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jandrewrogers 3 hours ago

The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.

At the limit, not growing the productive population puts younger generations in a position of existing solely for the purpose of serving the non-productive population. At some point, they will simply choose to opt out and the whole thing collapses.

yoyohello13 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's inevitable, the model is unsustainable and going to fail. In a finite world we can't have social models that rely on infinite growth. I'm sure the changing demographic is going to cause pain (probably right when I'm getting ready to retire), but historically pain is the real catalyst for change so maybe some good will come out of it.

izzydata 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually. Maybe we overshot the maximum comfortable population by a bit and we are going to rebound for awhile.

Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.

jpadkins 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> But infinite population growth is unsustainable

Only if we don't explore and colonize the stars. From what we know, the universe is infinite.

projektfu 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

How many years/generations are you willing to spend on a ship in the middle of space? Remember, Biodome didn't work. Are you going to join that prison for the off chance of your progeny occupying a land that we haven't even discovered yet?

And, before you suggest it, no, there will never be faster-than-light travel, and even relativistic travel is super unlikely.

neutronicus 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually.

Or not. It could be oscillatory and humanity could cyclically reverse-decimate itself while the descendants of the survivors get to enjoy millennia of the fun part of the pyramid scheme.

The big losers are whoever is part of the "perish in a holocaust" generations, and probably the first couple bootstrapper generations afterwards.

Windchaser an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.

But productivity for productive people is increasing. Is there an assumption that retiree spending is also going to increase to match?

Realistic solutions look something like: - we increase productivity of the working population - we lock or decrease the per-year, per-person spending on retirees - we decrease the % of their lives that people spend retired

danny_codes 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or decrease handouts to the non-working population. Maybe we cannot afford to keep seniors in their SFHs driving everywhere.

hackable_sand an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cool where do I sign to opt out?

3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
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