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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#21

Post by silverquiet »

monero-xmr wrote: post #14
skissane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially I agree with your overall point, and about the Amish and Orthodox Jews (especially the ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic/Haredi). However, for Mormons, I'm not sure that is true. Mormons, in the US at least, have plummeting fertility rates, and also a lot of problems with retaining…

It’s also possible that secular society creates effective off-ramps to convert the hyper-religious to secular values. I’m uncertain if this will work given how successful the in-group remains despite the internet and modern social media.

God is dead and we have killed him - Nietzsche was onto this quite early into modernity.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#22

Post by Nicholas_C »

iiovemiku wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being). Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population th…

Will be very troublesome for countries with low fertility that can’t attract immigrants to keep the population from declining.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#23

Post by monero-xmr »

skissane wrote: post #19
monero-xmr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t reproduce then your genes are not passed on. You have self-selected not to be part of the human race any longer. My hunch is that the people who still decide to reproduce, despite all the reasons people who advocate for not having children talk about, likely have some sort of genetic predisposition for reproduction - a strong innate need. After all the non-breeders die off, the future belongs to the repr…

Not just in terms of selecting genes, but also selecting cultures. If allele A causes increased desire to reproduce than allele B, then in a society in which reproduction is viewed as an optional extra, all else being equal , allele A is likely to predominate allele B over time. Conversely, in a more traditional society in which everyone is subject to a strong social expectation to reproduce, allele A would have far…

It’s surprising to me why my parent comment was down voted. It’s simple biology and mathematics. If you want culture to survive (if what is most important to you is cultural values) you must have a society with children in order to impart those values. There is no future for a society that discourages children.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#24

Post by skissane »

monero-xmr wrote: post #14
skissane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially I agree with your overall point, and about the Amish and Orthodox Jews (especially the ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic/Haredi). However, for Mormons, I'm not sure that is true. Mormons, in the US at least, have plummeting fertility rates, and also a lot of problems with retaining…

It’s also possible that secular society creates effective off-ramps to convert the hyper-religious to secular values. I’m uncertain if this will work given how successful the in-group remains despite the internet and modern social media.

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews use "Kosher Internet filters" – filters that block content that isn't approved by their rabbis. In Israel, you can buy "Kosher phones" which have this software pre-installed by the telco and locked down so you can't remove it.

People assume that technology necessarily encourages secularism, but it doesn't inevitably do so. Technology also makes possible new methods of social control which can be used to suppress secularism.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#26

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

skissane wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So,…

> the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries,

I don't know if any realm of human sciences where extrapolating exponential growth yields trustworthy results, outside maybe of wealth accumulation, and even then not for 2 centuries.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#27

Post by grecy »

iiovemiku wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being). Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population th…

> Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly

Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#28

Post by DavidPiper »

skissane wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So,…

> Maybe it will actually be 2213 or 2313 instead. Our descendants (if one happens to have them) will find out.

Peak-anything is just shorthand for "the first peak on record" because our culture and ability to record-keep has only really existed in a population and resource boom period.

I agree that circumstances might mean that the global peak baby might be 200-300 years away, but the thing that makes the current round of peak-anything relevant is that we don't know how our social and economic systems will function when certain things are in long-term decline (even if they do pick up again in a few hundred years).

If we knew what a few centuries of low birth rates or low oil consumption looked like, we wouldn't be nearly as interested in what "peak-those-things" means, the same way we're not all that interested in specific market peaks because we understand the boom/bust cycles and long-term productivity increases, etc.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#29

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

bamboozled wrote: post #3

Positive on the one hand, stupid it took us this long on the other.

Posted from a huge house with air conditioning while using multiple petroleum products (iPhone/computer, chair, desk, fleece, etc). The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago. It’s easy to be in Seattle or New York and say we gotta stop burning oil and coal but there are trade offs that were worth making. If you live in a developing country without aircon those trade offs are still worth making.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#30

Post by oconnor663 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #6
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon. All of us that have kids for whatever reason chose to reproduce despite the abundance of modern society. Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially.

If we could keep running this era of civilization forever, Matrix style, I'm sure that would be true. But how many more generations will there be before AI+biotech lead to us, I don't know, 3D-printing people? The old laws might not have many cycles left to go before the new ones show up...
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