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>What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, Because you're not "dwindling the populat

>What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, Because you're not "dwindling the population" in the way you think. You're not taking an "8 billion" number and changing it to "4 billion". You're taking this growing organism, and switching it into a shrinking mode. Worse, you're changing it to "shrinking mode" in a way where you can't switch it out of that mode. It will, by necessity, shrink to nothing. And it shrinks quicker than you could imagine. When fertility rates are at 1.0 (China), each generation is one half the size of the previous. It doesn't seem like much has changed... there are 4 or so older generations that are still large (but non-reproductive). When you have a 0.5 fertility rate (South Korea), each generation is one quarter the size of the previous. Human extinction only takes about 12-14 generations at that rate. Less than 350 years. Even before it gets that far though, things get awful really quickly. It's not as if it's 350 years, and then everyone's gone. Those last few generations have no technology, they're huddled around in the dark trying not to starve. >If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. This isn't as true as it sounds. Some of our technology does not scale downward. If you need a nuclear power plant, this has a minimum number of workers. Even if you only want half the power, you can't get away with "half the workers". So, as there's less population, some technology will have to be abandoned. If you just employ people at the power plant despite that, then you're by necessity pulling those people from some other industry... it's an opportunity cost thing, and you have fewer opportunities. Sub-replacement fertility is human extinction. Not in 10,000 years, but in just a couple of centuries.

ahtihn 4mo ago
> Those last few generations have no technology, they're huddled around in the dark trying not to starve. At that point, the birth rate would quickly rise again, no? Because if you're back to living in a pre-industrial society, kids suddenly have value again. So it's likely that either there's a point of equilibrium or the population keeps swinging up and down. Total extinction seems unlikely.
- geodel 4mo ago
  Indeed. And in context of India since that's what Economist's article is about. Having higher population growth is just insanity to me. After destroying land, water, air, forests, mountains and still barely enough for hundreds of millions souls I am not sure how population deflation can be a important concern at this point.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
  >At that point, the birth rate would quickly rise again, no? Hospitals failing. Caloric intake failing. Yeh sure, why not? Let's just imagine that all high technology that acutally props up reproductive success seriously strained or even vanishing will result in things magically correcting. The same attitudes that have negatively impacted fertility rates don't disappear because things get worse. They're reinforced by it. An economy that collapses because there aren't enough workers doesn't make people say "I want to have babies"... if the media is to be believed, people wait until the economy improves first. Why would that happen? >So it's likely that either there's a point of equilibrium All evidence to the contrary? We've actually run experiments with animals. After they crash, the stress and trauma imposed on them keeps them from reproducing at a behavioral level despite resources being abundant. >Total extinction seems unlikely. Based on what exactly? Your unwillingness to own up to plainly obvious but disturbing conclusions? >Because if you're back to living in a pre-industrial society, Short of time travel, we can't have a pre industrial society, as that's the society that comes at a point in history before industry. What we'd have would be a post-collapse society. They're not the same thing. They don't even resemble each other much. When moose on the island are nearly wiped out and their predators starve to death, the moose can "swing back up" because moose never have low fertility. It's something like 25.0, give or take. They have a low population not because fertility went low... they have it because baby moose get eaten or starve or die from disease. Once those pressures ease up, the 25.0 fertility is still there and population rises quite rapidly. When human fertility goes down, it means that humans can't ever bounce back. So unless you're hypothesizing some sort of thing which causes human fertility to rise paradoxically and inexplicably, this reply of yours makes no sense at all. Not even a little. By the time people like you realize how wrong you are, your species will be past the point of no return.
- 4mo ago
sethammons 4mo ago
This is NOT human extinction. Just the collapse of global modernity. Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? "Guess we wont try to live like people have for the last x million years, here is a good place to lay down and die."
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
  >Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? Why would they be able to reinvent that, when none of their ancestors for how many generations did so? Is that something a person can do well, do you think, with no prior experience or expertise? What if they get it wrong, they'll starve? We could ask why they could reinvent all the technologies that people from prior eras of agriculture could manage? Will they instantly be able to make their own ropes, do you think? Have you ever made rope? Does it not count as technology if it's not a transistor etched into a silicon wafer? But previous eras of history did utilized that quite a bit for their agriculture. Are they supposed to make due without? There must be a hundred different things they won't know how to do, but were necessary for agriculture in any era of history you might name, but that you can't name because you know nothing about it. Technologies, ones so mundane that you don't even recognize they exist, permeate the world. They're lost and then they're gone because a replacement was better. But when the replacement disappears, those lost technologies don't spring back into existence magically. Civilization is "path dependent", it doesn't get knocked back to previous tiers because those previous tiers cease to exist once we've moved on to the next. And it's really hilarious to me that not only are you ignorant of this, but you're snarky about it too.
  - sethammons 4mo ago
    People live in the alaskan bush. QED
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
      Does a full, capable, lively civilization live in the Alaskan bush? Or is just a few grizzled assholes doing it to prove that they can? And do those assholes have enough spare time and effort and interest to raise families? Any women of reproductive age out there with them? If not, this probably isn't the model that proves that human extinction is an unreasonable worry.
trumpdong 4mo ago
Why do you think nothing will change in 350 years? Where were we 350 years ago? We thought population was stable back then with less than 1 billion people. Is it plausible that things will change again in the next 350? I think so. I think at least one thing changes about the world in every 350 years.

ahtihn 4mo ago

> Those last few generations have no technology, they're huddled around in the dark trying not to starve. At that point, the birth rate would quickly rise again, no? Because if you're back to living in a pre-industrial society, kids suddenly have value again. So it's likely that either there's a point of equilibrium or the population keeps swinging up and down. Total extinction seems unlikely.

geodel 4mo ago
Indeed. And in context of India since that's what Economist's article is about. Having higher population growth is just insanity to me. After destroying land, water, air, forests, mountains and still barely enough for hundreds of millions souls I am not sure how population deflation can be a important concern at this point.
NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
>At that point, the birth rate would quickly rise again, no? Hospitals failing. Caloric intake failing. Yeh sure, why not? Let's just imagine that all high technology that acutally props up reproductive success seriously strained or even vanishing will result in things magically correcting. The same attitudes that have negatively impacted fertility rates don't disappear because things get worse. They're reinforced by it. An economy that collapses because there aren't enough workers doesn't make people say "I want to have babies"... if the media is to be believed, people wait until the economy improves first. Why would that happen? >So it's likely that either there's a point of equilibrium All evidence to the contrary? We've actually run experiments with animals. After they crash, the stress and trauma imposed on them keeps them from reproducing at a behavioral level despite resources being abundant. >Total extinction seems unlikely. Based on what exactly? Your unwillingness to own up to plainly obvious but disturbing conclusions? >Because if you're back to living in a pre-industrial society, Short of time travel, we can't have a pre industrial society, as that's the society that comes at a point in history before industry. What we'd have would be a post-collapse society. They're not the same thing. They don't even resemble each other much. When moose on the island are nearly wiped out and their predators starve to death, the moose can "swing back up" because moose never have low fertility. It's something like 25.0, give or take. They have a low population not because fertility went low... they have it because baby moose get eaten or starve or die from disease. Once those pressures ease up, the 25.0 fertility is still there and population rises quite rapidly. When human fertility goes down, it means that humans can't ever bounce back. So unless you're hypothesizing some sort of thing which causes human fertility to rise paradoxically and inexplicably, this reply of yours makes no sense at all. Not even a little. By the time people like you realize how wrong you are, your species will be past the point of no return.
4mo ago

sethammons 4mo ago

This is NOT human extinction. Just the collapse of global modernity. Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? "Guess we wont try to live like people have for the last x million years, here is a good place to lay down and die."

NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
>Why would the last group of N people not subsistence farm? Why would they be able to reinvent that, when none of their ancestors for how many generations did so? Is that something a person can do well, do you think, with no prior experience or expertise? What if they get it wrong, they'll starve? We could ask why they could reinvent all the technologies that people from prior eras of agriculture could manage? Will they instantly be able to make their own ropes, do you think? Have you ever made rope? Does it not count as technology if it's not a transistor etched into a silicon wafer? But previous eras of history did utilized that quite a bit for their agriculture. Are they supposed to make due without? There must be a hundred different things they won't know how to do, but were necessary for agriculture in any era of history you might name, but that you can't name because you know nothing about it. Technologies, ones so mundane that you don't even recognize they exist, permeate the world. They're lost and then they're gone because a replacement was better. But when the replacement disappears, those lost technologies don't spring back into existence magically. Civilization is "path dependent", it doesn't get knocked back to previous tiers because those previous tiers cease to exist once we've moved on to the next. And it's really hilarious to me that not only are you ignorant of this, but you're snarky about it too.
- sethammons 4mo ago
  People live in the alaskan bush. QED
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
    Does a full, capable, lively civilization live in the Alaskan bush? Or is just a few grizzled assholes doing it to prove that they can? And do those assholes have enough spare time and effort and interest to raise families? Any women of reproductive age out there with them? If not, this probably isn't the model that proves that human extinction is an unreasonable worry.

trumpdong 4mo ago

Why do you think nothing will change in 350 years? Where were we 350 years ago? We thought population was stable back then with less than 1 billion people. Is it plausible that things will change again in the next 350? I think so. I think at least one thing changes about the world in every 350 years.