Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In this episode we spoke about… the future of humanity! In particular, the role of falling birth rates in stifling innovation, and what this means for a possible high tech future. In short, it looks like we are all more likely to become Amish than to become cyborgs. We discuss whether or not that’s a good thing.
In the extended version of the episode, we also spoke about what we can learn about cultural evolution from the early history of Christianity, and what individuals can do to prepare themselves for a low fertility future.
02:34 Why have birthrates become so problematic?
07:50 Why does a shrinking population make us poorer?
13:20 How innovation is hit by birthrate decline
25:22 A more localised world?
33:32 High tech future vs Amish future
47:21 The decline in religion and birthrate collapse
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20 Comments
The Amish future IS the more preferable direction than the cyborg one. Looking at mankind, it's the globalist creation – homo cosmopolitanus that is the furthest away from a sovereign, noble, healthy and truthful life.
You do well at getting a variety of guests, using the power of agreeableness. Love your videos.
I often joke that thanks to birth control, the Idiocracy will have enough children.
We will all be dead by the end of the year given current events anyway. Who honestly wants more advancement in technology? Hasn't it gone far enough?
You can't colonise a 'planet' that is just Greenland with a red filter.
The lack of cultural selection pressures as life becomes global signifies our need to embrace the next stage of evolution; that is 'conscious evolution' – understanding evolution's trajectory and knowing where it wants us to go next. To this point, competitive selection pressures have driven humanity from families to tribes to Middle-age small-states to nation-states. This trajectory towards ever-larger scales of governance clearly suggests that the next stage is some form of cooperative global governance. NOT a world government but coordinated international cooperation. It is that – and only that – which can square the circle of maintaining a healthy environment while also encouraging policies that increase fertility.
This mf doing some next level shit post or what? Romans, Greeks failed due to low fertility is a mad claim 🤯. Not sure you could even muster the evidence for this at all let alone the multiple other reasons both civs failed.
Hansen presents a false choice between human extinction and endless growth. There's a happy medium where there are hundreds of millions of people, and they have affordable housing and clean air and water. Not zero people, just a smaller stable population, as opposed to a dog eat dog hell world of homelessness, astronomic rents, pollution, growing rates of cancer, and most young people knowing they will never, ever own a home or have any real stability. Nobody has to "throw away technologies" to do this, just let population fall a bit and level out where young people feel like they can afford the space to have kids. As with most things, the compromise path works best.
…interesting to start with… but I believe we should be one fourth of the world population today, but it baffles me to hear people who get all alarmed by decreasing birth rates… after we exponentially grew in a century by 8 times…..there was plenty of smart people back then…nothing against population istelf…it's just that the planet we live in can´t keep up with our needs… our ecological footprint is beyond the earth's capacity to regenerate. Listen to Bill Rees's videos just so you get an idea…. the major problem is this very century….those who will live another 40 or more years I believe should expect very hard times we've never seen unless we do something about ecological overshoot!
No. It’s going to collapse much sooner than 60 years out because the populations that are currently reproducing are incapable of innovation or even maintenance of complex systems. The overall population doesn’t matter as much as WHO is reproducing. We have already passed the point of no return. Smart people have the lowest fertility. Already, there are signs of civilization decline when you see areas covered in homeless, destroyed roads, power outages, lawlessness, etc. The decline in engineering quality is also obvious.
Let’s imagine the end of capitalism.
Haha! The guest says "electricity and running water are likely to last a very long time.' HA! That was the first to go here in South Africa!!
Britain's future like the west in general will be a one where the west will be absorbed into a Morpheus world with the third world what was special about the west will no longer be the case
Hah, Louise started hearting comments:
Harrington and Holland are my fav ppl, Louise is a smart and pretty lady, and all her guests and convo's are super awesome (many of those things happen to be accurate).
I remember an Econtalk episode in 2010 where Mr Hanson envisioned a brain emulator that can boost economic growth quite a lot. With the advances of AI I'm curious what Mr Hanson would say if he reviews this podcast episode from 14 years ago.
Second time around here…the major glitch I find it in the comment that separates us from the natural world. If we don't decline as a world our fertility nature will take things into it own hands take a toll on humanity and we won't like that either. This very century is critical…talking about subsequent centuries with business as usual to me does not make sense. Ecological overshoot to me is the main problem facing the world so consumption and excessive population does matter.
I care about the Present, and the Present is not good. The professor, who I presume lives in Northern VA, where I live myself, may feel comfortable around people who are ideologically and politically alligned to vote for the Democrat Party, which I find disgusting in so many ways to describe here. Credentialism, reading the same books, thinking similarly, voting D because Science! and Our Democracy! etc etc these are elements of a group of people who believe themselves to be higher. Theycare not. They are a cult. May the Amish conquer the earth, we'll eat better to be sure, and they won't plant Ukrainian flags in McLean And Falls Church mansions.
Will the rest of the interview be released eventually or is it behind a paywall forever?
I found Mr. Hanson’s constantly inappropriate smiling very weird, but the real issue was his ignoring of the “elephant in the room” – i.e. AI/AGI.
Even when you pointed it out Louise he just ignored it, we are more surveilled & controlled than ever before & AI is incrementally removing our freedoms under the nonsense of being “good for society & the climate”.
This is bad enough, but if AGI (i.e. consciousness) is ever cracked we will be reduced to the level of a pet Labrador or even expendable ants!
Given all this the idea of a developmental pause or even a regression seems pretty palatable to me – although I acknowledge that the removal of secular rights will be very grim.
Sorry if that sounds pessimistic, but I honestly think it’s realistic…
his views are irrational; this is what happens when you live in an "Ivory Tower."