Depopulation: A Threat to Civilization or Just a Phase?

[Farm Boy]

Only did apples for fussy stuff. Very clean work. Pleasant, even. Pruning in winter is cold when it's windy. Making cider was the best, the air was juicemist. Would pick and fill a wagon full of wooden bushel boxes, then need to drive it back ~2 miles. Driving the tractor there wasn't bad. Picking wasn't bad. But good lord, if I tried to get back any faster than in an entire hour, I'd bruise the whole lot up unacceptably from the bumping. So boring coming back every day.

 

[Zardnaar]

Only did apples for fussy stuff. Very clean work. Pleasant, even. Pruning in winter is cold when it's windy. Making cider was the best, the air was juicemist. Would pick and fill a wagon full of wooden bushel boxes, then need to drive it back ~2 miles. Driving the tractor there wasn't bad. Picking wasn't bad. But good lord, if I tried to get back any faster than in an entire hour, I'd bruise the whole lot up unacceptably from the bumping. So boring coming back every day.

We had dedicated tractor driver.

Comparatively pleasant work. Just hot where I did it 30 degrees Celsius or more wasn't that rare. Topped out at 39 once. That's a go to the river day vs work.

Didn't do the pruning. Did pick vegetables in winter with frost,ice and rain.

 

[Farm Boy]

Freezing, wet, work where you can't wear gloves sucks.

 

[Zardnaar]

Freezing, wet, work where you can't wear gloves sucks.

Yup most of the time we had gloves.

 

[Farm Boy]

Did they help much? Probably not a lot of warm lining for some of that. Probably poor form to stuff them down your britches to warm them back up.

 

[Angst]

People need more than food and even in regards to food large swaths of the population are deficient in basic nutrients.

i'm not sure whether you're reading what i'm typing

the discussion came from the following point, where i quoted you specifically:

agriculture was an example of a sector that required 80% of the population to work back in the 800s (with starvation often happening) to today where eu has just 4.2% of people being farmers (with a huge food surplus)

what samson posted and what you refuse to engage with/don't understand is that the same trajectory is happening in every sector

then farm boy followed up with a post detailing actual prices on how ridiculously cheap food is today, and these are the specifics you choose to double down on, over the huge reply that i gave to you originally

be better, dude

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't know man. I think Narz has the zeitgeist more, there. Whereas I think more frequently I'm screaming into the wind at my countrymen. But maybe that's a difference of the 4.2% you maintain(higher than us). Wouldn't that just be an irony. Where we waste the prairie relative to the old, deprecated world.

It'd be !'Murican! of us.

 

[Narz]

what samson posted and what you refuse to engage with/don't understand is that the same trajectory is happening in every sector

It's not. What planet you on?

Is housing cheaper? Is health care cheaper? Electricity? Almost all goods and services are rising in price.

be better, dude

Understand better.

 

[Samson]

These are both good points:

Is housing cheaper?

Housing is not, but the productivety of housing building has in that it takes fewer person-hours to build a house than it did in the past. House prices are driven by scarcity, some real some artificial.

I am sure you see the irony about worrying about spiralling housing costs as an issue with depopulation.

Is health care cheaper?

Health care is getting better, which makes it more expensive. Add to that the artificial scarcity generated by heavily restricted doctor training.

As something the old need more of it certainly could be an issue in a low birth rate scenario.

 

[Narz]

I am sure you see the irony about worrying about spiralling housing costs as an issue with depopulation

I don't understand housing well enough to know why the prices of housing are out of country.

But I understand that with home ownership impossible for so many why so many people would be reluctant to reproduce

Health care is getting better

A minority opinion. Potentially better do you mean?

 

[Samson]

I don't understand housing well enough to know why the prices of housing are out of country.

But I understand that with home ownership impossible for so many why so many people would be reluctant to reproduce

I quite agree. I have said nothing in this thread about the causes of the decrease in birth rate. I am just arguing that as long as the productivity is high it should not be an serious problem.

A minority opinion. Potentially better do you mean?

I mean better at keeping people alive. Eg.


Cancer survival is the highest it’s ever been and thousands more people now survive cancer every year.

 

[Angst]

It's not. What planet you on?

Is housing cheaper? Is health care cheaper? Electricity? Almost all goods and services are rising in price.

price increases are not the same as productivity decline. again, you could use the pork example.

we're indeed currently seeing an increase in end consumer prices in most sectors. all while productivity is also increasing. i'm talking about the latter.

Understand better.

you know my quotepost of you also described the very issue you bring up here and outline the same discrepancy i'm describing in this post. samson's graphs that you didn't understand also described the situation in a very grokkable way. so... this quip of yours is really funny.

 

[Narz]

all while productivity is also increasing. i'm talking about the latter.

If the increase in productivity doesn't reach the average person there's no point in celebrating it.

Computers are also a million times more efficient than when I was a kid (maybe more) but yet they're still slow ("hang on sir the system is being tempermental")

The wholesale cost of corn being cheap is irrelevant for people who can barely afford food.

 

[Gorbles]

If the increase in productivity doesn't reach the average person there's no point in celebrating it.

Computers are also a million times more efficient than when I was a kid (maybe more) but yet they're still slow ("hang on sir the system is being tempermental")

The wholesale cost of corn being cheap is irrelevant for people who can barely afford food.

I could be wrong, but I believe Angst's point is that it is relevant because they're both connected by the same political systems.

It's very relevant that food is cheap and people can still barely afford it. Both are intentional outputs of the system that manages both.

 

[Angst]

something to that degree.

@Narz my point isn't that things are great. i very much don't think they are. you're correct in clocking that it's irrelevant that produce is cheap when people can't afford it. but as i noted before, to you, that very real problem is a problem of allocation. which should be changed, yes. but declining birth rates don't really factor into any of that.

let's say there was no cost in production irt food. per farm boy's stats, if you ate only pork each day, and you'd pay that much less, you'd save less than a dollar per day. a larger workforce to produce more goods wouldn't do squat.

the whole point is that sustainability with fewer youngins isn't really the issue here. how we distribute those resources is the problem.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I am just arguing that as long as the productivity is high it should not be an serious problem.

Unsure how reasonable it is to expect productivity to remain high. At a certain point you'd expect resource shortages to start to kick in. Recycling can sidestep it, but only to an extent.

I really dunno where that point is or how far from it humanity is.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I am not quite sure that I understand the point of this thread.

I find it difficult to worry about depopulation as depopulation is not occurring.

I can see that global warming induced climate change may result in
some parts of the world becoming uninhabitable and local depopulation,
but that doesn't seem to be what you guys are talking about.

 

[Samson]

Unsure how reasonable it is to expect productivity to remain high. At a certain point you'd expect resource shortages to start to kick in. Recycling can sidestep it, but only to an extent.

I really dunno where that point is or how far from it humanity is.

I am not sure what you are getting at. Renewable/recyclable resources should get more plentiful under depopulation. We may run out of fossil fuels, but global warming is likely to be a problem first.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Renewable/recyclable resources should get more plentiful under depopulation. We may run out of fossil fuels, but global warming is likely to be a problem first

Presuming productivity growth is a consequence of greater efficiency in turning raw material X into more valuable product Y, you could still see a rise in need of human labor if shortages of raw material X begin to kick in and decrease productivity.

Oil is the big one. I'm not so sure a switch to renewables is economically viable in many regions critical to industry. Shortages may begin to impact QoL even in a depopulating world if said point is reached within the lifetimes of those presently living, with less labor available to cover for the loss

My mind is not made up on it and probably hasn't gathered enough raw data to be confident on it in either direction, though.

 

[Narz]

something to that degree.

@Narz my point isn't that things are great. i very much don't think they are. you're correct in clocking that it's irrelevant that produce is cheap when people can't afford it. but as i noted before, to you, that very real problem is a problem of allocation. which should be changed, yes.... how we distribute those resources is the problem.

We outsource everything to mega-corporations and/or government (food production, fuel extraction, news, entertainment, education, almost everything) so it can be cheaper than doing it ourselves (growing food, teaching your own kids, creating tools is difficult) so we don't really have any power to tell them "Hey, distribute more equitably, you guys have too much control/profit".

We have no leverage/bargaining power.

One can make fun of communities like the Amish, they work way harder than they "have to" but they have more power over their own lives than all but the richest Americans (over their individual lives not so much but they give that up voluntarily to have a better society).

I wouldn't want to live in a religious community myself but the point is that "we could all have a cheap/easy life" is a hypothetical, it presupposes that corporations & governments prioritize the people over their own power which is not likely to happen.

Even if it could happen being able to grow cheap industrial food & have cheap industrial goods NOW doesn't make it sustainable. Not to mention the power imbalances is what makes the Walmarts & Amazons of the world possible. If every had access to the fruits of cheap labor no one would actually do the cheap labor.

For the future maybe we can replace Chinese iPhone workers all with robots but that also creates it's own problems.

Either way, too many elderly is the least of our worries.