Nine things I learned in ninety years • Hacker News Board

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#401

Post by Anamon » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 10:13 AM UTC

silexia wrote: post #391

layer8 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying that the purpose of all life forms is to create further life forms, whose purpose then is again the same. In other words, the purpose is eating its own tail. In my mind, this circularity disqualifies it from being a meaningful purpose.

Read any biology textbook. The purpose of every life form is to reproduce and create more life. This is the purpose of all evolution and all life.

That's not a "purpose", though. It's a precondition and a post-fact explanation for why life exists. There's nobody to say that any individual is supposed to continue the cycle.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#402

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #383

astura wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shitty conservative talking point called the 'Success Sequence.' https://archive.is/9Onj3

Why is this downvoted? The "success sequence" seems to be pretty much word-for-word what the GP comment said.

Because there are more and more MAGA adherents on this site.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#403

Post by Night_Thastus » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

Anamon wrote: post #400

Night_Thastus wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of... Many people do not want to hear this. Many would point to economic factors as the main problem. But I think that when people are educated about the risks and responsibilities of parenthood and given the choice of doing so (birth control, abortion, etc.) - the simple fact is that they CHOOSE not have enough kids to meet the replacement rate. The reason you can see this is because the lowering birth rates ar…

That's under the assumption of framing it as a problem. Personally, I think naturally declining birth rates are a corrective measure for an already wildly overpopulated planet. And that we can be damn glad that this is the way things seem to be heading, because the alternative would be an ever accelerating freight train heading for one of several much more devastating scenarios of population reduction. Even with sub-…

It's a problem because there's no evidence the population will ever stabilize. Wild animals form some natural equilibrium based on the available resources, humans do not. If there aren't enough resources we find ways to get more.

If the population dips, it won't add any pressure to have more kids, not on an individual level.

And a lot of humanity only works at scale. Global shipping, for example, only really works at the enormous scales we're doing it at. Same goes for communication networks.

If the population dips low enough, things like that start to break down. If we slowly dipped from our current to say, ~500 million, our chance at being a space-faring race is over. You may think that's a lot of humans - more than enough to accomplish everything. But they'd be spread too thin, with too little demand for industry and innovation to make it work.

Humanity isn't some great gift to the universe now. It's full of selfishness and greed and fear and arrogance and ignorance. But maybe, one day, it could be. I want to believe in that future.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#404

Post by Quekid5 » Thu, Oct 02, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

bregma wrote: post #126

Quekid5 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing about free choice. I don't believe it fundamentally exists, but I can't help behaving as if it does.

You can always choose to believe free choice does exist. In fact it's almost mandatory to do so just to get by.

Congrats, you got the joke! (Not being sarcastic.)

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#405

Post by ConradJarret » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #380

sdeframond wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So an answer to the prisoner's dilemma would be a shared belief in doing good? Interesting.

Western Europe (not only) social system is based on such belief. It kept working till a lot of immigrants from pretty bad corrupted countries came in, abusing the system in ways it wasn't planned for. So it works, sometimes, on limited populations.

It certainly helps when you all look alike and share other similar values.