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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#241

Post by rrr_oh_man »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #231
jackcosgrove wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions. This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

>If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children? This right here is why I'm child free. First, My own upbringing did nothing to equip me to properly raise a child. I simply cannot trust myself to do a good job. Second, why would I bring a child into a world where each year will only be worst than the last, and their lot in life is to suffer the decline of the natural world and perhaps civi…

> First, My own upbringing did nothing to equip me to properly raise a child. I simply cannot trust myself to do a good job.

With this realisation alone you might be in the top percentiles of the population.

> I'm sure someday the future will look brighter but it sure as heck isn't today, or any time in the next 50 years.

And yet it still might be better than at least 99.98% of human history (50 out of 300k+ years).

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#242

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

rqtwteye wrote: post #78
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…

At some point we can’t rely on ever growing populations. It may be painful for a while but at some point growth has to stop.

[dead]

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#243

Post by doug_durham »

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.

This is a pretty "icky" comment. Naming specific groups that will be growing exponentially has echos of less savory characters using these arguments for political gain.

It is very unlikely that any group will have long term exponential growth. As pointed elsewhere where this type of growth doesn't scale. The groups you mention have been around for centuries and they haven't become dominant. Social cohesion falls apart over time.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#244

Post by rshannon3 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #231
jackcosgrove wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions. This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

>If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children? This right here is why I'm child free. First, My own upbringing did nothing to equip me to properly raise a child. I simply cannot trust myself to do a good job. Second, why would I bring a child into a world where each year will only be worst than the last, and their lot in life is to suffer the decline of the natural world and perhaps civi…

Isn't this the exact premise of the movie Idiocracy?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#245

Post by sophacles »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #224
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…

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions. This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

> the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred

Several of those feedback loops came from people seeing the theoretical scenario and the evidence for it mounting. Like literally the phrase "if we don't do something - this will happen" is the rallying cry. It's silly to say it was an oversight in the model that shows that things need to be done.

> If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

Something humans like to do to escape misery is: sex.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#246

Post by Lammy »

harimau777 wrote: post #94
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”.

Having more than 640Kb of RAM isn't a good in of itself, it's only good in that applications arose which required more RAM. Similarly higher population isn't a good in of itself. It seems to me that there's much less evidence that there's something that needs higher population. I don't see how higher population necessarily makes humanity as a collective organism more human. That seems like saying that an individual h…

> I don't see how

Try ketamine some time with good sensory deprivation — comfy bed, silk sleep mask, ear plugs :)

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#247

Post by spacebanana7 »

rustcleaner wrote: post #228
spacebanana7 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is like claiming gay people will "die off" in 2 generations because they don't reproduce. It's a serious and interesting question as to why evolution tolerated/encouraged homosexuality in a small but significant proportion of the population. If you have the time, this article gives a good overview of the discussion [1]. Depending on your answer to that question - along with your views about how evolution affect…

I don't think nature promoted it, but that it is a maladaptive corruption of mating systems which isn't serious enough to result in its cause disappearing from the gene pool.

If evolution is sensitive enough to give us two kidneys via some indirect impact on the number of reproductive offspring we create, why can’t it drive a “software” change to give people the desire to have heterosexual sex?

The best answer I can think of is that sexuality is somehow very fragile for evolution to calibrate, so even natural selection isn’t powerful enough to select heterosexuality reliably.

But it’s hard to argue that persuasively with a biological basis which we don’t yet have.

Compared to the other evolutionary arguments for homosexuality it also doesn’t scale well to other non reproductive sexual behaviours.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#248

Post by Lammy »

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…

> Because this could actually be the optimal policy if we take your view of "second persons" to it's optimum.

Maybe if you're evil enough to not care about any individual human's quality of life. Is there a word for the logical fallacy where you argue against the most absurd possible interpretation of a person's beliefs in order to feel no guilt for disregarding them?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#249

Post by Fatnino »

cvwright wrote: post #227
jackcosgrove wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions. This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

“life is so miserable” and yet “so many children” was basically most of human history

There's an old cemetery in Redwood City. Very roughly speaking it was active for about 100 years between 1850 and 1950.

There are multiple grave markers listing children that died under the age of 10. Like a family had a 4 year old die, then had a baby 2 years later and then 3 years later buried that baby in the same grave as their older sibling.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#250

Post by Dibby053 »

I'm skeptic.

United States. Population: 335M. Vehicles: 305M.

Germany. Population: 85M. Vehicles: 52M.

India. Population: 1428M. Vehicles: 79M.

China. Population: 1400M. Vehicles: 500M.

Ethiopia. Population: 121M. Vehicles: 1.2M.

Nigeria. Population: 230M. Vehicles: 13M.

Indonesia. Population: 279M. Vehicles: 23M.

etc.

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