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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#211

Post by gavindean90 »

mycall wrote: post #207
illiac786 wrote: post #120

I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate. “Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward. That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast. Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.

I thought greenhouse gasses will increase in concentration as the feedback loop of polar region is forcing trapped gasses out of the ground.

I thinks that’s been predicted but not observed thus far.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#213

Post by throwawaymaths »

grecy wrote: post #27
iiovemiku wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

it's scary because our form of capitalism (growth capitalism) is not the right type of capitalism for that situation. And, policymakers don't seem to fully grasp that you need to prepare ahead for demographic shifts (for example, china deciding to try to goose population growth by substituting one-child for "please make the state three+ babies" as if that doesn't only help after at least two decades)

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#214

Post by faeriechangling »

skissane wrote: post #133
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside the considerable statistical skepticism, the natural next question we all have at noticing these trends is - is there any way for secular society to get some of the "special sauce" these ultra-religious groups have, before the aggregate supply of everything starts to fall? Secular pronatalism doesn't seem like it has a lot of staying power with most people as an ideology. But I've been on board for a lo…

I’m sceptical about how successful secular pronatalism can be. Large families, generation after generation, can come at a substantial personal cost, and it is a difficult sell for individuals if it is just a matter of principle, as opposed to something backed by promises and threats of post mortem reward and punishment. Furthermore, many religious pronatal groups reduce defections by socially ostracising and demonisi…

I don't see it as all that hard to imagine secular pronatalism. You just need the non-parents to subsidise the parents. We saw several examples of this under communism.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#215

Post by faeriechangling »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #152
skissane wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sceptical about how successful secular pronatalism can be. Large families, generation after generation, can come at a substantial personal cost, and it is a difficult sell for individuals if it is just a matter of principle, as opposed to something backed by promises and threats of post mortem reward and punishment. Furthermore, many religious pronatal groups reduce defections by socially ostracising and demonisi…

True, true. The evil vizier-economist's answer would be to notice that statisticians tend to estimate the value of a human life at around $10 million on average, and then notice that raising a child in the United States costs a paltry $250,000 or so over 18 years, and finally start to wonder how they can facilitate smoothing out that discrepancy across space and time to the parents' benefit. I"m not crazy enough to t…

I rarely run into a person that values their own life as high as 10 million dollars, unless they're quite wealthy.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#216

Post by robohydrate »

nostrademons wrote: post #208

It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions. But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, de…

I've been playing Fortnite almost every night for 5+ years because it is more interesting than doomscrolling on my phone!

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#217

Post by 2four2 »

detourdog wrote: post #210
nostrademons wrote: post #208

It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions. But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, de…

It might be more like the "dark ages". The people got along we don't know what they were doing but the result was the "renaissance".

The growth in power of megacorporations has been coined a new type of feudalism, so dark ages might not be a bad description.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#218

Post by snapcaster »

BurningFrog wrote: post #203
grecy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?

A big dividing line is between those who think people are a burden vs those who think they're an asset. I've grown convinced people are overwhelmingly an asset. In a rough sense that means they/we produce more value than they consume on average. I think debates about population size are mostly really about this difference.

Thanks for putting this so well, I think that is the divide as well. I've struggled to express this idea without being too offensive to the "liability" camp but i think you've made it more clear and less emotionally charged

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#219

Post by faeriechangling »

cs702 wrote: post #175
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...

I'm not sure "peak baby" is a good thing, but agree with you that the other three peaks are encouraging. Arguments by smart people like Sabine Hossenfelder have led me to question the conventional wisdom on population growth. For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 .

A shrinking population is fine, this planet has its limits.

A rapidly shrinking population is not ideal.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#220

Post by snapcaster »

casercaramel144 wrote: post #115
Lammy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think its coherent to measure things from aggregate utilitarian POV I do, because second-person collectively-singular Humanity is a living thing all its own, and the more humans there are the more alive We are. Your argument is the anthropological equivalent of “640K ought to be enough for anybody”.

So by the tyranny of exponential growth, we should just start building massive breeding factories and forceably enslaving people randomly matching them to have children? Because this could actually be the optimal policy if we take your view of "second persons" to it's optimum. In your world governments forceably breed humans like chickens in massive factory farms churning out people to the carrying capacity of the pl…

You think maybe there could be a pretty large spectrum of solutions between stopping population growth and massive forced breeding factories?
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