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Everyone should read that article. There is nothing we, as individuals, can do about the fate of humanity because we individuals are too small a component, but we can each, through our own attention to detail, assure it never happens to us.
That is a great article. I bookmarked it for further use as it could come in handy as backup for points made in other forums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
Actually, no, I don't believe we will have any of those things. As the global population shrinks the new generation will be unable to maintain what exists now, let alone invent and market new technology.
America was the space race leader, but our new debt will erase that status. A shrinking Russia and a shrinking China will cause them to lose the ability to lead. I think the space race will die, and will do so in fairly short order - maybe, 25 years(?).
Unimaginable wealth, such as that found in Singapore, has created smaller to non existent families. Singapore fertility rate is at 1.1, down from 5.8 in 1960.
All attempts to increase the fertility rate in Singapore have failed.
This thread has focused on the cultural side of population decline, people choosing to have smaller families or no children at all which is driven by increased education, career opportunities and urbanization. However I think the biological side of population decline is just as real and it has only been discussed sporadically in this thread. Sperm count decline over the past half-century has been well documented in westernized countries. I also saw an article about infertility in China that said the rate of infertility doubled over a 15 year span recently. The thing about infertility reporting is that it only applies to a subset of the total human population, those who are having trouble conceiving and then get their fertility tested. People who are not interested in having children could also be infertile but we will never know because the lack of interest in parenthood precludes any need to be tested for fertility.
Don't forget, technology isn't standing still. On the contrary, science and technology are accelerating.
50 or 60 years from now, the world will be as different from today, as today is from 100 years ago or more.
A.I. for example. We will have simulacra walking among us that are, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to humans. They'll be inside the Global Network (perhaps they'll call it "Skynet"), they'll be inside humanlike robots, and they'll be in a myriad of other forms such as aircraft and toaster ovens.
Will we humans be needed in this future economy? Will we even exist in the year 2100? No guarantees. But maybe, if we do it right, it will make us unimaginably wealthy such that we will have larger families, because cost is no longer a factor (and robot nannies will be commonplace).
Then there's space travel. We will have outposts on the moon and in orbit before long, self-sustaining habitats with centrifugal gravity and massive shielding and robotic asteroid mining which will allow these structures to grow arbitrarily large. There could some day be billions of people living up there. This might be closer to 2200 than 2100, but it's coming.
Humans will merge with machines(Singularity) and start living for ever.
Then the population would become 10 times or maybe 1000 times of what it is now.
Humans will merge with machines(Singularity) and start living for ever.
Then the population would become 10 times or maybe 1000 times of what it is now.
Then we start populating other planets.
If we can merge man and machine, it would be far more efficient to host digital representations of humans inside a computer network than to create them in meatspace.
Humans will merge with machines(Singularity) and start living for ever.
Then the population would become 10 times or maybe 1000 times of what it is now.
Then we start populating other planets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avondalist
If we can merge man and machine, it would be far more efficient to host digital representations of humans inside a computer network than to create them in meatspace.
As human population declines there will be a critical point where lack of available labor will result in some machines unavailable. It will be a larger version of today's inconvenience where you cannot actually buy some cars because of parts being unavailable.
In other words, our network of suppliers extending from country to country will fall apart. Nowadays you cannot simply go to Sherwin-Williams and buy any color, quality and finish of any paint you want. Covid has caused their supply chain to break and in the future, labor shortages will cause it again - this time for good.
In about 100 - 150 years large projects like Three Gorges Dam, which holds portions of the Yantze River in China, will fail and it will be impossible for China's population of 300 - 500M to build it back. Similarly, there will be infrastructure failures all over the world, and they will simply be abandoned out of necessity.
That will probably not happen in North America for a very, very long time.
As human population declines there will be a critical point where lack of available labor will result in some machines unavailable. It will be a larger version of today's inconvenience where you cannot actually buy some cars because of parts being unavailable.
In other words, our network of suppliers extending from country to country will fall apart. Nowadays you cannot simply go to Sherwin-Williams and buy any color, quality and finish of any paint you want. Covid has caused their supply chain to break and in the future, labor shortages will cause it again - this time for good.
In about 100 - 150 years large projects like Three Gorges Dam, which holds portions of the Yantze River in China, will fail and it will be impossible for China's population of 300 - 500M to build it back. Similarly, there will be infrastructure failures all over the world, and they will simply be abandoned out of necessity.
That will probably not happen in North America for a very, very long time.
I love the way you think. Outside of the box. The masses have been brainwashed to view population one way and that is up. It doesn't fit the narrative to believe otherwise. It takes too much effort and it goes against the grain.
What many fail to realize is that numbers work both ways. What goes up rapidly can in turn go down rapidly.
We have not reached a tipping point in massive population decline yet, but if trends continue this will occur and it will seem to the world as if the bottom fell out of society. We do not have the technology to offset the decline of millions of workers to care for the massive increase of elderly, which for the most part will be past the point of adding real value to the work force.
My guess is that there will a massive immigration recruitment from nations such as Nigeria and Ethiopia to offset the loss of the working age population. Also, don't be surprised when we get to the point where the governments of declining nations beg their population to have children, if there not doing this already.
Actually, no, I don't believe we will have any of those things. As the global population shrinks the new generation will be unable to maintain what exists now, let alone invent and market new technology. America was the space race leader, but our new debt will erase that status. A shrinking Russia and a shrinking China will cause them to lose the ability to lead. I think the space race will die, and will do so in fairly short order - maybe, 25 years(?).
Unimaginable wealth, such as that found in Singapore, has created smaller to non existent families. Singapore fertility rate is at 1.1, down from 5.8 in 1960.
All attempts to increase the fertility rate in Singapore have failed.
I’m not going to dispute your other points, but the space race is well underway. There’s already increased competition from China, India, Israel... Thats just taking into account the newer players. Many of the old ones, like the USA, Russia and Europe are still very active in the space sphere. Now, whether that actually pans out in the long run, is anyone’s guess. The big change, is that the private sector is playing a bigger role.
..........Also, don't be surprised when we get to the point where the governments of declining nations beg their population to have children, if there not doing this already.
It's already happening. Singapore has tried several times and several methods, but none have been successful. Their fertility rate is 1.2.
Russia is offering a big bonus to new mothers, while Portugal adjusts the tax rate for new or expanding families. China gives out tax credits, but so far the plan is not working. China's plight is worse than most other countries because men outnumber women by 130 to 100 in the under-40 category. That mean 100 Chinese women must produce 230 replacements (2.3 children per woman), and they are not even close. One source I read pegged the real fertility rate at less than 1. UN now concedes Chinese population will be in the neighborhood of 500M in 75 years. And a great many of those will be of retirement age.
It's already happening. Singapore has tried several times and several methods, but none have been successful. Their fertility rate is 1.2.
Russia is offering a big bonus to new mothers, while Portugal adjusts the tax rate for new or expanding families. China gives out tax credits, but so far the plan is not working. China's plight is worse than most other countries because men outnumber women by 130 to 100 in the under-40 category. That mean 100 Chinese women must produce 230 replacements (2.3 children per woman), and they are not even close. One source I read pegged the real fertility rate at less than 1. UN now concedes Chinese population will be in the neighborhood of 500M in 75 years. And a great many of those will be of retirement age.
The only proven way to increase family size is to deny women a career path other than housewife.
Secondarily, give out cheap parcels of rural land as in the 19th century, a few dollars an acre. Homesteaders tend to have large families because each child becomes a farm hand; the more, the merrier.
Of course, women are unlikely to go back. But, there is a homesteading movement afoot. It's not likely to offset the general urbanization trend, though.
I keep seeing immigration brought up as a solution to the declining population in countries such as the US and Canada...but rather than being a solution, isn't it more akin to "kicking the can down the road?"
If women indeed have less (or zero) children as they have more educational and economic opportunities, eventually (perhaps by second gen?), the women immigrating here are also going to have less children (and also may be less willing to do the low-wage labor) as they become more "Westernized."
So then what? Keep recruiting immigrants? Which at the root of it, relies on a steady stream of women in less-developed countries being economically and culturally bound to keep reproducing at a high rate. (So then we just hope and pray that those countries remain undeveloped and without opportunities for those women? Yikes)
Last edited by social_introvert; 08-28-2021 at 11:45 PM..
Reason: ETA
I agree with the points Listener2307 is making. As populations shrink nations will go into survival mode and innovation will take a back seat. Add the depletion of lithium, rare earths elements, copper etc and the collapsing global supply chain to this and we may be in the beginning of a reset of sorts.
My guess, and I admit I could be wrong on this, is that we will become more local and the world will shrink. This notion that everything is upper ward continually isn't always correct. Remember the fall of Rome and the Dark Ages which lasted 400 or 500 hundred years. The population dramatically shrunk and became, except for the church, illiterate.
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