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The world might run out of people

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Re: The world might run out of people

#71

Post by rainworld »

Quoting Spandrell:

At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intelligence go to get shredded in the corporate and bureaucratic rat-race, depriving humanity of the biological building blocks for a better future.

Re: The world might run out of people

#72

Post by arthurcamara »

The article makes it sound like a journalist traveled around 26 countries (~10% of countries), interviewed only a handful of people in each (the ones they could reach), and concluded that UN's demographic projections - formulated with tons of data, academic methodologies, and carefully crafted by statisticians and global development experts - are wrong

The article and book sound pretty biased and clickbaity from what I can tell so far.

I'll stick with the UN for now ;)

Re: The world might run out of people

#73

Post by grigjd3 »

sametmax wrote: post #18

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 bord…

Might want to look into pandas. They're not quite just going extinct from a low birth rate, but that's definitely an issue for them.

Re: The world might run out of people

#74

Post by ggggtez »

pqokdwpokqp wrote: post #56
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.

>Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots, They are so stupid, yet everyone else let themselves be out-bred by them? I think if that happens in the long-term, it more or less suggests "religious zealots" have adapted better.

Pew's numbers [0] predict greater than normal increase in Muslims over the next 30 years, by percentage of the world population.

I'm not suggesting that all muslims are "religious zealots", but yes, growth of population sections by religion is a real thing. On the other hand atheists are expected to stay the same, or even decline. No one can say what percent of people are going to be "zealots", but you could say it's hard to be a "religious zealot" without a religion. So, it seems likely, all other things being equal, that yes, religious zealotry (and all religious activity) will increase.

[0] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-201...

Re: The world might run out of people

#75

Post by Nav_Panel »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

What a terrible quote, horrible in the sense of reducing Man to the sum of his capability to build ever greater machines. Surely intelligence bears no relation to goodness!

I find Spandrell (and Land, who helped popularize the idea) atrocious.

Re: The world might run out of people

#76

Post by [deleted] »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

[deleted]

Re: The world might run out of people

#77

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

dmitriid wrote: post #67
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Cultures have nothing to do with it. See Hans Rosling's talk on this [1] or see it yourself in data [2]. As soon as education, medicine, economic situation improves, you get a drop to ~2 children per woman across all cultures. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

While I see that there is a definite trend, if culture had nothing to do with it, why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more children? And I see a ton of groups there that have the highest life expectancy and < 2 children, all Asian countries. That seems to indicate that 2 is not in fact a magic number at all.

Re: The world might run out of people

#78

Post by bparsons »

Important to note that these two authors wrote another book in 2013, claiming that Canada would never elect a Liberal government again, because of demographics or something.

This was 18 months before the Liberals won a massive majority.

https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Shift-Canadian-Politics-Business/d...

Re: The world might run out of people

#79

Post by sp527 »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

Not sure how he’s defining replacement, and but the target for a stable population would have to be over 2.

Re: The world might run out of people

#80

Post by Nav_Panel »

sametmax wrote: post #18

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 bord…

Calhoun's "Beautiful Ones" study from the 1960s is the just-so story here. A rat environment is built, becomes overpopulated, and eventually the children stop breeding and the colony dies out. However, it's of dubious predictive value.
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