Determination, perseverance, caution, courage, patience... any qualities that may lend to enduring potential ELO can be predicted to have the potential to be selected. So I guess it is possible towards realistic that when facing selections which lead to either extinction or adaption we can choose to adapt. Whatever the crisis is. Fertility crisis sounds easy. Doing marketing for sex is the oldest PR job.

while it's true that fertility rates around the world are plummeting, it's also true that fertility rates around the world are skyrocketing, and it's also true that fertility rates around the world are at equilibrium levels. It's silly to posit that "humanity is doomed" because of pockets of negative growth while ignoring overall population growth, worldwide, which is still positive.

So if we assume all that is true, and continues unabated, then humanity will eventually fill the earth and start piling up on top of each other, then we'll be able to colonize Mars without spaceships--simply by filling all the available space between here and the red planet.

Ain't silly hypotheticals grand?

Its true the human population of the earth continues to rise. That is because the fertility rate of the world is still above minimum needed to sustain/grow a population(a little above 2.0). But world fertility rate is trending down and is expected to settle below 2.0 in the near future.

Even when the world fertility falls below 2.0 you will still see the population increase for a while because of something called population momentum.

After the momentum fizzles out, the population begins to decrease. If the world fertility rate never rises above 2.0 again humans will go extinct. You can't cheat death, and you can't cheat the math.

You cant be seriously afraid of even -1% rate for 100 years. I would love that actually. More space for every human alive, less stress to environment, less competition of resources less bs exploitation of misery by religious and political garbage, better chance to educate all and elevate the standards of living.


Our only risk is the ultimately easy by true losers, enablers of failure to label as racist argument that those that grow at 2% right now and 3% past decades, while still the same type of human biologically and mentally at basis, are easily characterized by inferior standards of living and ideas about human rights eventually. I am not seeing it as a white vs brown or black or whatever type people. I am seeing it as advanced cultural standards secular progressive societies of all integrated races vs those that do not care for offering the individual the chance to have a great upbringing and success opportunities in a world devoid of bs dogma and hatred or easy ignorance based hatred of science and higher ethical standards of living.

What has happened is that great standards of living in eg the west were built on exploiting the third world for a long while (and even its own less privileged citizens) but at the same time the cultural standards of the advanced world are superior truly because they have rejected failed systems of the past long ago and embraced science, suffering only by the lack of equivalent ethical growth ie a better version of governance than capitalism and more responsible citizens. The emerging third world however is still in the dark ages in so many areas and yet the population growth there has skyrocketed past 100 years without removing the misery to a large extend or elevating the individual human rights and opportunities as one of the 2 most important things of every society.

It feels as a population cultural invasion marching backwards ultimately if those fast growing countries do not get it together and emerge more serious about what they value.

We are all guilty. The advanced are guilty because they didnt produce yet a better system and help unite all to build on the edge they have had all this time vs other countries. Instead selfishness, consumerism, partizan division and laziness prevailed. The less advanced are guilty by being careless about family planning and remaining in the lack of education easily oppressed, unable to revolt against tyrants and bs religious dogma.

So hell yeah we all need to take a break and stop growing and get it together first.

When finally united and educated and responsible we can conquer the galaxy. But lets get it together first and stop seeing it as a constant conquering of each other by numbers and arrogance or indifference to what lack of planning leads to.

Its not fear that I feel, Its disappointment. I would like humanity to colonize the entire galaxy(which is not something beyond our reach). That will never happen because it seems that when humans are given a choice, they choose not reproduce in numbers which allow for population growth. Soon all of humanity will have that choice. When the population of the world decreases their won't be much incentive for people to move off world and establish colonies elsewhere.

No i think always some will be willing to explore the unknown and if they do not have to fight each other for resources they will do that with better comfort and dedication not as an escape from crisis.

I think we stabilize near 10 bil and then eventually move to the star. I doubt we will see a 6 again.

You're pretending a roughly 70-year trend will never reverse.

Golden State Warriors won the last two NBA championships, and three of the last four. If that trend continued, the Bay Area of California will eventually be weighed down by all the championship trophies and be pushed down to the earth's core. You can't cheat the math!

I don't see a reason to believe it will reverse other than natural selection.

Exploring the unknown and colonizing the solar system are not the same thing. People explored Antarctica but nobody tried to colonize it. A task orders of magnitude easier than colonizing mars.

Niels Bohr; " Predictions are difficult. Especially about the future."

hehe

But go for it damn it! At least with hesitation to be super confident unless its about the future of complexity that is bright.

"If predictions are difficult then become the prediction!" MdZ

First of all if it becomes a problem we can genetically reproduce humans and have AI raise them as kids until they are 4-5 when all the bs tiring details are over. We can supervise the important things until then.

Parenting is tough because it takes time to do things right and to care properly while pursuing all kinds of tough things not because we cant have sex 24/7 and cherish her with endless romantic love every single time, take care of her mood for months and have 5 kids in 7 years if we treat the mothers as goddesses. Create the conditions that tax her body more efficiently without lasting sacrifices and she will go for it if it means saving the future. She can do it without us even, although you shouldnt baby, you will miss the time of your life.

Whats the big deal really if it comes down to it? I can father 50 kids if i have to as one of the last few and i have a way to support them all with copies of me raising them until i can take over for real.

The easiest thing in the world is to have kids if it becomes so important to survive the species. You invest resources to have it work well. it is the only important thing then.


Just create scientific society, give every citizen a great AI home and self sufficient garden and energy production with 10 robots cleaning up everything and then having kids and spending 6 hours per day teaching them things and loving them and mentoring them becomes fun time.

What's the big deal?????????????????

You have the problem you solve it !!! How tough is it if you address scientifically and technologically all the reasons that prevent people from having 3 kids per family for a century?

If the system doesnt collapse, scientific society becomes obviously the final solution after having tried first everything else like the idiots humans are. If the system collapses, it becomes the only solution!

There is nothing essentially desirable about living there in big numbers given what else is there in other places. If i pay people 200k per year to live indoors and have sex twice a day and the rest attend endless indoor sporting activities, classes in all kinds of subjects , work for 4 hours and walk in indoor green house gardens of exotic beauty, they will move there in big numbers. Can i have 10 bil for my project? If not f u you all (lol) i will make it myself in 20 years. Musk? Ha! Paypal free, the right way, from the department next to Applied Physics, the one he abandoned to become filthy rich, instead with relentless adventure, the hard way, finally exponential on pure love and science without the flame throwers, marijuana or boring sluts, fine tuned to the right project at last while degeometrizing the hell out of it on the way to eternal bliss .

I think that it is probably easier today for a couple to raise 5 kids than it was in say 1950. From what I have observed the easier it is to raise kids the less we have.

One thing that might save humanity and drive population growth to a sufficient level to colonize the stars is extended lifespans. Suppose we live 600 years, it would only take 60 years to raise 3 children from 0-20 years one child at a time. About 10 percent of your lifespan. At a life span of 100 years raising 3 children from 0-20 one child at a time would take 60% of your life span. Raising 3 kids at the same time over a 30 year period would take 30% percent of a couples life span.

I know life expectancy is increasing. Increased life expectancy is not the same as an increase in the maximum human lifespan. I think at some point we will figure out how to extend maximum human life span but we have not yet demonstrated we can do it. I'm not at the point of saying its a "lock" that we will.

Mars is bigger than Antarctica and eventually massively more important and so is Venus. The gain is in the challenge. The gain if you meet the challenge is enormous. The problem is you have this idiotic planet spending 1.5 tril per year on defense exactly why if we were united?

Playtime is over.

So the population goes from 7.7 billion to 7 billion, then to 6 billion, then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 billion, then 500 million, then 50 million, then 5 million, and in the hundreds or thousands of years that takes (if negative fertility rate is the main cause) you don't think this trend will change? Why not?

We've had a positive fertility rate for 200,000 years (we could even be super conservative and say 30,000 years) and you think the current ~70-year downturn is the real trend.

If all else fails;

love wont



audacity wont



and years from now when the future is won she will finally have her answer

Because I don't think humans like raising children. Raising children is hard.

It might change if there is a fundamental change to our nature. Like we cast of biology and adopt a digital existence for instance.

So you make it easy to raise them. You make it beautiful, you make it meaningful every day even before the fact, before nature took you there, because your brain takes you there.

You make love rational and that way more love than ever before.

We have been making raising children easier. Disposable diapers for instance. The easier it gets the less we have it seems.

Making it easier for people to change themselves is relevant to making becoming a parent more “easier”.

It’s also an ELO adaption trend when the extinction is self propagated and the strategy to adapt is changing oneself. That’s where some social engineers panic at the word extinction and tend to veer off into behavioral shenanigans and try to change people instead of making space for them to change themselves.

there's no threat to humanity. africa's population is skyrocketing. the only major group with falling birthrates are white people.

Actually, there are a bunch of nuclear missiles purportedly targeting various places. Threat to humanity- at least in theory. Huh?

At this point biologic weapons might be a bigger existential threat than nuclear weapons, mainly because once the appropriate technology is developed (if it hasn’t already) it will be much harder to keep individual bad actors getting their hands on them.

It is not clear how relevant natural selection is anymore to humans, but if it was there is more genetic variation within Africa than the rest of the world combined, so this might even be a good thing at the species level.

Well, they been saying stuff like that since at least the nineties. But being scared of all that stuff by trillions and yet we still have it to argue about.

Prioritizing which conflicts to end towards ending more doesn’t have any of that problem. They have imaginary guns and germs aimed anywhere, we got where we at now still.

natural selection is always relevant. and i don't see how any part of a species going extinct is ever a good thing for the species. unless you're saying it's better that africans survive over whites in an objective species sense? ok i think i can see that. but this is still irrelevant to me, since i'm white. and the survival of genes closest to me should be my only natural priority.