Fertility rates around the world are plummeting. In many countries fertility rates are well below what is needed to sustain the population. World wide fertility rates are trending that way as well. I believe an argument can be made that if human beings are given the choice, we will not breed in sufficient numbers to sustain a population.

If you assume everything I wrote above is true and continues unabated, humanity is doomed. My question to this forum is would natural selection kick in and save humanity? Are some women born with a predisposition to have more children than others?

A -1% growth rate across all countries is the best thing ever but unfortunately it is -1% in the advanced and 2% in the miserable standard of living ones.

We will never be in trouble unless the 2% growth rates continue to be radical in their beliefs and the -1% "elect mfers like Trump and Putin.

It will be great to stabilize population and the easiest thing in the world to have 3 kids per family in scientific society if the system cared to protect the family and give incentives to help parents.

High intelligence and education people tend to have less kids because it is a big project to deal with properly with enormous responsibility if you understand the seriousness of the effort needed to get it "right" and because they see so much more interesting things to do with their lives.


People in 3rd world countries (well i do not want to generalize but the majority plays that game) have many kids for the most unacceptable reason of them all ie the fact that they are "miserable" and a young 3-4-5 year old is the most amazing source of happiness in every home so lets have eternal stream of toddlers to smile all day. That and sex being an entertainment under strict religious rules for family planning. It is that simple. Sadness of misery becomes optimism and happiness when you see a child smile to you and be full of innocence and love and the adventure begins again in front of your eyes.

But the child will grow up and you then need to be there for them all the way to late 20s to prepare them for the future if you really care for them. And you need to balance it properly to not spoil them or undermine their growth and individual life choices. It is a work for all your life to be a good parent. So you go ahead and tell me its a reasonable choice in a world that the middle class has been under attack.

World population has grown at 1.7% per year for a century now. Enough already i say. Lets fix the problems, unite and then continue to the rest of the galaxy.

I suspect that with the advent of smarter a.i. systems, better virtual reality, and sex robots the fertility rates will crater even further. Humanity will never go on to colonize the galaxy if current trends in fertility rates continue unabated without a significant change in our nature(i.e. going from biological to digital existence). I think we are doomed do to reproductive failure. Natural selection might save us though if it begins to select for reproductive propensity.

I don't think it will have enough time to select. That would need thousands of years, and we will be gone in some centuries, replaced by ai.

Yeah the idea is change over thousands, if not millions, of years.

Also if I understand what OP is saying correctly, it kinda contradicts itself: genes of poor reproduction aren't gonna be passed down to the next generations for obvious reasons. Additionally natural selection isn't exactly "designed" in a way so that people in one part of the world begin changing because of problems in another.

These social processes develop waaaay more rapidly than our genes do. That said, change sometimes occur rapidly, I read a study about how the human brain has grown exponentially faster in the last 50-60 years because of how important sociality has become.

Not all traits are equal and some are so beneficial they can spread quickly if circumstances are right. Suppose an incurable virus was created that is as infectious as the flu but fatal to 95% of the population in the year 2019. Would it wipe out humanity by 2119? If not what percentage of the population would have fatal susceptibility to the virus in 2119? Certainly much less than 95%.

Dropping fertility rates is largely a worldwide phenomena. Instead of Natural Selection, what about intelligent selection? In 500 years does the world consist only of devout Catholics, devout Mormans, and devout Muslims cause all the secular minded folks let themselves go extinct via a lack of breeding?

This (next map) is why its all so wrong and the most poor, less educated and more easily manipulated by dogmatic religions, tyrants and overall garbage social structures and institutions, appear to own the future but the only ones that will ultimately inherit the future will be scientific society citizens, humanity finally united and rational where it counts and then it is game over for bs. You can have fun and games but being a mfer at large scale with global consequences is illegal there and AI will take care of it or its mankind over!

It wont be over, just more rational and responsible unlike now.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

Anyone (family) who currently has more than 2 kids and is unable to take care of them properly from the start and not by sequence of bad luck events is a criminal unethical ahole.

Look at Afghanistan or Nigeria for example. A world torn country for decades and fertility rate is 5. The other is unstable for decades politically and has seriously poor human rights records but its at 5.5 . Are you kidding me? Tremendous potential in these countries in terms of young humans if they get it right and efforts for education improve in this and the next generation but imagine if they do not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

You first experiment is sorta like the black plague if I understand it correctly. Those who live will be those immune, even if it kills 99%, they won't die in the future, either, they have the genes that don't get sick (unless some of the survivors lived because they were never in contact with it, in which case these will still die). And a sickness like that is virtually the only way population drops drastically and even then odds are it might be contained or limited.


I don't think secular people are gonna let themselves go extinct. Human beings want children, to some degree, regardless of religion. Fertility rates are dropping because standard of life is increasing essentially everywhere, you don't need 15 children for 5 of them to survive into old age any more, the interesting rate is looking at how many children survive until they are, say, 15 compared to 100 years ago.

And we can even inseminate artifically, I don't believe there's any chance of human population regressing without intervention from Uncle Nuke or some biological illness (inb4 us government spreads super-SARS in China to kill off some people).

Intelligent breeding hmm idk The only thing that mihht work is simply limiting children to sustainability by law, but essentially every part of the world has to agree, especially the poor nations. Nobody is gonna let themselves go extinct, that's for sure, even though some may choose to not have children because of the circumstances of the world (which some are already doing) there will still be a lot of people who continue to breed.

There is no kind of evolutionary mechanic that can protect us from ourselves, it works in a radically different kind of way. The closest thing we come to a solution through evolution is that people will simply die off when we reach too high a number and spend our ressource (accelerated by the global pressure and hardships caused by global warming), but at that time the world is likely already FUBAR (humanity will survive, but billions will die). But I don't see any reasons to think that world population won't continue at an explosive rate for the next at least 50 years or so, if not much more. There's just too much money for the .1% to miss out on by actually trying to counteract the issue.

The fertility rate in Afghanistan is 5 now but 20 years ago it was 7. Where will it be in next 20 years? The trend is universal, fertility rates are cratering around the world and if first world countries are indicators, the total world fertility rate is headed toward a territory which destroys humanity if it is sustained long enough.

Secular couples want about 1.35 children. More than 2.0 is necessary to maintain a population.

Even if that trend continued or declined quite a bit it would take thousands of years before they died out.

Also people fluctuate between being religious and secular, essentially even if all secular people were hunted down and killed, others would become it as they developed in their life. Not long ago there were essentially no secular people around the globe.

Truth is it's essentially impossible to predict, as these developments happens over the span of centuries and different social movements and factors will unpredictably alter the "trajectories" (not sure about the word, English isn't my native language) of the social development, at least if all of previous human history has taught us anything.

I think the main reason humanity will end is the ai, maybe people are already sensing it. Humans will just be too inferior, no interest in continuing.

Getting children will be just so old-fashioned and unethical. You deem every new child to have to die one day, so be it at 200 years of age, don't think there will be an ultimate fix. The ai on the other hand can live forever, at least in principle.

And humans will also be too inferior intellectually and maybe emotionally with time for it making any sense to go the path of humanity. It will go so slowly though so we will be okaying it as we go. Our adaptation ability reaches our own gradual demise. Nice job!

If we top at 10 billion and then -1% every year for 2 centuries we still have 0.99^200*10=1.3 bil left with plenty of AI support and endless resources due to science and technology improving.

So then we have 2 centuries to get it together and create scientific society that will create a paradise for parents, kids, singles and mavericks of any kind.

No end in sight for mankind. AI and mankind can coexist and make each other stronger because of that. The progress in humans supported by non sentient AI daily can last thousands of years still while we maintain our natural state and enhance only a few aspects to eliminate some bad diseases and low intellect or mental disease issues. We can be strong, healthy, smart and able to replenish all organs, skin etc. We will be living a long time and having fun across the galaxy for thousands of years before i feel we are in trouble. But of course we will be irrelevant in terms of the top of research and innovation. An Ethical AI will grow and still preserve us and our way of experiencing the universe. We are not an obstacle to its progress.

I welcome a -1% across all countries as the greatest gift ever to be fair given the problems irrational population growth can introduce in an environment of poverty and radical garbage ideas. With AI and technology improving solutions we can resume 2% across the galaxy and create endless earth or superior style habitats.

We will not be wiped out by AI. AI will have 50% of the universe and the other 50% can be natural life games of exploration endlessly as the hedge any superior AI must instantly recognize to its own existential threat.

Considering how populations of animals, plants and similiar behave, the decline of birth rates IS natural selection kicking in to safe humanity.

Overpopulation is a huge, if not the biggest problem we got.

We have seen the biggest rise in population in the last century. That was because scientific advancements allowed us to produce food and gather ressources at faster and faster rates.

However, space and ressources are limited on earth and increasing production rates of the most important ressources has become to a halt. Unless we do some more huge leaps in the scientific appartments, we would never be able to sustain a growing population at this point.

Biology is just so inferior compared to technology as time goes by. With all respect biology and us are the result of pure chance, kind of an analog system, technology can be planned for real, from bottom up.

Technology is only able to be that great because it is standing on the shoulder of giants (biology).

Touché

A sophisticated enough AI could influence our fertility rates and just wait until we go extinct. I don't worry about AI going to war with us to kill us off. If an AI wants to kill us off it will do it in non violent non confrontational ways.

We will start "killing ourselves" by not breeding. Gradually, we like it, ai likes it. We will just become obsolete with time. Gradually through the decades and centuries.

Think one of the defining moments will be when 50% of the population would rather have an ai as a friend than a human. When? Let's say in 50-70 years. You could have an ai tending to every of your personal needs. Master class psychological therapist, sex partner, friend, taking care of your home, doctor, lawyer, you name it.

"The singularity" will work immensely much faster than the natural selection which has a plethora of double genes to gradually alter.

I've never chosen to **** or not **** based on feelings of superiority or inferiority. I'm not even sure whether humanity is a good idea, and it hasn't affected my behavior in that way.

AFAIK Japan's government is recently paying people to have more children and it is actually bringing the fertility rates there up. So fertility rates seem to be subject to pubic policy.

Barely any discernible impact from these policies in Japan. If you really want to see high fertility in a country with an advanced economy, look to Israel and especially its ultra-Orthodox population. Religion is still the best technology for making more babies.

That's exactly right. What happens when a sophisticated enough AI can be as good as or even better soul mate/sex partner than another human?

lSWYDT

Lol nice catch

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