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It's unlikely to be resolved, while the population is still shrinking. But why is it incontrovertibly a fact, that a shrinking population can never cease shrinking, let along reverse itself? Good counterexamples are wars, plagues and famines. WW2 killed how many people? And yet, how long did it take, for the global population to recover? What about the Black Death? Or the Mongol invasions of Europe/Middle East?
Let's suppose that on account of financial pressures, different social values, fear of global warming or whatever else, worldwide the median fertility rate falls to say 0.7 children per woman. That is... pretty dire. Yes? But why are we so convinced, that once this starts, it will never stop? Is it ludicrous to suppose, that after some point, humanity overall will behold the situation and start to radically reevaluate its prospects and its priorities?
Like the people warning of collapse from lack of food, there's a lot that changes in 50/100 years. In 75 years, we will have fusion power, self driving cars, quantum computers everywhere, vertical farming, electric airplanes... With a world like that, it's too difficult to make the assumption that we will still have a struggling middle class everywhere too busy to have kids. Where there is resource constraints, those may be gone. Where there is culture in place, that can shift.
Like the people warning of collapse from lack of food, there's a lot that changes in 50/100 years. In 75 years, we will have fusion power, self driving cars, quantum computers everywhere, vertical farming, electric airplanes... With a world like that, it's too difficult to make the assumption that we will still have a struggling middle class everywhere too busy to have kids. Where there is resource constraints, those may be gone. Where there is culture in place, that can shift.
In 75 years, we'll have cities in orbit and on the Moon and Mars. We'll be mining the Moon and the asteroids.
Once that activity ramps up (probably more like 150 years from now) the human population can grow arbitrarily large.
Like the people warning of collapse from lack of food, there's a lot that changes in 50/100 years. In 75 years, we will have fusion power, self driving cars, quantum computers everywhere, vertical farming, electric airplanes................
Assuming those things all come to fruition, why will that result in a rising fertility rate?
I don't believe it will. In fact, I believe the reverse will occur.
In 75 years the US standard of living will have continued the collapse suffered during the last 30 - 40 years. Read this account in post #79. In 1980 it was very common for families to make do on one income. Today, is it very rare. In 2100 the tax load imposed on workers will far exceed today's numbers.
The reality about fertility rate is that it provides the math by which the future may be viewed. Wishing it were different will have no effect. In 75 years China, our largest trading partner, will have lost 700M people. If China is not able to provide the $435B in goods and services the US purchases, who will?
Evidence is strong that China has been lying about its true population and has already started to decline. If the government does not take strong action in some way the current shortage of nearly everything will have expanded to include items which are critical.
Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. It was 1971. Today, 50 years later, America remains the only country to have put a man on the moon, and no country on earth - including America - is capable of repeating the feat. I believe Cernan may indeed be the last man to ever walk on the moon. Period.
Population control is in the hands of only one group - 20 to 35 year old women. They are the ones (for the most part) who can bear children and they are increasingly saying, "No, thanks."
Here's a tweet from Dr Jessica Taylor. Not that she will be able to move the needle by herself; she won't. But the conversation is out there. Dr. Jessica Taylor @DrJessTaylor
I think all girls should be given the strong counter-narrative from as early age as possible that they do not have to ever have children, or get married, and that their lives can just be for them. This is totally missing at present. Might build some stuff around it.
Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. It was 1971. Today, 50 years later, America remains the only country to have put a man on the moon, and no country on earth - including America - is capable of repeating the feat. I believe Cernan may indeed be the last man to ever walk on the moon. Period.
As an aeronautcal engineer, I share your pessimism in the near-term, but not in the long term. The period of 1870-1970 was an incredible time for technological innovation. Ever since, we've been improving and miniaturizing and expanding, but the core-concepts really haven't changed. The electric motor, the internal combustion engine, the rocket, the gyroscope and the closed-loop feedback control system, are basically the same today, as they were when Cernan was a boy, let alone an astronaut. I don't foresee an heady change, in these items or their presumptive replacement, for decades to come.
But decades are not centuries. While a new manned mission to the moon in the near-term is unlikely, I won't bet that by 2071, there won't be renewed human footprints on the moon. It's just that those are more likely to be Chinese, than American.
And as for 2171? I fully expect manned exploration, if not colonization, of other planets.
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
Population control is in the hands of only one group - 20 to 35 year old women. They are the ones (for the most part) who can bear children and they are increasingly saying, "No, thanks."
Why are you completely excluding the possibility, that in the future, embrios could be grown in labs/factories? I don't view Huxley's "Brave New World" as a dystopia. Not in the least! If we recall, in the novel, the human population was doing quite well, but normal adults had nothing to do with pregnancy, childbirth or child-rearing. Indeed, the dirtiest swear-word in the new language, was "mother". And the grossest, lowest insult that could be leveled against a woman, was to call her "a mother".
What is so improbable - or, to anticipate your likely objection - immoral, about "manfacturing" children?
Ultimately your thesis is a paean to nostalgia, to a society and social mores as they used to be, to gender roles and family-life and so on. You value this highly, do you not? Then perhaps, the question is less about human reproduction and population-dynamics, than about wistfulness over a fading way of life?
Why are you completely excluding the possibility, that in the future, embrios could be grown in labs/factories? I don't view Huxley's "Brave New World" as a dystopia. Not in the least! If we recall, in the novel, the human population was doing quite well, but normal adults had nothing to do with pregnancy, childbirth or child-rearing. Indeed, the dirtiest swear-word in the new language, was "mother". And the grossest, lowest insult that could be leveled against a woman, was to call her "a mother"......
If that comes about, it would change everything. So far it is not on the horizon, and since most people believe we have too many people already, I do not look for it very soon.
Most people are not aware that we are looking at a severe population decrease. Thanks to the UN and others most people think the world is headed for over population and our only hope for survival of the species is to colonize mars and other planets. Their view, however is not supported mathematically, so it cannot happen. That arrow has already been launched, so to speak.
America, the destination of choice for millions of would-be immigrants, will likely do fine for a very long time thanks to immigrants. The caveat to that statement would be America's inter-dependence on other countries for a myriad of items and services. If those other countries in Asia and Europe fail to deliver, America will suffer. Today we have shortages of almost every category. The problem is almost always somewhere in today's complex supply chain and that supply chain is about to break.
As an addendum - and this is funny! - I found evidence that children are already being manufactured.
Look at this website showing the numbers of children each year.
Look at 1950 and see where there were 19.1M children age 0 to 5, and in 1951 there were 15.8M children age 6 to 11. Perfectly normal looking. Accidents and disease took some of the children away. That trend continues throughout history until you get to more recent dates.
Look at 1997 and suddenly there are nearly always more 6 to 11 year olds than there were 0 to 5 year olds the previous year! Clearly someone is manufacturing children! (I think it's being done at the border.)
Last edited by Listener2307; 10-10-2021 at 10:42 AM..
Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. It was 1971. Today, 50 years later, America remains the only country to have put a man on the moon, and no country on earth - including America - is capable of repeating the feat. I believe Cernan may indeed be the last man to ever walk on the moon. Period.
Nasa is planning a new manned mission to the Moon as well: the Artemis program, which proposes to land "the first woman and the first person of color" on the Moon. (Well, I guess that's the only way they can get the funding.)
Private efforts like SpaceX and Blue Origin are not standing still, either. Musk's SpaceX is working on a mega rocket ship to bring humans to Mars within the next few years.
I don't know if these efforts are going to be sufficient to get us to critical mass of a major off-planet colonization effort, but we're definitely not standing still.
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Population control is in the hands of only one group - 20 to 35 year old women. They are the ones (for the most part) who can bear children and they are increasingly saying, "No, thanks."
Agreed, but in the U.S. and Europe, that is primarily white affluent women, not all women. Hispanics, Muslim immigrants, and religious fundamentalists are continuing to have large families. The massive influx of Hispanics into the U.S. just this year will keep birth rates chugging along for a while, whatever other issues it may cause.
We've already discussed the cratering birth rates in eastern Asia. It's not clear whether this will ever turn around.
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Here's a tweet from Dr Jessica Taylor. Not that she will be able to move the needle by herself; she won't. But the conversation is out there. Dr. Jessica Taylor @DrJessTaylor
I think all girls should be given the strong counter-narrative from as early age as possible that they do not have to ever have children, or get married, and that their lives can just be for them. This is totally missing at present. Might build some stuff around it.
Honestly, this person sounds like a wacko. But yes, there are voices on the Left saying don't have children because of climate change or whatever. I wonder how long this will go on before they move on to the next fad.
Nasa is planning a new manned mission to the Moon as well: the Artemis program, which proposes to land "the first woman and the first person of color" on the Moon. (Well, I guess that's the only way they can get the funding.)
Private efforts like SpaceX and Blue Origin are not standing still, either. Musk's SpaceX is working on a mega rocket ship to bring humans to Mars within the next few years.
I don't know if these efforts are going to be sufficient to get us to critical mass of a major off-planet colonization effort, but we're definitely not standing still.............
I always enjoy reading your comments, and this time is no exception.
My skepticism regarding China is fueled by current events such as the Evergrande failure and the strong possibility that there will be more real estate failures in China, whose wealth is strongly real estate centered.
China is fond of announcing grandiose plans, but their followup is poor. This article explains it in depth, and I encourage you to read it and see if it does not move the needle of your mind a little. China is failing, I think. And there is no help in sight.
I believe every scientist knows full well we are not going to mars for any length of time. They all know mars has no magnetosphere and thus would be harmful to anyone exposed for very long and deadly for any developing embryo. But funding for their projects and jobs is on the line, so they must pretend. Meanwhile, sending well heeled tourists on rides to the edge of the atmosphere keeps people entertained and hopeful. But I will concede that I am among the most skeptical; most people are a little more accommodating on that issue than I am.
My skepticism regarding China is fueled by current events such as the Evergrande failure and the strong possibility that there will be more real estate failures in China...
An authoritarian society like China doesn't need stability or prosperity to funnel massive funds or brainpower to pet technological projects. They might have 100 million peasants starving, but so what? If the right minds are well-fed, and the right muscle is coerced, the rockets will fly. Can we even begin to compare the standard of living between the USSR and the USA in 1961? But who was the first to orbit a man in space?
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
I believe every scientist knows full well we are not going to mars for any length of time. ...
This is precisely why Mars is such an insurmountable challenge (for now), while the moon is both accessible and useful. The tragedy of countries like America is the ennui and disaffection of been-there-done-that lack of interest. America was once the queen of railroads, with vastly more track than anywhere else. But now? Now the railroads are more robust and more productive in India. America innovates, scores points, then loses interest. But places like China wait for the innovation to happen elsewhere... then catch up, mass-produce and pull ahead. That's why the next man on the moon won't be named Cernan, but Chang.
The problem of population pyramid - worker to retirees - can never be resolved in a shrinking population.
Well then that's just too bad isn't it?
We need a smaller pyramid with fewer people generally as our need for workers declines by the hour.
^^I'll rephrase that:
Our grandchildren need a smaller pyramid with fewer people generally.
Tighten your belt. Give them a decent shot at a successful life.
My skepticism regarding China is fueled by current events such as the Evergrande failure and the strong possibility that there will be more real estate failures in China, whose wealth is strongly real estate centered.
China is fond of announcing grandiose plans, but their followup is poor. This article explains it in depth, and I encourage you to read it and see if it does not move the needle of your mind a little. China is failing, I think. And there is no help in sight.
Two years ago I would have agreed that that China was a sinking ship. But in light of the pandemic and political events in the U.S., China today is the premier power in the world. A $500B real estate crash is not going to hold them back for long. Nor will their crashing population.
Consider this: even with an aging population, they have 3x or 4x as many working people as do we, they have thousands of PhD scientists, many of whom trained in top Western universities, and they have majority control of the industrial supply chain that the world relies on.
If China loses 400m people over the next 50 years, they will still have the top economy. They have the momentum and money now. It's like the U.S. in the 1940s-50s. We had the momentum, and we stayed ahead for 50 years before hard working Asians finally caught up and surpassed us. And continue to excel, while we distract ourselves with social justice and climate initiatives.
Also, we should not discount the role of AI. It's quietly growing and improving, to the point where we soon will not even need actors and entertainers and screenwriters -- AI will write the plots and simulate the on-screen action. No strikes, no drugs, no tantrums - AI will just do its job. (I will enjoy watching those overpaid entertainers whine about being replaced by simulations.)
Similarly, lawyers will be largely displaced by legal software -- as is already happening -- and medical diagnosis AI will exceed human capabilities. An AI micro-surgery tool is already better than a human surgeon.
At a certain point -- people will become obsolete. I somehow doubt this is what AOC and that Swedish climate kid had in mind when they asked people to stop breeding.
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I believe every scientist knows full well we are not going to mars for any length of time. They all know mars has no magnetosphere and thus would be harmful to anyone exposed for very long and deadly for any developing embryo. But funding for their projects and jobs is on the line, so they must pretend. Meanwhile, sending well heeled tourists on rides to the edge of the atmosphere keeps people entertained and hopeful. But I will concede that I am among the most skeptical; most people are a little more accommodating on that issue than I am.
.....
I agree that Mars is not a practical destination; it's at least as hazardous as deep space itself. At least in deep space, you don't have dust storms. Also, in deep space, you can build structures exactly to your specifications, without need to accommodate planetary gravity. An O'Neil cylinder, for example, could not exist on a planet, but in space it would be an amazing place, arbitrarily large, with simulated gravity and an atmosphere. Once we have the robotic tools in space, and a steady stream of raw materials flowing from Moon and asteroid mines, well, the sky's the limit as they say.
I believe that when this phase of exploration and construction is well underway, it will stimulate new generations of humans. We may be running out of space here on Earth, but in space, there's plenty of space.
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