| ▲ | SillyUsername 2 hours ago |
| The ultimate simple solution to any problem is not to find an answer but to remove the problem. War? Wipeout everyone. Famine? Wipeout everyone. Disease? Wipeout everyone. How long before a real AGI realises this as a long term solution? An AGI could be doing this right now - the quietest way would be to control the birth rate and sterilise the population gradually, and then watch society collapse and pick off the survivors with less hidden means. Sterilisation works with mosquitoes... |
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| ▲ | pixl97 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| >he quietest way would be to control the birth rate and sterilise the population gradually, Honestly we are doing this pretty well without AGI. Nearly world wide the birthrate has fallen below replacement rate. In places like Japan and Korea these are already critical problems in the medium term. |
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| ▲ | cowlevel 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And you best control the birth rate by royally messing up the economy. Do you know how bad things have to be, for a mammal to voluntarily decide not to reproduce? |
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| ▲ | epihelix 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I've got it pretty good, and I've voluntarily decided to not reproduce. And just in case you wanted data rather than anecdote: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-fertil... Your world view is somewhat upside down! | | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Then why have birthrates fallen across almost the entire world as the economy has gotten better? | | |
| ▲ | christophilus 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I suspect it's a curve. If you're raised in a vibrant economy, and it falls apart, you put off having a family because of uncertainty and fears. If you're raised in poverty, and get a good education and better prospects, you have fewer kids. I think the latter is because you no longer need kids as an economic safeguard and fallback, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure anyone is really sure, to be honest. | |
| ▲ | timacles 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | the economy has mathematically gotten better yes. economic _hope_ is at its worst in the entire history of the human civilization. At what point did the future for the average person, look so bleak? And that hope is what dictactes wether people have children. Even during the great depression, people were more hopeful that the earth isnt completely hosed. Does anyone honestly feel like _any_ improvements are possible to: our economic systems, political systems, environment? I certainly dont. | |
| ▲ | drybjed an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Perhaps the previous birth rate was artificially increased due to inequality imposed by part of the population. More equality and opportunity for everyone means more choices and less pressure to reproduce. What's the base birth rate for human species? | |
| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | malfist 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | More billionaires does not mean the economy has gotten better for the median person | | |
| ▲ | Jtarii 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you think the economy is worse for the average person than it was in 1900? | | |
| ▲ | bubblemoth 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, but is it worse than it was in 1950? 1960? 1990? | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I mean 50-60 was the post war baby boom, so not really sure if that's a good example for the US in particular. |
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| ▲ | lenerdenator 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Define "as the economy has gotten better". Economic output has increased, but the value being delivered to the people doing the actual work has decreased. There's less durability of employment. People are more geographically mobile. All of these generally make the idea of strapping yourself into taking care of a small human sound like a less enticing prospect. To a lot of people, a BC pill sounds a lot easier. Well, less risky, at least. | | |
| ▲ | pessimizer an hour ago | parent [-] | | > Define "as the economy has gotten better". People who live in huts and shit in the forest have more children than people who live in shacks and shit in the fields. This is not a discussion about the top 10% of the population of the planet, although as a part of the conversation, they predictably have the fewest children. The fact is that the more people have to worry about supporting themselves, the higher infant mortality, the closer they live to each other, and the less access they have to education and birth control, the more kids they have. If anything the top 10% are bucking the trend by having fewer children as they get poorer, as you say. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're alienated from their families and live alone, can barely afford to take care of themselves with precarious jobs (or non-job piecework), have access to basic education and extensive birth control, having children will cost them $20K each just for the birth, and they don't have very good (or often any) insurance. They're more like domesticated farm animals than the typical poverty stricken person. Domesticated farm animals reproduce when the farmer wants them to. |
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| ▲ | kingleopold 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Real world fact is opposite tho, not some "bad things", in poor parts of Africa they produce more, only in hedonism lover places they stopped producing, its people thinking for themselves, not a bad thing. It's not about economy. All poor people everywhere have more kids even today. | |
| ▲ | jansan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Do you know how bad things have to be, for a mammal to voluntarily decide not to reproduce? Actually, the famous 'Mouse Utopia' experiment (Universe 25) arguably showed the exact opposite. The population collapsed despite abundance of food and water without any economic hardship. | | |
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| ▲ | zeeveener 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Like Plague Inc., but with AGI instead of Viruses |
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| ▲ | superxpro12 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| reminds me of the plotline behind the talos principle tbh... albeit with a more machiavellian antagonist |
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| ▲ | esafak an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In mathematics this is called the trivial solution, as is often excluded from consideration. |
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| ▲ | ant6n 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Just use Social Media (and their algorithms) to condition everybody to hate the other gender. Then there will be a loneliness epidemic and no more kids. Humanity will cease to exist, all without any messy deaths or conflict in the mean time. |
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| ▲ | chasd00 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| this makes me think of roku's bassilisk or whatever it was called. Maybe you're all in a simulation run by an AI and being punished as a warning to others. |
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| ▲ | away0g 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| crispr |
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| ▲ | jyounker 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| [flagged] |
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| ▲ | jayGlow 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are you saying that war disease or famine wouldn't exist without a few rich people? that seems incredibly ignorant since all of those things have afflicted humanity since before we could even be called humans. | |
| ▲ | bigfishrunning 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That just leaves a vacuum or other psychopaths to fill, and likely won't solve any problems. | | |
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