Huh? Wouldn't that be the most direct solution to the climate change issue? And lots of others with it?
I'm no anti-natalist, but the only way I can make sense of that question is if I recognise within it a more difficult, unaddressed, more politically charged question of: "Can the developed world handle the comparative growth of the undeveloped world, without making an effort to keep up?"
My answer would be: No, but there are lots of other things that also won't work out with the modern world if we don't change how society operates, and the West producing more babies is nowhere near the most direct fixes. Though more care about improving the quality of children's' upbringing would definitely be a vital step in that direction - which might be indirectly necessitated by having more children to have to be responsible for as a Western society.
But yeah. *Too slow* procreation would definitely not be among my top two concerns of things to worry about. I'd start with job or wealth distribution, or teaching people that it's possible to retrain one's habits, or how to manage their lives without depending on external validation.
I suspect that demographic changes could produce societal / economic instabilities. Pension systems will stop working, for one. A simple solution would be to allow for more immigration, but will it be popular or feasible? I think demographics is more likely to affect lifestyle in the West than AI foom.
Reduction in demographics wouldn't help with climate change. In the same way, population growth won't change much. We don't emit CO2 per person. We report it that way, but it doesn't work that way. We could easily double CO2 emissions even with half of the world population and vice versa. Emissions are systemic, the machines emit, not per person consumption. This is also why I find reducing personal consumption pretty much scenographic.
The system operates to make things for people though. Even if you assert that demand isn't the primary driver of the scale of production, any other drivers of production (e..g. business opportunity, opportunity costs of ownership of unused land/resources, etc.) are still affected by how many people exist to create businesses and force their need to make money onto the world.
Again, not a proponent of shutting down procreation entirely, and comparatively lowbirth rates in the West will definitely require the rest of the world to keep up in progress, which is its own problem to solve. But as far as supply & demand are concerned, restricting the amount of people who need food, shelter, and electricity can only serve to reduce the amounts of things we need to produce, and the amount of people to produce them, and consequently the amount of machines those people operate.
Hey there, I found your post quite interesting. I was wondering, as a non programming person, is there anything you can recommend in general to do (in life and) regarding education (still in pre uni education) & hobbies/time well spend?
I'd be very interested also to see what sources made you eager to learn new and useful things at my age(19)
Small side projects. But honestly, at 19? Cooking meals 5 days a week. Cleaning your room weekly. Working out your muscles, and mixing it up with cardio. And most importantly, not overexerting yourself with expectations. Add one new habit to improve at a time, and make everything else optional, until you've successfully established that habit, and can move on to the next. Do that on top of making your professional education (i.e. school & courses) your highest priority (yes; above hobbies and social life - because while those are important, they don't have deadlines, and they don't determine your bargaining power for work/life balance with your future managers) and you should already be exceeding the only standards that matter in the long run - yours.
Other people's appreciation and praise won't matter if you learn to value your own, and realise that others care about their own achievements before observing yours, and that life is a lot more fun if you can already enjoy it before you find the like-minded people you'll inevitably run into anyway, the more you actively enjoy life for its own sake.
Trust in your instincts and ability to learn, aim high, and always be ready to change your plans when an experiment has failed, or you discover a new thing to research.
Final remark in case this hype speech makes you prone to crashing more roughly when you receive rejection: Sending work applications as a young person is worse than online dating. Do not get let that discourage you. Keep sending them until you succeed, and use the time until then to work on your portfolio. Employers have no reason to trust in the qualities promised in your CV. That doesn't mean *you* shouldn't keep trusting in them until you've refined and proven them enough for others to believe in them, too.
"Can we keep not having babies?"
Huh? Wouldn't that be the most direct solution to the climate change issue? And lots of others with it?
I'm no anti-natalist, but the only way I can make sense of that question is if I recognise within it a more difficult, unaddressed, more politically charged question of: "Can the developed world handle the comparative growth of the undeveloped world, without making an effort to keep up?"
My answer would be: No, but there are lots of other things that also won't work out with the modern world if we don't change how society operates, and the West producing more babies is nowhere near the most direct fixes. Though more care about improving the quality of children's' upbringing would definitely be a vital step in that direction - which might be indirectly necessitated by having more children to have to be responsible for as a Western society.
But yeah. *Too slow* procreation would definitely not be among my top two concerns of things to worry about. I'd start with job or wealth distribution, or teaching people that it's possible to retrain one's habits, or how to manage their lives without depending on external validation.
I suspect that demographic changes could produce societal / economic instabilities. Pension systems will stop working, for one. A simple solution would be to allow for more immigration, but will it be popular or feasible? I think demographics is more likely to affect lifestyle in the West than AI foom.
Reduction in demographics wouldn't help with climate change. In the same way, population growth won't change much. We don't emit CO2 per person. We report it that way, but it doesn't work that way. We could easily double CO2 emissions even with half of the world population and vice versa. Emissions are systemic, the machines emit, not per person consumption. This is also why I find reducing personal consumption pretty much scenographic.
The system operates to make things for people though. Even if you assert that demand isn't the primary driver of the scale of production, any other drivers of production (e..g. business opportunity, opportunity costs of ownership of unused land/resources, etc.) are still affected by how many people exist to create businesses and force their need to make money onto the world.
Again, not a proponent of shutting down procreation entirely, and comparatively lowbirth rates in the West will definitely require the rest of the world to keep up in progress, which is its own problem to solve. But as far as supply & demand are concerned, restricting the amount of people who need food, shelter, and electricity can only serve to reduce the amounts of things we need to produce, and the amount of people to produce them, and consequently the amount of machines those people operate.
This is great, thanks for your genuine devices!
Hey there, I found your post quite interesting. I was wondering, as a non programming person, is there anything you can recommend in general to do (in life and) regarding education (still in pre uni education) & hobbies/time well spend?
I'd be very interested also to see what sources made you eager to learn new and useful things at my age(19)
Kind regards,
BorntoSchnitzel
Try many things, do more of those you like, go to University if you can. I'll publish a list of sources I like soon
Small side projects. But honestly, at 19? Cooking meals 5 days a week. Cleaning your room weekly. Working out your muscles, and mixing it up with cardio. And most importantly, not overexerting yourself with expectations. Add one new habit to improve at a time, and make everything else optional, until you've successfully established that habit, and can move on to the next. Do that on top of making your professional education (i.e. school & courses) your highest priority (yes; above hobbies and social life - because while those are important, they don't have deadlines, and they don't determine your bargaining power for work/life balance with your future managers) and you should already be exceeding the only standards that matter in the long run - yours.
Other people's appreciation and praise won't matter if you learn to value your own, and realise that others care about their own achievements before observing yours, and that life is a lot more fun if you can already enjoy it before you find the like-minded people you'll inevitably run into anyway, the more you actively enjoy life for its own sake.
Trust in your instincts and ability to learn, aim high, and always be ready to change your plans when an experiment has failed, or you discover a new thing to research.
Final remark in case this hype speech makes you prone to crashing more roughly when you receive rejection: Sending work applications as a young person is worse than online dating. Do not get let that discourage you. Keep sending them until you succeed, and use the time until then to work on your portfolio. Employers have no reason to trust in the qualities promised in your CV. That doesn't mean *you* shouldn't keep trusting in them until you've refined and proven them enough for others to believe in them, too.