The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)(kemendo.com)
kemendo.com
The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)
https://kemendo.com/Myth.pdf
163 comments
"[A]ccess to resources is determined strictly by how competent individuals are at acquiring and hoarding resources"
This claim seems highly implausible to me as well. There is enough food in my house to feed its occupants for about a week. Is that "hoarding"? I have retirement savings put by so that I will be able to support myself once I stop working. Is that "hoarding"?
What determines what you call "access to resources" (itself a misleading way to put it, IMO) in developed countries is trade. People trade goods or services they produce for money, which they then trade for things they need or want. And this is not "competition for resources". It is cooperation in creating wealth. Practically nobody in a developed country produces goods or services purely by their own efforts; we all cooperate with many other people in the course of doing our jobs. (Which, btw, is perfectly compatible with private property rights--indeed, it requires them. See below.)
The reason this doesn't happen in less developed countries is that it's not allowed to: just as corrupt governments in those countries confiscate aid from developed countries, they also confiscate any wealth that is created by their people. So their people have no incentive to create any wealth through cooperation and trade, since they're not going to gain any benefit from it anyway. In other words, they know they will have no private property rights in what they produce, so they don't bother producing.
This claim seems highly implausible to me as well. There is enough food in my house to feed its occupants for about a week. Is that "hoarding"? I have retirement savings put by so that I will be able to support myself once I stop working. Is that "hoarding"?
What determines what you call "access to resources" (itself a misleading way to put it, IMO) in developed countries is trade. People trade goods or services they produce for money, which they then trade for things they need or want. And this is not "competition for resources". It is cooperation in creating wealth. Practically nobody in a developed country produces goods or services purely by their own efforts; we all cooperate with many other people in the course of doing our jobs. (Which, btw, is perfectly compatible with private property rights--indeed, it requires them. See below.)
The reason this doesn't happen in less developed countries is that it's not allowed to: just as corrupt governments in those countries confiscate aid from developed countries, they also confiscate any wealth that is created by their people. So their people have no incentive to create any wealth through cooperation and trade, since they're not going to gain any benefit from it anyway. In other words, they know they will have no private property rights in what they produce, so they don't bother producing.
>So their people have no incentive to create any wealth through cooperation and trade, since they're not going to gain any benefit from it anyway. In other words, they know they will have no private property rights in what they produce, so they don't bother producing.
That sounds way too much like capitalism.
>What determines what you call "access to resources" (itself a misleading way to put it, IMO) in developed countries is trade. People trade goods or services they produce for money, which they then trade for things they need or want.
"Trade" only makes sense to the extent that human labor is in demand. When there is excess production, the resource already exists and there is no need for further labor. At that point the additional labor has devolved into a hazing ritual. A bullshit job, if you want to call it that. People get access to resources through earning money, therefore even if there are too many resources already, you must add onto this pile of excess resources, for the sake of the hazing ritual, which represents the payment of the entrance fee.
That sounds way too much like capitalism.
>What determines what you call "access to resources" (itself a misleading way to put it, IMO) in developed countries is trade. People trade goods or services they produce for money, which they then trade for things they need or want.
"Trade" only makes sense to the extent that human labor is in demand. When there is excess production, the resource already exists and there is no need for further labor. At that point the additional labor has devolved into a hazing ritual. A bullshit job, if you want to call it that. People get access to resources through earning money, therefore even if there are too many resources already, you must add onto this pile of excess resources, for the sake of the hazing ritual, which represents the payment of the entrance fee.
How can there be 'too many resources already'?
Even a single sci-fi fanatic, who genuinely desires a giant Star-Trek like spaceship, requires more 'resources' to satisfy their desire then the entirety of mankind has access to at the present moment.
Let alone the billions of people with more modest but still quite sizeable desires.
Even a single sci-fi fanatic, who genuinely desires a giant Star-Trek like spaceship, requires more 'resources' to satisfy their desire then the entirety of mankind has access to at the present moment.
Let alone the billions of people with more modest but still quite sizeable desires.
> That sounds way too much like capitalism.
No, it's basic free market economics. "Free market" does not mean the same thing as capitalism, although many capitalists (i.e., people who want to get their hands on as much capital as they can, by hook or by crook) like to claim that it does. Free markets promote freedom and wealth creation. Capitalism can under some circumstances, but under others it undermines those things. Many people feel that currently it is doing the latter.
> "Trade" only makes sense to the extent that human labor is in demand.
Human labor is always in demand. Even for "resources" which are in "excess production", those resources still have to be transported to the people that need them. For example, food grown in the US in excess of what people in the US need to eat needs to be transported to somewhere else in the world where people are hungry. That requires human labor, and that need for human labor is ongoing, because people don't stop needing to eat when you've given them food once. That process represents wealth creation and is always happening.
Also, people have needs and wants far above bare subsistence. The medium in which we are having this conversation would not exist in a bare subsistence world. Neither would countless other things that people value even if they are not strictly necessary for bare subsistence. There are always things that can be produced and traded to create more wealth.
> A bullshit job, if you want to call it that.
Sure, there are lots of bullshit jobs, but even if you eliminated them all, you wouldn't be eliminating the need for human labor. You would just be redirecting human labor towards more productive uses, i.e., towards actually creating wealth instead of just pretending to. That's a good thing.
Even in some utopian future where the vast majority of production processes are automated, so the amount of human labor needed to, say, produce food, is minimal, there will still be human labor required to do other things--like decide what things to produce. Also, in such a world, the price of all those things produced by automation would be close to zero, since the marginal cost of their production would be close to zero. So the drastic reduction in human labor required to produce the necessities of life would be reflected in a drastic reduction in the cost of the necessities of life. That is what "no more scarcity" should look like.
No, it's basic free market economics. "Free market" does not mean the same thing as capitalism, although many capitalists (i.e., people who want to get their hands on as much capital as they can, by hook or by crook) like to claim that it does. Free markets promote freedom and wealth creation. Capitalism can under some circumstances, but under others it undermines those things. Many people feel that currently it is doing the latter.
> "Trade" only makes sense to the extent that human labor is in demand.
Human labor is always in demand. Even for "resources" which are in "excess production", those resources still have to be transported to the people that need them. For example, food grown in the US in excess of what people in the US need to eat needs to be transported to somewhere else in the world where people are hungry. That requires human labor, and that need for human labor is ongoing, because people don't stop needing to eat when you've given them food once. That process represents wealth creation and is always happening.
Also, people have needs and wants far above bare subsistence. The medium in which we are having this conversation would not exist in a bare subsistence world. Neither would countless other things that people value even if they are not strictly necessary for bare subsistence. There are always things that can be produced and traded to create more wealth.
> A bullshit job, if you want to call it that.
Sure, there are lots of bullshit jobs, but even if you eliminated them all, you wouldn't be eliminating the need for human labor. You would just be redirecting human labor towards more productive uses, i.e., towards actually creating wealth instead of just pretending to. That's a good thing.
Even in some utopian future where the vast majority of production processes are automated, so the amount of human labor needed to, say, produce food, is minimal, there will still be human labor required to do other things--like decide what things to produce. Also, in such a world, the price of all those things produced by automation would be close to zero, since the marginal cost of their production would be close to zero. So the drastic reduction in human labor required to produce the necessities of life would be reflected in a drastic reduction in the cost of the necessities of life. That is what "no more scarcity" should look like.
This is fully reflective of what I intended to convey thank you!
From the paper:
"[I]n-groups controlling abundance have increasingly chosen to produce non-necessary goods, rather than produce services to distribute necessary goods to regions with less abundance of necessary goods"
This claim seems, to say the least, highly implausible given the amount of aid and charity that developed countries give to less developed countries. The chief obstacle to that aid having more of an effect at relieving scarcity in less developed countries is political corruption in those countries: the governments of those countries confiscate the aid and use it to enrich themselves and their cronies, instead of getting it distributed to the people it is supposed to be for.
In other words, solutions to the scarcity problems you describe in less developed countries appear to me to be primarily political, not economic.
"[I]n-groups controlling abundance have increasingly chosen to produce non-necessary goods, rather than produce services to distribute necessary goods to regions with less abundance of necessary goods"
This claim seems, to say the least, highly implausible given the amount of aid and charity that developed countries give to less developed countries. The chief obstacle to that aid having more of an effect at relieving scarcity in less developed countries is political corruption in those countries: the governments of those countries confiscate the aid and use it to enrich themselves and their cronies, instead of getting it distributed to the people it is supposed to be for.
In other words, solutions to the scarcity problems you describe in less developed countries appear to me to be primarily political, not economic.
I think you’re confusing my argument.
I don’t suggest a solution
I’m pointing out that the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others.
This might be a “duh” but the point is that my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth.
I don’t suggest a solution
I’m pointing out that the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others.
This might be a “duh” but the point is that my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth.
We already have solutions. They are based around the principle of economic democracy.
It is a simple three step solution:
1. Identify sources of wealth that cannot be reproduced and therefore be hoarded to exclude access
2. Let the government tax or own the asset and grant every citizen equal rights to the asset in question.
3. Let people perform the act of producing reproducible assets on their own, now that they have the ability to do so.
Extreme hypothetical: AGI is real and everyone has a personal AGI. Given enough energy the AGI can produce anything in autarky. The primary resource that matters in this hypothetical economy is access to energy. Most people in today's society are born without any access to energy. Their access to energy is conditional upon performing labor, but labor is worthless in the hypothetical economy, therefore people without access to energy will simply die out.
There are many forms of economic democracy such as Freiwirtschaft or Georgism. These "economic systems" are built around the idea that non-reproducible assets should be taxed over time to prevent hoarding.
It is a simple three step solution:
1. Identify sources of wealth that cannot be reproduced and therefore be hoarded to exclude access
2. Let the government tax or own the asset and grant every citizen equal rights to the asset in question.
3. Let people perform the act of producing reproducible assets on their own, now that they have the ability to do so.
Extreme hypothetical: AGI is real and everyone has a personal AGI. Given enough energy the AGI can produce anything in autarky. The primary resource that matters in this hypothetical economy is access to energy. Most people in today's society are born without any access to energy. Their access to energy is conditional upon performing labor, but labor is worthless in the hypothetical economy, therefore people without access to energy will simply die out.
There are many forms of economic democracy such as Freiwirtschaft or Georgism. These "economic systems" are built around the idea that non-reproducible assets should be taxed over time to prevent hoarding.
I agree that something like Georgism is going to be required
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> the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others...my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth.
I think you're missing my point. My point is that, before we even get to your hypothesis about why the claim you make is true, we first need to agree that it is true. And I don't think it is. I think people in developed countries have a significant desire to help people in less developed countries--but our political system, which allows corrupt governments to stay in power even though their actions are making their people starve, frustrates that desire. We have been sending huge amounts of aid to the Third World for more than half a century, and we continue to do so, but it hasn't helped and it isn't helping.
In other words, to the extent that people in developed countries believe that they might as well focus on increasing their own personal happiness, it's because they don't see that trying to help people in less developed countries accomplishes anything. That is indeed a "learned perspective", but it's learned from actual experience of the effects of aid over the past half century and more, not from any kind of "myth" about scarcity. Indeed, if people in developed countries really believed that resources like food were scarce, we wouldn't have been sending all that aid to less developed countries for more than half a century. It's precisely because we know that we have excess resources and can afford to send them elsewhere to help, that there has been widespread political support in developed countries for sending all that aid. Any reduction in that support doesn't come from beliefs about scarcity; it comes from observing that the actual consequences of the aid are not the intended ones.
(Note, btw, that the existence of "excess resources" in developed countries for things like food depends on people in those countries creating wealth over and above the needs of bare subsistence. So "the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs" in developed countries is required in order for there to be excess basic needs to be sent as aid to less developed countries.)
I think you're missing my point. My point is that, before we even get to your hypothesis about why the claim you make is true, we first need to agree that it is true. And I don't think it is. I think people in developed countries have a significant desire to help people in less developed countries--but our political system, which allows corrupt governments to stay in power even though their actions are making their people starve, frustrates that desire. We have been sending huge amounts of aid to the Third World for more than half a century, and we continue to do so, but it hasn't helped and it isn't helping.
In other words, to the extent that people in developed countries believe that they might as well focus on increasing their own personal happiness, it's because they don't see that trying to help people in less developed countries accomplishes anything. That is indeed a "learned perspective", but it's learned from actual experience of the effects of aid over the past half century and more, not from any kind of "myth" about scarcity. Indeed, if people in developed countries really believed that resources like food were scarce, we wouldn't have been sending all that aid to less developed countries for more than half a century. It's precisely because we know that we have excess resources and can afford to send them elsewhere to help, that there has been widespread political support in developed countries for sending all that aid. Any reduction in that support doesn't come from beliefs about scarcity; it comes from observing that the actual consequences of the aid are not the intended ones.
(Note, btw, that the existence of "excess resources" in developed countries for things like food depends on people in those countries creating wealth over and above the needs of bare subsistence. So "the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs" in developed countries is required in order for there to be excess basic needs to be sent as aid to less developed countries.)
Your perspective boils down to “we’ve already tried to and failed.”
To which I would argue, in fact, we have not tried it, even barely
Actually trying would look more like the following:
The children who are currently mining for Mica for beauty products on behalf of LoReal would be stockholders outright of stock in LVM, as a result of their work, not literal slaves
You are suggesting that the process that we have used so far, which is individually determined capital redistribution via means that pick apart the donation through service fees, middleman functions, etc.
This is what you are suggesting is trying?
No. What I’m saying is that the people who hoard wealth and power will hoard more wealth and power up until socially that is no longer acceptable. we need to determine ways to distribute or rather, not steal in the first place, the value that labor is creating.
To which I would argue, in fact, we have not tried it, even barely
Actually trying would look more like the following:
The children who are currently mining for Mica for beauty products on behalf of LoReal would be stockholders outright of stock in LVM, as a result of their work, not literal slaves
You are suggesting that the process that we have used so far, which is individually determined capital redistribution via means that pick apart the donation through service fees, middleman functions, etc.
This is what you are suggesting is trying?
No. What I’m saying is that the people who hoard wealth and power will hoard more wealth and power up until socially that is no longer acceptable. we need to determine ways to distribute or rather, not steal in the first place, the value that labor is creating.
> Your perspective boils down to “we’ve already tried to and failed.”
We have already tried "redistributing wealth" by having rich countries give stuff to poor countries, yes. And yes, it has failed.
> Actually trying would look more like the following:
The children who are currently mining for Mica for beauty products on behalf of LoReal would be stockholders outright of stock in LVM, as a result of their work, not literal slaves
Ok, fine, but how am I, as a citizen of the US, supposed to make this happen? Isn't it a matter of the political system in the country where this is going on? What does any of this have to do with how I, as a citizen of the US, make use of the wealth I have helped to create?
> the people who hoard wealth and power will hoard more wealth and power up until socially that is no longer acceptable.
As I asked you in another post upthread, what's your definition of "hoarding"? Am I, as a citizen of the US, hoarding wealth and power because I have retirement savings and because I choose to spend money on things that are not, strictly speaking, necessities of life? (Which includes the means of participating in this very discussion; the forum we are using, and the underlying infrastructure that makes it possible, would not exist if everyone just focused on the necessities of life.)
> we need to determine ways to distribute or rather, not steal in the first place, the value that labor is creating
In a free market, that distribution occurs automatically, because people get paid according to the marginal value they create. While I am totally in favor of people having ownership shares in things like factories, the reason for that is not that it "distributes wealth better" but that it increases the marginal value that a person can create, and therefore increases their income by straightforward free market economics. (It also, though, comes with taking on increased risk, because as an owner you are directly exposed to all the business risks that a wage-earning employee offloads to their employer. Some people prefer not to make that tradeoff.)
If all that isn't happening, the obvious solution is to fix whatever political issue is making the market not free and therefore preventing it from happening. Again, that has nothing to do with what I, as a citizen of the US, choose to do with the wealth I have helped to create.
We have already tried "redistributing wealth" by having rich countries give stuff to poor countries, yes. And yes, it has failed.
> Actually trying would look more like the following:
The children who are currently mining for Mica for beauty products on behalf of LoReal would be stockholders outright of stock in LVM, as a result of their work, not literal slaves
Ok, fine, but how am I, as a citizen of the US, supposed to make this happen? Isn't it a matter of the political system in the country where this is going on? What does any of this have to do with how I, as a citizen of the US, make use of the wealth I have helped to create?
> the people who hoard wealth and power will hoard more wealth and power up until socially that is no longer acceptable.
As I asked you in another post upthread, what's your definition of "hoarding"? Am I, as a citizen of the US, hoarding wealth and power because I have retirement savings and because I choose to spend money on things that are not, strictly speaking, necessities of life? (Which includes the means of participating in this very discussion; the forum we are using, and the underlying infrastructure that makes it possible, would not exist if everyone just focused on the necessities of life.)
> we need to determine ways to distribute or rather, not steal in the first place, the value that labor is creating
In a free market, that distribution occurs automatically, because people get paid according to the marginal value they create. While I am totally in favor of people having ownership shares in things like factories, the reason for that is not that it "distributes wealth better" but that it increases the marginal value that a person can create, and therefore increases their income by straightforward free market economics. (It also, though, comes with taking on increased risk, because as an owner you are directly exposed to all the business risks that a wage-earning employee offloads to their employer. Some people prefer not to make that tradeoff.)
If all that isn't happening, the obvious solution is to fix whatever political issue is making the market not free and therefore preventing it from happening. Again, that has nothing to do with what I, as a citizen of the US, choose to do with the wealth I have helped to create.
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Developing countries receive aid for geopolitical reasons, not to actually help them out.
The IMF gives contradictory advice that doesn't help. China, Korea, Japan etc all ignored IMF advice and see where that got them.
>In other words, solutions to the scarcity problems you describe in less developed countries appear to me to be primarily political, not economic.
Uhm, that was the entire point of the paper. There is material abundance but no access. Also, you can project the hoarding behaviour onto the corrupt cronies so that objection doesn't go against the paper but is in support of it.
The IMF gives contradictory advice that doesn't help. China, Korea, Japan etc all ignored IMF advice and see where that got them.
>In other words, solutions to the scarcity problems you describe in less developed countries appear to me to be primarily political, not economic.
Uhm, that was the entire point of the paper. There is material abundance but no access. Also, you can project the hoarding behaviour onto the corrupt cronies so that objection doesn't go against the paper but is in support of it.
> Developing countries receive aid for geopolitical reasons
The point isn't why those countries agree to receive aid, it's why there is political support in developed countries for sending it. If the paper's hypothetical were true, that people in developed countries prefer to increase their own personal happiness instead of helping others, the aid would never be sent because voters in developed countries would never support it.
> There is material abundance but no access.
The paper doesn't just make this factual claim (well, it's sort of factual--talk about "access" already presupposes particular ideological views, but let that pass). It makes an additional claim about why this is true. I don't think that additional claim is true (see above and my other post upthread in response to the author).
> you can project the hoarding behaviour onto the corrupt cronies
The "hoarding behavior" that the paper claims is not the behavior of the corrupt cronies in the countries receiving aid, it's the behavior of the people in the countries that are sending aid. And that claim about "hoarding behavior" is wrong, as I've already posted elsewhere in this discussion.
The point isn't why those countries agree to receive aid, it's why there is political support in developed countries for sending it. If the paper's hypothetical were true, that people in developed countries prefer to increase their own personal happiness instead of helping others, the aid would never be sent because voters in developed countries would never support it.
> There is material abundance but no access.
The paper doesn't just make this factual claim (well, it's sort of factual--talk about "access" already presupposes particular ideological views, but let that pass). It makes an additional claim about why this is true. I don't think that additional claim is true (see above and my other post upthread in response to the author).
> you can project the hoarding behaviour onto the corrupt cronies
The "hoarding behavior" that the paper claims is not the behavior of the corrupt cronies in the countries receiving aid, it's the behavior of the people in the countries that are sending aid. And that claim about "hoarding behavior" is wrong, as I've already posted elsewhere in this discussion.
At the macro scale they are the same thing
The failure of direct aid as described is entirely inclusive of all actors priorities involved.
There is no true global cooperative desire to solve these problems so it doesn’t happen, and these signaling actions - which is what they are - are known to be ineffective.
CFCs and Polio were eradicated. For all its flaws were pulled together to get through COVID. We can actually do stuff we want to do at global scale when we really want to
Go read the book on medicins san frontiers to get a closer look at the massive differences in what the “Aid” community does versus they claim to do
The fear of scarcity and all its downstream effects of hoarding and individualism
The failure of direct aid as described is entirely inclusive of all actors priorities involved.
There is no true global cooperative desire to solve these problems so it doesn’t happen, and these signaling actions - which is what they are - are known to be ineffective.
CFCs and Polio were eradicated. For all its flaws were pulled together to get through COVID. We can actually do stuff we want to do at global scale when we really want to
Go read the book on medicins san frontiers to get a closer look at the massive differences in what the “Aid” community does versus they claim to do
The fear of scarcity and all its downstream effects of hoarding and individualism
> There is no true global cooperative desire to solve these problems so it doesn’t happen
If we include the corrupt governments of the countries where people are poor and starving in "global", yes, this is true.
I'm not sure "fear of scarcity" is a good description of why those corrupt governments don't have this "cooperative desire", though.
> these signaling actions - which is what they are - are known to be ineffective
Here we agree, yes.
If we include the corrupt governments of the countries where people are poor and starving in "global", yes, this is true.
I'm not sure "fear of scarcity" is a good description of why those corrupt governments don't have this "cooperative desire", though.
> these signaling actions - which is what they are - are known to be ineffective
Here we agree, yes.
Very enjoyable read.
> ...embedded in prehistoric storytelling ...
I think worse, embedded in our very vocabulary. In Dutch for example "community" or "gemeinschaft" translates as (the never used word) "gemeenschap" which besides many vague things also means having sex. When used it mostly refers to location rather than ideas or activity. "club" is only used to describe a group of people with shared characteristics humorously. In contrast, if we are going to sail a boat every detail is enshrined in exact terminology as if it's a DSL designed for that purpose.
With the development and expansion of reading and writing our vocabulary "froze" in time and lost much of its dynamic adaptation.
> Economic, Social and Political thought since the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction, assumes inescapable scarcity as a fundamental truth, and assumes in-group resource hoarding behaviors are perpetually adaptive.
I would extend it to include Scientific scarcity? and perhaps even Educational and Technological? My mind has a hard time fitting the 3 under Economic, Social or Political banners. Then again, under which would one fit the Attention market?
> Quaternary Megafauna Extinction (QME) was the well documented, extremely rapid crash in available calories, beginning around 50,000 BC....
If it happened it will happen again(?) despite optimizing for the myth we seem insanely unfit to deal with something like that.
> ...embedded in prehistoric storytelling ...
I think worse, embedded in our very vocabulary. In Dutch for example "community" or "gemeinschaft" translates as (the never used word) "gemeenschap" which besides many vague things also means having sex. When used it mostly refers to location rather than ideas or activity. "club" is only used to describe a group of people with shared characteristics humorously. In contrast, if we are going to sail a boat every detail is enshrined in exact terminology as if it's a DSL designed for that purpose.
With the development and expansion of reading and writing our vocabulary "froze" in time and lost much of its dynamic adaptation.
> Economic, Social and Political thought since the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction, assumes inescapable scarcity as a fundamental truth, and assumes in-group resource hoarding behaviors are perpetually adaptive.
I would extend it to include Scientific scarcity? and perhaps even Educational and Technological? My mind has a hard time fitting the 3 under Economic, Social or Political banners. Then again, under which would one fit the Attention market?
> Quaternary Megafauna Extinction (QME) was the well documented, extremely rapid crash in available calories, beginning around 50,000 BC....
If it happened it will happen again(?) despite optimizing for the myth we seem insanely unfit to deal with something like that.
You might be interested in Randall Carlson, he believes the megafauna extinction was tied to a global cataclysm and has speculated that it and its aftermath essentially traumatized human societies in a way that still persists today
I see in your profile: Iraq war veteran.
Why did you chose to fight in Iraq?
(asking the question because it might reveal a better understanding of your thought process).
Why did you chose to fight in Iraq?
(asking the question because it might reveal a better understanding of your thought process).
I chose to be at risk of fighting in Iraq (or wherever) by becoming and officer in the USAF. I did not choose Iraq specifically though, and had hoped I wouldn’t go, but the USAF decided that’s where they wanted to send me, so I went.
It was a bad time, nothing good came from it, and I missed the first 10 months of my first daughters life. Would not do again.
It was a bad time, nothing good came from it, and I missed the first 10 months of my first daughters life. Would not do again.
Basically, an epicurian proposition:
"Epicurus asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain happy (eudaimonic), tranquil lives characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends." [0]
"Epicurus distinguishes between three types of desires: natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, and vain and empty. Natural and necessary desires include the desires for food and shelter. These are easy to satisfy, difficult to eliminate, bring pleasure when satisfied, and are naturally limited. Going beyond these limits produces unnecessary desires, such as the desire for luxury foods. Although food is necessary, luxury food is not necessary. Correspondingly, Epicurus advocates a life of hedonistic moderation by reducing desire, thus eliminating the unhappiness caused by unfulfilled desires. Vain desires include desires for power, wealth, and fame. These are difficult to satisfy because no matter how much one gets, one can always want more. These desires are inculcated by society and by false beliefs about what we need. They are not natural and are to be shunned" [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
"Epicurus asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain happy (eudaimonic), tranquil lives characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends." [0]
"Epicurus distinguishes between three types of desires: natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, and vain and empty. Natural and necessary desires include the desires for food and shelter. These are easy to satisfy, difficult to eliminate, bring pleasure when satisfied, and are naturally limited. Going beyond these limits produces unnecessary desires, such as the desire for luxury foods. Although food is necessary, luxury food is not necessary. Correspondingly, Epicurus advocates a life of hedonistic moderation by reducing desire, thus eliminating the unhappiness caused by unfulfilled desires. Vain desires include desires for power, wealth, and fame. These are difficult to satisfy because no matter how much one gets, one can always want more. These desires are inculcated by society and by false beliefs about what we need. They are not natural and are to be shunned" [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
I am happy to see discussion of the them here though I'm not in complete agreement with the article.
One interesting quote: "The question of “Alignment” then is an Absurd question - as humanity cannot align internally due to our structural impediments"
I agree in the sense that I think "alignment" is a poor conceptualization of the problem of avoiding destructive AGIs. But I don't think the conclusion here is you don't have to worry about destructive AGIs. I mean, if an AGIs could be constructed by present day "training" - feeding large swaths of data so it had average qualities of human but it's behavior was underpredictable, then it's change of acting with awful malice would be quite high. Because humans often act that way, social/societal are the primary limits to this and an entity of this sort might effectively not have those limits.
One interesting quote: "The question of “Alignment” then is an Absurd question - as humanity cannot align internally due to our structural impediments"
I agree in the sense that I think "alignment" is a poor conceptualization of the problem of avoiding destructive AGIs. But I don't think the conclusion here is you don't have to worry about destructive AGIs. I mean, if an AGIs could be constructed by present day "training" - feeding large swaths of data so it had average qualities of human but it's behavior was underpredictable, then it's change of acting with awful malice would be quite high. Because humans often act that way, social/societal are the primary limits to this and an entity of this sort might effectively not have those limits.
> But I don't think the conclusion here is you don't have to worry about destructive AGIs.
In fact my argument is precisely that you should worry because there is no possibility of anything but destructive or Nerfed, AGIs if we continue on the current data generation path
In fact my argument is precisely that you should worry because there is no possibility of anything but destructive or Nerfed, AGIs if we continue on the current data generation path
Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”:
In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living”.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living”.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
Well, just set the zero-point higher. Yeah, if you're a "real" utilitarian that makes more lives not worth living, but it's the bullet you have to bite in that case.
> Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”:
I disagree, elaborate ponderings in the absence of non-hypothetical evidence are not worth talking about.
I mean, read the section, "Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion" with any critical eye at all and it becomes clear that it's total nonsense. They're treating "postponing a pregnancy" (not even aborting an existing pregnancy to have a later pregnancy--literally having sex at a later date) as if it's equivalent to killing the potential child. They've strung together a lot of fancy-sounding words but what they've said is stupid. It doesn't get better from there.
The best philosophers don't call themselves philosophers, because they have enough real-world knowledge to call themselves something else like a politician or an engineer. I have no interest whatsoever in the sort of philosopher who logics themselves around in the absence of any empirical connection to reality.
I disagree, elaborate ponderings in the absence of non-hypothetical evidence are not worth talking about.
I mean, read the section, "Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion" with any critical eye at all and it becomes clear that it's total nonsense. They're treating "postponing a pregnancy" (not even aborting an existing pregnancy to have a later pregnancy--literally having sex at a later date) as if it's equivalent to killing the potential child. They've strung together a lot of fancy-sounding words but what they've said is stupid. It doesn't get better from there.
The best philosophers don't call themselves philosophers, because they have enough real-world knowledge to call themselves something else like a politician or an engineer. I have no interest whatsoever in the sort of philosopher who logics themselves around in the absence of any empirical connection to reality.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it also seems innumerate. It's possible that the resources needed for each additional person reduces the quality of life for all other people enough to more than entirely cancel out their own contribution to the "sum". The resulting sequence would approach a sum of 0 as the population increases instead of always increasing with population.
I mean, you can make up any model of the situation in a void, which is why this whole discussion doesn't matter. What if it's a normal distribution, and there's a number of people where quality of life is maximized? Since we're making shit up now, what if it's an exponential decay and there's a number of people where quality of life jumps from negative infinity to positive infinity?
If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all? Move over the comment in silence and leave it for people that are willing to think more about a topic. I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss.
This "hostile anti-intellectualism" is so tiresome.
This "hostile anti-intellectualism" is so tiresome.
It's interesting in the "spherical cow"[1] kind of way like many abstract ideas, but it quickly falls apart as soon as you try to use apply it to any real context. In particular it suffers from a problem similar to the one that plagues the Martingale betting strategy[2], where you might need an infinite[3] amount of resources to achieve a population large enough to make up for the loss in quality of life.
So ultimately there's not an actionable idea here, because the true morality of the situation ends up depending on physical constraints that are hard to predict in advance.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)
[3] Not literally infinite, but more than can be obtained by the civilization you're applying this to. As a trivial example, what if the population required is so large that there's not enough water in the earth's oceans to constitute their bodies?
So ultimately there's not an actionable idea here, because the true morality of the situation ends up depending on physical constraints that are hard to predict in advance.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)
[3] Not literally infinite, but more than can be obtained by the civilization you're applying this to. As a trivial example, what if the population required is so large that there's not enough water in the earth's oceans to constitute their bodies?
I don't think that's the case at all. The fundamental question of whether the basic low-level life existence of a human being is preferable to a smaller number of high-quality lives is a difficult question and isn't just some abstract spherical cow thought experiment.
Abstract spherical cow thought experiments can be difficult and still be abstract spherical cow thought experiments.
What makes this completely irrelevant to anything I care about, is that "many shitty lives" vs. "few high-quality lives" aren't options that exist in a void. Whatever complex worldwide system you're talking about that would put those two choices on the table would have all sorts of massive side effects, and those side effects matter in deciding which is preferable. It's just not useful to discuss it in some hypothetical infinite blank frictionless flat surface where you've arbitrarily decided that having a baby later is murdering the potential baby you might have had earlier. That's not reality and it has no impact or relation to reality.
What makes this completely irrelevant to anything I care about, is that "many shitty lives" vs. "few high-quality lives" aren't options that exist in a void. Whatever complex worldwide system you're talking about that would put those two choices on the table would have all sorts of massive side effects, and those side effects matter in deciding which is preferable. It's just not useful to discuss it in some hypothetical infinite blank frictionless flat surface where you've arbitrarily decided that having a baby later is murdering the potential baby you might have had earlier. That's not reality and it has no impact or relation to reality.
> If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all?
I am very interested in philosophy and I do care for thinking deeply about problems.
But if you want to talk about philosophy I do insist that we philosophize about evidence that exists in reality, not about hypothetical situations with no connection to reality. And no deep thought was had in coming up with the "repugnant conclusion".
> I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss.
The thought "delaying sex is murder" is not the product of an intelligent mind, and more time spent coming up with that idiotic idea does not make him seem more intelligent.
Do you actually even disagree with me? Do you want to defend the idea that delaying sex is murder? Or are you just getting defensive because you like Parfit?
I am very interested in philosophy and I do care for thinking deeply about problems.
But if you want to talk about philosophy I do insist that we philosophize about evidence that exists in reality, not about hypothetical situations with no connection to reality. And no deep thought was had in coming up with the "repugnant conclusion".
> I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss.
The thought "delaying sex is murder" is not the product of an intelligent mind, and more time spent coming up with that idiotic idea does not make him seem more intelligent.
Do you actually even disagree with me? Do you want to defend the idea that delaying sex is murder? Or are you just getting defensive because you like Parfit?
No, I have no particular attachment to any of those people or ideas. But when I post a related link because it’s interesting and others may like reading it, and the top comment is an anti-intellectual tirade by someone that clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, then yeah, that annoys me.
You seem pretty set in your uninformed ways, so I’m not sure there’s much else to say here, other than: the SEP is a world-class encyclopedia of reputable scholars that have thought about this much more than you have. Try reading a paper sometime.
You seem pretty set in your uninformed ways, so I’m not sure there’s much else to say here, other than: the SEP is a world-class encyclopedia of reputable scholars that have thought about this much more than you have. Try reading a paper sometime.
> No, I have no particular attachment to any of those people or ideas.
Okay, so then what exactly is your objection to me saying that what Parfit said was stupid?
> But when I post a related link because it’s interesting and others may like reading it, and the top comment is an anti-intellectual tirade by someone that clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, then yeah, that annoys me.
Again, I'm not anti-intellectual. I'm anti calling this nonsense intellectual.
> the SEP is a world-class encyclopedia of reputable scholars
That's just an appeal to authority[1]. A group of philosophers patting each other on the back can all be wrong. Ideas get evaluated by their logic and evidence, not by the reputation of who said them.
There are plenty of philosophers I respect. Darwin, Chomsky, or Orwell, for examples. But I respect them based on the ideas they came up with (which doesn't mean I always agree). I haven't read any Parfit besides what you've posted, but nothing there warrants any respect.
There are plenty of other "reputable" philosophers who deserve no respect. "If everyone was a philosopher, there would be no farmers and we would starve to death; therefore being a philosopher is wrong." Sound familiar? Why is no philosopher talking about how stupid that idea is?
> that have thought about this much more than you have.
I really do not know why you think that "thinking about something a lot" matters. A program that runs for a long time and then spits out the wrong answer is not a good program.
> Try reading a paper sometime.
I read 3 papers in the last week. Each of them contained data which tied their conclusions to reality.
Try reading a paper critically sometime.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/
Okay, so then what exactly is your objection to me saying that what Parfit said was stupid?
> But when I post a related link because it’s interesting and others may like reading it, and the top comment is an anti-intellectual tirade by someone that clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, then yeah, that annoys me.
Again, I'm not anti-intellectual. I'm anti calling this nonsense intellectual.
> the SEP is a world-class encyclopedia of reputable scholars
That's just an appeal to authority[1]. A group of philosophers patting each other on the back can all be wrong. Ideas get evaluated by their logic and evidence, not by the reputation of who said them.
There are plenty of philosophers I respect. Darwin, Chomsky, or Orwell, for examples. But I respect them based on the ideas they came up with (which doesn't mean I always agree). I haven't read any Parfit besides what you've posted, but nothing there warrants any respect.
There are plenty of other "reputable" philosophers who deserve no respect. "If everyone was a philosopher, there would be no farmers and we would starve to death; therefore being a philosopher is wrong." Sound familiar? Why is no philosopher talking about how stupid that idea is?
> that have thought about this much more than you have.
I really do not know why you think that "thinking about something a lot" matters. A program that runs for a long time and then spits out the wrong answer is not a good program.
> Try reading a paper sometime.
I read 3 papers in the last week. Each of them contained data which tied their conclusions to reality.
Try reading a paper critically sometime.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/
You might be interested in pragmatism.
No, people that write comments like that one tend to be into Ayn Rand and think her pseudo-intellectual philosophy is something worth building a worldview around. The keywords, belligerence, and lack of actual intellectual engagement ("this is all stupid nonsense not worth talking about" is a key tell) are all there.
Dear God no. I am not into Ayn Rand.
Quite a bit of interesting history here. This resonates with my thoughts on the matter.
On the AI/automation point, my largest curiosity is what will happen when we get to 99+% of the automation of all value-providing labor. At that point, the concept of wage labor will be meaningless, and along with it the wherewithal of exchange which currently powers the world economy (money). If the vast majority of the population is unable to provide more value than machines can, what happens then?
It would seem the only logical course would be to return to de-facto cooperation, but humans aren't overall very logical IMO.
On the AI/automation point, my largest curiosity is what will happen when we get to 99+% of the automation of all value-providing labor. At that point, the concept of wage labor will be meaningless, and along with it the wherewithal of exchange which currently powers the world economy (money). If the vast majority of the population is unable to provide more value than machines can, what happens then?
It would seem the only logical course would be to return to de-facto cooperation, but humans aren't overall very logical IMO.
One possibility is total cooperation on the basic needs (free for all) and a "capitalistic" system on the luxury needs. See https://lorenzopieri.com/post_scarcity/
I don't understand how any species escapes logistic growth without strict population control or interstellar travel.
In the right circumstances, birth control happens automatically.
As people get more wealthy, there seems to be less incentive to have lots of children. Perhaps due to better healthcare (less deaths in childbirth) and more securities for old age (eg. pensions).
Seems Africa is at the moment the only continent that still has population growth (and quite massive).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272789/world-population-...
As people get more wealthy, there seems to be less incentive to have lots of children. Perhaps due to better healthcare (less deaths in childbirth) and more securities for old age (eg. pensions).
Seems Africa is at the moment the only continent that still has population growth (and quite massive).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272789/world-population-...
I think this is more a consequence of consumerism and the media-nature of modern society and not directly from increased populations. It just seems that way because science allowing for larger food crops, less child mortality, etc. coincided with the rise of media technology.
What's the mechanism by which consumerism and media lead to lower child births though?
It's easy to see that in poorer countries with minimal or no pensions or social security having more children leads to greater productive capacity for the family, and a better chance of the parents being cared for in old age. Family connections are crucial support networks everyone relies on. Each extra child is another insurance policy for the future. In wealthy countries with pensions and social security none of that is an issue.
It's easy to see that in poorer countries with minimal or no pensions or social security having more children leads to greater productive capacity for the family, and a better chance of the parents being cared for in old age. Family connections are crucial support networks everyone relies on. Each extra child is another insurance policy for the future. In wealthy countries with pensions and social security none of that is an issue.
Maybe it's not so much that media technology itself leads to lower child births, but that the particular media being pushed results in lower child births. Consumerism is the vehicle by which this happens, because corporations have little use for the family unit and much use for individualized consumers that buy, not make things.
My interpretation is that there are innumerable cultural things that are popular nowadays which discourage people from having children, whether that be TV shows that make "family values" seem outdated and backwards, urban housing that's too small for families, and so forth.
My general point is more that the problems with birth rates are more of a contemporary cultural issue (largely an exported Western one) and not something that just automatically comes with technological/economic development.
My interpretation is that there are innumerable cultural things that are popular nowadays which discourage people from having children, whether that be TV shows that make "family values" seem outdated and backwards, urban housing that's too small for families, and so forth.
My general point is more that the problems with birth rates are more of a contemporary cultural issue (largely an exported Western one) and not something that just automatically comes with technological/economic development.
I just did some digging around on the research on this and that doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere, and it's a well studied issue. After all, for example existing housing stock hasn't got any smaller so that's easy to correct for in the data. The main correlative factors seem to be economic affluence, higher education levels meaning more women have careers, and access to birth control.
I really don't but the corporations pushing an agenda theory. Like all conspiracy theories, people doing the conspiring would have to actually conspire. They would to communicate about it, lots of people would know, some of them would change their minds, there would be leaks, especially for a conspiracy that has broad reach and engages with huge swathes of public culture communications.
I really don't but the corporations pushing an agenda theory. Like all conspiracy theories, people doing the conspiring would have to actually conspire. They would to communicate about it, lots of people would know, some of them would change their minds, there would be leaks, especially for a conspiracy that has broad reach and engages with huge swathes of public culture communications.
Where did I say anything about a conspiracy theory? Corporations care about their profits and shareholders, not on promoting any kind of societal values like family and children. This has nothing to do with a group conspiring in a smoky room. An entity pursuing its interests is not a conspiracy.
Honestly if your immediate jump is to accuse someone of conspiracy theory thinking, this isn’t a conversation worth having, because you’re not willing to think slightly deeper about the situation.
Honestly if your immediate jump is to accuse someone of conspiracy theory thinking, this isn’t a conversation worth having, because you’re not willing to think slightly deeper about the situation.
You're talking about corporations manipulating media ("the particular media being pushed") to discourage people having children. I'm talking about the pushing you referred to.
Even beside that I don't see how that works even from an incentive point of view. Lots of corporations sell things to children, or to parents for their children. There are huge swathes of industries organised around that. How is it to the benefit of companies to have fewer customers?
Even beside that I don't see how that works even from an incentive point of view. Lots of corporations sell things to children, or to parents for their children. There are huge swathes of industries organised around that. How is it to the benefit of companies to have fewer customers?
Well remember that prior to the 70s or so, it was normal for a single earner (the man) to be able to provide for an entire family, including the non-working woman. That is no longer the case and indeed often two incomes are often barely enough.
It doesn’t seem that far fetched to me that corporations care about more people being in the workforce and as consumers, than as family units with only one earner and spender. Whatever can be monetized will be monetized.
And if that wasn’t the case, why weren’t companies pushing for more flexible jobs (part time, etc.) that would accommodate working women and motherhood?
Maybe it’s an oversimplified to say corporations “push” stuff into the media; and more of a cyclical process of culture and corporate interests, but I find the examples I mentioned (popular TV shows, etc.) to be pretty obvious and undeniable.
It doesn’t seem that far fetched to me that corporations care about more people being in the workforce and as consumers, than as family units with only one earner and spender. Whatever can be monetized will be monetized.
And if that wasn’t the case, why weren’t companies pushing for more flexible jobs (part time, etc.) that would accommodate working women and motherhood?
Maybe it’s an oversimplified to say corporations “push” stuff into the media; and more of a cyclical process of culture and corporate interests, but I find the examples I mentioned (popular TV shows, etc.) to be pretty obvious and undeniable.
>Well remember that prior to the 70s or so, it was normal for a single earner (the man) to be able to provide for an entire family, including the non-working woman. That is no longer the case and indeed often two incomes are often barely enough.
There are several major factors here. One is more women having access to higher education, driven by increased social independence and the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s. Women want education and careers, I have two daughters so I know this. No corporation is telling them to do it.
Another is competition for middle class jobs requiring an education, there are more jobs like this now in the developed world than ever before, and more educated people people seeking them out so competition is huge. This includes international competition, hundreds of millions of people in the developing world getting added to the global middle class has had a huge effect. It's meant a precipitous collapse in poverty, but devalued middle class jobs so that wages have stagnated.
Another is housing competition. Everyone wants the nicest house they can get for their family, but supply isn't keeping up with demand. As a result all those people with dual household incomes are competing with each other, bidding up the prices of houses. As a result the older generations are now pretty well off overall, but most of their net worth is tied up in their house.
>It doesn’t seem that far fetched to me that corporations care about more people being in the workforce and as consumers, than as family units with only one earner and spender. Whatever can be monetized will be monetized.
How are they expecting to get more individual consumers if people aren't having children? That makes no sense to me. The incentive structure is all wrong, particularly for the whole swathes of industries that cater to families and children.
>And if that wasn’t the case, why weren’t companies pushing for more flexible jobs (part time, etc.) that would accommodate working women and motherhood?
Every company I have worked for has done. The company I'm with now offers flexible hours, subsidises child care and offers far more generous parental leave than required by law. My previous company also had a specific hiring programme to recruit and retrain women returning to work after having children.
People make TV shows to make money. They'll make the show that sells, not ones that push some nebulous economic agenda that wouldn't even have any effect until a whole generation later.
There are several major factors here. One is more women having access to higher education, driven by increased social independence and the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s. Women want education and careers, I have two daughters so I know this. No corporation is telling them to do it.
Another is competition for middle class jobs requiring an education, there are more jobs like this now in the developed world than ever before, and more educated people people seeking them out so competition is huge. This includes international competition, hundreds of millions of people in the developing world getting added to the global middle class has had a huge effect. It's meant a precipitous collapse in poverty, but devalued middle class jobs so that wages have stagnated.
Another is housing competition. Everyone wants the nicest house they can get for their family, but supply isn't keeping up with demand. As a result all those people with dual household incomes are competing with each other, bidding up the prices of houses. As a result the older generations are now pretty well off overall, but most of their net worth is tied up in their house.
>It doesn’t seem that far fetched to me that corporations care about more people being in the workforce and as consumers, than as family units with only one earner and spender. Whatever can be monetized will be monetized.
How are they expecting to get more individual consumers if people aren't having children? That makes no sense to me. The incentive structure is all wrong, particularly for the whole swathes of industries that cater to families and children.
>And if that wasn’t the case, why weren’t companies pushing for more flexible jobs (part time, etc.) that would accommodate working women and motherhood?
Every company I have worked for has done. The company I'm with now offers flexible hours, subsidises child care and offers far more generous parental leave than required by law. My previous company also had a specific hiring programme to recruit and retrain women returning to work after having children.
People make TV shows to make money. They'll make the show that sells, not ones that push some nebulous economic agenda that wouldn't even have any effect until a whole generation later.
The vast majority of corporations don’t offer the benefits yours does, nor have they for the last fifty years. Your situation is extremely unique and not at all typical.
If this was a conspiracy, your point about not having consumers would make sense. But it’s not a conspiracy, it’s merely entities acting in their short term interests - which they are incentivized to do by the nature of the stock market.
Also remember that this is during the era of increasing globalization, when global corporations are in many ways more concerned with international markets than with local ones.
You also vastly underestimate how social attitudes have changed in the last 70 years, and how this is not at all just something that “naturally” happened.
If this was a conspiracy, your point about not having consumers would make sense. But it’s not a conspiracy, it’s merely entities acting in their short term interests - which they are incentivized to do by the nature of the stock market.
Also remember that this is during the era of increasing globalization, when global corporations are in many ways more concerned with international markets than with local ones.
You also vastly underestimate how social attitudes have changed in the last 70 years, and how this is not at all just something that “naturally” happened.
Consumerism and media affect everyone though, but even within countries and within specific demographic groups higher wealth and higher education lead to lower birth rates. That's true everywhere.
People aren't all just corporate puppets having all their strings pulled by shadowy overlords. It's not like China with the one child policy, which I'm familiar with as my wife is Chinese. Sometimes people just make their own decisions. They make them for reasons sure, that's why there is a trend because people in similar situations tend to make similar choices overall, but nobody planned for all of this to happen.
People aren't all just corporate puppets having all their strings pulled by shadowy overlords. It's not like China with the one child policy, which I'm familiar with as my wife is Chinese. Sometimes people just make their own decisions. They make them for reasons sure, that's why there is a trend because people in similar situations tend to make similar choices overall, but nobody planned for all of this to happen.
The thing that lowers childbirths is education of women, in particular education about birth control. That plus economic opportunities for women.
Nothing to do with consumerist media, just letting women know how to prevent 5th child.
Nothing to do with consumerist media, just letting women know how to prevent 5th child.
But economic opportunities for women in no way implies that these economic opportunities must preclude time for raising children. It's entirely conceivable for part-time jobs to exist, or for other economic setups that allow for maximizing the workforce while still promoting children.
This is a consequence of our economic and cultural systems, not because women working somehow become incapable of having children.
This is a consequence of our economic and cultural systems, not because women working somehow become incapable of having children.
These were simply statistics. When women know how to prevent having many kids, when they are in position to make independent decisions, they want to have limited amount of kids.
Women with part time jobs and time for childcare still have easier time with 3 children rather then 5.
Women with part time jobs and time for childcare still have easier time with 3 children rather then 5.
You are both (at least party) wrong since the demographic transition started as early as 1750 (in France) long before childbirth started to fall and even longer before media technology (unless you count the printing press as one, but then how come the transition happened more than a century later elsewhere in Europe?)
To be fair, the black death killed France's first demographic transition, China might have had 2, and it is possible that one happened during the golden age of Islam too (and we don't know nearly enough about mesoamerican natives).
Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition. The reason it did not happen in continetal europe is the amount of warring that took place there.
Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition. The reason it did not happen in continetal europe is the amount of warring that took place there.
> To be fair, the black death killed France's first demographic transition
Never heard of that, any sources to recommend on the topic?
> Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition
That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…
Never heard of that, any sources to recommend on the topic?
> Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition
That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…
Louis-Henri Fournet was probably the historian I've read that from first. You can find the book on Amazon, but it's in French (tableau synoptique de l'histoire du monde). I used to be quite interested in the first empire era, then found his book on it, then found the book I've told you about and now I just read stuff on western history, from Louise de Savoie to the first world war
18 to 20 millions in a smaller territory than modern France. I also read that northern Italy demography was the same density, and only reach the same density circa 1850, but i'm not sure if it's from Fournet or a criticism of Fournet (I love reading historians' criticism, but the majority are academic papers or thesis)
[edit] > That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…
Yeah, I was adding to the argument, I'm 100% in agreement.
18 to 20 millions in a smaller territory than modern France. I also read that northern Italy demography was the same density, and only reach the same density circa 1850, but i'm not sure if it's from Fournet or a criticism of Fournet (I love reading historians' criticism, but the majority are academic papers or thesis)
[edit] > That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…
Yeah, I was adding to the argument, I'm 100% in agreement.
> Louis-Henri Fournet was probably the historian I've read that from first. You can find the book on Amazon, but it's in French (tableau synoptique de l'histoire du monde)
Merci (ça ne va pas poser trop de problème ;))
Merci (ça ne va pas poser trop de problème ;))
France is discussed here as being somewhat of a unique case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France
Couple of factors...
People in developing countries tend to have children in order to boost the family's income. As the economy develops, this turns out to no longer be beneficial.
Generally, people choose to have less children as infant mortality goes down. Introduction of better medical care leads to a temporary spike in population, as more people live longer. But, lower infant mortality means that people don't need to have as many children in order to have some survive, and so they typically choose to have fewer children. The adjustment period can be a problem, as we have seen in the developing world.
People in developing countries tend to have children in order to boost the family's income. As the economy develops, this turns out to no longer be beneficial.
Generally, people choose to have less children as infant mortality goes down. Introduction of better medical care leads to a temporary spike in population, as more people live longer. But, lower infant mortality means that people don't need to have as many children in order to have some survive, and so they typically choose to have fewer children. The adjustment period can be a problem, as we have seen in the developing world.
Disagree, wealthy countries are labor resource constrained so the cost of child care balloons compared to wages.
And I predict that as the cost of labor goes up, people will want to have more kids again because it will be profitable, not unlike subsistence farmers wanting kids to work on the farm.
And I predict that as the cost of labor goes up, people will want to have more kids again because it will be profitable, not unlike subsistence farmers wanting kids to work on the farm.
Childcare has the problem of not getting more productive as other areas do get more productive, increasing the cost as wages go up.
I hear this argument a lot, but it makes no sense.
How would an economic phenomenon (requiring a typical form of green leaves to guarantee a happy life at old age) precisely counter a biological phenomenon (a desire to procreate)?
It seems more likely that readily available birth control and a particular willingness of women to join the labour force is the cause here.
What is stopping extremely rich narcissists from creating thousands of children once technology allows for it? We're in for a horrible population growth if you ask me.
How would an economic phenomenon (requiring a typical form of green leaves to guarantee a happy life at old age) precisely counter a biological phenomenon (a desire to procreate)?
It seems more likely that readily available birth control and a particular willingness of women to join the labour force is the cause here.
What is stopping extremely rich narcissists from creating thousands of children once technology allows for it? We're in for a horrible population growth if you ask me.
And even with population control technological advancements will inevitably lead to growing energy demands (e.g., see https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion to spark your imagination). Medium term we're not going to get around leaving the gravity well, or else embrace decline.
> And even with population control technological advancements will inevitably lead to growing energy demands
Why?
Why?
Inventing birth control helps a lot.
Malthusian nonsense. As societies develop and become richer, birth rates drop.
Also, over time, our ability to produce more food has always risen to the challenge.
I cannot think of an audience that needs to hear this more than Hacker News.
I should note that this is undergoing massive, major revisions ahead of submissions to IJPS[1] and my new co-author is an anthropologist. Riane Eisler read it and asked that I submit, so I’m cutting most of my speculation and loose language out and just focusing on the core claim.
Happy to answer any questions and honestly surprised to see it on the front page but honored. Thank you.
[1] https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/ijps
Happy to answer any questions and honestly surprised to see it on the front page but honored. Thank you.
[1] https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/ijps
I cannot think of an audience more primed to ignore every word of this than Hacker News. See also: the lakehouse guy upthread.
Sure, but I think there's hope. People learn and change.
I've been speaking pretty openly about how shitty the effects are of the pro-corporate, anti-human ideology that's prevalent on HN for a few years now. I've noticed more people joining me in speaking out, and less push-back. I made an aside comment a few days back about corporations being willing to murder for profit, and someone else linked a bunch of examples of corporate murders. A few years ago, I would have had to pull together all that research myself, and I was the only one I ever saw doing it.
And to be clear, I'm not saying this to take credit for the change--I'm sure there are other people. I'm just saying, change is happening, if slowly.
I've been speaking pretty openly about how shitty the effects are of the pro-corporate, anti-human ideology that's prevalent on HN for a few years now. I've noticed more people joining me in speaking out, and less push-back. I made an aside comment a few days back about corporations being willing to murder for profit, and someone else linked a bunch of examples of corporate murders. A few years ago, I would have had to pull together all that research myself, and I was the only one I ever saw doing it.
And to be clear, I'm not saying this to take credit for the change--I'm sure there are other people. I'm just saying, change is happening, if slowly.
I've got some bad news for you about corporations: they're not sentient - some human made the decision to prioritize profit over human lives. Governments and other institutions do this as well (not just for profit, but perhaps for other reasons) because they're also run by humans. It's going to be pretty hard to find a human institution that's morally pure in the way you want.
"Other human institutions cause harm, therefore it's okay for corporations to cause harm"? Really?
I'm not trying to find a human institution that's pure, nor do I believe any other human institutions are pure. I'm trying to get people to a) stop believing that corporations are morally pure, and b) stop doing nothing about the fact that corporations aren't morally pure.
EDIT: Let's not go the direction where you assume I don't know that governments are imperfect too.
I'm not trying to find a human institution that's pure, nor do I believe any other human institutions are pure. I'm trying to get people to a) stop believing that corporations are morally pure, and b) stop doing nothing about the fact that corporations aren't morally pure.
EDIT: Let's not go the direction where you assume I don't know that governments are imperfect too.
A 'corporation' is just a group of people who've signed a pile of contracts, sometimes all physically located in one jurisdiction, but often in multiple simultaneously.
So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'. If they seemed like it they were probably just pulling your leg or trolling.
It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat.
Maybe try re-examining some of your assumptions about other HN users?
So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'. If they seemed like it they were probably just pulling your leg or trolling.
It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat.
Maybe try re-examining some of your assumptions about other HN users?
> So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'.
Right, that was just a straw man argument the person I was responding to was making.
> It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat.
I have never been talking about abstract people doing nothing when they encounter abstract suspicious people. You're also making a straw man argument.
I'm talking about a pervasive culture of Hacker News who not only does nothing, but actively opposes doing anything to prevent corporations (not abstract suspicious entities) from causing harm. A significant portion of HN unequivocally opposes any regulation of companies and will defend all sorts of horrible corporate behaviors. This isn't an assumption, it's an observation of reality.
EDIT: It's literally an observation of a reality which is occurring in this chain of posts. You don't have to go far to observe it.
Right, that was just a straw man argument the person I was responding to was making.
> It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat.
I have never been talking about abstract people doing nothing when they encounter abstract suspicious people. You're also making a straw man argument.
I'm talking about a pervasive culture of Hacker News who not only does nothing, but actively opposes doing anything to prevent corporations (not abstract suspicious entities) from causing harm. A significant portion of HN unequivocally opposes any regulation of companies and will defend all sorts of horrible corporate behaviors. This isn't an assumption, it's an observation of reality.
EDIT: It's literally an observation of a reality which is occurring in this chain of posts. You don't have to go far to observe it.
Your still assuming their behaviour in actuality can be ascertained via what they type out in the comments box...
This seems like a stretch to be honest, especially since most HN users use pseudonyms.
Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?
e.g. even someone very inclined to go against your comments and arguments would in fact still understand that a subset of 'corporations' are suspicious to some degree, but put on some pretence and so on.
This seems like a stretch to be honest, especially since most HN users use pseudonyms.
Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?
e.g. even someone very inclined to go against your comments and arguments would in fact still understand that a subset of 'corporations' are suspicious to some degree, but put on some pretence and so on.
> Your still assuming their behaviour in actuality can be ascertained via what they type out in the comments box...
Please refrain from telling me what I think. You don't know what I think.
> Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?
I've come across this pro-corporate, anti-human ideology in person as well.
Please refrain from telling me what I think. You don't know what I think.
> Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?
I've come across this pro-corporate, anti-human ideology in person as well.
> Please refrain from telling me what I think. You don't know what I think.
Huh? The quoted section is not even suggesting to take it up as your own thoughts, let alone 'telling'. I'm not 'telling' anyone to even read my comments in the first place...
> I've come across this pro-corporate, anti-human ideology in person as well.
It seems really unlikely that you've met even 1/10000 of the user-base in real life, nor likely would it be a representative cross section, so how does this relates to the parent comments?
Huh? The quoted section is not even suggesting to take it up as your own thoughts, let alone 'telling'. I'm not 'telling' anyone to even read my comments in the first place...
> I've come across this pro-corporate, anti-human ideology in person as well.
It seems really unlikely that you've met even 1/10000 of the user-base in real life, nor likely would it be a representative cross section, so how does this relates to the parent comments?
[deleted]
[deleted]
Situating the origin of scarcity thinking in the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction is fascinating: this is the first time I’ve encountered this idea and I appreciate it. Thanks to both the author and the sharer!
Thank you for reading it!
I prefer the Forward to the UNEP 2024 Global Resources Outlook (181 pages):
The lead-in is a pragmatic warning:
Natural resources are the basis on which all economies and societies are built, making their sustainable management critical to ending poverty and reducing inequalities. They are also essential to drive the transition to net-zero.
To stay below a 2°C temperature rise by 2050, we will need over three billion tonnes of energy transition minerals and metals for wind power, solar and more. Aiming for 1.5°C to maximize climate justice would mean even greater demand.
Right now, however, resources are extracted, processed, consumed and thrown away in a way that drives the triple We must start using natural resources sustainably and responsibly.
The 2024 edition of the Global Resources Outlook, from the International Resource Panel, shows that it is both In fact, sustainable resource use and consumption can reduce resource use and environmental impacts in wealthier It is important to note that the circular models we must follow are not just about recycling; they are about keeping materials in use for as long as possible, and rethinking how we design and deliver goods as well as services, thereby creating new business models.
If the policies and shifts outlined in this report are followed, the 2060 picture will be significantly rosier than under current models.
We could have a global GDP three per cent larger than predicted and reduced economic equalities.
Growth in material use could fall by 30 per cent.
Greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by more than 80 per cent.
Such results would be a huge win for people and planet.
The lead-in is a pragmatic warning:
The world is in the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste. The global economy is consuming ever more natural resources, while the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
> but the full report does outline a path forward should sufficient numbers of people and companies take heed.
Sure, but a path that depends on companies caring about anything other than profit is a dead end.
Companies do not care about ethics, and exceptional (as in, exceptions to the rule) people like Yvonne Chouinard have had to go to great lengths to create atypical corporate structures that may not even work in the long run to try to make companies that don't devolve into amoral profit-seeking. Corporations aren't inherently evil--in most cases being obviously harmful scares away customers--but that's only true as long as the profits don't align with doing harm. And when the profits do align with doing harm, if the people in one company aren't willing to do harm for profit, they'll be outcompeted by a company that is.
I'm working on a degree and recently took a required business ethics class and... Jesus Christ. Corporate culture is rotten to its core. The textbook and class were primarily concerned with whitewashing corporate harms and blaming what it couldn't whitewash on consumers. I didn't do as well in the class as I could have, because I was too disgusted with the material to hide it. They literally had the audacity to talk about "balancing the needs of all stakeholders" as if shareholders matter when some of the stakeholders were slaves.
Until we stop treating companies like they're benevolent friends, problems like climate change and homelessness are going to remain intractable.
Sure, but a path that depends on companies caring about anything other than profit is a dead end.
Companies do not care about ethics, and exceptional (as in, exceptions to the rule) people like Yvonne Chouinard have had to go to great lengths to create atypical corporate structures that may not even work in the long run to try to make companies that don't devolve into amoral profit-seeking. Corporations aren't inherently evil--in most cases being obviously harmful scares away customers--but that's only true as long as the profits don't align with doing harm. And when the profits do align with doing harm, if the people in one company aren't willing to do harm for profit, they'll be outcompeted by a company that is.
I'm working on a degree and recently took a required business ethics class and... Jesus Christ. Corporate culture is rotten to its core. The textbook and class were primarily concerned with whitewashing corporate harms and blaming what it couldn't whitewash on consumers. I didn't do as well in the class as I could have, because I was too disgusted with the material to hide it. They literally had the audacity to talk about "balancing the needs of all stakeholders" as if shareholders matter when some of the stakeholders were slaves.
Until we stop treating companies like they're benevolent friends, problems like climate change and homelessness are going to remain intractable.
Companies with shareholders, expecially long term institution investors, can be bent to care about more than simple profits - while still profiting albeit not as much as if they chased nothing but maximal short term gains.
Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies to pivot into being long term energy providers rather than being solely relient on fossil fuel extraction.
Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction (although that's largely a kiss on a sabre cut to date).
That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials.
Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies to pivot into being long term energy providers rather than being solely relient on fossil fuel extraction.
Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction (although that's largely a kiss on a sabre cut to date).
That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials.
> Companies with shareholders, expecially long term institution investors, can be bent to care about more than simple profits - while still profiting albeit not as much as if they chased nothing but maximal short term gains.
I said companies care about profits, not short-term or long-term profits, and the distinction between short- and long-term still doesn't bring in ethics.
> Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies to pivot into being long term energy providers rather than being solely relient on fossil fuel extraction.
And that pressure isn't working, because corporations care about profits not "pressure".[1] Note that the downtick in production is clearly explained by the pandemic; oil and gas have returned to almost pre-pandemic levels, and coal, arguably the worst of the three, has surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
> Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction (although that's largely a kiss on a sabre cut to date).
This is exactly the sort of pro-corporate nonsense that I'm talking about here. Fossil fuel extractors should be forced, not asked, to pay, not get paid for the damage they are causing. Why on earth would we pay our tax money to subsidize the companies who knew about climate change and tried to discredit it for decades, and continue to profit from pulling carbon out of the ground and distributing it into our atmosphere? You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause, at the same time as openly admitting it has so far produced no results.
At some point you've got to admit you are more pro-corporate than you are pro-solving climate change if this is the sort of solution you think is reasonable. Mind you, I'm not questioning your intentions here, I'm saying intentions don't matter here.
> That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials.
Recycling plastic isn't real, it's a greenwashing campaign by petroleum companies.[2][3][4] This is not a solution, will never be a solution, and was never even intended to be a solution.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuel-production
[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-...
[3] https://www.earthday.org/plastic-recycling-is-a-lie/
[4] https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/recyclin...
I said companies care about profits, not short-term or long-term profits, and the distinction between short- and long-term still doesn't bring in ethics.
> Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies to pivot into being long term energy providers rather than being solely relient on fossil fuel extraction.
And that pressure isn't working, because corporations care about profits not "pressure".[1] Note that the downtick in production is clearly explained by the pandemic; oil and gas have returned to almost pre-pandemic levels, and coal, arguably the worst of the three, has surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
> Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction (although that's largely a kiss on a sabre cut to date).
This is exactly the sort of pro-corporate nonsense that I'm talking about here. Fossil fuel extractors should be forced, not asked, to pay, not get paid for the damage they are causing. Why on earth would we pay our tax money to subsidize the companies who knew about climate change and tried to discredit it for decades, and continue to profit from pulling carbon out of the ground and distributing it into our atmosphere? You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause, at the same time as openly admitting it has so far produced no results.
At some point you've got to admit you are more pro-corporate than you are pro-solving climate change if this is the sort of solution you think is reasonable. Mind you, I'm not questioning your intentions here, I'm saying intentions don't matter here.
> That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials.
Recycling plastic isn't real, it's a greenwashing campaign by petroleum companies.[2][3][4] This is not a solution, will never be a solution, and was never even intended to be a solution.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuel-production
[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-...
[3] https://www.earthday.org/plastic-recycling-is-a-lie/
[4] https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/recyclin...
> Recycling plastic isn't real, it's a greenwashing campaign by petroleum comp
Who mentioned plastics .. that's correct, you did.
> This is exactly the sort of pro-corporate nonsense that I'm talking about here. Fossil fuel extractors should be forced, not asked, to pay, not get paid for the damage they are causing.
Have you read the report yet?
> You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause
Did I? I have to ask, is english your first or third language?
Rage on my friend, fight the power .. and work on your conversational skills, launching in with heavy handled accusations based on your own assumptions won't always get the results you might desire.
Who mentioned plastics .. that's correct, you did.
> This is exactly the sort of pro-corporate nonsense that I'm talking about here. Fossil fuel extractors should be forced, not asked, to pay, not get paid for the damage they are causing.
Have you read the report yet?
> You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause
Did I? I have to ask, is english your first or third language?
Rage on my friend, fight the power .. and work on your conversational skills, launching in with heavy handled accusations based on your own assumptions won't always get the results you might desire.
> Who mentioned plastics .. that's correct, you did.
You said, "Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies [...] Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors [...] That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials."
Quiz: which recycled material comes from fossil fuels?
> Have you read the report yet?
Which report?
> > You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause
> Did I?
Yes, you did. You said: "Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction".
That's just rewarding fossil fuel extractors for their bad behavior with government contracts.
You said, "Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies [...] Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors [...] That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials."
Quiz: which recycled material comes from fossil fuels?
> Have you read the report yet?
Which report?
> > You're literally proposing we reward these companies for the harm they cause
> Did I?
Yes, you did. You said: "Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction".
That's just rewarding fossil fuel extractors for their bad behavior with government contracts.
> Quiz: which recycled material comes from fossil fuels?
Steel for one, right now I'm partnered with a friend decommisioning an offshore platform - lots of materials there.
> Which report?
Keep moving up comment until you reach my first comment - I assumed (bad mve on my part) that you'd arrived here by some kind of context rather than randomly landing on something you wanted to launch your particular thinkys from.
The report in question addresses sustainable use of global resources at scale, it's not merely focused on greenwashing plastic.
> That's just rewarding fossil fuel extractors for their bad behavior with government contracts.
Err, no. It's changing the deals that have been done in the past to include teardowns and restorative work (carbon capture). You'll notice I was disparaging about carbon capture for the good reason that to date nobody has a project proposed on the scale of recovery to match the downsides.
If they can't actually meet a "zero emission" or better balance then such deals should preclude extraction.
You're coming at this with a whole set of your baggage.
Steel for one, right now I'm partnered with a friend decommisioning an offshore platform - lots of materials there.
> Which report?
Keep moving up comment until you reach my first comment - I assumed (bad mve on my part) that you'd arrived here by some kind of context rather than randomly landing on something you wanted to launch your particular thinkys from.
The report in question addresses sustainable use of global resources at scale, it's not merely focused on greenwashing plastic.
> That's just rewarding fossil fuel extractors for their bad behavior with government contracts.
Err, no. It's changing the deals that have been done in the past to include teardowns and restorative work (carbon capture). You'll notice I was disparaging about carbon capture for the good reason that to date nobody has a project proposed on the scale of recovery to match the downsides.
If they can't actually meet a "zero emission" or better balance then such deals should preclude extraction.
You're coming at this with a whole set of your baggage.
> Keep moving up comment until you reach my first comment - I assumed (bad mve on my part) that you'd arrived here by some kind of context rather than randomly landing on something you wanted to launch your particular thinkys from.
Ah, no, I didn't read that report. It's 181 pages. I was responding to something you said was in the report. Hopefully it's safe to assume that what you said about the report was accurate?
Ah, no, I didn't read that report. It's 181 pages. I was responding to something you said was in the report. Hopefully it's safe to assume that what you said about the report was accurate?
In a way, companies are simply groups of humans working together. Who is to say that the rottenness emerges from the working together, or whether it is already present in the individual humans?
Pre-capitalist societies are known to be even more murder-driven than the current one. Consult the Old Testament for some tips on how to be moral assholes.
Pre-capitalist societies are known to be even more murder-driven than the current one. Consult the Old Testament for some tips on how to be moral assholes.
> In a way, companies are simply groups of humans working together.
I mean, no, companies are a lot more than that.
> Who is to say that the rottenness emerges from the working together, or whether it is already present in the individual humans?
Who cares? Certainly not me. The source of the rottenness isn't particularly relevant to the fact that it's happening and people aren't doing anything about it.
I mean, no, companies are a lot more than that.
> Who is to say that the rottenness emerges from the working together, or whether it is already present in the individual humans?
Who cares? Certainly not me. The source of the rottenness isn't particularly relevant to the fact that it's happening and people aren't doing anything about it.
[deleted]
Extreme taxes on luxury physical goods? How can these goals be reached?
^F on the document: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/44901/...
returned no hits on "luxury" and 16 hits on "taxes", eg:
Pages 17 and 18 (labelled as pages xiv and xv) outline nine key message points.
returned no hits on "luxury" and 16 hits on "taxes", eg:
For several decades, international organizations, scientists and civil society actors have pleaded for the phasing out of environmentally harmful taxes and subsidies, unsustainable spatial planning practices and so on.
We should not accept that meeting human needs has to be resource intensive and we must stop stimulating extraction based economic success.
This report demonstrates that compared to current trends, it is still possible to reduce resource use while growing the economy, reducing inequality, improving well-being and dramatically reducing environmental impacts.
Pages 17 and 18 (labelled as pages xiv and xv) outline nine key message points.
Short of a global scale revolution every bit as bloody as the French or Communist revolutions, they can't be reached. Consider, you're talking about eliminating the bulk of luxury/prestige consumption. This threatens the fortunes of most if not all of the richest individuals and organizations on the planet. History has made pretty plain what happens when you make the money sad and don't have armed contingencies in place to deal with the inevitable backlash.
There is absolutely no evidence that prior to the megafauna extinctions, hunter gatherers groups were any less violent and murderous [1] than after the megafauna extinctions. Scarcity would have always existed by virtue of the population always growing to the environment's carrying capacity for that population's level of technology.
If killing a neighbor, or wiping out a neighboring tribe, isn't an expression of competitive scarcity-based mentality, I don't know what is. That kind of behavior has steadily declined as civilization has advanced.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...
If killing a neighbor, or wiping out a neighboring tribe, isn't an expression of competitive scarcity-based mentality, I don't know what is. That kind of behavior has steadily declined as civilization has advanced.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...
HTML version: https://kemendo.com/Myth-of-Scarcity.html
I'm really glad to see thought like this. For me, it was the pandemic with its lockdowns etc that made me think, hold on... Aren't we post-scarcity already? How long has this been going on?
So when I think “every important thing in my life is scarce”, that is just incorrect imagination? 11 billion people can live on a lake with perfect child and health care?
Living on a lake is a prestige goal, not a requirement for existence. There is no meaningful scarcity at tier 1 of Maslow's hierarchy.
I don't see a point in striving for a society where most of the population is only meeting tier 1 needs. That's a human chicken farm, not a civilization.
The question is not whether some individuals strive for it, but whether the entire ecosystem moves toward it. Different contexts, different mechanisms.
This is your own interpretation you swapped "at least" into "at most" and are now arguing against the straw man you built.
In 100 years you'll be dead as Caesar's ghost regardless of what car you drive or how braggable your social media presence makes your life appear. Pointless bling is pointless, regardless of how it's framed. Edit: apparently that poked someone in the worldview. Nifty.
Unnecessary suffering is also pointless. Existence of life in a cold indifferent universe is pointless. The whole point is that it's all pointless, might as well make it worthwhile, whatever version of it one prefers.
K. Now you get to choose what "worthwhile" means. Borderline sociopathic self-gratification or communal striving for an improved human condition.
Who gets to decide what "improved human condition" means and what if large segments of the population disagree on what it means?
Historically, whoever is better armed and guillotines or similar. It's nice to dream about our species collectively pulling it's head out of it's own ass but there's really no precedent for it.
Vilifying opposing views on "worthwhile" as "borderline sociopathic self-gratification" seems dogmatic and perhaps even projective.
The guilty flee where none pursueth. Are we now going to argue that aligning society to service (primarily) hyperconcentration of wealth at the cost of every ecosystem on the planet while burning through non-renewable resources isn't sociopathic? Bear in mind we live in a closed system. Oh what, you thought I was implying having your worldview handed to you by someone else's marketing team is sociopathic? Nah, aim higher up the food chain.
I love swimming and direct access to "nature". You left out child and health care, too. I do not see how any of these are prestige goals.
Both of those desires can be fulfilled in a myriad of ways more accessible to the average person than "living on a lake".
I will vote for the party that has a believable plan.
So far, at least in Hamburg, Germany, I feel it is mostly a fight amongst many for the same, very scarce resources.
It seems like it's a different picture in the states. "The many" are in no way near able to afford/accomplish owning a house on a lake. This is reserved for the elite.
I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy downing half a fifth of tequila and setting fire to my neighbor's rose bushes but I don't consider that part of my definition of a functional society.
Is an 8-acre lake ok?
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+water+area+%2F+wo...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+water+area+%2F+wo...
The paper mentions basic human needs like calories, potable water and shelter. What you are talking about goes way beyond biological needs.
This is the problem with partial abundance and the absolute definition of scarcity. Scarcity still exists even after you have a million yachts. You would have to be crazy to argue that scarcity doesn't exist, but absolute scarcity is meaningless in the face of humans with limited brain sizes.
We definitely have partial abundance. Please don't shut this discussion down because of imprecise language.
This is the problem with partial abundance and the absolute definition of scarcity. Scarcity still exists even after you have a million yachts. You would have to be crazy to argue that scarcity doesn't exist, but absolute scarcity is meaningless in the face of humans with limited brain sizes.
We definitely have partial abundance. Please don't shut this discussion down because of imprecise language.
It's just massively taking for granted what you have and being a sucker for marketing. Food, warmth, companionship/love, these things aren't important to you?
The article seems to define scarcity as a very basic existence. Most would call it abject poverty.
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At some point in population growth you run out of land to grow food on. Surely, there are limits?
Look up the "Simon–Ehrlich wager" - essentially a economist and naturalist held a very public bet about whether certain critical resources would dramatically rise on price due to scarcity constraints. Essentially the economist, who bet that we would not see those prices spike as market forces drive resource efficiency. In the case of this wager the economist was correct.
Ultimately you are right. We will ultimately and inevitably face resource constraints. How we respond and which resources will provide the limiting constraint is unclear.
Ultimately you are right. We will ultimately and inevitably face resource constraints. How we respond and which resources will provide the limiting constraint is unclear.
> Ultimately you are right. We will ultimately and inevitably face resource constraints. How we respond and which resources will provide the limiting constraint is unclear.
Why?
Keep in mind that it is not evident that population will continue to grow.
Why?
Keep in mind that it is not evident that population will continue to grow.
You are absolutely right. In ecology (which mimics the scaling of any physical system) population responds to resource stresses. I consider this a signal of resource scarcity.
As for why it's inevitable: we have unbounded ability to innovate and become resource efficient -market forces will guide this. However there are fixed constraints that will stress human behavior in ways we can't necessarily predict. Some of this is being seen now with shocks to supply chains with climate change. Prices will rise across society as more of our productive capacity is dealt with dealing with the effects of climate change.
As for why it's inevitable: we have unbounded ability to innovate and become resource efficient -market forces will guide this. However there are fixed constraints that will stress human behavior in ways we can't necessarily predict. Some of this is being seen now with shocks to supply chains with climate change. Prices will rise across society as more of our productive capacity is dealt with dealing with the effects of climate change.
> In ecology (which mimics the scaling of any physical system) population responds to resource stresses. I consider this a signal of resource scarcity.
Resource scarcity is not the only thing that causes population to plateau. Human intelligence is a pretty huge variable here which allows us to do things like fulfill our evolutionary urges without producing children. I'll agree that scarcity causes population to plateau, but I don't agree that a plateau in population is inherently an indication of scarcity.
It's rather silly to talk about hypothetical ecological populations in a void, when we can observe the actual populations we're trying to make predictions about.
Resource scarcity is not the only thing that causes population to plateau. Human intelligence is a pretty huge variable here which allows us to do things like fulfill our evolutionary urges without producing children. I'll agree that scarcity causes population to plateau, but I don't agree that a plateau in population is inherently an indication of scarcity.
It's rather silly to talk about hypothetical ecological populations in a void, when we can observe the actual populations we're trying to make predictions about.
> I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. By the law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind. -Thomas Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798]
> The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. -Paul Ehrlich The Population Bomb [1968]
Of course there's a limit. What that limit is no one knows and most predictions will be wrong. Some day someone may be right in their prediction given the right conditions.
> The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. -Paul Ehrlich The Population Bomb [1968]
Of course there's a limit. What that limit is no one knows and most predictions will be wrong. Some day someone may be right in their prediction given the right conditions.
We use most of our crops to make meat, and we eat far more meat than is healthy. We could simply eat the crops ourselves.
Eh, sure, but that doesn't really address the parent comment's concern if population keeps growing unbounded. The real answer is that population doesn't keep growing unbounded.
We're already well past that point now given the volume of nonrenewable inputs required to sustain current agricultural yields.
"Currently used" and "required" are two different things.
It's not going to happen overnight, but we have the ability to transition a lot of current agriculture toward more sustainable practices, and that's only going to improve as we learn more. I'm not talking about pie-in-the-sky stuff like vertical farming either, I'm talking about more about more proven techniques like soil restoration and permaculture.
It's not going to happen overnight, but we have the ability to transition a lot of current agriculture toward more sustainable practices, and that's only going to improve as we learn more. I'm not talking about pie-in-the-sky stuff like vertical farming either, I'm talking about more about more proven techniques like soil restoration and permaculture.
Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present. Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements. It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agriculture. Where to source 200% more arable acres to make that transition is conveniently left as an exercise by it's proponents, as is how to handle the massive increase in labor required to harvest from permaculture lands.
> Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present.
Fallow doesn't mean idle. Notably, raising animals on land that isn't producing crops is actively conducive to soil restoration and speeds the process, requiring less fallow time. Animals are already being raised on arable land, so a lot of this could be done without any more arable land--it just requires that instead of crops and animals being farmed in separate monocultures, they be intermingled cyclically or otherwise.
Some schools of thought note that animals are a less-efficient way of producing calories, but I'll note that reducing nutrition needs to "calories" is a hopelessly insufficient measure. If we consider the protein needs of the population, which are likely higher than most people are consuming, animals are a much more efficient means of obtaining protein. Animal farming is also criticized for its greenhouse gas emissions, but different animals have very different greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. poultry emit far less than cattle) and healthy soil sequesters carbon. The reduction of fertilizer use would also significantly reduce carbon emissions.
> Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements.
I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.
> It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agriculture.
I am not sure where you're getting that number, but even if it's right, "at absolute max" discounts the inevitability of continued innovation. I agree the numbers aren't currently equal, but as I said before, nobody is saying these changes happen overnight.
> Where to source 200% more arable acres to make that transition is conveniently left as an exercise by it's proponents
As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals, and intermingling those animals with crops means the land you're claiming is "idle" is not. Further, when soil becomes healthier both become more efficient.
Also notable is that for permaculture purposes, a lot more land can be considered arable than would be considered arable for monoculture crops. The traditional rows of crops are actually pretty terrible for certain very reliable crops, such as potatoes, which benefit from more water retention--which happens when rocks and roots of other plants block water flow. Blueberries benefit from acidic soil, such as soil with pine needles in it--from pine forest which can in turn be treated as timber land.
> as is how to handle the massive increase in labor required to harvest from permaculture lands.
I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
Fallow doesn't mean idle. Notably, raising animals on land that isn't producing crops is actively conducive to soil restoration and speeds the process, requiring less fallow time. Animals are already being raised on arable land, so a lot of this could be done without any more arable land--it just requires that instead of crops and animals being farmed in separate monocultures, they be intermingled cyclically or otherwise.
Some schools of thought note that animals are a less-efficient way of producing calories, but I'll note that reducing nutrition needs to "calories" is a hopelessly insufficient measure. If we consider the protein needs of the population, which are likely higher than most people are consuming, animals are a much more efficient means of obtaining protein. Animal farming is also criticized for its greenhouse gas emissions, but different animals have very different greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. poultry emit far less than cattle) and healthy soil sequesters carbon. The reduction of fertilizer use would also significantly reduce carbon emissions.
> Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements.
I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.
> It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agriculture.
I am not sure where you're getting that number, but even if it's right, "at absolute max" discounts the inevitability of continued innovation. I agree the numbers aren't currently equal, but as I said before, nobody is saying these changes happen overnight.
> Where to source 200% more arable acres to make that transition is conveniently left as an exercise by it's proponents
As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals, and intermingling those animals with crops means the land you're claiming is "idle" is not. Further, when soil becomes healthier both become more efficient.
Also notable is that for permaculture purposes, a lot more land can be considered arable than would be considered arable for monoculture crops. The traditional rows of crops are actually pretty terrible for certain very reliable crops, such as potatoes, which benefit from more water retention--which happens when rocks and roots of other plants block water flow. Blueberries benefit from acidic soil, such as soil with pine needles in it--from pine forest which can in turn be treated as timber land.
> as is how to handle the massive increase in labor required to harvest from permaculture lands.
I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
>I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.
No argument there. It beats the shit out of having a lawn.
>As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,
Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
> I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter. Ag has some of the tightest margins of any industry and we're all still going broke every time we go to the grocery store. Ignoring the screaming match over immigration and migrant labor that's guaranteed to trigger once someone points out who's most likely to service any major increase in demand for ag labor, the added costs associated are absolutely going to get passed on to consumers. How many people do you think it would take to replace one X-series combine?
No argument there. It beats the shit out of having a lawn.
>As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,
Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
> I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter. Ag has some of the tightest margins of any industry and we're all still going broke every time we go to the grocery store. Ignoring the screaming match over immigration and migrant labor that's guaranteed to trigger once someone points out who's most likely to service any major increase in demand for ag labor, the added costs associated are absolutely going to get passed on to consumers. How many people do you think it would take to replace one X-series combine?
> > As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,
> The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
True, but that's not a refutation of what I said. I didn't say a lot of pasture lands are arable, I said "a lot of arable land is used to raise animals."
I'd also like to reiterate my point that cattle are not the animals I'd like to see more of.
> No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter.
We're already subsidizing agriculture massively, and while there are many forms of government spending I oppose, a subsidy which a) allows people to afford food, b) pays workers, and c) improves our food sustainability and security, is exactly the sort of thing I want my taxes going to.
> The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
True, but that's not a refutation of what I said. I didn't say a lot of pasture lands are arable, I said "a lot of arable land is used to raise animals."
I'd also like to reiterate my point that cattle are not the animals I'd like to see more of.
> No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter.
We're already subsidizing agriculture massively, and while there are many forms of government spending I oppose, a subsidy which a) allows people to afford food, b) pays workers, and c) improves our food sustainability and security, is exactly the sort of thing I want my taxes going to.
Why are we assuming population will grow unbounded?
Surely, there is birth control.
Surely, there is birth control.
vertical farming
Unrelated but I really wish there were an easier way to read PDFs on mobile devices.
I made the web version optimized to use with mobile reader mode
https://kemendo.com/Myth-of-Scarcity.html
https://kemendo.com/Myth-of-Scarcity.html
I think OP meant a general solution to this.
How did you come across this? Lately I’m really interested in how people find their inputs..
I looked at their HN profile because I was curious. I had printed the PDF to read, finally had time to read it this evening, and posted it after reading it because I found the content to be of high value and was surprised to find it had never been submitted previously.
I absolutely LOVE finding a brain doppelganger on HN, then if they're an article poster, seeing what they've been thinking about. It's like running into a version of myself that's been running my own mental processes across different content and desire paths :)
I'm sure there's a way to automate the discovery of ppl like haha ... Oh. hm
I'm sure there's a way to automate the discovery of ppl like haha ... Oh. hm
Are you my doppelganger? I've been considering training a model on hn comments and using it to find potential co-founders
The quantity produced is irrelevant if the problem is distribution.
According to the rules of capitalism, many people are not productive and valuable enough to have access to resources, even if the pandemic, for example, has shown that this value judgement has huge flaws.
It is impossible to change this because it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
According to the rules of capitalism, many people are not productive and valuable enough to have access to resources, even if the pandemic, for example, has shown that this value judgement has huge flaws.
It is impossible to change this because it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
>> The purest example of scarcity creating existential terror is declining birth rates. 50% of the world population is now below the replacement birth rate and younger generations are delaying reproduction or choosing to go childless altogether. While this is generally correlated with one-time increases in standards of living, inverted population age pyramids have historically spelled doom for societies.
I think this is mainly correlated with the invention of antibiotics and the near-elimination of child mortality. Historically, when HALF the children are dead before reaching the age of 5, a species has got to have a high birth rate to compensate. Which has been the case in humans since their beginnings:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-al...
Only extremely recently on a historical scale have we surpassed this conundrum and seems like mentally we haven't fully adapted to it. It's no longer necessary to spew out 10 kids in the hope maybe 2 or 3 make it to adulthood. With high likelihood, every born kid can now make it to old age.
And we're still too many, human population is still too big due to this unusual condition of mixing a historical high birth rate with high survivability.
Personally I think there's absolutely no danger. Humans have bounced back since .. I dunno, some 10,000 individuals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck).
I'm sure we don't need 10 billion to continue to survive and natural decline is an elegant solution to overpopulation without the need for Soylent Green scenarios. About half of how many we are currently would be good, a quarter would be even better in the long term.
Bonus it would create incentives for actual efficient work. With less manpower to compensate by just throwing work at the problems, they'd have to be solved in a more automated / sustainable manner.
I think this is mainly correlated with the invention of antibiotics and the near-elimination of child mortality. Historically, when HALF the children are dead before reaching the age of 5, a species has got to have a high birth rate to compensate. Which has been the case in humans since their beginnings:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-al...
Only extremely recently on a historical scale have we surpassed this conundrum and seems like mentally we haven't fully adapted to it. It's no longer necessary to spew out 10 kids in the hope maybe 2 or 3 make it to adulthood. With high likelihood, every born kid can now make it to old age.
And we're still too many, human population is still too big due to this unusual condition of mixing a historical high birth rate with high survivability.
Personally I think there's absolutely no danger. Humans have bounced back since .. I dunno, some 10,000 individuals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck).
I'm sure we don't need 10 billion to continue to survive and natural decline is an elegant solution to overpopulation without the need for Soylent Green scenarios. About half of how many we are currently would be good, a quarter would be even better in the long term.
Bonus it would create incentives for actual efficient work. With less manpower to compensate by just throwing work at the problems, they'd have to be solved in a more automated / sustainable manner.
We have already adapted. Birthrates have fallen globally. There are some holdouts, but a new equilibrium is not far away.
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
Interesting. Another thing that popped through my mind along with a bit of wild extrapolation.
I have one (and only one) kid and my wife chose to give birth by C-section. Apparently it's fairly low risk to have two kids delivered this way, though we probably won't have another one.
But ... another issue with human species was the problem of "big brains", with an upper limit of cranial size at birth and the (unique to humans, I think) problem of labor pain. C-sections solve this problem and allow for selection of even larger brains inside bigger heads.
So now the SciFi what if ... what if selection goes so far that at some point we lose the capacity to give birth naturally? Sure, average IQ could be 200 but we're entirely dependent on technology to reproduce. And if some global catastrophe prevents that technology to work, we're out of the scene as a species in the blink of an eye.
I have one (and only one) kid and my wife chose to give birth by C-section. Apparently it's fairly low risk to have two kids delivered this way, though we probably won't have another one.
But ... another issue with human species was the problem of "big brains", with an upper limit of cranial size at birth and the (unique to humans, I think) problem of labor pain. C-sections solve this problem and allow for selection of even larger brains inside bigger heads.
So now the SciFi what if ... what if selection goes so far that at some point we lose the capacity to give birth naturally? Sure, average IQ could be 200 but we're entirely dependent on technology to reproduce. And if some global catastrophe prevents that technology to work, we're out of the scene as a species in the blink of an eye.
The alien creatures in “Destroy All Humans” lost their ability to reproduce and their solution was to invade Earth and steal as much genetic material as possible. To.. uh.. restore the gonads?
Surely a better work has explored this :)
Surely a better work has explored this :)
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Pure ideology.
What ideology could be more pure than dismissing an entire well-cited paper with the phrase, "Pure ideology." and no further evidence or thought?
The irony is rich with this one.
The irony is rich with this one.
It depends, you could also interpret it as a compliment or recognition, as the paper is about (pure) ideology
I noted elsewhere that this is undergoing major revisions ahead of submissions to IJPS[1]. Riane Eisler read it and asked that I submit. I started working with a co-author a few months ago and he is a published anthropologist so my hope is to have a version done just focusing on the core claims this year.
[1] https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/ijps