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You've been reading too much news. There are global societal risks but they're not just whatever the popular bogeymen of hour are supposed to be. Some of your c

You've been reading too much news. There are global societal risks but they're not just whatever the popular bogeymen of hour are supposed to be. Some of your concerns might even be backwards. I doubt you've critically thought about any of these and are just regurgitating what was fed to you. If you lived in an earlier time, you'd be worrying about the rise of homosexuality, communism, atheism, etc.

raincole 1y ago
The exact same argument can be made for people who claiming AI would make us dumber: If they lived in an earlier time, they'd be worrying about the rise of google, the internet, tv, radio... were going to make people stop using their brains. Socrates believed writing was going to make people stop memorizing stuff. I'm not a doomsayer who thinks the world is on the edge of collapsing. But I do think the issues I listed are much more 'real' than AI making people stop thinking. (Including the birth rate one - yeah, I'm well aware that many people think it's a good thing. As someone whose mother worked at a nursing home, in a country with TFR of 0.78, I just don't agree with them. I believe people hugely underestimate the manpower needed to take care of the elderly and disabled.)
- questionableans 1y ago
  At a global level, a more reasonably sized human population is exactly what we need, and a decline in birth rate is the most ethical way to achieve that. We have to find a way to make it work, because otherwise our trajectory takes us beyond the carrying capacity for our planet. There are three things we need to deal with the temporary population imbalance: Older people who remain healthy continuing to work to care for their peers—-not necessarily hard physical labor, but being out in their communities helping, which is rewarding and will help them stay healthy, too. Easy immigration for regular people so they can move to where they’re needed. General efficiency so we’re not wasting resources. This requires both technological and lifestyle changes, even for the rich. The more efficient we can get, the less we have to reduce our overall population.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    Okay, that sounds like a reasonable plan, but this also means that we need to stop the decline at some point, and this is not currently a solved problems since that's what governments try to achieve right now. Also the decline happens in the regions were not much decline is needed and in regions were it would be needed the population is currently increasing. Also population growth was how we have dealt with technological shifts in the past, so we need a new way for that.
    - questionableans 1y ago
      Immigration helps even out where populations are located. Immigrants built America. I really don’t think we have anything to worry about not having any people left. There’s still plenty of innate drive to reproduce, both biologically and intellectually (as in, educating far more people than the number of kids you could ever have).
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        Well, there is immigration and there is immigration. There are people that move between similar socialized countries, directly from one high-paying job to the next. Every country wants to have them. Then there are basically refugees, that are only named immigrants, because they happen to flee through another country. They might also have had a well paying job, but they often need to learn the language, they often need to learn the economic system, the law system, the social norms, etc. This takes quite some investment, both in time and money from them and the society they migrate to. Learning these things already takes years for young people, whose only job is to do this. It's much harder for an adult, because learning complete new things is harder for adults and they also need to cover the bills. They can be the smartest person in their country, but they will still struggle. On top, they need to fight with the immigration offices, have family abroad they want to support, might intend to return to their home, instead of settling. Thus, they will be an investment first, rather then an asset. Some place the time frame for this to be 18 years. I question whether investing in children is really the worse approach. Even when it is, then it is quite immoral to let another poorer country pay the bills for their education and then import them. > Immigrants built America. These were masses building a new country, not integrating into an existing; they had a way lower living standard, a lot of them died. It did not go well for the existing society in America. The people forming the government were british rich aristocrats. And don't think these situations are comparable.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  Yes it could and they're also mostly just reflecting what the media riles them up with. People don't work out their concerns themselves, they copy the popular beliefs. Nuclear war is still a risk, as are meteor strikes, but somehow they aren't in fashion at the moment. There are yet other risks that people don't want to think about or which protecting ourselves against would be very painful so we also mostly refuse to think about.

raincole 1y ago

The exact same argument can be made for people who claiming AI would make us dumber: If they lived in an earlier time, they'd be worrying about the rise of google, the internet, tv, radio... were going to make people stop using their brains. Socrates believed writing was going to make people stop memorizing stuff. I'm not a doomsayer who thinks the world is on the edge of collapsing. But I do think the issues I listed are much more 'real' than AI making people stop thinking. (Including the birth rate one - yeah, I'm well aware that many people think it's a good thing. As someone whose mother worked at a nursing home, in a country with TFR of 0.78, I just don't agree with them. I believe people hugely underestimate the manpower needed to take care of the elderly and disabled.)

questionableans 1y ago
At a global level, a more reasonably sized human population is exactly what we need, and a decline in birth rate is the most ethical way to achieve that. We have to find a way to make it work, because otherwise our trajectory takes us beyond the carrying capacity for our planet. There are three things we need to deal with the temporary population imbalance: Older people who remain healthy continuing to work to care for their peers—-not necessarily hard physical labor, but being out in their communities helping, which is rewarding and will help them stay healthy, too. Easy immigration for regular people so they can move to where they’re needed. General efficiency so we’re not wasting resources. This requires both technological and lifestyle changes, even for the rich. The more efficient we can get, the less we have to reduce our overall population.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  Okay, that sounds like a reasonable plan, but this also means that we need to stop the decline at some point, and this is not currently a solved problems since that's what governments try to achieve right now. Also the decline happens in the regions were not much decline is needed and in regions were it would be needed the population is currently increasing. Also population growth was how we have dealt with technological shifts in the past, so we need a new way for that.
  - questionableans 1y ago
    Immigration helps even out where populations are located. Immigrants built America. I really don’t think we have anything to worry about not having any people left. There’s still plenty of innate drive to reproduce, both biologically and intellectually (as in, educating far more people than the number of kids you could ever have).
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      Well, there is immigration and there is immigration. There are people that move between similar socialized countries, directly from one high-paying job to the next. Every country wants to have them. Then there are basically refugees, that are only named immigrants, because they happen to flee through another country. They might also have had a well paying job, but they often need to learn the language, they often need to learn the economic system, the law system, the social norms, etc. This takes quite some investment, both in time and money from them and the society they migrate to. Learning these things already takes years for young people, whose only job is to do this. It's much harder for an adult, because learning complete new things is harder for adults and they also need to cover the bills. They can be the smartest person in their country, but they will still struggle. On top, they need to fight with the immigration offices, have family abroad they want to support, might intend to return to their home, instead of settling. Thus, they will be an investment first, rather then an asset. Some place the time frame for this to be 18 years. I question whether investing in children is really the worse approach. Even when it is, then it is quite immoral to let another poorer country pay the bills for their education and then import them. > Immigrants built America. These were masses building a new country, not integrating into an existing; they had a way lower living standard, a lot of them died. It did not go well for the existing society in America. The people forming the government were british rich aristocrats. And don't think these situations are comparable.
foxglacier 1y ago
Yes it could and they're also mostly just reflecting what the media riles them up with. People don't work out their concerns themselves, they copy the popular beliefs. Nuclear war is still a risk, as are meteor strikes, but somehow they aren't in fashion at the moment. There are yet other risks that people don't want to think about or which protecting ourselves against would be very painful so we also mostly refuse to think about.