius is born in the right circumstances 2) we can have a smaller population if everyone lives at western standards (and then genetics becomes the bottleneck)
- sadhorse 2y agoPsychopathy is also on a normal distribution... this "big numbers" argument is very weak. We all know what the masses like to do with the environment.
- GeoAtreides 2y agoMore people also mean a bigger, smarter pool for recruitment into mental health professions. Again, the key word is massive parallelism: more people working in specialised fields, at the same time. And there are A LOT of specialised fields nowadays.