Oddbean new post about login | logout Yea. Imma call bullsihit on this one. Technology is arguably the most impactful thing that humans have ever created. Regardless of biological inheritance, the individual contributions each of us make in a lifetime (in the things we create and the words we speak and write) will propagate across many generations BECAUSE of human technology. To even acknowledge that humans have “something special” over animals, is to recognize the evolutionary power of our technology to shape society and the world around us in ways that baby making will never touch. Babies are just cannon fodder for technological growth.
What's the point of technology if population collapses?
Right! Not to mention making babies is the most lindy tech. around.
Right! Not to mention … the human lineage has been TOP baby makers on this planet for hundreds of millennia. The Lindy effect would agree that 50 or 100 years of regionally declining birth rates is of ZERO concern to human survival. https://image.nostr.build/1396da0d006d9066b31503fd2f86e59ea43588fb4d810d811ff3f47e7d7a7483.jpg
Population collapse… 😤 Seriously? With human population being the MOST now than ever before… you are concerned about a recent decline in birth rate ? Let’s talk in 5 more generations, after it rebounds. If it does not, then we can go full on handmaids tale. https://media.tenor.com/_WBE_zA5tzEAAAAC/slave-offred.gif
There's actually a decent argument for population collapse coming over the next century and some proposed solutions. Quite an interesting topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwIeDuHwXJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3cXRs60xiU
Foundation: let’s make something to keep the knowledge alive and then make the dark ages take less centuries than it should without this help. 🫡
L take, the only way to pass on technological innovation and keep the ball rolling is to raise and teach the next generation how to use and build upon it. Babies are cannon fodder for knowledge. If we don't do this then we're are only going to have further generations of brain rotten tick tock users that the don't contribute much to society, in such a scenario society stagnates.
You should try having kids
What I have or have not “tried” is irrelevant. And you have no idea. My statements stand on their own value. They are either bullshit or not.
I have an idea
They're bullshit. People have value in their own right.
Yes. Everybody is valuable. Until they die. Then only the things they’ve built and the ideas they’ve shared with others (including god) are all that is left to value. Technology (the evolution of human consciousness) is what we have made, and is the most valuable thing we can pass onto future generations, no matter whose babies they are. I may be full of bullshit, but I will always respect you and everybody else I meet in this short life. That is my small but valuable gift.
Population always grows and declines exponentially, so people tend to underestimate the trajectory. People also confuse longer lifespans with fertility, as a region is temporarily extremely crowded. That's what Germany has. Seems to be overrun by people, but it's only temporary, until the older generations die off and leave only the smaller ones.
> “Population always grows and declines exponentially.” But has never fallen bellow the threshold of “bouncing back” … nothing even close. Humans are THE MOST resilient of all lifeforms on this earth. I am not concerned for our future. But that’s prolly just my naive optimism kicking in. #teamhuman
Humans actually have hit the fertility "point of no return" quite often, but it was always geographically limited. This time, it's entire geographic regions. Even migration won't make a difference, as it just delays the situation one generation in the new place and speeds it up accordingly, in the old place. Doesn't mean humans will go extinct, but it does imply that we'll stop building and revert to subsistance. Humans only build when there is scarcity and progeny.
Humans actually have hit the fertility "point of no return" quite often, but it was always geographically limited. This time, it's entire geographic regions. Even migration won't make a difference, as it just delays the situation one generation in the new place and speeds it up accordingly, in the old place. Doesn't mean humans will go extinct, but it does imply that we'll stop building and revert to subsistance. Humans only build when there is scarcity and progeny.
