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I disagree that the prosperity we've experienced was truly "unexpected". Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. peopl

I disagree that the prosperity we've experienced was truly "unexpected". Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs), and markets innovate in response to scarcity (e.g. the Green Revolution). Technological progress, though unpredictable in its specifics, has consistently been a reliable force for adaptation. Ehrlich's predictions underestimated humanity's resilience, oversimplifying a highly complex system by reducing it to a linear regression.

roenxi 2y ago
This is that recency bias thing in action. Constant surprising technological progress of the sort we've seen for the last century or two is unprecedented and not at all the sort of thing that is suitable for long term planning. I usually wouldn't bother pointing that out, but there are two points I really want to emphasise as wildly optimistic: > Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs) We didn't have birth control until the 20th century and it is mostly used by people who, historically speaking, are living with resources far in excess of their basic needs. Traditionally the self regulation was that people were born then the ones that couldn't eat enough to survive died. And there is a pretty high risk of not finding stable equilibrium. The logistic map isn't a totally crazy model and displays some rather chaotic behaviour [0]. In practice that looks like a lot of famines. > ... markets innovate in response to scarcity ... Markets have existed forever, usually the innovative response to food scarcity was, once again, people starving to death. It is hard to underline just how weird the Green Revolution is. Obviously a great time to be alive but it is not a normal thing in the human experience. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map#Behavior_dependent_on_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map#Behavior_dependen...
- olalonde 2y ago
  I’m not sure why you keep invoking "recency bias." When forecasting the near future, as Ehrlich was doing, it’s entirely reasonable to use recent trends as a baseline. Are you suggesting progress might slow to the levels seen in prehistory, antiquity, or the medieval period? That seems highly implausible, barring a catastrophic event that disrupts modern civilization. If anything, you might be underestimating the ongoing momentum of technological progress, which is not just sustaining its pace but accelerating across many fields. Some experts predict AGI is right on the corner - a development that could drastically amplify innovation and potentially eliminate the challenge of food scarcity. Additionally, birth control will only keep becoming increasingly accessible worldwide, enabling more effective regulation of fertility rates in response to resource constraints.
tsimionescu 2y ago
> Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs) The exact opposite is what we are observing: people in poorer parts of the world, and poor people in richer parts of the world have way more children than people who have all their basic needs met and then some. The best known predictor of average number of children is infant mortality rate: without fail, as infant mortality decreases, average number of children per family decreases as well.
- olalonde 2y ago
  I didn't claim the relationship was linear. People in poorer countries still have relatively abundant food by historical standards and aren't at risk of starvation. However, when food availability drops below a certain threshold, reproduction rates tend to decrease - this is basic ecology. Historically, the most populated regions were also resource-rich, like the fertile river valleys. But we're now living in an era of abundance where even the poorer regions have access to plenty of food.
ekianjo 2y ago
> people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs Completely disproven by the baby boom era where people were poor in many countries for years after the war but still made a lot of babies. Reality bites hard.

roenxi 2y ago

This is that recency bias thing in action. Constant surprising technological progress of the sort we've seen for the last century or two is unprecedented and not at all the sort of thing that is suitable for long term planning. I usually wouldn't bother pointing that out, but there are two points I really want to emphasise as wildly optimistic: > Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs) We didn't have birth control until the 20th century and it is mostly used by people who, historically speaking, are living with resources far in excess of their basic needs. Traditionally the self regulation was that people were born then the ones that couldn't eat enough to survive died. And there is a pretty high risk of not finding stable equilibrium. The logistic map isn't a totally crazy model and displays some rather chaotic behaviour [0]. In practice that looks like a lot of famines. > ... markets innovate in response to scarcity ... Markets have existed forever, usually the innovative response to food scarcity was, once again, people starving to death. It is hard to underline just how weird the Green Revolution is. Obviously a great time to be alive but it is not a normal thing in the human experience. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map#Behavior_dependent_on_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map#Behavior_dependen...

olalonde 2y ago
I’m not sure why you keep invoking "recency bias." When forecasting the near future, as Ehrlich was doing, it’s entirely reasonable to use recent trends as a baseline. Are you suggesting progress might slow to the levels seen in prehistory, antiquity, or the medieval period? That seems highly implausible, barring a catastrophic event that disrupts modern civilization. If anything, you might be underestimating the ongoing momentum of technological progress, which is not just sustaining its pace but accelerating across many fields. Some experts predict AGI is right on the corner - a development that could drastically amplify innovation and potentially eliminate the challenge of food scarcity. Additionally, birth control will only keep becoming increasingly accessible worldwide, enabling more effective regulation of fertility rates in response to resource constraints.

tsimionescu 2y ago

> Humans are self-regulating: fertility rates drop as resources become scarce (e.g. people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs) The exact opposite is what we are observing: people in poorer parts of the world, and poor people in richer parts of the world have way more children than people who have all their basic needs met and then some. The best known predictor of average number of children is infant mortality rate: without fail, as infant mortality decreases, average number of children per family decreases as well.

olalonde 2y ago
I didn't claim the relationship was linear. People in poorer countries still have relatively abundant food by historical standards and aren't at risk of starvation. However, when food availability drops below a certain threshold, reproduction rates tend to decrease - this is basic ecology. Historically, the most populated regions were also resource-rich, like the fertile river valleys. But we're now living in an era of abundance where even the poorer regions have access to plenty of food.

ekianjo 2y ago

> people are less likely to have children when struggling to meet basic needs Completely disproven by the baby boom era where people were poor in many countries for years after the war but still made a lot of babies. Reality bites hard.