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updated with an edit about migration is a solution for national underpopulation specifically. (do t want anyone else to get confused about it). i wasn’t clear

updated with an edit about migration is a solution for national underpopulation specifically. (do t want anyone else to get confused about it). i wasn’t clear on that do i can see why you’re now arguing this point. on global overpopulation — i disagree. the only way to solve it is to co-ordinate globally. and that involves helping everyone else who doesn’t hsve stuff getting to a place of yeah we’ve kind of all got enough stuff now. or, alternatively, somehow everyone getting to a place where we realise “stuff” is abjectly meaningless and pointless as a measure for our individual/group success. basically, materialism needs to fuck off as our dominant incentivising thing.

like_any_other 2y ago
> on global overpopulation — i disagree. the only way to solve it is to co-ordinate globally. and that involves helping everyone else who doesn’t have stuff getting to a place of yeah we’ve kind of all got enough stuff now. Here we agree. I should clarify there are multiple types of coordination - the kind you propose is the easier one. It can be global, but it really only needs two countries - one offering aid [1], and one receiving it. If someone defects, no big deal - someone else might step in, and in any case, the situation should be better than if there had never been aid in the first place. But getting every population on Earth to agree to and follow through with reducing their own fertility is the much harder kind of coordination. There will always be defectors, and these defections will (literally) add up and multiply. Unlike with aid, where the giver is only sacrificing as you say materialism, now their worry will be "will my group continue to exist?" [1] Whatever form that aid takes. There are arguments that simple material aid does more harm than good and hinders development, but surely there are forms of aid that help development, so this is not an excuse to stop aid entirely.
- trollbridge 2y ago
  Organisms with low fertility die off. Organisms with high fertility will eventually predominate. This is a fundamental biological principle.
  - api 2y ago
    That's an oversimplification, otherwise all organisms would lay massive clusters of eggs like insects. There would be only R-selected organisms, no K-selected. It's long term average successful fertility over time.
    - trollbridge 2y ago
      Fair enough point. However, any species (or subpopulation of a species) that reproduces below replacement level is going to die off. Long-term, that means cultures, mindsets, and so on that reproduce at or above replacement level will eventually dominate and cultures that reproduce below that level will eventually cease to exist. The film Idiocracy is a good exhibition of this.
      - api 2y ago
        Beware of overzealously reductionistic models of evolution. If fitness were based on counting offspring, there would only ever be bacteria. There would be no complex organisms and no intelligence. Bacteria leave the largest number of offspring. From that perspective they have the highest fitness. Here's a scenario to get started: Let's say you have someone who has zero children but is a foster parent and contributes to the successful upbringing of dozens of children. Those children then go on, as a result of the actions of that individual, to have far more successful offspring than they would have otherwise. What is this sterile foster parent's genetic fitness? Consider that humans are actually a fairly genetically un-diverse species. We have less genetic diversity than most mammals, owing most likely to a survival bottleneck our species endured at some point in its recent evolutionary past. (There is evidence of this: see "mitochondrial Eve.") As a result, we all have most of our genes in common with other humans. If I have zero children but contribute to the survival of loads and loads of other humans then I am in fact perpetuating the survival of most of my genetic material. The percentage that dies with me is a tiny, tiny percentage. From there research topics like group selection effects, the emergence of cooperation, the evolution of evolvability, etc. This is a gigantic rabbit hole. Ultimately you'll hit the limits of our understanding. We really don't understand yet why there is anything other than boring mats of bubbling goo. Indeed, the first billion years or so of life on Earth appeared to be nothing but that. Then things got interesting, and we're not 100% sure why. It is not as simple as "more kids equals higher fitness." Not at all. If it was we would not exist. "Survival of the fittest," as popularly understood, is such a massive oversimplification that it's basically wrong. "Survival of a subset of the fittest genes over time" is a little better. Racism is rooted in a very pop-science surface level understanding of evolution, which is just as bad as the pop science understanding of quantum physics.

like_any_other 2y ago

> on global overpopulation — i disagree. the only way to solve it is to co-ordinate globally. and that involves helping everyone else who doesn’t have stuff getting to a place of yeah we’ve kind of all got enough stuff now. Here we agree. I should clarify there are multiple types of coordination - the kind you propose is the easier one. It can be global, but it really only needs two countries - one offering aid [1], and one receiving it. If someone defects, no big deal - someone else might step in, and in any case, the situation should be better than if there had never been aid in the first place. But getting every population on Earth to agree to and follow through with reducing their own fertility is the much harder kind of coordination. There will always be defectors, and these defections will (literally) add up and multiply. Unlike with aid, where the giver is only sacrificing as you say materialism, now their worry will be "will my group continue to exist?" [1] Whatever form that aid takes. There are arguments that simple material aid does more harm than good and hinders development, but surely there are forms of aid that help development, so this is not an excuse to stop aid entirely.

trollbridge 2y ago
Organisms with low fertility die off. Organisms with high fertility will eventually predominate. This is a fundamental biological principle.
- api 2y ago
  That's an oversimplification, otherwise all organisms would lay massive clusters of eggs like insects. There would be only R-selected organisms, no K-selected. It's long term average successful fertility over time.
  - trollbridge 2y ago
    Fair enough point. However, any species (or subpopulation of a species) that reproduces below replacement level is going to die off. Long-term, that means cultures, mindsets, and so on that reproduce at or above replacement level will eventually dominate and cultures that reproduce below that level will eventually cease to exist. The film Idiocracy is a good exhibition of this.
    - api 2y ago
      Beware of overzealously reductionistic models of evolution. If fitness were based on counting offspring, there would only ever be bacteria. There would be no complex organisms and no intelligence. Bacteria leave the largest number of offspring. From that perspective they have the highest fitness. Here's a scenario to get started: Let's say you have someone who has zero children but is a foster parent and contributes to the successful upbringing of dozens of children. Those children then go on, as a result of the actions of that individual, to have far more successful offspring than they would have otherwise. What is this sterile foster parent's genetic fitness? Consider that humans are actually a fairly genetically un-diverse species. We have less genetic diversity than most mammals, owing most likely to a survival bottleneck our species endured at some point in its recent evolutionary past. (There is evidence of this: see "mitochondrial Eve.") As a result, we all have most of our genes in common with other humans. If I have zero children but contribute to the survival of loads and loads of other humans then I am in fact perpetuating the survival of most of my genetic material. The percentage that dies with me is a tiny, tiny percentage. From there research topics like group selection effects, the emergence of cooperation, the evolution of evolvability, etc. This is a gigantic rabbit hole. Ultimately you'll hit the limits of our understanding. We really don't understand yet why there is anything other than boring mats of bubbling goo. Indeed, the first billion years or so of life on Earth appeared to be nothing but that. Then things got interesting, and we're not 100% sure why. It is not as simple as "more kids equals higher fitness." Not at all. If it was we would not exist. "Survival of the fittest," as popularly understood, is such a massive oversimplification that it's basically wrong. "Survival of a subset of the fittest genes over time" is a little better. Racism is rooted in a very pop-science surface level understanding of evolution, which is just as bad as the pop science understanding of quantum physics.