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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   2320 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Kurzgesagt had last week a video about population collapse because of low fertility rate:

It has the charming title: "SOUTH KOREA IS OVER". All caps, which is not normal for kurzgesagt titles, so you know DOOM is coming.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

It is a short video with 14 minutes but it explains at breakneck speed the topic succinctly and in depth. The depressing conclusion is that South Korea can't really do anything, the low fertility is an unstoppable freight train and it will hit (end) the country. Even if a wonder happens and the fertility will rise to replacement level next week, the country would still have massive problems in 30 years. And because this wonder is not happening … the country is over

I’m Korean, born and raised in this country, and after watching this video, I just sat in silence for a while. Not because it shocked me, but because it said out loud what so many of us already feel deep inside: that it’s too late. There’s no fixing this anymore.

It is barely comforting that the West (and other countries too) are heading in a similar direction. Maybe accelerationism is the solution here: The faster South Korea is imploding the sooner other countries will wake up and do something.

A lot of me thinks this is just reverse 'population bomb'-ism. I'd like to compare the certainty of those worried about underpopulation today with the opposite in the 70s. AI and robots are going to overturn so much, I don't think these negative bombs are particularly predictable for much.

For starters, with AI and robots people owning capital are not going to need labour, at all, to carry out the economic activities they require to live in style.

Asimov wrote about this, didn't he ?

Solaria. 3000 solarian people (who become physically ill in each other’s presence) and millions or billions of robots.

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