The world might run out of people • Hacker News Board

Re: The world might run out of people

#91

Post by bantunes » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #87

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. I…

> Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if they're boys.

Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

Re: The world might run out of people

#92

Post by jlawson » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

Nav_Panel wrote: post #75

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…

What a terrible quote, horrible in the sense of reducing Man to the sum of his capability to build ever greater machines. Surely intelligence bears no relation to goodness! I find Spandrell (and Land, who helped popularize the idea) atrocious.

You're mixing up goodness as in deserving, vs goodness as in capacity to do good.

Spandrell never said anything like smart people are more deserving. He says smart people have more capacity to accomplish things which most people consider good. E.g safety, comfort, health, stability, wealth - and not just for themselves but for others too.

Hard to argue with as far as I can see.

Re: The world might run out of people

#93

Post by magduf » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

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.

They don't need to train them, and it will be "all fine": the executives making these decisions will be able to collect their golden parachutes and retire in luxury by the time the boomers retire, and their companies will flounder and die only after this point, so the executives have little to worry about.

Re: The world might run out of people

#94

Post by Stratoscope » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

jackfrodo wrote: post #83

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.

I didn't see anything right wing or racist in the original quote, did you?

It was an interesting observation regardless of who made it.

Re: The world might run out of people

#95

Post by ggggtez » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #52

Robotbeat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, climate change was predicted well before a temperature change was observed (i.e. over 100 years ago), and it was based on the fact that the world burns enormous amounts of coal and the fact that CO2 has a certain infrared absorption spectrum. It was a prediction based on basic physics before an empirical observation of the global result was seen. But there is something analogous: look at birthrates, and you have…

Right, but like all things it ignores other variables, such as for example the sun going into a cooler period or the gulfstream or el nino changing. Obviously the former is global while the latter likely won’t counteract the warming effect much. But it’s extrapolating based on the assumption that we know there won’t be any other mechanisms — feedback, collapse, new phenomena being activated by this like the growing o…

I think your understand of the issue is a bit fuzzy.

For example, the business insider article seems to imply that we can't "plant our way out" using trees. But you interpret this to mean "we can't do it ourselves". But no one ever said planting trees is the only thing we can do to stop climate change. We can also: change our crop and animal yields, use less fossil fuels, etc.

Same thing with the arizona article about dead forests releasing less CO2 than expected. That isn't to say that they don't release any. And it also isn't to say that live ones release more (live trees consume CO2 and produce O2, if you recall). That article is from 2013, so any climate scientist is going to already be using those findings in their models, so it's ridiculous to assume that a 6 year old article with a minor tweak to a variable means that today's cutting edge scientists are uninformed.

[edit] I'm not even gonna touch the thing about the "cold sun" conspiracy. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-na...

Re: The world might run out of people

#96

Post by xmmrm » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

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...

Just compare TFR and average IQ tables. The pattern is obvious.

Re: The world might run out of people

#97

Post by magduf » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

pqokdwpokqp wrote: post #56

alecco wrote: post #4

A world with declining population. Full of old people due to population pyramid inverted. Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots, as those are the only groups with fertility rates above replacement level.

>Full of stupid, and impulsive, and likely religious zealots, They are so stupid, yet everyone else let themselves be out-bred by them? I think if that happens in the long-term, it more or less suggests "religious zealots" have adapted better.

It's not stupid to be "out-bred": you're enjoying your own personal life more by keeping more resources for yourself, rather than sacrificing your time and resources on kids with the goal of continuing your family line. Your kids, grandkids, and descendants aren't likely to be of much help after you're dead.

This is an individual vs. society issue: having few kids is better at the individual level, but for society it's not sustainable unless we can figure out how to significantly extend lifespans (i.e., reduce the death rate in-line with the reduction of the birthrate).

Re: The world might run out of people

#98

Post by IC4RUS » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

bantunes wrote: post #91

magduf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

> Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if they're boys. Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

They're not saying they want it to be easy, they're saying they don't want to do it and don't have to (which ties into the rest of what they're saying)

I think you're missing the point of the comment.

Re: The world might run out of people

#99

Post by magduf » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

bantunes wrote: post #91

magduf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

> Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if they're boys. Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

>That's part of being an adult.

As countless adults these days have proven, no, it's not. You can just opt out of the whole thing.

Re: The world might run out of people

#100

Post by GrinningFool » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

bantunes wrote: post #91

magduf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

> Have you ever been around kids? They're really a pain in the ass, especially if they're boys. Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

> Suck it up. What, do you want having kids to be as seamless as an Uber Eats order? It's not. It's hard work. I'm sure your parents gave up on a lot to have you, too. That's part of being an adult.

Seems wiser to remain childless than to have and raise kids that you never wanted. How would that work out for the kid, otherwise? Or are we going on the assumption that once the kid is born, OP will no longer see it as a burden?