Surur t1_j7ph1ol wrote
Reply to comment by real-duncan in What's your estimation for the minimum size of global population required for preserving modern civilization with advanced technology and medicine, and even progressing further? by Evgeneey
> a population of 2 billion would ensure the current arrangements of world trade etc and allow a livable planet going forward.
There are two issues with this. 2 billion people living like Americans would actually doom the world faster.
Secondly, like the problem with the Thanos solution, 2 billion now would mean 8 billion in 80 years if the population boomed like post-WW2.
metarinka t1_j7qaah7 wrote
We currently have the inverse problem in nearly every western country (unless propped up by immigration). So I we may be fighting the other problem in an ideal world of having to constantly encourage people to have at least 2.1 kids to match rate of replacement.
real-duncan t1_j7rhlwe wrote
While it’s not certain we are probably looking at a declining population starting this century or the next.
This is not a “problem”. It’s the cure. However it does mean the end of capitalism as we know it.
The response from most economists is trying to find ways to keep the population growing which is a strategy of doom.
What we need is to face facts face on and come up with something to replace a system that is about to stop working.
Surur t1_j7ritum wrote
See, if you kill 3/4 of the people, but keep your property intact, you can have a new cycle of growth where you end up even richer!
real-duncan t1_j7rkz1e wrote
Yep. But that’s not the future being predicted in these models.
The expected future is a peak at 12, 16, or 20 billion (depending on assumptions) and then a demographic decline for a century or two. No sudden crash, just below replacement birth rates becoming the norm.
During those centuries of declining population the economics we’ve been using for the last 300 (?) years won’t work.
Working on a response to this predicted new world should be an urgent area of huge funding and interest. Instead Japan is announcing trying to turn around there birth rates hoping the future isn’t coming.
Interesting times ahead.
metarinka t1_j7spv2t wrote
The closest model we have is what happened during the plague when death's caused a labor shortage. Which drives up the price of labor, which is a good thing. OR we are going to find it also races to create more automation as the ROI on a $400K robot is easier when a google employee makes $400K a year than when a McDonald's employee makes $20K a year.
Wasabi_Wei t1_j7t5ay7 wrote
You realize that the crown passed a law to prevent labor capitalizing on the market after the plague, right? Causing the Peasant Revolt in 1381. When gains happen to favor the rich, it's the market at work. When workers get paid, laws get passed to protect the rich. That is history, still happening.
real-duncan t1_j7ss2pg wrote
It’s not in any way a relevant comparison.
The Black Death was a sudden decline.
This will be a slow motion demographic move through a series of unusual states of population mix as the various cadres go through the stages of their lives.
Your answers are solving some of the wrong problems.
When everyone knows there will be less consumers next year and even less in a decade and so forth what is the incentive for future investment? Using the current assumptions means the whole system collapses. So the assumptions must change. No amount of focusing on robots and that side of things will address these issues.
Will the robots change things as you suggest and do we need to work on preparing for that? Yes. Plenty of interesting thought work to do as you suggest.
Is that enough to deal with a downward demand curve being the norm for centuries? No.
Altruistic-Map5605 t1_j7sbdjz wrote
You think you will be in that 1/4th that lives?
metarinka t1_j7sojjm wrote
I don't disagree, the OP was asking about preservering modern society.
The issue I was trying to highlight, it's not just people it's young productive people. China, Japan, Korea they are ALREADY in a population crisis. Of having aging demographics of non-productive seniors who require resources (and care etc). The US has a deficit too, it's just masked by immigration. The last number I read was that China needs 10 Million Imigrants a year under the age 40 just to keep it's current growth, but it has never had inflow immigration and they will run out of rural under developed areas to tap.
So I don't think seeing the world population decrease is itself a bad thing, but we really don't have an economic framework or model on what to do when we end up with upside-down demographics of more and more resources needed for elder care and fewer and fewer used to sustain let alone grow the economy. In a more egalitarian system maybe all this automation would help us hit a partial post-work society. In our current capital accumulation society, the billionaires will continue to own more even as the pie starts to shrink. The two easiest knobs to turn will be to raise the retirement age, lower the work start age or if you are grim-dark... let old people die or live in poverty.
And if 3rd world dictators have taught us anything, they won't care what size the pie is or how people feel as long as they (and the billionaires) continue to get to own 95% of it because they'll still be flying private jets, owning large yatchs and having parties at the French palace everyday.
LockeClone t1_j7t94ry wrote
>However it does mean the end of capitalism as we know it.
Meh... The end of capitalism 1.2 for capitalism 1.3 maybe...
"Capitalism" is such a huge term. You basically can't have markets without someone having a credible cause to name it capitalism unless you pass a a very grey threshold of command and control that very few nations have even attempted in the past 100 years.
real-duncan t1_j7td1li wrote
There will be less consumers next year. There will be less again the year after that. That continues for about a century.
That means a declining demand curve for a century.
How are you going to finance something with a guaranteed reduction in return? Punch that assumption into a bank computer program and see what loan you can raise.
Every year you’ll need less housing, less white goods, less food, etc.
Whose going to hire people or buy robots when the demand for what you produce is certain to be lower in the future than now.
If you don’t think that requires a different economic model than the current one I suspect you haven’t thought about it carefully enough.
Be clear I am not saying “no more capitalism” just not capitalism as it is as a minimum. I don’t believe there is a command and control model built on the assumption of a century long declining demand curve. The attempts at socialism I know of have all assumed a growing demand curve for their modeling.
I’m not saying I know what the answer is. I’m just hoping groups of people smarter than me are getting ready, and I currently doubt they are.
Miserly_Bastard t1_j89o2l7 wrote
Economists are people who study the economy in whatever form it manifests and are generally neutral in their professional capacity, and ordinary human beings otherwise, meaning that some are very opinionated one way or another.
Politicians and special interests only listen to economists when it furthers the politicians' agendas. Those agendas seldom intersect with a free and competitive market and are much much more likely to have something to do with rent-seeking behaviors. This phenomenon seems to occur in many human populations, regardless of whatever labels are used to describe their politico-economic system.
If economists seem (to you) to be arguing for population growth, there are a few possibilities. One is that you are confounding legitimate prognostications that seem negative for an economist's opinion or recommendation. It is entirely possible to hold a pessimistic view of future economic measures of human or institutional well-being with population declines and also hold even more pessimistic views of coerced population growth. Also, if it seems that they aren't placing enough value on various environmental factors, read their actual academic work, get in the weeds, and there's a good chance that they've provided some limiting assumptions that acknowledge the inherent challenge of doing so; and understand that they lack the omnipotency and powers of communication to do and explain literally everything, including the value of moral sentiments. Finally, ask yourself whether you are reading a representative sample of the work of academic economists or are reading the most sensational or cherry-picked or selectively-abstracted economic articles written by non-economists, or worse, politically-motivated third parties that don't actually care about truth as long as it fits their narrative.
Most economists of a certain age, even when they've had professional success, still feel basically powerless. These are the people that are best equipped to come up with new systems. But that's not what is in demand...at all.
TLDR; economists are people like any other social scientists. Blaming an entire academic discipline is anti-science. Don't be that guy. It's not cool. Look at who's actually getting rich if you want to trace the source of our society's problems. Not scientists.
real-duncan t1_j8atnmi wrote
Found the disillusioned economist.
Saying “some dogs shit on my lawn” does not communicate to anyone without a chip on their shoulder that I am suggesting the dogs are ‘to blame’ for that and especially not that I am blaming every dog in the world.
You have invented a lot of stuff I never said and never thought. I am not responsible for what exists in your head and not in mine. You are having a conversation with yourself.
Miserly_Bastard t1_j8brvrs wrote
You didn't say that some dogs shit on your lawn. You blamed capitalism and economists without qualification.
But capitalism also isn't to an economist what shit is to dogs. Dogs are to biologists what the American variety of capitalism is to economists, one species of many. Parasites found in dog shit that use that shit as a medium to facilitate further spread are to dogs what rent seekers are to American capitalism. Those parasites are worthy of study and are studied by economists. Sometimes passionately and more often dispassionately.
As to it being on your lawn, well that's where the analogy sort of breaks down. The alternative to dogs may be cats or bears or nothing. An economist would probably inquire as to the utility of your yard itself and contrast it with zero lot line housing. Maybe the lawn itself is the dog shit?
real-duncan t1_j8bshlp wrote
I didn’t blame anything.
Reading comprehension is not strong in your family is it?
You’re reading things that are not there and wanting me to defend things that only exist in your head.
You are having a conversation with yourself. You don’t need anyone else involved.
r/shitamericanssay in assuming capitalism is an “American” thing. So embarrassing!
whooops-- t1_j7r44yw wrote
I’m always curious how do u guys think of immigrants
miharuza t1_j7rbmpl wrote
depends where they came from, how they came, what theyre doing now (mostly the last thing)
whooops-- t1_j7rc719 wrote
Legally come through studying or work. From China or other Asian countries like Taiwan Japan.
DrMaybeDead t1_j7ry8eh wrote
Most people in western countries are accepting of immigrants. A good portion of people move for work within countries between cities. There's always some problems but the main thing is acclimating to the climate and then the culture. Know the areas culture to understand a little more context on how they feel about it. The two reasons you gave usually provide the best social structure for someone to come over and guide the person.
whooops-- t1_j7ryp06 wrote
I wish I could emigrate through studying in the us. But it’s way too hard... and in the predictable future, due to the intense relationship between ccp and the us, it may get harder to emigrate. Sigh...
metarinka t1_j7tssn0 wrote
I'm all for it. Both my parents were immigrants my wife's family is immigrants. I grew up in Michigan with a huge Muslim immigrant population. It's all good.
Unfortunately immigrants are an easy "other" and big target for the "they took our jobs" or "my neighborhood used to be for me". Crowd.
I don't pretend to have an answer for that problem because it's an emotional and healing problem not a political a or statistical problem.
We see Korea and Japan literally collapsing rather than let in more immigrants so that's a clue on how stuck in their ways people are.
Also I'm way more progressive than most. for most of human history borders were open and people just went where they wanted. it's only this last 80ish years we're the idea is a border should always be perpetually closed. Which i think is very anti human and terrible economically.
MrCrash t1_j7qo17b wrote
Reliable birth control pills weren't commercially available until the 1960s. We are unlikely to see a population boom like that again.
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