World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Can’t say that I share your vision 100%, D., but you do make some/many valid points

The carrying capacity depends to some extent on how we want to live. There will be an optimal population foreach of the4 different ways we want to live. If you want to have roast beef every week, you need to allocate a lot of land for grazing. If you are prepared to live on beans, that grazing land can be put to different use.

Central planning of what people eat...

How many mass graves has that notion filled?

Just to clarify, I never advocated central planning. I just meant that if everyone decided to live on beans there could be more people. Of course if there ends up with too many people, beans may be all there is available.

Central planning per se doesn’t lead to mass graves. Each country does central planning - called “budget”.

We can be more efficient in our use of resources, but I still believe in voluntary family planning. It's just not available to everyone who wants it. I think the goal is quality of life.

There is also the problem with elements. These get dispersed into rubbish dumps, and we need to be more careful at leaving these discards separately somewhere wheree they can be recycled in the future.

More people = more garbage.

D. wrote: "More people = more garbage."

That's a loaded statement.

Ha!

Actually, the organic fraction of garbage could be converted to liquid fuels, and the metals recycled. SApart from actually getting off our arses, the objection is not particularly telling.

So no disagreement that decreasing population is a good thing. I'm surprised and glad to see that increasing population shouldn't be a goal in these times.

Reducing population size is an economic time bomb. It will annihilate the social safety nets which many seem to think are necessary. The reason for the collapse is simple. All social welfare programs are pyramid schemes. They can only function so long as there are more people paying into them than are withdrawing benefits. Since people tend to pay in when they are young, and withdraw when they are old, it doesn't take a great mind to figure out what happens when the mean age of a population increases.

Welcome to the end of Social Security, Public Welfare, and nationalized medicine.

Nik wrote: "Central planning per se doesn’t lead to mass graves. Each country does central planning - called “budget”."

Have you looked at most national budgets, lately?

Over the long haul, central planning just concentrates power. I can hear Lord Acton chuckling.

J. wrote: "Reducing population size is an economic time bomb. It will annihilate the social safety nets which many seem to think are necessary. The reason for the collapse is simple. All social welfare progra..."

Not necessarily. The social safety nets require money, not a lot of people. If robots etc can do most of the work the wealth will permit the safety nets, and indeed social services may be needed to employ the bulk of trhese people

Indeed, many pension funds have projections to run into serious deficit in not that distant future. That’s one of the reasons they postpone retirement age in different countries.
Our budget is a really thick tome which includes most of economic and legislative changes the government desires to introduce in its various annexes. I think in the States it’s something similar. For some reason, I get the feeling you get very little from your government (remember- it’s designed to serve you), as opposed to other places.

Population would decrease slowly allowing us to adjust.

Social safety nets need paying for by taxation. Robots don't pay tax. An ageing population won't benefit anyone, including the elderly, the majority of whom will be forced to work until they drop. Quality of life is far more important than longevity.

D. wrote: "Population would decrease slowly allowing us to adjust.

Tell that to South Korea and the CCP.

Robots don't pay tax, agreed. But whatever they provide is either sold or donated. If sold, a VAT type tax can be imposed and the profits to the owners of the robots are taxable. If the goods are donated to the elderly the elderly are better off.

I agree quality of life is more important than longevity, but when you get older you take on a new perspective regarding how long you will live. If you are capable of debating it, you have enough marbles left to want more life to enjoy if you are enjoying it now.

Getting into the AI thread?

I get where you're coming from in your second paragraph, Ian. I'm not at that age yet but I can easily empathise with people who are.

I think your first paragraph is wishful thinking. We've got enough of a job getting tax out of the people who own the means of production already. I don't see them queuing up to do the elderly a favour.

Just like increasing the number of people at university has resulted in grants being replaced by loans, increased life expectancy has resulted in poorer pensions. More usually means less.

Ultimately, for society as a whole to function well, we need the bulk of people to be in the prime of their lives, in productive employment, paying tax. How to get back to that situation is the tricky part.

Legislating against the use of AI and making higher education smaller and more selective could be one way forward. People are probably better equipped to start working earlier than continue working later. I'd be interested to hear other ideas.

We can't have the bulk of the people in the prime of their lives over an indefinite time because that pulse will age. One solution was the science fiction film where everyone was killed at the age of 30 but not everyone about to turn thirty would agree that is a good solution.

In one of my novels, an advanced alien society had all goods and many services provided by AI. Everyone had access to whatever they needed, but they could not build up piles of what they did not need. Society then had to find something for everyone to do. You probably won't like my solution.

Prior to the industrial revolution, the average aristocrat could wake up in the morning and after being dressed, fed and watered by their household servents could mount a fine horse and ride about the fields watching the illiterate peasants toiling at back-breaking work to generate the wealth that supported his lifestyle of ease.

Thus the ruling ethos of natural superiority and the social heirarchy that implemented and enforced it.

Then the industrial revolution occurred, which liberated the peasants who flocked to the cities and the factories (as vile as they were, they were still a better option than the fields...)

FFWD to the late 20th century and the average person (ex-peasant) could access the equivalent labor of '20 slaves,' due to machines...

Where does that leave the rulers and their ethos of natural superiority to the common muck of humanity?

Under threat.

The response was predictable.

Cultivate, teach, and propagate a paradigm of scarcity beginning with Thomas Malthus's instantly wrong thesis that human population will outgrow its food supply (wrong after 180 years and still failing...)

Push scarcity upon the lower ranks, attack their food and energy supplies (currently in progress) to keep them poor, hungry and clamourous for safety.

Entrench the rich and powerful at the top of society by blocking competitors rising from the lower ranks.

Congratulate those who propagate the scarcity thesis as world saviours.

Denigrate anyone who disagrees as fools.

##############

Alternatively, we could embrace abundance and break the chains of social heirarchy and old-money dominance of our world.

Malthus wasn't necessarily wrong. He did not forsee modern industrial capacity and the use of fertilizers, but there are far from lots of concentrated phosphate, and the west seems to be doing what it can to limit the availability of potash.

The key, in my opinion, is, to quote: "Entrench the rich and powerful at the top of society by blocking competitors rising from the lower ranks." I think much of the rest follows from that.

Let us consider the AI driven manufacturing model.

First, the main beneficiaries would be the capital wielding class. They are the ones who can afford to build these manufactorums of the brave new world. The working class people who currently run industrial operations would become obsolete and be laid off. A few would be able to swing maintenance jobs but most would find themselves dispossessed as excess to requirements.

So which is the meatier tax base, the capital class who already wield numerous lawyers and CPAs or the millions of workers that would suddenly be transferred to the unemployment rolls?

The capital class can take a very substantial increase in tax rate. It is simply raised, free of loopholes, and enforced. In 1952 the maximum tax rate for individuals was 92% and the US did not fall to pieces.

If you want stronger medicine in Germany in the 1930s it was unpatriotic to ship money out of Germany so essentially nobody did it. Gold, etc, would have been smuggled out, because no law can be enforced to 100%, but basically such laws hold.

Once robots are relatively cheap and can do much of the same as primates with their plastic/metal limbs - physical workers can be largely scrapped, AI will disband another myriad of “office plankton”, which won’t own no physical place to apply their abilities to , nor competitive AI or robots to generate income.
The dilemma will then be whether to let all those unnecessary humanoids to die of starvation or offer them a modest universal income or physical subsistence, enclosed to some incubator.

No worries, we’ll all trade bitcoins and live on handsome surplus .

The population is not in balance with nature. We're spreading like a virus and destroying our resources (to paraphrase The Matrix). I'd rather see more trees than more buildings. Overcrowding = anxiety, depression, poverty, and violence. Quality of life would improve with a lower population where there is less pollution and more natural spaces. Everyone (who wanted to) could farm their own food like they used to. We would adjust to these changes and technology would be created to support it. And yes, the wealthy and corporations should pay their share.

You've convinced me that the world would be a better place with a lower population, D.

However, while it is an attractive proposition, the problem is how to achieve it practically and humanely...

North of the equator, population growth is due to immigration and higher birth rates amongst certain groups of 1st generation immigrants. These groups are obviously aware of, and have access to, birth control but for religious and cultural reasons believe bigger families are best. Any politician who attempted to lecture them about family sizes would, at best, be ignored.

Incidentally, there is little or no population growth amongst indigenous Europeans and their 'relatives' around the Anglosphere.

Population growth south of the equator (the real driving force in world population growth) follows the pattern of the people who have emigrated to the Northern Hemisphere, for the same reasons but with the addition of economic necessity.

For these reasons, why would they be interested in limiting their family sizes, even if contraception was readily available? And who are we to lecture them about it, when we have played a significant role in shaping their world, and the problems that have come with it?

One other point on the subject of population growth...

On the back of recent public discussions, in the UK, about a possible change in the euthanasia law, several well-known political commentators, including Matthew Parris, have suggested that the elderly should 'accept when their time is up'.

I find this chilling.

In fact, I don't see any palatable way of reducing the world's population. It's something best left to Mother's Nature, who, in time, will take care of it, if, indeed, it does need taking care of.

Best not meddle ourselves because it won't end well.

D. wrote: "The population is not in balance with nature. We're spreading like a virus and destroying our resources (to paraphrase The Matrix). I'd rather see more trees than more buildings. Overcrowding = anx..."

I don't think everyone who wanted to could farm their own food. First, where do they get their land? Farming now is highly technological and needs a serious industrial support base. How does "everyone who wants to" pay for their share? I also doubt most people could farm in the old style, let alone be happy doing it It was basically hard work with long hours, and involved a lot of knowledge that has essentially been lost. Even if you could find enough Clydesdales, how many would kow how to make what else was needed to get them to work? And how would such productivity of land feed the greater population?

No, we re locked in to our current farming methods and its industrial support unless there is a major catastrophe which would lead to major starvation and misery. Maybe in the future we can change, but such change will have to evolve slowly

Re all the above, I genuinely find D's vision attractive, I just don't see it happening unless either Mother Nature intervenes with a natural catastrophe or new virus, or mankind unintentionally intervenes with nuclear war or a lab-generated virus.

We in the West really need to accept that we make up a small percentage of the world's population, and non Westerners simply don't share our concerns. They usually have more pressing concerns.

I think some of the West's movers and shakers secretly dream about sending large parts of the population up into space to depopulate Earth. Seems a bit optimistic at the mo.

World fertility is crashing.

We are already on the path to underpopulation.

D. wrote: "The population is not in balance with nature. We're spreading like a virus and destroying our resources (to paraphrase The Matrix). I'd rather see more trees than more buildings. Overcrowding = anx..."

Platitudes are wonderful, but you have no idea of what you are talking about.

Graeme wrote: "World fertility is crashing.

We are already on the path to underpopulation."

World fertility rate is not crashing, but slowing and depending on which study you choose between 2050 and 2100 growth will reach zero and begin to decline.

The birthrate in the West is declining because parents feel they can't really afford to have children and maintain the lifestyle they want.

It's crashing.

Beau, I actually laughed, maybe because it's so terrible, when you said, "On the back of recent public discussions, in the UK, about a possible change in the euthanasia law, several well-known political commentators, including Matthew Parris, have suggested that the elderly should 'accept when their time is up'." Another reason to support the Second Amendment. The elderly are the ones with the experience to see through all the BS, so they want to put us on an ice floe and get rid of the last defenders of common sense and freedom. I nominate for euthanasia ignorant college students who contribute nothing to society, burn the flag, support Hamas, can't even explain why they're rebelling. Privileged, ungrateful, dull-witted sheep without whom the world would be better. Want to reduce the population? Start with them.

I laughed (and am still laughing) at Scout saying 'another reason to support the second amendment'.

Just imagine a woke progressive, like Matthew Parris, turning up at a senior's house to tell them their time was up, and then having a Magnum pointed at them.

Your move, Mr Parris. Make my day, punk. A Magnum holds 6 shots but I can't remember if I've already fired 5 or 6. Ahh, what a delicious thought. Lol.

On a serious note, I completely oppose euthanasia. It's far too open to abuse. And as for telling the elderly their time is up - well, it's as despicable as it is stupid. No way for a civilisation to operate but, then again, I have been telling you that our civilisation is in trouble for quite a while.

Beau, they're already coming.

Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chri...

EXCLUSIVE: Canada's push to euthanize veterans with PTSD is 'disgusting, unacceptable and infuriating', says female artillery gunner who spent six months on the front line in Afghanistan
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...

Since euthanasia is prohibited here, rich but fatally ill dudes go to Switzerland to undergo it (it’s expensive).
World’s population is not very relevant as long as the world is compartmentalized into countries. Millions of Africans who live in huts 🛖made of cow shit hardly consume or leave more footprint than a couple of billies with their factories, jets and whatever.
In many places in the West the population is in decrease, while it’s on the rise in the third world.
Our hints about overpopulation must be pointed there. I’m not sure one’s comfort should be prevalent over other’s survival

J, that young lady is worth 1000 Canadian politicians. She deserves medals for bravery for going public.

The story doesn't actually surprise me because I know that behind most 'progressive' politicians is a nazi just dying to get out.

Legalising euthanasia would be like opening up a can of worms, especially in today's Western world. How long before teenagers suffering with depression or the long-term unemployed are offered a way out of their misery by so-called 'caring' liberals, who demand society respect their right to choose?

Politically illiterate people might sometimes think that Beau is a raving right wing extremist for constantly condemning progressives. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason I consistently oppose these rudewords is that I see right through them, and what they're really all about.

Trudeau is possibly - possibly - the worst of the lot.

Ian wrote: "The birthrate in the West is declining because parents feel they can't really afford to have children and maintain the lifestyle they want."

Actually the best predictor is women's education. The higher their education level, the lower the birth rate.

Graeme wrote: "It's crashing."

No it is not. It is actually, still climbing right now.

Beau wrote: "I laughed (and am still laughing) at Scout saying 'another reason to support the second amendment'.

Just imagine a woke progressive, like Matthew Parris, turning up at a senior's house to tell the..."

For once we agree. While I can accept when one decides they have had enough being sick and it is time, all I really see is someone pushing them into it as a reality.

Beau wrote: "J, that young lady is worth 1000 Canadian politicians. She deserves medals for bravery for going public.

The story doesn't actually surprise me because I know that behind most 'progressive' politi..."

Beau,

I would NEVER confuse you with a raving right wing extremist.

I despise euthanasia. My personal views on suicide are more accepting, but not absolute.

It would be immoral for me to put my blood on someone else's hands. As for assisting in a suicide, the moral grounds are dubious at best. Suicide of those with psychological issues is a minefield.

What I have no problem with is a scenario in which I was diagnosed with a terminal disease which will end me long before I legally die. In that scenario, I would set my affairs in order, spend time with loved ones, tell my boss all of the things he can shove up his 🤬, and then go on one last hunting trip. My last call would be to my lawyer, to let him know where to tell the game warden to look for the body.

There was a debate here generated by someone who was clearly dying (and did die). She had severe pain, and wanted to be put out of her misery. However, the issue was clouded by then fact she was not permitted the extreme painkillers, as she might become addicted. To me, that was the most fatuous excuse ever. Someone who is clearly dying should not be subjected to someone else's stupid ideas on addiction.

Papaphilly wrote: Actually the best predictor is women's education. The higher their education level, the lower the birth rate...."

Defo, a good indicator. Even works in places like Iran with deep patriarchal values. Iran's fertility rate has halved in 10 years...

Papaphilly wrote: "Graeme wrote: "It's crashing."

No it is not. It is actually, still climbing right now."

We must be looking at different stats.