The Population Bust • Hacker News Board

Re: The Population Bust

#121

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:22 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #104

lotsofpulp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productivity increases due to automation go to the owners of capital. Many individual’s productivity is not going up, therefore they are worth less.

That’s actually not true. The Baumol cost disease means that people who are not actually more productive in their current roles (eg orchestral clarinetists) still make more money because of productivity growth elsewhere. You couldn’t possibly pay an orchestral clarinetist as much today as you did in 1800 because they’d just quit and do literally anything else for a living. You have to pay them more.

On a scale from 1800 to now, we are all better off. But if you look at the past 20 years in the us, we are clearly not benefiting all of society. Arguing that the avg clarinetist is slightly better off today compared to 1970 doesn't account for the fact that many many other people haven't had an increase, but they've had a decrease in their standard of living.

Re: The Population Bust

#122

Post by Zanni » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

yters wrote: post #117

Aperocky wrote: post #3

Soon it won't matter what the population is, automation will sweep through all industries, what you see today in automation is what people 30 years ago see in computers - slow, cumbersome, expensive. That's going to change.

What's the point of automating everything if there are no more people? I think ultimately people are the source of happiness for people. Material things are just an intermediary in the happiness exchange. So, if we get rid of people to replace them with material things we will become less happy. Plus, it isn't obvious that all the important stuff can be automated.

I find my joy in people is inversely related to their quantity. If I'm hiking a sparsely populated trail, then anyone I meet is worth a conversation. If I'm on a crowded subway, I do my best to shut everyone out. At a minimum, I think joy is conserved. But I suspect it would actually increase if there were fewer people (up to a point).

Re: The Population Bust

#123

Post by toasterlovin » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:31 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #101

toasterlovin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heritability of fertility is about 50%, I believe. So about half of the variance in number of offspring is genetic. The remainder is other stuff: culture, chance, etc. I would imagine that the genetic component is multi faceted. Some of it might be a desire to have children. Some of it might be a resistance to certain ideas or lifestyles that result in fewer offspring (if that seems far fetched, consider first th…

But also consider that it’s hard to experimentally separate cultural and genetic influences because most children are raised and hence inculturated by at least one of their genetic parents.

There are natural occurring experiments which overcome this called twins. Studies of twins are what’s usually involved in figuring out the genetic component of a characteristic or behavior.

Re: The Population Bust

#124

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:41 AM UTC

The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.

-- Norman Borlaug, "Father of the Green Revolution", Nobel Peace Prize acceptance lecture. December 11, 1970

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1970/borlaug/lecture...

Re: The Population Bust

#125

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #81

philwelch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we’re nowhere near the theoretical limits of our own solar system yet.

We're closer than most people think. Isaac Asimov's essay "The Power of Progression" from his monthly science column in the May 1960 issue of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", and reprinted in the collect "The Stars in Their Courses" in 1971 [1], goes through the math for how long it would take to reach various population levels at the rate the population was growing at the time. It was doubling every 47…

>That's slowed down to about every 63 years currently

The global fertility rate is 2.426, which is barely above the replacement rate. The population continues to grow primarily because the people who have already been born have good life expectancies. The UN forecasts that the population will reach a maximum of 10-12 billion by 2100, driven mainly by increasing life expectancy in the developed world. Key quote:

Two-thirds of the projected growth of the global population through 2050 will be driven by current age structures. It would occur even if childbearing in high-fertility countries today were to fall immediately to around two births per woman over a lifetime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_momentum

https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig...

Re: The Population Bust

#126

Post by mirimir » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:02 AM UTC

Aperocky wrote: post #3

Soon it won't matter what the population is, automation will sweep through all industries, what you see today in automation is what people 30 years ago see in computers - slow, cumbersome, expensive. That's going to change.

Yes, if all goes well. And if global climate change doesn't crash technological society.

> If the world ahead has fewer people, will there be any real economic growth?

Of course there will. As long as per capita usage of energy and stuff increases faster than population decreases. Basically this will continue the concentration of wealth ~indefinitely.

I mean, consider Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime. Even the poorest people consume as much as many nations do now.

Re: The Population Bust

#127

Post by billner » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #48

toasterlovin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer to reserve as much of the country for my own descendants as possible, thanks. That’s what this country is: territory that our ancestors have bestowed upon us so we can have a place to live. We should do the same for our descendants, instead of just giving it away to whoever wants it. The rest of the humans on this planet already have their own countries.

>The rest of the humans on this planet already have their own countries. Do you not see the historical irony? Your (presumably European) ancestors had their own countries too. So did the inhabitants of the Americas before white people arrived there from 'their own countries'.

I've never understood this argument. How long does a territory need to be occupied for before the natives of that area can call it "their country."

Every country has a starting point, the USA's is just more recent.

Re: The Population Bust

#128

Post by drivebycomment » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:19 AM UTC

_0ffh wrote: post #82

reidacdc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm missing something, the Gompertz function you refer to has an implicit model that the organism's population stabilizes because of Malthusian constraints, a lack of some kind of resource. But birth rates have been declining in first-world countries for a long time in the absence of this kind of constraint, and the Foreign Affairs article specifically notes that both Malthus and Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bom…

I think western population development has gone sustainable largely due to social advancements re women. Not all parts of the world have yet had that kind of progress, and are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way. Unless we manage to export this kind of progress, I fear we will not be able to avoid all overpopulation issues. One problem is that costly (in loss of lives) regional wars over resources and t…

> Not all parts of the world have yet had that kind of progress, and are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way. Unless we manage to export this kind of progress, I fear we will not be able to avoid all overpopulation issues.

This is simply not true. Not even close.

I recommend watching:

https://www.gapminder.org/videos/will-saving-poor-children-l...

or, if you can spend more time,

https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-...

or any of Hans Rosling's TED talks. And you'll find that your statement I quoted above is simply wrong.

Re: The Population Bust

#129

Post by billner » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

BubRoss wrote: post #116

newvoiceoldphne wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to slow the pace of immigration, to preserve our culture.

To preserve what 'culture' exactly? When you say 'our' who are you referring to?

Obviously he means the American culture and by our he means Americans. There's no denying that if immigration is high enough, and assimilation poor enough, culture will change very quickly. Not saying its the case in the US but it's simple to understand what he meant.

Re: The Population Bust

#130

Post by drivebycomment » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:26 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #81

philwelch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we’re nowhere near the theoretical limits of our own solar system yet.

We're closer than most people think. Isaac Asimov's essay "The Power of Progression" from his monthly science column in the May 1960 issue of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", and reprinted in the collect "The Stars in Their Courses" in 1971 [1], goes through the math for how long it would take to reach various population levels at the rate the population was growing at the time. It was doubling every 47…

See the sibling comment by jdietrich. And if you are still not convinced, this short video: https://www.gapminder.org/answers/how-reliable-is-the-world-... and, if you're interested more on why the forecast is so flat, I highly recommend taking the test at gapminder.org then watching Hans' TED talks.