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Selfish reasons to want more humans

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Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#221

Post by alexey-salmin »

caskstrength wrote: post #214
alexey-salmin wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's the case. If you have truly free energy then transformation of matter in whatever you want it to be becomes a purely technological question. And in any case, having spaceships and no avocado is much better than the inverse.

> I don't think it's the case. If you have truly free energy then transformation of matter in whatever you want it to be becomes a purely technological question. Some purely technological problems are hard to solve. There is already a market for (very expensive) meat substitutes and they taste like crap. If you are talking about some sci-fi "replicator" tech that will just "synthesize" you and avocado, then I'm not s…

A trillion of humans is not short-term either

> Much better for whom? OP said they like "nice things". I would also prefer avocados to spaceships since I'm not that interested in space travel without FTL.

For humans and for avocados. The sun is doomed and so are they, unless we manage to scale our available energy by many orders of magnitude.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#222

Post by synecdoche »

dave4420 wrote: post #219
synecdoche wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about providing concrete methods for reducing population? Exactly how do you propose to reduce population and who should be forced to not have children first? Should we assume that you will lead by example?

The global population is projected to go down to 6 billion by the end of the century, without any coercion or policy changes. This drives people like the author of the article mad, because they think we should do something to prevent that.

> The global population is projected to go down to 6 billion by the end of the century, without any coercion or policy changes.

I agree. So where is the problem? Replacement is a problem in many parts of the world on the other hand.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#223

Post by sokoloff »

collyw wrote: post #190
throwaway047278 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of thinking happening in the world depends on the amount of human brains available, and their level of education and knowledge It seems to me that most of today's high impact "minds" come from relatively wealthy families compared to the world's average. They come from a small pool of candidates, compared to the vast world population as a whole that don't have the same opportunities. We basically throw aw…

Wealthy families mean you are able to take risks with your ideas, while the rest of us need to play it safer if we want to pay our rent.

Is there any possible correlation between high rents and high population?

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#224

Post by Depurator »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #158
Depurator wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, it was just more of a general criticism toward such a view, as leading to long term degradation of the world. I totally get how humans would always protitize humanity first, but in the long term we have some issues such as overfishing, global warming, biodiversity loss etc. as a result. But the esiest would of course to not belive in thos issues, and have cool toys

You can't even define "degradation" without humans around. The planet itself doesn't care, nor does the fish. Extending human empathy to non-human processes is peak anthropocentrism.

Or we can assume that the state of the world before humans was a state that we have deviated from though human agency, and it is reasonable to remedy some of that irreversible trajectory would be a good cause that some other intelligent species could undertake after we're gone.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#225

Post by nielsbot »

> The carrying capacity of the planet is not fixed, but a function of technology; and side effects such as pollution or climate change are just more problems to be solved. As long as we can keep coming up with new ideas, growth can continue.

There are a lot of big ifs in this statement.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#226

Post by alexey-salmin »

vasco wrote: post #213
alexey-salmin wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't even define "degradation" without humans around. The planet itself doesn't care, nor does the fish. Extending human empathy to non-human processes is peak anthropocentrism.

I think you can define degradation. I can make objective claims that less biodiversity is worse than more biodiversity and use it to measure degradation without humans around. I can measure this degradation in planets without humans or model out the degradation in a future where humans are extinct, and call certain situations objectively worse than others under that yardstick. Maybe I misunderstood because it seems y…

> I can make objective claims that less biodiversity is worse than more biodiversity and use it to measure degradation without humans around.

While the amount of biodiversity can be measured objectively, the notion of it being "good" is completely made up. You need humans to judge what's "good" and which means that for any "good" kind of future humans are essential and are more important than say biodiversity.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#227

Post by Depurator »

educaysean wrote: post #148
Depurator wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, it was just more of a general criticism toward such a view, as leading to long term degradation of the world. I totally get how humans would always protitize humanity first, but in the long term we have some issues such as overfishing, global warming, biodiversity loss etc. as a result. But the esiest would of course to not belive in thos issues, and have cool toys

So more humans is value neutral but more earth-like planets is value positive? Your standards seem bizarre. Can you please elaborate?

As i replied to the sibling comment, coming from another species perspective it would be reasonable to assume that a world optimized to fulfill the need of another species, such as humans would be seen as negative. It's not like they can enact their discontent, so i would argue we have to account for other species as well when we remodel the natural world.

Evolutionary adaptation takes a while, so its not nice to change things fast.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#228

Post by sokoloff »

em-bee wrote: post #202
collyw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

yes, but this only goes as far as being able to explain the difference between humans and other animals. it doesn't at all explain the differences between different humans because other factors are so strong that so far we have not been able to isolate genetic differences as a factor in human intelligence. even twin studies have been flawed in this regard.

If we had to wager whether there was any genetic component to intelligence differences among humans, I think the safe wager is on “there is some” over “there is none”.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#229

Post by sokoloff »

Jensson wrote: post #123
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.

Lots of people get tutored without becoming geniuses, hence tutoring isn't enough to make geniuses. Also many geniuses didn't have tutoring, they need wealthy enough families to afford public school which used to be a high bar but today most people gets it even if you include poor countries.

> they need wealthy enough families to afford public school

Note that what the UK origin term “public schools” means is not the same as what that means in other countries, which can confuse these discussions in a global forum. (In the US, we’d call that “private school”.)

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#230

Post by sokoloff »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #29
defrost wrote: post #22

More ambitious projects need a certain critical mass of resources behind them. Ancient Egyptian civilization built a large irrigation system to make the best use of the Nile floodwaters for agriculture, a feat that would not have been possible to a small tribe or chiefdom. This doesn't mean people, we're no longer bound by labour intensive solutions. I live in a single state with a tiny population that mines and ship…

It’s either labor or capital (to buy/dev those machines). Frankly, if it’s capital and we haven’t transitioned to something closer to socialism or even communism, it isn’t going to end very well for us workers.

History suggests that communism doesn’t end very well for workers, arguably even less well.
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