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Selfish reasons to want more humans

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Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#191

Post by rtz121 »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #74
jewelry wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

intelligence is a lottery at birth, assuming the education system is good enough at identify talents of all kind. and with the world especially Asian countries better at this, I think we do need more human to maintain the current talents pool.

It is not. There is a part of genetics, like most things, but if you look at past geniuses, there is a common pattern, wealthy enough families able to afford tutors. Tutoring is what makes geniuses, not lottery.

I could just as well argue that those families have better genetic material and that is why they are wealthy.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#192

Post by throwaway047278 »

vunderba wrote: post #124
stephc_int13 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. There is a part of genetics, like most things, but if you look at past geniuses, there is a common pattern, wealthy enough families able to afford tutors. Tutoring is what makes geniuses, not lottery.

No, it certainly does not. Obviously, a higher socioeconomic background means increased resources and dedicated attention to education which certainly helps, but genius, in the true sense of the word needs a good starting foundation, and that probably has a significant genetic component. Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Ramanujan were all child prodigies without exceptional access to tutors and other educational resources. If…

Einstein actually did have a tutor (Max Talmey). Any access to tutors at the time was exceptional, as the majority of families could not afford that.

Einstein was also raised in a family that can not be described as average.

His father had an interest in mathematics and founded 2 electrical engineering companies

His mother was well-educated and worked as a piano player. She made Albert begin violin lessons at the age of five.

It seems to me that Albert Einstein did not grow up under average conditions. His family had some financial issues, but was able to give him a good education.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#193

Post by collyw »

adrian_b wrote: post #173
ido wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of people living in good conditions is also higher than it ever was. In fact the % of people living poverty world wide is decreasing while world population is increasing.

That depends a lot on how you define "good conditions". My grandparents did not have television or computers, but they (and most people from their village) had a much bigger house and garden than I could ever afford and they were eating much better food than I can find anywhere in a city now, despite having nominally much lower revenues than I have today. Some of their tastiest fruit cultivars might have completely d…

Look at the third world for your examples. I do agree that living standards are going down in developed countries in many metrics.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#194

Post by collyw »

em-bee wrote: post #174
vunderba wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it certainly does not. Obviously, a higher socioeconomic background means increased resources and dedicated attention to education which certainly helps, but genius, in the true sense of the word needs a good starting foundation, and that probably has a significant genetic component. Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Ramanujan were all child prodigies without exceptional access to tutors and other educational resources. If…

i don't agree with the genetic argument but with your other point. producing geniuses is not a billion dollar industry because we don't yet even know how to teach to that. but that doesn't mean that we could not improve teaching and peoples potential massively. china used to have a billion dollar tutoring industry (ok, i don't know if it was a billion, but china is huge so it's possible) until a change of laws shut i…

It seems fairly obvious that there is a genetic element to intelligence, otherwise animals would be as intelligent as humans.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#195

Post by scotty79 »

abigail95 wrote: post #157
hcfman wrote: post #149

Unbelievable! The only way you could possibly argue that more humans is good if you also believe that it’s perfectly fine to wipe out all other species on the planet. The most true thing about this thread is the word selfish.

Is the world worse off because you exist in it? What should people who care about the planet do about that?

Of course it's worse off. An people should do whatever the law and mortality allows them to do.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#196

Post by collyw »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #166
stephc_int13 wrote: post #34

I strongly disagree, while technology clearly helped us growing, there are always tradeoffs, even agriculture is not ideal. We can solve some problems but it is almost never « for free » and the cost is newer problems to solve. I think there is a compounding effect with population growth, and I don’t think that population can grow forever on a single planet, that is nonsense. How much is enough? My intuition is that…

You just looked at the current number, arbitrarily added some margin on both sides and assumed it's the "sweet spot". Congratulations, you're at the same level of thinking as 17th, 18th and 19th centuries philosophers.

I was thinking along those lines. No reason given for the number, pretty much pulled it out of thin air. When I was growing up we were told we would have too much population and wouldn't be able to feed ourselves. Now obesity seems like a bigger problem. Obviously infinite growth isn't possible, but where the actual number lies, I honestly have no idea.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#197

Post by gherkinnn »

darth_avocado wrote: post #41

The population already exists. But we don’t see that many geniuses working on ambitious projects because they are working minimum wage jobs or wasting away without education in Africa, India, China, or downtown LA. We don’t have a population problem, just a utilization problem.

And in other parts of the world, geniuses are found, educated, only to waste away optimising ads on websites.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#199

Post by Thiez »

luckystarr wrote: post #165
chaostheory wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you described is still human centric. Nature has survived several extinction level events and I’m sure it will survive more. If humanity changes the current environment enough, then it will no longer be the once ideal environment to that continues to sustain humanity indefinitely. Going on a tangent, a lot of environmentalists have a marketing problem.

Nature will die with 100% certainty. That is a verified fact due to the coming life-cycle changes of our sun. Nothing will survive that. Only humans have a chance to save "nature" by bringing life along to the stars. Not sure if we will be able to pull it off, but I see no other option.

Sure! On the other hand, if we kill ourselves off before that happens, for example by making the planet unlivable for humans, then that chance is also gone. Getting to that level of technological advancement is a marathon, not a sprint.
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