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Basement Fertility

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Re: Basement Fertility

#101

Post by tablespoon »

moonchrome wrote: post #40
mikkergp wrote: post #11

Is there a version of economic thought that doesn't necessitate constant population growth? Why is low fertility rate seen as a bad thing? Often engineering is argued in terms of tradeoffs or meeting certain requirements. Rather than follow economic theories that depend on growth, can we develop economic theories that adapt to the trends of the population rather than the other way around(Musks' need for cheap labor n…

>Why is low fertility rate seen as a bad thing? Because you'll live way past your productive years and the things you will consume (services, goods, medical, etc.) still need to be produced/done by someone. The automation aspect in economy has been way overestimated - truck drivers were supposed to be automated 5 years ago, meanwhile we are facing real world issues because of truck driver shortages. Even jobs that we…

> The automation aspect in economy has been way overestimated - truck drivers were supposed to be automated 5 years ago, meanwhile we are facing real world issues because of truck driver shortages.

I wonder how much of that shortage is due to over-hyped predictions about future automation? The predictions don't pan out but succeed at discouraging people from joining the profession.

> Even jobs that were considered trivial to automate like cashers are still performed by humans - after decades of self checkout tech.

Self-checkout is not actually automation. It's just outsourcing the job of cashier to a customer who then works for free.

Re: Basement Fertility

#102

Post by tablespoon »

entropi wrote: post #57
moonchrome wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is low fertility rate seen as a bad thing? Because you'll live way past your productive years and the things you will consume (services, goods, medical, etc.) still need to be produced/done by someone. The automation aspect in economy has been way overestimated - truck drivers were supposed to be automated 5 years ago, meanwhile we are facing real world issues because of truck driver shortages. Even jobs that we…

Ok, but you realize this requires indefinite exponential growth, right?

> Ok, but you realize this requires indefinite exponential growth, right?

No, it probably just means population declines need be very slow and graceful (e.g. very close to steady-state) in order to not create big labor shortages simultaneous with large retiree populations.

Re: Basement Fertility

#103

Post by moonchrome »

entropi wrote: post #100
moonchrome wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ? You're not living forever - and nobody is arguing for high fertility rates. Having 2-3 kids per generation sounds perfectly sustainable. 0 or 1 does not.

So, imagine x couples, each of whom has 3 kids in their lifetimes. In 80 years, there are now 3x/2 couples. In 160, there are 9x/4. There are now 11 billion people. Every 150 or so years, having 3 kids roughly doubles the population. (A better model would be a birth/death process with a #kids distribution with a mean 3 and death age with a mean 80, but not necessary to make my point, I think.) This is exponantial gro…

Not everyone survives or has children - which is why I said 2-3 - it has to be above 2 for replacement, it's not a new concept - lookup replacement fertility rate

Re: Basement Fertility

#104

Post by finiteseries »

User23 wrote: post #76
finiteseries wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Subsaharan Africa is going to keep human population growth going to at least ten billion persons by 2100[1], even with China[2] and the rest of the world's reduced population growth[3]. [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9... [2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/1... [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

That isn’t the measure of growth people are worried about, tap Growth Rate on each of [1], [2], and [3].

Subsaharan Africa was completely bypassed by the Green Revolution and largely lacks access to basic infrastructure like eg consistent electricity (outside portable fuel powered generators) on the typical small, family, partly subsistence based farm.

It’s not a solved problem with all the geographical and political issues, but it’s quite literally the world’s last frontier for trade.

Re: Basement Fertility

#105

Post by finiteseries »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #85
finiteseries wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Okay, and it's bad that china will depopulate? Won't every nation, eventually? Are you making like a "suffering / loss of life is bad" argument? It's hard to disagree with that, if you are. (I certainly don't.) I think you're deriding my use of "Carrying capacity" as an archaic concept, but your retort is that we're "creating ecosystems." But, every organism within an ecosystem "creates" it just by existing as part o…

Yes, having 4 retired grandparents and 2 retired parents supported by 1 working adult with 0 young children, at scale, is generally bad.

Worrying about the ideal balance of births : deaths, today, is like worrying about ballast in a sinking ship. Insatiable growth doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t for some time, we’re squarely in flattening the curve territory with the fun twist that discharges take 18 years to raise.

Re: Basement Fertility

#106

Post by scythe »

Jolter wrote: post #52

These two maps, taken in conjunction, do not provide a good argument for housing deregulation. Even if we accept that the maps correlate quite well (and ignore whether there is any causal link), there is an assumption that the author is not stating plainly: that housing deregulation leads to young people being able to move out of their parent’s basement. Look at the Scandinavian, very deep green countries at the top…

Using the regulatory environment as a proxy for housing prices is a very noisy signal. Of the Scandinavian countries, three are relatively flat; the other, Norway, has the third highest median income at PPP in the world (after UAE/.ch) thanks to its oil reserves. All have very low population densities by European standards. These factors should improve housing affordability in any regulatory environment.

Re: Basement Fertility

#107

Post by spullara »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #44

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

Less than replacement means we go extinct eventually and while that is happening we don't have enough people to support those that leave the workforce as they age.

Re: Basement Fertility

#108

Post by scythe »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #44

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

>What's the "right" value for TFR?

Probably somewhere between 1.8 and 2.2. Rapid increases or declines in population create economic disruptions. Even if you favor a less (or more!) populated world, it's better for us to get there slowly.

Re: Basement Fertility

#109

Post by antisthenes »

antiverse wrote: post #60
helen___keller wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic. GP and the response from female POV are regarding living in the elders’ house, not the husbands house.

That distinction is not worth burying the comment. It was an earnest response, and a valid one at that.

I don't see it being buried (author), it seems to stand at neutral karma.

But usually such opinions are fairly controversial, which suggests a clash of deeper underlying values.

Re: Basement Fertility

#110

Post by Gatsky »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #44

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

Well it's more that the aging demographics of current civillisation is unprecdented in human history... it's one of those 'experiments' we run on ourselves without much consent or thought. I like to use the example of the invention of the mirror. We take it for granted now, but being able to see and carefully examine your appearance in private multiple times a day has had a huge impact on many facets of human life, probably net negative I would say. How much anguish and folly has arisen from seeing only our surfaces in perfect detail? Narcissus had to look at his reflection in water, but the myth isn't even worth telling these days.

The social, cultural and economic implications of an older population are very likely to be profound. A rapid demographic 'crunch' is not a good idea. One example is that nobody is quite sure how to keep funding socialised healthcare and support aged care in the face of a transition to an increasingly elderly and infirm population who don't earn income. We will see it playing it out initially between countries with older demographics (Italy, Japan) and younger demographics (India, African nations, even the USA is relatively young).

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