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The world might run out of people

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Re: The world might run out of people

#81

Post by watwut »

epakai wrote: post #62
watwut wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). Citation needed, especially since we are talking about much different cultures.

It's fairly independent of culture, and where culture matters it eventually changes because women become enfranchised. Use slider at the bottom to vary time. https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar...

You said "women want" and it sounded general statement. Not same as women decide to have nor actually have.

Had the price (not just monetary) of having child be different, the decisions quite easily can be different.

Re: The world might run out of people

#82

Post by est31 »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

Is there a study that confirms this? I couldn't find any links in the blog post you seem to have copied it from. https://bloodyshovel.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/tucker-carlson...

Re: The world might run out of people

#83

Post by jackfrodo »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

My understanding is that Spandrell considers himself a "race realist."

Please don't bring right-wing racist thought into HN.

Re: The world might run out of people

#84

Post by pixl97 »

sp527 wrote: post #79
rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

Not sure how he’s defining replacement, and but the target for a stable population would have to be over 2.

Over 2.1ish due to childhood deaths and accidents before reproducing.

Re: The world might run out of people

#85

Post by [deleted] »

est31 wrote: post #82
rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

Is there a study that confirms this? I couldn't find any links in the blog post you seem to have copied it from. https://bloodyshovel.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/tucker-carlson...

[deleted]

Re: The world might run out of people

#86

Post by ggggtez »

pjc50 wrote: post #15

Sigh. Someone has a book to sell by going against conventional wisdom, and the classic approach of taking a small trend and drawing a huge long straight line through it. It's not really surprising that this has happened, given the extent of efforts to reduce birth rates as a way out of poverty.

Agreed. If the population really started to decrease, human society would just change to meet the challenge. We talk about "Universal healthcare", but then we'd be talking about "Universal childcare".

There is certainly an argument to be made that with more women entering the workforce, and retiring age increasing, that there are less people at home to watch babies. That puts pressure for people to either leave the work force, or delay having children. Government sponsored nannies/childcare would be a natural step to alleviate that economic burden.

It's not like the government doesn't already have tax incentives for having children. It would not be a stretch for them to step in in other ways to reward and incentivise parents for creating future tax payers.

Re: The world might run out of people

#87

Post by magduf »

rainworld wrote: post #71

Quoting Spandrell: At this moment, every single human population with an IQ over 95 has a fertility rate below replacement; and the places where the most intelligent and productive people tend to live, big cities, have generally fertility rates below 1. Not below 2, replacement, but below 1, half of replacement. As I’ve said again and again, big cities today are IQ shredders, where the genes that code for high intell…

This doesn't fully explain why humans don't want to have a lot of kids. Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if they're boys. (For instance, as a single guy, I'm far more likely to be interested in dating a single mother with girls than one with boys; little boys are just too destructive and disobedient.)

Smart people aren't having so many kids now because they don't have to. If they don't have a religion telling them they need to, and they have a good career and a very comfortable lifestyle that affords, why would they want to go to all the trouble that raising a lot of kids requires?

In addition to that, kids are very costly in today's society, and with adults not living near their families so much, you don't get any help with your kids when you need it, so that makes it even more unattractive.

Having a lot of kids made sense back in the days when you needed the help on your farm, and your whole extended family (or village) lived together and could collectively share the burdens of child-rearing. Now, it just doesn't.

The answer to me is simple: we need to outsource child-rearing to the State, as shown in the novel "Brave New World" where children were made in factories and then raised by trained professionals.

Re: The world might run out of people

#88

Post by zzzcpan »

adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

> that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect

It's likely because it's not actually about education, but about social hierarchy of women. And education may or may not move them up the ladder in each particular hierarchy. Having children usually does though. But it's still a hierarchy and it can be influenced.

Re: The world might run out of people

#89

Post by bamboozled »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #40
bamboozled wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think about this too, are people who understand incredibly complex things dying off / retiring faster than technology can keep up with it ? I think about maitaitining really complex infrastructure, you kind of see this in Japan. So much complicated infrastructure, so many people checking out.

> So much complicated infrastructure, so many people checking out. Do we know if Japanese businesses realized this at all? I think here in North America companies are still thinking it'll all be fine and the knowledge will somehow magically transfer to the next generation that they couldn't be bothered to train, largely as a lot of baby boomers haven't left yet, but they are going to, and soon.

Someone has realised it as Japan has finally warmed up to the idea of increasing immigration numbers sharply after resisting to do so for a very long time.

Re: The world might run out of people

#90

Post by Analemma_ »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #80
sametmax wrote: post #18

I haven't heard of a specie disapearing primarily because it didn't have enough babies. Even the giant panda, before arriving to this situation, had seen their forests devasted by us. So at best, I expect our specie to mess up in some big ways, then maybe, the finish blow will be reproduction. Yet I doubt it. First, other threats have a way higher likelyhood. India has no water, terrible social tension, instable bord…

Calhoun's "Beautiful Ones" study from the 1960s is the just-so story here. A rat environment is built, becomes overpopulated, and eventually the children stop breeding and the colony dies out. However, it's of dubious predictive value.

As much as the Internet loves the Rat Park study, it’s important to note that it has never replicated; several groups tried and failed. Until more information comes along, it should be considered another victim of the replication crisis and not taken too seriously.
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