Peak Human

[Loppan Torkel]

It seems we're closing in to the technology for developing robots that can take care of the elderly. I presume things will take off fairly quickly from there.

There's a theory about Peak Oil. Is there a point in time (until other planets are viable options) where children won't be the future? Where every new human will cost society more than it produces? The ordinary jobs are done by robots who are more efficient, while the human jobs that are left are done by the highly specialised, smart, social and incredibly rich people?! An increased mass of people burden the society and only a few nations that harbour the largest corporations will offer some social welfare in exchange for protection.


How far off are we?

 

[Narz]

Where every new human will cost society more than it produces?

I'd say we've been there for a long time. Population is likely way over carrying capacity & every new human life makes for a worse planet for future generations.

The main production of modern humans is waste & environmental destruction. Probably only a couple people out of every hundred are actually worth it (scientists, artists, permaculture pioneers, etc.).

It doesn't really feel so overcrowded yet in many places but that's because we haven't felt the full reverberations of our actions quite yet.

Hopefully we can create robots to "clean it up" like Wall-E & work tirelessly to recreate a habitable safe planet for homo sapiens. But likely we'll be creating damage far faster than it can be mitigated (unless we create AI alot smarter than us).

 

[El_Machinae]

Great thread idea.

I'll agree with Narz. We don't know the true cost per person. BUT, we also don't know how much of that cost is in some regeneratable buffer. Could we keep a million people alive on the planet in perpetuity? I think so. A billion? I dunno. Ten billion? No, I think we'd eat our seed corn.

That said, I think I understand the question. I think that the median human will require a fiscal welfare subsidy at some point in the same way we currently seem to need an 'eco subsidy'. I mean, my diet needs two liters of diesel per day to keep me alive in the modern world, but I easily spend less than 30% of my income staying alive. I'm upper class, but I'm not exceptional, many many people don't need a true subsidy to 'make it' ... to need money keep them alive because their productivity is so low.

 

[peter grimes]

There are about 1.5 x 10^8 km2 of land area on earth, plus just over twice that in water.

I suspect a billion is possible, but not confident that more are.

 

[Tahuti]

Well, given that people are living longer in general, and the elderly are increasingly more able to preserve their vitality, rather than viewing our society as older, we should treat the youngest group of relatively elderly people more as people able to continue contributing to our society.

 

[nc-1701]

I feel like I already posted this thread
But that was a year ago and I think I math'd up the OP a little too much, hopefully yours will get more/better insight on the subject. This is an idea I still think about, because in some regards I feel like it may describe some of our current economic problems. I don't necessarily want to defend this idea, but I do think we can agree it is a possible (even likely) future outcome and discuss it in that context.

I see three primarily roads as to what happens at that point.

I guess the question is really does society support them or not?

It's also worth noting that at least in the past society has created new jobs as such things happen. Assuming that we are well below the carrying capacity, but above the marginal value threshold with current jobs. You can add new jobs that don't improve survival, but add value to society in other ways. Typically these are service industry jobs, but it's not clear you can do this indefinitely.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I think that the median human will require a fiscal welfare subsidy at some point in the same way we currently seem to need an 'eco subsidy'.

Who will pay this welfare subsidy?

Will the work that robots do be taxable?

What will happen if a shift occurs and working people realise that the next generation won't secure their senescence(?)?

Well, given that people are living longer in general, and the elderly are increasingly more able to preserve their vitality, rather than viewing our society as older, we should treat the youngest group of relatively elderly people more as people able to continue contributing to our society.

They're often expert at their work, they're dependable and it's much cheaper to keep them working than getting someone inexperienced and there's also a chance you won't have to pay their pensions for that long - of course the state need to increase the age of pension. It still doesn't solve the underlying issues. The working people will just have to work harder and longer, while the rest won't get employment.

I feel like I already posted this thread

Yeah, a bit more thought-out, too much math and a little less baity title.

 

[Borachio]

There are about 1.5 x 10^8 km2 of land area on earth, plus just over twice that in water.

I suspect a billion is possible, but not confident that more are.

I was amazed to stumble on this post a couple of weeks ago, but didn't comment then.

A billion? Where are the other 8 billion going to go? (The population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050, I think.)

Are you saying the current population is already unsustainable?

Certainly, the consumption levels (or energy use) current in the US are unsustainable worldwide, but that's not the issue, is it?

 

[CavLancer]

A billion is very low imo. Nevertheless we are I think over what can be sustained even if the good climate continues or gets warmer.

The oceans are being fished out and the answer seems to be to do more fishing. Not sure what year the max catch was but I think it was the 80s. The local population here in the Philippines are being hurt by this.

There are underground aquifers which will eventually run dry. A big one is in the grain belt of the US. If aquifer irrigation is cut so is food supply.

Any significant volcanism that lowers temps could be the beginning of what I call "The Great Death", where hundreds of millions starve.

Before the invention of antibiotics population was kept in control through disease. These antibiotics are becoming less effective and this control will one day reassert itself in the form of global pandemics.

All would be a terrible tragedy which might be averted by population decline. Who knows?

 

[El_Machinae]

Who will pay this welfare subsidy?
Will the work that robots do be taxable?

The work they do won't be taxable, but the profits they generate will be. And who pays this subsidy? The wealthy.

This is a bit like asking "who's going to pay for schooling when kids are no longer working the fields?". The wealthier end up subsidizing the children. And, it's pretty easy, because the wealthy are way, way wealthier than they used to be. Plus, there's just no way for a child to earn a living wage as a legal laborer these days anyway. They basically need a subsidy as it is, even if they worked. But, they don't need to.

 

[peter grimes]

I was amazed to stumble on this post a couple of weeks ago, but didn't comment then.

A billion? Where are the other 8 billion going to go? (The population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050, I think.)

Are you saying the current population is already unsustainable?

Certainly, the consumption levels (or energy use) current in the US are unsustainable worldwide, but that's not the issue, is it?

The current population is unsustainable at US levels of consumption. I don't know what population is sustainable at us levels.

Where will they go? Away, by dying, of course. Not that people will have to be killed, but birth rates will have to be controlled .

I think that's the least bad option.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

It seems we're closing in to the technology for developing robots that can take care of the elderly. I presume things will take off fairly quickly from there.

There's a theory about Peak Oil. Is there a point in time (until other planets are viable options) where children won't be the future? Where every new human will cost society more than it produces? The ordinary jobs are done by robots who are more efficient, while the human jobs that are left are done by the highly specialised, smart, social and incredibly rich people?! An increased mass of people burden the society and only a few nations that harbour the largest corporations will offer some social welfare in exchange for protection.


How far off are we?

The carrying capacity is not static and will be influenced by technological developments.

 

[KevinLancaster]

Well technological developments aren't some miracle fix, because people don't use them to their full potential. I feel if for example all the edible fish in the world died from pollution and overfishing, even if technology provided some fast, cheap, and easy solution to bring them back people will mismanage it and make it the opposite of that. We could end up making AI I guess, but it will (probably) need human maintenance and a machine doing the thinking for us is a bit of a frightful solution to me. We would basically be admitting that we suck at the only thing we're good at. The thing is though our intelligence is so limited at times, we can't even have complex relationships beyond two hundred people or so let alone accurately understand the entire world. The alternative would be mass death though, and even if that happens we might just develop new wasteful habits and end up back where we started.

Even if an AI solution worked and became commonly used there's that problem where because things are being produced more efficiently they become cheaper to purchase and consumption of resources doesn't change overall because more people are consuming. Even if the population stabilized there will always be the latest and greatest must-buy gadget available and consumption would still likely be high. In addition if the AI is trying to manage the environment as well there may be bad consequences for us in terms of numbers. If it's tries to change our minds it will probably use the fastest method to do so which would mean probably mean propaganda and drugs. In the end it would probably just plug all the pesky humans into a darn Matrix and let them make stuff up while it looks for interplanetary resources to power itself. I guess if everyone knew why it existed and that it was human made and why you can't leave but you're still allowed to know everything that's going on accurately if you asked (I suppose the propaganda and the drugs would be unnecessary after a while, the body maybe as well) and still clearly be able to know what is imagined and what is real, it would be okay(?). We wouldn't really be human any more though, more like some giant cyborg ball or something. Yuck.

 

[Old Hippy]

it's not so much what we do with all the unneeded people, but what all the unneeded people do with us...

with peak oil there, will come a time when the latest Chinese made TV's will just cost too much in transportation, people just won't have the excess money to spend driving their cars around,the cost of food will rise, as farmers pay more and more for oil

people will not just sit back and say "awhhh sucks I'm obsolete" they will show their brilliance by growing their own food, composting their refuse and getting their shoes repaired by the young fellow around the corner, they will grow food on the verge down the road, establish community gardens, if I'm still around i would probably be making furniture, and competing with the robotic imports, thats not to say their will still not be rich people driving SUV's around, there will be...

the allocation of resources will become a major topic of conversation for both the rich (think Czarist Russia) and the poor (think Czarist Russia) and the intellectuals (think Czarist Russia) or maybe France so i don't start the whole Stalinist/evil empire/dictatorship smoke screen

people have been talking about sustainability for ages but people have been too busy consuming to listen, peak humans will force people too listen AND take part in that conversation

while we continue to squander vital resources to have a nice front garden, more than some villages survive on in the third world we are just saying "let them eat cake"

it's not what minimum do people live on, but can we actually afford what we live on now...

 

[Tee Kay]

Given the current global trend in decreasing birth rate, we'll reach peak human in about a century's time.

That number will be about 10 billion. A fair bit higher than what most people here wants, but what practical ways are there to reduce our numbers that aren't morally-abhorrent. This is the number we have to work with, we can only aim to reduce our impact per capita, and hope for the best.

 

[Borachio]

The current population is unsustainable at US levels of consumption. I don't know what population is sustainable at us levels.

Where will they go? Away, by dying, of course. Not that people will have to be killed, but birth rates will have to be controlled .

I think that's the least bad option.

But that's a staggering reduction. Without actively culling the population, either directly or indirectly through starvation, that would mean an unsustainably large elderly population being a burden (or neglected) for centuries. I just can't see this happening. Especially as most people are fed (albeit not very well for 1/3 of them) today. There is enough food now (even given that it's not well distributed, and it is inefficiently produced). Why do you foresee a major reduction in food supply for the future? (If that is indeed what you foresee.)

 

[peter grimes]

It's all in the timing though, right? At what point in the future do we need to arrive at a sustainable population?

If we have a couple centuries of buffer then I'm guessing we can let people age out of the equation.

I could be wrong though, I'm talking out my butt here.

 

[Narz]

That number will be about 10 billion. A fair bit higher than what most people here wants, but what practical ways are there to reduce our numbers that aren't morally-abhorrent.

Not addressing the problem is even more morally abhorrent though. :\

It's all in the timing though, right? At what point in the future do we need to arrive at a sustainable population?

If we have a couple centuries of buffer then I'm guessing we can let people age out of the equation.

Problem is we likely don't have centuries. Seems that scientists are coming to the conclusion that it may already be too late.

The idea of reducing CO2 emissions globally is clearly a joke (the way it is treated anyway). I think we need to focus on somehow removing CO2 from the air directly.

I'd be nice if we had more time & could let a sustainable population come of its own accord. However if we're to prove we're smarter than every other species who's population overshot & then crashed we're going to have to manage it more proactively.

Plenty of pioneers are already doing this & those that have opposed their work (blocking or discouraging access to contraception & safe abortion) with likely ultimately create death tolls & human misery dwarfing the horrors brought upon us by even the worst dictators of the 20th century.

 

[peter grimes]

those that have opposed their work (blocking or discouraging access to contraception & safe abortion) with likely ultimately create death tolls & human misery dwarfing the horrors brought upon us by even the worst dictators of the 20th century

Arguably this has already been going on for decades. First thing that comes to mind is the RCC objection to contraception. I wonder if anyone has done a rigorous examination of how this one policy has resulted in a net increase or decrease in poverty / starvation / violence.

 

[KevinLancaster]

I feel like there's a problem in which even if a rigorous study was done people would ignore the advice given and when it all comes falling down on them they'll blame those who tried to warn them for not warning them. We need some sort of Scientist Island.