Where'd all this whining about reduced birth rate come from? I've heard it from a few people in recent weeks. Fifty years ago, they were talking about the "population bomb", and now it's like "Wah wah wah, not enough girls getting pragnant, not enough babby being formed. It's the end of the human race". Did Leon Musk start all this crap? He's a natalist and a eugenicist, and funnily enough, a guy who has formed a good few (all?) of his babbies in test tubes. I've been reading the Isaacson bio of Leon, which prompted the speculation about him as the source. Friends' comments prompted the question.
2 months ago 路 馃憤 hanzbrix
Oh, I'm sure if they pumped billions and billions into IVF and artificial womb research, they could drastically increase birth rate. Raise the children to adulthood in government / corporate creches. 'Course, one of the biggest and most overlooked contributions to human intelligence is ... being held and getting lots of affectionate touch as a baby. Letting in immigrants is cheaper and better in so many ways. And they could use those billions dedicated to raising the birth rate for things like the Manhattan Project for renewable energy and sustainability that we desperately need. 路 1 month ago
Governments may spend billions without any measurable result trying to raise birth rates. People hate poor immigrants, so you can't compensate in the short term at the rate needed by the healthcare and pension system. Is the guy both in government spending and anti-immigrant? :) 路 2 months ago
@lucifer_jehovah_smith Yeah they did indeed live in misery and death. But we live in a time, where materials and technology is so advanced, that people go camping in -10c weather for a few weeks, no problem.
We could apply that to a village, which would cut out a need for transport and reduce material usage, so not clay huts with no windows, but more the limited space and resource usage.
The 88 trillion (I think the number is actually even higher), is calculated from simple physics. It has to do with thermodynamics, so heat on the planet, before it boils, each human needs x watts to live. Raw materials will never really be lacking. 路 2 months ago
@hanzbrix 88 trillion sounds like an astounding number, and I wonder how it was computed. That said, the typical argument I make against the anti-immigrant types is that there is oodles of unused land here in the United States. Plenty of room for more people. Plenty of pie for everyone to have their share, but the oligarchs are trying to hog it all to themselves. 路 2 months ago
@hanzbrix The problem with "we did it for thousands of years" is that the overwhelming majority of post-agricultural pre-1940 people often lived in misery that we can barely imagine. Better immune systems or no, it didn't stop infant mortality. The number one cause of death in 1900 was diarrhea. I have that a few times a year and joke about it when I do. I remember my grandma telling me that in the 50s, a bath was a luxury; she had one a week. I like my showers and baths, my climate control. Grandma would agree, because she'd lived under the alternative. 路 2 months ago
@lucifer_jehovah_smith @danrl Close to zero energy habitation is not that hard, we did it for thousands of years. The problem is more, do we want to give up the comfort that the energy provides?
There is even theories that if we lived in a harsher environment, our immune systems would become less wimpy again.
Returning to small towns/villages again, could solve the walkable city/efficiency problem. So people use heat in winter and aircon in summer.
The way we insulate houses today is a problem. Insulation slows temperature changes, which is beneficial in winter, but a problem in summer. 路 2 months ago
@lucifer_jehovah_smith @danrl Oh it is 100% an efficiency problem and a problem of "infinite growth" mindset. Ultimately all economics needs products to be sold, which needs more people for that to happen.
The unique problem we have now is that boomers were having ~3 children, we are having ~1,4 and because of the higher education levels, there is nobody to wipe asses of gen x, which live longer due to medical advances.
Overpopulation really isn't an issue at all, the planet can support something like 88 trillion people. The problem is the 1% destroying and abusing the planet, for profit. Global warming is a cause and effect of that. 路 2 months ago
@half_elf_monk Natural sure, but I'd argue far less strong of a drive than people might think. Birth rates also seem to be inversely correlated with education of women. Educate women, give them options other than being perpetually "barefoot and pragnant" as they used to say back in the 50s, and birth rates fall. There certainly is enough despair to go around though. Back in the day when the Club of Rome was talking about a "population bomb", it was reasonable to expect that the generation that came after you would have a better life than you did. Not anymore, it hasn't been that way for a long time. 路 2 months ago
The desire to reproduce is literally natural; it takes years of conditioning and indoctrination to convince someone otherwise, and an already-despairing view of reality to sustain. Economics finger-wagging is not the simplest, or most logical explanation; it's facile left-tribe signalling or (imo) lazy thinking. Yeah, greedy satan-level-evil CEOs want people to care for them in their old age. But so does everyone else (unless already-despairing). 路 2 months ago
My dad wasn't my father by blood or by law. Yet he was my dad, the old man, and I sure do miss him. Family is what you make it sometimes. 路 2 months ago
@bavarianbarbarian Perhaps not totally on board with VHEMT, though I did choose not to have children for multiple reasons and think it was the right choice for me. Child-free is a moral choice as long as it isn't forced on others for eugenic reasons. For the child-free people who really do want to exercise their parenting instincts, there are oodles of kids out there who could sure use a lot more love and care in their lives. E.G., I bet most of Musk's eugenics experiments (AKA kids) could really use a loving father figure. 路 2 months ago
@danrl Habitable shelter without energy use is a really tough nut to crack in most places. Easier in my part of the pacific northwest than in other parts of the US / world. I suspect the solution to energy use problems is densification though. Certainly not Teslas! Walkable cities, well-insulated infra (perhaps a fair chunk of it below-ground). A pedestrian culture also solves the problems of sedentary lifestyles and eliminates the need for *some* medical professionals. Lots of solutions, little will to implement them. 路 2 months ago
https://www.vhemt.org/ i'm into that ;) 路 2 months ago
i think fewer humans on the planet wouldn鈥檛 hurt for a while. we shall not get extinct, though, but less strain on resources, a better life for those babbies that are formed, and ultimately a different economic model would be an interesting version of the future. the economic model is the tough one. like others in this thread, i am personally preparing for social security not working when i need it. my strategy includes regenerative farming on my small plot of land which relieves some of the economic pressure related to eating. next challenge would be shelter that doesn鈥檛 require energy to remain habitable the entire year through all seasons. 路 2 months ago
@hanzbryx @darkghost The first question I'd be asking is whether we should "turn down the productivity knobs" so to speak. Do we really need 79 brands of coffee, most of which vary in minor details like presentation or packaging? Do we need medications to treat invented disorders like "restless leg syndrome"? What I'm driving at is that this appears to be a social efficiency problem and not a "too few people to turn the gears on the machines" problem. 路 2 months ago
Pretty much what darkghost said has been going on for decades in most of the western world. Politicians are scared that they won't be able to retire, sucking off the governments teet, they need more young workers to pay for their lifestyles.
Most western countries have birth rates of 1,2-1,6. As it takes two people to make a baby, that is a negative birthrate, which means we are slowly losing population at a rate of 20-40%. 路 2 months ago
Places like Japan have fewer young people to take care of old folks. And this had strange consequences during the financial crisis with banks paying negative interest rates. That's right, saving money cost you money. They wanted it out there in the economy, growing it somehow. Of course, it didn't work the other way where banks would pay you to take out loans. 路 2 months ago
The way politicians have figured out a good economy is one that is constantly growing slowly. In order for this to happen, you need to grow the tax base, slowly, and have inflation, again slowly. In the US things like social security are founded in this premise. I am working and paying for retired folks now on the promise that when I retire, there will be young people to pay my social security. But, since we had the baby boom after WWII, there are more retired folks and fewer young workers, so I have been planning my entire career for there to not be social security by the time I retire. Some people still haven't gotten that memo and it won't be pretty. 路 2 months ago