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Japan's aging population could actually be good news

newscientist.com

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Re: Japan's aging population could actually be good news

#51

Post by guard-of-terra »

barry-cotter wrote: post #41
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nation, not a charity operation.

Who's asking you to pay for anything? If you're concerned about the purity of your nation there's no need to be a stereotypical liberal about it either. Allow me to present a policy package that costs the state basically nothing and improves the lives of many not currently within the borders of your state. 1. Move from jus soli to jus sanguinus; no one without a parent who is a citizen of the state automatically beco…

In many countries we are not allowed to effect this policy. Instead the government lets as many low-quality labour as they want on whatever terms and then turn a blind eye on it.

Re: Japan's aging population could actually be good news

#52

Post by Daishiman »

revelation wrote: post #26
Daishiman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Different day, same Malthusian bullshit. We are currently experiencing a human-induced mass extinction event and reduction of biodiversity comparable to the largest natural catastrophes in the planet. The way things are going, by the end of the century most of the large mammalian predators will be definitely extinct, and if carbon emissions are not reduced by the end of the century, by which we should become a carb…

I don't get it. The ecosystem is not a constant system. It is summary randomness, guided by evolution. Whatever you are trying to preserve, be assured new randomness will happily take its place.

If your randomness consists of oceans of jellyfish and insects as the most complex land animals, sure. If you want to actually get to witness the full extent of birds, mammals, and large reptiles, no amount of evolution will supplant those for several millions of years.

Re: Japan's aging population could actually be good news

#53

Post by reirob »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #3

> But fewer people in future will mean it has more living space, more arable land per head, and a higher quality of life, says Eberstadt. Its demands on the planet for food and other resources will also lessen. Different day, same Malthusian bullshit. These people can only think of humans as net negative parasites on the planet, rather than individual agents with a positive expected value to society. Density is GOOD…

> Density is GOOD — it leads to cross-pollination of ideas and the advancement of the world.

How much density is needed to make progress? At which point too much density becomes a danger and what kind of danger?

I guess that there might be already some answers to these question. And in my opinion it IS important that we start talking about this. Because the only discussion that I hear until now is that many countries have not enough children (e.g. Japan, Russia, Germany, Italy - just to name few that I have seen in print media in Europe) which is seen as a danger. But talking about socially and psychologically positive solutions how to better distribute population density - nobody is speaking about this. I guess that one of the reasons is because we still think in national boundaries. But this is not the only one. I think the deeper reasons might be more on an instinctive level? I do not know, but I find it good that we start talking about un-growth of population instead just having a taboo.

Re: Japan's aging population could actually be good news

#54

Post by eddiedunn »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #20

I also think of this problem as about an elective one. Imagine you have half voters over 65. Why would they care about innovation or ecology or whatever common good? They would only care about getting their cut of social security. This way they can easily throw a society off the cliff if it happens tomorrow. They don't care about tomorrow. Yeah, and they also like to tell youth how to live their life. Especially in t…

Are you an idiot? Are you seriously suggesting that just because someone is over 65 they stop giving a shit about the planet, society and/or the greater good?

Re: Japan's aging population could actually be good news

#55

Post by ggreer »

gwern wrote: post #11
rayiner wrote: post #9

Here's the problem I see with both population decline and life extension: lots of research indicates that the creative peak happens from 20-40 or so. Geniuses rarely continue to be the same level of productive after that. In other words, progress is probably better served by giving two people the chance to live 50 years than one person the chance to live 100, though resource consumption is about the same. An aging so…

> Here's the problem I see with both population decline and life extension: lots of research indicates that the creative peak happens from 20-40 or so. I'm not sure that's as clear as you think it is. There's a number of issues and confounds which mean that simply plotting age vs achievement can be very misleading. Check out "Age and Outstanding Achievement: What do We Know After a Century of Research?" http://www.re…

I get a DNS lookup failure for that domain. It looks like the correct URL is http://resources.emartin.net/blog/docs/AgeAchievement.pdf
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