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Selfish reasons to want more humans

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Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#251

Post by throwanem »

dash2 wrote: post #249
defrost wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not addressed well or at depth. The current pressures global populations face due to water access and increased insulation in the atmosphere are not ones that can be magically waved away by technology in short order as population increases and increases the scale of those issues. Of course there are other challenges, but those two suffice for now.

There are links to three pages where he goes into depth.

In the sense that one might read palms among the vast array of waving hands, yes.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#252

Post by defrost »

dash2 wrote: post #249
defrost wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not addressed well or at depth. The current pressures global populations face due to water access and increased insulation in the atmosphere are not ones that can be magically waved away by technology in short order as population increases and increases the scale of those issues. Of course there are other challenges, but those two suffice for now.

There are links to three pages where he goes into depth.

Cures both the water crisis and climate crisis while also allowing unlimited population growth with increased consumption expectations across the planet?

Riiiiight.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#253

Post by idbehold »

adastra22 wrote: post #159
Jensson wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got about a billion in China, they were at the bottom end of the country gdp per capita rankings, now they are well into the upper half. The commenter probably assumed India did a similar journey, but India is still full of poverty and not even close to China, so yeah probably less than two billions combined but definitely more than a billion.

"More than a billion" is enough to add the -s in English grammar.

The parent of this comment and everything inside it is not worth reading and completely off-topic.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#254

Post by precompute »

Quality always trumps quantity, but management can make or break situations. If you're yourself exceptional but have control over a primitive civilization, you're doing okay. But if you're not a stellar performer who manages to control an advanced civilization, you've really pulled something off. All these questions about population always skirt around eugenics, but there's a good case to be made for encouraging population growth of a people that's respectful towards others and tries to minimize social conflicts. Such people are found everywhere in the world, "race" notwithstanding.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#255

Post by austin-cheney »

precompute wrote: post #254

Quality always trumps quantity, but management can make or break situations. If you're yourself exceptional but have control over a primitive civilization, you're doing okay. But if you're not a stellar performer who manages to control an advanced civilization, you've really pulled something off. All these questions about population always skirt around eugenics, but there's a good case to be made for encouraging popu…

> Quality always trumps quantity

I have never observed that in practical application.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#256

Post by usui »

moravak1984 wrote: post #206
gherkinnn wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh, this is such a cliché, like all contemporary geniuses do is maximizing CTR... Many others are doing R&D for companies producing harmful products (both for humans and the environment, even when they love to make people think they are not eco-unfriendly (looking at you, Elmo Musk)), figuring out how to "maximize profitability", even if said profitability comes from pushing people into debt, or simply keeping silent…

Yes, geniuses working on electric vehicle technology or reducing space launch costs for Elmo Musk are just like the geniuses optimizing ad technology to maximize clickthrough-rate.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#257

Post by sebmellen »

silvestrov wrote: post #186
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…

If "more people" was always better then India and Africa should be much richer than Europe. A lack of people can be an innovation driver: "hiring people is too expensive, so we have to automate everything", i.e. innovation is a must for survival.

Your reasoning is just historically uninformed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio.... There are at least a few generations of lag time between a population boom and economic effects, but Europe's former population size (and density) was the key to its current prosperity.

France would likely be more populous and therefore richer than Germany, had it not secularized earlier and thereby reduced its fertility rate. With all of Europe being highly secular and extremely low fertility, it will (sadly) lose much of its prosperity and cultural significance. Negative TFR societies are simply not sustainable - they will by definition collapse unless they aggressively revert the trend.

See https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman?t...

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#258

Post by FredPret »

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…

If biodiversity is good (and I say it is, but it’s a human judgement), then human civilization is also good, and for the same reason: it represents life, complexity, activity, and progress.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#259

Post by CatWChainsaw »

doodlebugging wrote: post #116
y0ssar1an wrote: post #58

yeah let's trash the planet at an even higher rate. let's set up more slaughterhouses to kill animals to feed all these new people, because we sure don't have enough of those /s

OT but I was just wondering, where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Probably in prison (or dead) (or dead in prison with the authorities refusing to relinquish your body to your family for "reasons"). Especially if by Snowdens you're specifically referring to whistleblowers/leakers of state secrets rather than anyone speaking truth to power.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#260

Post by mensetmanusman »

defrost wrote: post #87
ezzaf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where are those mining machines that allow this to occur manufactured? How about all the components of the mining machines? The locomotives that take all that iron ore to port? The port infrastructure? The ships that transport the ore to its overseas customers? WA and its mining wealth and efficiency wouldn't exist without a global market for both its supply and demand.

Look at all the people involved in machine manufacture, transport, mining, etc. for sure. The point being made is that more and more tonnes of raw material are being shipped to smelters per person than ever before. Automation is still advancing so this will only increase, automation is also advancing in processing and production - we no longer need vast numbers of people to produce a billion tonnes of steel, and the…

It’s possible that the machines are operating on a type of population arbitrage principle.

E.g. with much smaller markets, many small components will be uneconomical to build and will not be available to the complex machinery required to mine at scale. Therefore, they will break down and be replaced by much less efficient but easier to maintain equipment thus decreasing quality of life for everyone in a negative feedback loop.

(I’m a proponent of this belief, and expect it to apply to the semiconductor industry as well, esp. as SK/APEC engineers start to retire en masse.)

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