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The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

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Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#351

Post by JPLeRouzic »

triceratops wrote: post #331
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have access to the sea and to uranium you can make all the freshwater you need I don't believe that would be true on a large scale because the seaside would quickly become polluted with brine, and then having an infinite supply of uranium wouldn't help you. Desalination only works in the long term if there is an unlimited amount of body water to dilute the brine produced by the process.

Do you have to release brine directly into the seaside? What about long pipes with holes that go 50-100 kilometers into the sea? There's no question of polluting all the oceans with brine. They get freshwater from the rain and the salt came from the oceans in the first place. We aren't net destroying water molecules.

That's a very theoretical point of view. How to maintain those pipes? In two or three years, they will be full of small mollusks and other seafood.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#352

Post by w0de0 »

tartoran wrote: post #320
neaden wrote: post #317

I remember when I was younger being constantly told that the earth was destined for overpopulation. That if we didn't do things soon to curb fertility there was going to be mass starvation and death. That this was just an inevitability, a certainty unless something was done. There were so many visions of the future based on overpopulation and the problems it would bring. Now we've switched to the opposite side, I nev…

One is bad for the the earth, the other is bad for the economy.

Bad for our present (grotesque?) ecology - not bad for the Earth, nor bad for her resident life.

(If humanity decimated itself via overpopulation, Earth & her life - likely even class Mammalia - would be rather better for it, by any metric besides net intelligence.)

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#353

Post by Analemma_ »

neaden wrote: post #317

I remember when I was younger being constantly told that the earth was destined for overpopulation. That if we didn't do things soon to curb fertility there was going to be mass starvation and death. That this was just an inevitability, a certainty unless something was done. There were so many visions of the future based on overpopulation and the problems it would bring. Now we've switched to the opposite side, I nev…

The thing is, the people who were saying that were wrong even at the time. Fertility was already declining in the late 60s when The Population Bomb was released, but population was still increasing from the earlier boom, in the same way your car will continue coasting up the hill for a little while even after you release the accelerator. People were freaking out about absolute numbers, instead of extrapolating trends for the data they already had, because they were being actively misled by folks like Ehrlich.

So this is less "we believed one wrong thing, are we now believing a second wrong thing?" than "we believed one wrong thing, and corrected it to what we should have known all along".

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#354

Post by xp84 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #340
xp84 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that this is a pretty destructive choice though. Like kids/parenting or not (and even for blessed families without problems it’s always hard work), they’re inherently part of being a biological creature. Of course, individuals can opt out, but if everyone opts out, we are all dead. It’s sad that some people think that’s a good outcome, just because they’re squeamish about diaper changing or dealing with…

I notice you didn’t mention any of the health or physical risks women face in partnering up with a man, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, infant rearing (lack of sleep), loss of income and potential income due to career stagnation (meaning loss of financial security). Given what we know of how pervasive harassment and violence against women was and is, could you envision a scenario where total fertility rate neve…

> most prefer to experience 2 childbirths. A few will go for 3, in case they didn’t get a boy or girl, but the amount that want more than 3 is basically negligible.

I guess in societies that hadn't succumbed to nihilism, what people "prefer" was less of a direct line to what people would do.

> health or physical risks women face in partnering up with a man, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, infant rearing (lack of sleep),

> harassment and violence against women

> doesn’t make sense for women to partner up with the bottom 10% of men? Or even 20% of men?

It seems clear where you are coming from is about female victimhood, and yes, I agree that biologically there are inherently risks. I'd argue that Western society mitigates those with orders of magnitude less maternal childbirth mortality, and balances them with legally enforced child support and alimony. The risk to the father is that he has children with someone who will change and treat him like dirt, leaving him to choose between staying there for his child and being miserable, vs leaving and being financially ruined and potentially unable to move on.

But it's wild to me to suggest that one in five humans who are male deserve to be Forever Alone. Obviously the "bottom 20%" of women by whatever measure you think determines "worth" should be with their "bottom 20%" male counterparts.

I agree though that what you describe is what's being practiced. Studies have shown very clearly that if you get everyone rated by attractiveness (such as by polling a large group to rate each person) and ask each woman which man she would accept, even the 1s and 2s will not consider the male 1s and 2s, and in fact most will not even consider the 4s and 5s. The male 10s and 9s are all drowning in options, the 6-8s are eventually finding someone, and the 1-5s of both sexes are having a hard time forming relationships. The women are alone because they think they deserve 9s and 10s, who have "better" options and thus will only temporarily use them; and the men are alone because essentially zero women want their attention.

The outcome of the above mismatch does seem to totally make sense with collapsing fertility.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#355

Post by angmarsbane »

marssaxman wrote: post #139
angmarsbane wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been encouraging my cousin who desperately wants children to have them in her two bedroom apartment but she feels that she needs to have a house first and she and her husband can't afford one. They're in their late 30s. My partner and I are mid-30s planning to have young children in our 2 bedroom apartment, we'd prefer a 3 bedroom but they DO NOT EXIST in our Los Angeles neighborhood. More space means untenable…

This did not stop people in the past. You read of three-room New York tenements holding families of ten, or families with half a dozen children living in a single-room frontier cabin, and this was considered commonplace. My parents raised eleven children in a typical four-bedroom suburban tract house. I wonder why modern people would be different?

They didn't have birth control then so it was much less of a choice.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#356

Post by fc417fc802 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #339
fc417fc802 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's lazy reasoning. You can invert the cause and effect and it still makes perfect sense. In fact I'd say that's the more plausible theory. That people experiencing dissatisfaction for whatever reason are more likely to seek it out.

It’s also lazy reasoning to ignore all the self surveys of the youth though, the majority of them are saying it is harmful for their views of the other sex. You can decide not to believe a majority of people if you want, but rationalist assume the data is true.

You just put words in my mouth by inventing that scenario. I responded to what you wrote, not to some hypothetical that you didn't write.

> rationalist assume the data is true.

That is an utterly absurd statement. There is nothing rational about blindly believing any particular piece of data. What you are describing is a religious dogma.

If you want to bring a survey result in to argue that it supports causation in a particular direction then do so by citing it and clearly articulating the connection.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#357

Post by xp84 »

StrauXX wrote: post #141
xp84 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden grants 68 weeks of shared parental leave and their TFR is at 1.45. I speculate that a different thing is happening in Europe. Every time I hear European takes on issues, it feels like Europe is post-religion, post-values, post-meaning. Everything is relative; pleasure is the only personal goal, and not harming others is the only external goal. Why even have kids? Why get married? It's a lot of work, plus the…

The "generational guilt" theory does not check out to me at all. Coming from central Europe, I mostly hear about these rethorics from English-language sources. In non-english European media generational guilt for colonization is hardly a thing in my experience.

That makes sense. Thanks for checking me on that. My sample is biased by mostly reading US and UK stuff, as a primary English speaker.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#359

Post by lotsofpulp »

xp84 wrote: post #354
lotsofpulp wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice you didn’t mention any of the health or physical risks women face in partnering up with a man, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, infant rearing (lack of sleep), loss of income and potential income due to career stagnation (meaning loss of financial security). Given what we know of how pervasive harassment and violence against women was and is, could you envision a scenario where total fertility rate neve…

> most prefer to experience 2 childbirths. A few will go for 3, in case they didn’t get a boy or girl, but the amount that want more than 3 is basically negligible. I guess in societies that hadn't succumbed to nihilism, what people "prefer" was less of a direct line to what people would do. > health or physical risks women face in partnering up with a man, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, infant rearing (lack o…

>The risk to the father is that he has children with someone who will change and treat him like dirt, leaving him to choose between staying there for his child and being miserable, vs leaving and being financially ruined and potentially unable to move on.

Yes, there are plenty of risks for men, too.

>But it's wild to me to suggest that one in five humans who are male deserve to be Forever Alone.

I did not intend to imply anything about “deserve”. Nature doesn’t really factor in deserving or not deserving. Things just “are”.

>Obviously the "bottom 20%" of women by whatever measure you think determines "worth" should be with their "bottom 20%" male counterparts.

This is going to run contrary to one of the basic tenets of modern society - individual freedom. But again, nature doesn’t care about those ideals.

Re: The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]

#360

Post by worik »

oh_my_goodness wrote: post #185
WalterBright wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lending money is not transferring wealth, nor is it creating wealth. It nets out to zero. This is clear when one does accounting. Accounting is based on the idea that (Equity = Assets - Liabilities). When one takes out a loan, the assets go up by the amount of the loan, and the liabilities also go up by the amount of the loan. The Equity stays the same. That this balances out is literally called "balancing the books"…

This part is true, and the folks who equate new borrowings with income are liable to do some real damage if anybody ever listens to them.

Totally and utterly wrong, a complete misunderstanding of capitalism

Let me explain.

Access to capital is key. If you have it you can do business, if you do not you cannot, in general terms

There is more than one way to access capital, debt is very common.

And to get rich you have to do business

So if you are already rich getting more money, in a free market, is easier than getting started, in a free market

That is the point, and one small example,e. This pattern repeates o er and over. Once you have money getting more money is much easier than getting the first money

So in free markets the wealth divides tend to increase.

This is very elementary, stage II economics

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