5 ms·

In that sense, civilization is a Ponzi scheme. Let's just give up.

by alecco 2y ago

kleene_op 2y ago
One could even argue that life itself is a Ponzi scheme.
- WithinReason 2y ago
  The food chain certainly is
DevX101 2y ago
Civilization isn't a Ponzi scheme. But our current financial system that has never-ending growth as an axiom, where we borrow from the future to pay for today might be.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Never ending growth is an axiom because population growth is a given. Unless we forcibly control birth rates, that won't go away.
  - Attrecomet 2y ago
    And yet, we are discussing a movement that wants to artificially increase birth rates that have fallen too low for their tastes. It seems you don't actually need to force control birth rates, just give women agency over their own lives.
  - throwaway5752 2y ago
    Whenever I hear someone say something like this, I mentally picture a locust with a speech bubble in a locust swarm saying it... "population growth is a given" it is definitely not a given. We will suffer the fate of every other organism that exceeds the carrying capacity of their environment. And right now our civilization is based on mining energy from previous hundreds of millions of years in the form of (C-H bonds) which is the definition of unsustainable. It doesn't logically follow that anyone controls birth rates by force, you don't need to invoke authoritarianism. Increased death rates/lower life expectancy and infant mortality can and would accomplish the same, entirely with no external driver. But statistics really bury the lede there, since the mechanism for those would be mass starvation, war, and decreased standards of living.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Essentially infinite economic growth is possible. Thought experiment: let's suppose we have a stable population that produces & consumes two things: food & TV shows. The food is sustainably produced so it doesn't contribute to economic growth or decline. But the TV shows cumulate. Therefore generation X+1 is richer than generation X since it has access to more TV shows. And "TV shows" in this thought experiment can be physical objects too. An iPhone 12 is more valuable than an iPhone 11 despite being smaller and using less resources to create. Of course we're a long way from sustainable infinite growth. But it is possible.
- mindslight 2y ago
  > Civilization isn't a Ponzi scheme But it is, by the technical definition. New entrants are continually needed (able bodied ~20-60 year olds) to take care of the earlier entrants (~70+). That's the concrete reality of any society where people over ~70 don't just walk out into the wild to starve. > where we borrow from the future to pay for today might be This statement is still immersed in the abstractions of the financial paradigm. There is no "borrowing from the future". Every loan has a counterparty in the now. This is what we need to focus on, as one thing really putting the squeeze on people having kids is the growing debt bubble that vacuums real wealth away from the edges and funnels ever-more of it towards the zero-sum [0] banking sector. If housing was unaffordable merely because Scrooge McDuck's vaults kept getting bigger, this might at least be understandable. But rich individuals don't really squander resources at scale (misallocating, sure. But not wholly wasting them). Rather the real waste is all of the fake jobs that have been created in the FIRE sector, essentially paying people to create ever-growing heaps of paperwork. [0] "inelastic-sum", more accurately. Banking/investment certainly does support production by allocating capital more optimally. But there is a limit to how well this can be performed, meaning diminishing returns on the resources spent. And we're well past that point.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
> In that sense, civilization is a Ponzi scheme. Let's just give up. I think this is incredibly disingenuous. A steady state population that lives within the means of what the sun and planet can provide, without exceeding planetary boundaries, is an ambitious yet reasonable goal. A planet with a population that must grow forever to pay off debt today incurs against tomorrow without tomorrow's consent is simply not realistic, a "spherical cow." When women are empowered and have agency, they delay having children and have less children. What does this tell us? It tells us that the global population boom was driven by lack of agency and contraceptive access for women. What did most socioeconomic systems do with this "demographic dividend"? Capitalism, leading to wealth inequality, and also incurring substantial debts to pay for the future (both financial and physical system). And now this system is in material structural peril. So, should we listen to the pro-natalism harpies that everyone should have more kids to continue to allow a suboptimal economic system predicated on returns and debt to continue to trudge on unimpeded? Or should we continue to empower women and force the economic systems to serve humans instead of using them as a resource? Managing a rapid total fertility rate decline resulting from self determination of a population cohort isn't giving up; it is living within our means as a species and respecting human rights.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  It seems disingenuous to you because you’re unfamiliar with the underlying statistics. A steady state population is what pronatalists want, and they’re generally quite comfortable with the idea that this might require structuring society to better enable women who’d like to have a child. The status quo that we’re on track to - already guaranteed in some countries - is a moderately rapid population decline.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    8 billion (today) to 10 billion people (~2100) is not a reasonable steady state based on all available evidence. We'll head towards half that over the next 200-250 years as total fertility rates approach 0.5-1 on average, and 4B people is certainly more approachable to support sustainably vs 8B-10B (under the assumption of living standards somewhere between Europe and the US). South Korea is at 0.72, China at 1, Japan at 1.2, Mexico City at 0.96, (all 2023 figures as of this comment) and the rest of the world is not far behind. > The status quo that we’re on track to - already guaranteed in some countries - is a moderately rapid population decline. This gets us to steady state. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/11/global-population-predictions-offer-hopeful-sign-for-planet-un-says https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/... https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2024_wpp_2024_advance_unedited_0.pdf https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
zeroCalories 2y ago
give up? you mean you wanna kys or live in dirt huts? sounds good for you, but I'm gonna go make some more bag holders
Attrecomet 2y ago
What a petty response to efforts to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. Maybe you should just give up if that's the best you can do.

In that sense, civilization is a Ponzi scheme. Let's just give up.

by alecco 2y ago

In that sense, civilization is a Ponzi scheme. Let's just give up.

kleene_op 2y ago

One could even argue that life itself is a Ponzi scheme.

WithinReason 2y ago
The food chain certainly is

DevX101 2y ago

Civilization isn't a Ponzi scheme. But our current financial system that has never-ending growth as an axiom, where we borrow from the future to pay for today might be.

bongodongobob 2y ago
Never ending growth is an axiom because population growth is a given. Unless we forcibly control birth rates, that won't go away.
- Attrecomet 2y ago
  And yet, we are discussing a movement that wants to artificially increase birth rates that have fallen too low for their tastes. It seems you don't actually need to force control birth rates, just give women agency over their own lives.
- throwaway5752 2y ago
  Whenever I hear someone say something like this, I mentally picture a locust with a speech bubble in a locust swarm saying it... "population growth is a given" it is definitely not a given. We will suffer the fate of every other organism that exceeds the carrying capacity of their environment. And right now our civilization is based on mining energy from previous hundreds of millions of years in the form of (C-H bonds) which is the definition of unsustainable. It doesn't logically follow that anyone controls birth rates by force, you don't need to invoke authoritarianism. Increased death rates/lower life expectancy and infant mortality can and would accomplish the same, entirely with no external driver. But statistics really bury the lede there, since the mechanism for those would be mass starvation, war, and decreased standards of living.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Essentially infinite economic growth is possible. Thought experiment: let's suppose we have a stable population that produces & consumes two things: food & TV shows. The food is sustainably produced so it doesn't contribute to economic growth or decline. But the TV shows cumulate. Therefore generation X+1 is richer than generation X since it has access to more TV shows. And "TV shows" in this thought experiment can be physical objects too. An iPhone 12 is more valuable than an iPhone 11 despite being smaller and using less resources to create. Of course we're a long way from sustainable infinite growth. But it is possible.
mindslight 2y ago
> Civilization isn't a Ponzi scheme But it is, by the technical definition. New entrants are continually needed (able bodied ~20-60 year olds) to take care of the earlier entrants (~70+). That's the concrete reality of any society where people over ~70 don't just walk out into the wild to starve. > where we borrow from the future to pay for today might be This statement is still immersed in the abstractions of the financial paradigm. There is no "borrowing from the future". Every loan has a counterparty in the now. This is what we need to focus on, as one thing really putting the squeeze on people having kids is the growing debt bubble that vacuums real wealth away from the edges and funnels ever-more of it towards the zero-sum [0] banking sector. If housing was unaffordable merely because Scrooge McDuck's vaults kept getting bigger, this might at least be understandable. But rich individuals don't really squander resources at scale (misallocating, sure. But not wholly wasting them). Rather the real waste is all of the fake jobs that have been created in the FIRE sector, essentially paying people to create ever-growing heaps of paperwork. [0] "inelastic-sum", more accurately. Banking/investment certainly does support production by allocating capital more optimally. But there is a limit to how well this can be performed, meaning diminishing returns on the resources spent. And we're well past that point.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

> In that sense, civilization is a Ponzi scheme. Let's just give up. I think this is incredibly disingenuous. A steady state population that lives within the means of what the sun and planet can provide, without exceeding planetary boundaries, is an ambitious yet reasonable goal. A planet with a population that must grow forever to pay off debt today incurs against tomorrow without tomorrow's consent is simply not realistic, a "spherical cow." When women are empowered and have agency, they delay having children and have less children. What does this tell us? It tells us that the global population boom was driven by lack of agency and contraceptive access for women. What did most socioeconomic systems do with this "demographic dividend"? Capitalism, leading to wealth inequality, and also incurring substantial debts to pay for the future (both financial and physical system). And now this system is in material structural peril. So, should we listen to the pro-natalism harpies that everyone should have more kids to continue to allow a suboptimal economic system predicated on returns and debt to continue to trudge on unimpeded? Or should we continue to empower women and force the economic systems to serve humans instead of using them as a resource? Managing a rapid total fertility rate decline resulting from self determination of a population cohort isn't giving up; it is living within our means as a species and respecting human rights.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
It seems disingenuous to you because you’re unfamiliar with the underlying statistics. A steady state population is what pronatalists want, and they’re generally quite comfortable with the idea that this might require structuring society to better enable women who’d like to have a child. The status quo that we’re on track to - already guaranteed in some countries - is a moderately rapid population decline.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  8 billion (today) to 10 billion people (~2100) is not a reasonable steady state based on all available evidence. We'll head towards half that over the next 200-250 years as total fertility rates approach 0.5-1 on average, and 4B people is certainly more approachable to support sustainably vs 8B-10B (under the assumption of living standards somewhere between Europe and the US). South Korea is at 0.72, China at 1, Japan at 1.2, Mexico City at 0.96, (all 2023 figures as of this comment) and the rest of the world is not far behind. > The status quo that we’re on track to - already guaranteed in some countries - is a moderately rapid population decline. This gets us to steady state. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/11/global-population-predictions-offer-hopeful-sign-for-planet-un-says https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/... https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2024_wpp_2024_advance_unedited_0.pdf https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

zeroCalories 2y ago

give up? you mean you wanna kys or live in dirt huts? sounds good for you, but I'm gonna go make some more bag holders

Attrecomet 2y ago

What a petty response to efforts to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. Maybe you should just give up if that's the best you can do.