This is not a problem. This is a brief hiccough that will literally evolve out in a generation or two. That "trend" is measurable in decades, against millions of years of history. And it's not universal, either.
We would be INCREDIBLY LUCKY if it lasted long enough to cut the human population in half, because we are likely already over long-term sustainable carrying capacity. In fact we might be over sustainable capacity at 4 billion. But we are very unlikely to get that lucky.
It's very fashionable right now to hand-wring over "population collapse", but it's dumb.
Of course it's not a problem. It's just a thing that is happening.
So we talk about it to entertain ourselves.
Now, when you say that it'd be incredibly lucky to pull of an annihilation that would make the holocaust look like the child menu of death tolls, that is where I think you're going a little crazy from the neck up.
I'm not saying overpopulation has no downsides — you'd have to be stupid — but the whole reason there's such a thing as hyperbaric physicians and PhDs in viticulture and enology is that large groups of people allow for intense, specialized knowledge. And that is just the *one* reason that popped in my mind, which is nonetheless important, because niche specialization pretty much powers the whole infrastructure of modern societies.
You can't see any distinction between people dying of natural causes and not being replaced, and living people being rounded up in camps and gassed? That's pretty scary.
You don't need 8 or 10 billilon people to have plenty specialized enough knowledge. What we have now was built on far smaller populations than that, even though many more members of past populations were being soaked up by not-particularly-specialized manual or repetitive labor.
And honestly in 100 years or so it probably won't matter, because AI will be able make your wine if you're all that desperate to have it made perfectly. And, yes, that AI can replace generic labor as well. That's something that WILL happen, whether anybody likes it or not. Probably not soon enough that there won't be a serious crunch as the population ages, but soon enough that we can see our way to babies who exist for some reason OTHER than to provide labor.
And, yes, I do in fact know exactly how my toilet works, in considerable breadth and depth. Because being hyperspecialized is a pitiable condition for a human being.
Meh my dear friend trust me you DO NOT know how a toilet works in any breath or depth! I'm not talking about watching a 3-minute video on the flushing mechanism here, I mean having the actual knowledge to build one from the ground up.
But ok, let's pretend you burnt all your Skillshare coupons into learning all the secrets of the toilet. Let's pretend you're not full of shit here, and neither are your toilets cause you know your way around assembling one — do you also make your own zippers? The cylinder lock of your car ignition? The engine of that same car, with the heated seats and all?
You need an absolute fuckton of people to make *anything* work. If you wanted to DIY your smartphone for example, you'd need to know about SOCs, radios, display drivers, batteries, understand how cellular systems work (which have to span across the entire country if you want them to do anything), and keep going through the entirety of the production chain down to the coltan mines, which, albeit manual and repetitive, is still essential labour if you wanna be able to leave a mean online comment while you're taking a shit.
On a toilet you didn't build, Meh.
But anyway, we're all theorizing here. For fun! For example, I think that the Knowledge Doubling Curve is correlated with population increase. Knowledge increases exponentially as a result of a population increase, which enhances knowledge acquisition, which applied improves living conditions and economic growth, which causes more population increase, and so on.
Who cares if it's true, I'm just having fun here. And for that I thank you. It's hilariously naive to make 100-years-into-the-future predictions, so you may not have a point, Meh, but you sure are a laugh.
"Are we millennials so busy coming up with pronouns that we can't find a weekend to make copies of ourselves?"
Oh sod off with this. The primal prerogative of reproduction is predicated on the primal need for safe and secure territory.
The wealthiest oligarchs of the boomer generation have done everything they can to ensure the consequent generations are unable to attain that one entirely reasonable primal need.
"women are having half as many children, and some are so focused on their careers they might as well repurpose their wombs into walk-in closets."
Women's rights have had an affect on birth rates, yes, but I'd rather take away the oligarch's right to own all the single family homes than my girlfriend's right to decide what to do with her life.
Primal prerogative—what? I think you went too deep into your Merriam-Webster's Elementary Thesaurus there, friend. But worry not, it was a rhetorical question.
I do agree on your second point. I'm not against women having more career choices than brewing and breeding. I want them on the rat race, climbing the ladder and getting away with quiet quitting as much as the boys. I was merely pointing out the fact that this increase in liberties has a reductive effect on fertility rates. Again, not against it; merely pointing it out. Damn we need robots to take over the job market already.
This is not a problem. This is a brief hiccough that will literally evolve out in a generation or two. That "trend" is measurable in decades, against millions of years of history. And it's not universal, either.
We would be INCREDIBLY LUCKY if it lasted long enough to cut the human population in half, because we are likely already over long-term sustainable carrying capacity. In fact we might be over sustainable capacity at 4 billion. But we are very unlikely to get that lucky.
It's very fashionable right now to hand-wring over "population collapse", but it's dumb.
Of course it's not a problem. It's just a thing that is happening.
So we talk about it to entertain ourselves.
Now, when you say that it'd be incredibly lucky to pull of an annihilation that would make the holocaust look like the child menu of death tolls, that is where I think you're going a little crazy from the neck up.
I'm not saying overpopulation has no downsides — you'd have to be stupid — but the whole reason there's such a thing as hyperbaric physicians and PhDs in viticulture and enology is that large groups of people allow for intense, specialized knowledge. And that is just the *one* reason that popped in my mind, which is nonetheless important, because niche specialization pretty much powers the whole infrastructure of modern societies.
Or do you know exactly how your toilet works?
You can't see any distinction between people dying of natural causes and not being replaced, and living people being rounded up in camps and gassed? That's pretty scary.
You don't need 8 or 10 billilon people to have plenty specialized enough knowledge. What we have now was built on far smaller populations than that, even though many more members of past populations were being soaked up by not-particularly-specialized manual or repetitive labor.
And honestly in 100 years or so it probably won't matter, because AI will be able make your wine if you're all that desperate to have it made perfectly. And, yes, that AI can replace generic labor as well. That's something that WILL happen, whether anybody likes it or not. Probably not soon enough that there won't be a serious crunch as the population ages, but soon enough that we can see our way to babies who exist for some reason OTHER than to provide labor.
And, yes, I do in fact know exactly how my toilet works, in considerable breadth and depth. Because being hyperspecialized is a pitiable condition for a human being.
Meh my dear friend trust me you DO NOT know how a toilet works in any breath or depth! I'm not talking about watching a 3-minute video on the flushing mechanism here, I mean having the actual knowledge to build one from the ground up.
But ok, let's pretend you burnt all your Skillshare coupons into learning all the secrets of the toilet. Let's pretend you're not full of shit here, and neither are your toilets cause you know your way around assembling one — do you also make your own zippers? The cylinder lock of your car ignition? The engine of that same car, with the heated seats and all?
You need an absolute fuckton of people to make *anything* work. If you wanted to DIY your smartphone for example, you'd need to know about SOCs, radios, display drivers, batteries, understand how cellular systems work (which have to span across the entire country if you want them to do anything), and keep going through the entirety of the production chain down to the coltan mines, which, albeit manual and repetitive, is still essential labour if you wanna be able to leave a mean online comment while you're taking a shit.
On a toilet you didn't build, Meh.
But anyway, we're all theorizing here. For fun! For example, I think that the Knowledge Doubling Curve is correlated with population increase. Knowledge increases exponentially as a result of a population increase, which enhances knowledge acquisition, which applied improves living conditions and economic growth, which causes more population increase, and so on.
Who cares if it's true, I'm just having fun here. And for that I thank you. It's hilariously naive to make 100-years-into-the-future predictions, so you may not have a point, Meh, but you sure are a laugh.
Less people without murdering anyone? GOOOD
Look if some of them absolutely have to go by statistical homicide, so be it. Just get them people out of roads so I can drive peacefully
"Are we millennials so busy coming up with pronouns that we can't find a weekend to make copies of ourselves?"
Oh sod off with this. The primal prerogative of reproduction is predicated on the primal need for safe and secure territory.
The wealthiest oligarchs of the boomer generation have done everything they can to ensure the consequent generations are unable to attain that one entirely reasonable primal need.
"women are having half as many children, and some are so focused on their careers they might as well repurpose their wombs into walk-in closets."
Women's rights have had an affect on birth rates, yes, but I'd rather take away the oligarch's right to own all the single family homes than my girlfriend's right to decide what to do with her life.
Primal prerogative—what? I think you went too deep into your Merriam-Webster's Elementary Thesaurus there, friend. But worry not, it was a rhetorical question.
I do agree on your second point. I'm not against women having more career choices than brewing and breeding. I want them on the rat race, climbing the ladder and getting away with quiet quitting as much as the boys. I was merely pointing out the fact that this increase in liberties has a reductive effect on fertility rates. Again, not against it; merely pointing it out. Damn we need robots to take over the job market already.
Thanks for reading 🖤
I regret reading your article.
Warble are you saying you are against women having more career choices?
Not cool man
See you there!
Bring the hat Smillew. We're gonna need it to soak up the puddles from the walking areas