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The world might run out of people

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Re: The world might run out of people

#11

Post by dahfizz »

collyw wrote: post #6
whack wrote: post #2

Our economy and intellectual progress is massively predicated on specialisation of labor. When I consider any single aspect of our life, even something as "simple" as how elevators work, it's astounding the amount of complexity that goes into it. Complexity that we can handle because we divvy it up amongst many many people who are completely specialized in understanding and fulfilling that task. Gradual increases in…

>entire fields of practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever. Plenty of examples of that happening as a result of technology.

Can you give an example? Technology may remove the need for physical skills, but I don't really see how it would wipe out fields of knowledge.

Re: The world might run out of people

#12

Post by seatdrummer »

alecco wrote: post #4

A world with declining population. Full of old people due to population pyramid inverted. Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots, as those are the only groups with fertility rates above replacement level.

I think you are experiencing the same gene pool concerns a racist would experience.

In the end the only thing one can really do it have your own kids.

Re: The world might run out of people

#13

Post by watwut »

pasta wrote: post #9
adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800).

Citation needed, especially since we are talking about much different cultures.

Re: The world might run out of people

#14

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pasta wrote: post #9
adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800).

I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.

Re: The world might run out of people

#15

Post by pjc50 »

Sigh. Someone has a book to sell by going against conventional wisdom, and the classic approach of taking a small trend and drawing a huge long straight line through it. It's not really surprising that this has happened, given the extent of efforts to reduce birth rates as a way out of poverty.

Re: The world might run out of people

#17

Post by Robotbeat »

joshuacc wrote: post #10
alecco wrote: post #4

A world with declining population. Full of old people due to population pyramid inverted. Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots, as those are the only groups with fertility rates above replacement level.

Everyone who wants more than 2.1 kids is stupid, impulsive, or a religious zealot? That seems unlikely.

No, but it is true that groups with higher birth rates in spite of having middle class lifestyle tend to be religious.

there are lots of stupid, impulsive religious zealots with quiverfuls. But also a lot of wonderful, loving religious folks with quiverfuls.

I wish there were more other types who had a birthrate above replacement, but outside of religious circles, having more than 2 kids is rare and even considered uncouth.

If lots of couples have 1 or no kids and lots of people aren't even in couples, then we're going to need a LOT of people having 3 or more kids. But we aren't. Especially among the non-religious.

It could be that in the future, religion is a social trait selected for because it leads to higher birth rates.

I haven't seen a lot of introspection on this idea that doesn't quickly verge into, um, questionable rhetoric, and I'd like to see a lot more of it.

Re: The world might run out of people

#18

Post by sametmax »

I haven't heard of a specie disapearing primarily because it didn't have enough babies.

Even the giant panda, before arriving to this situation, had seen their forests devasted by us.

So at best, I expect our specie to mess up in some big ways, then maybe, the finish blow will be reproduction.

Yet I doubt it.

First, other threats have a way higher likelyhood. India has no water, terrible social tension, instable border situations and the nuclear bomb. We killed 60% of the insects. There are microparticules of plastic everywhere in the oceans. Not to mention climat change, our mad scientist attitude towards everything, and the systematic conversion of limited natural assets into short term cash machines.

Second, fertility is something we have been working on for some time now, and our mad, but smart, scientists are pretty good at it.

Lastly, I even doubt that natural fertility will ever be a permanent problem. Nature has cycles to regular species population, and may impose on us some drastic mesure, but like all cycles, it goes back to where it was.

Re: The world might run out of people

#19

Post by rficcaglia »

dahfizz wrote: post #11
collyw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>entire fields of practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever. Plenty of examples of that happening as a result of technology.

Can you give an example? Technology may remove the need for physical skills, but I don't really see how it would wipe out fields of knowledge.

navigate by stars and moon and position of the sun vs chronometers vs gps?

Re: The world might run out of people

#20

Post by Robotbeat »

pjc50 wrote: post #15

Sigh. Someone has a book to sell by going against conventional wisdom, and the classic approach of taking a small trend and drawing a huge long straight line through it. It's not really surprising that this has happened, given the extent of efforts to reduce birth rates as a way out of poverty.

This is the same argument that has been used for decades and centuries to worry about population explosion, though. Was that mere book selling? We've now seen a trend of below replacement in places like Japan lasting for decades now, and they've luckily been able to change their society to be more welcoming to immigrants in order to compensate, but that only works if there are countries with higher birth rates to compensate.
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