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Society is biology, so this is not literally true. Although changing the biology of 300 million people is much harder than changing the biology of one. And if you can change the biology of one cooperatively, you might be able to do the same for 300 million people, but if you need to change 300 million people uncooperatively, that's going to have a big, probably unreachable cost.
It's not that I think these people can be effectively bullied into reproducing earlier, if anything them failing to replace themselves is better. Because what they do is unnatural, it both costs a lot of money to fix, and it comes off as extremely ugly to other people. I believe their lives are unhappy and that it is wrong to delay reproduction to 35. In the meantime I would enjoy it if a government of people who think like me lower the status those who live that lifestyle through the trumpeting the virtues of reproducing naturally at the appropriate age. I also think the late-reproducing people have a ton of negative externalities on the rest. of us and as they fail to replace themselves those externalities will fade and all of the well-adapted people will be happier and wealthier.
I mean, I expect that selection pressure will eventually result in a return to normal or historical TFRs, if only because the high fecundity populations replace the ones who act like pandas in captivity.
I am somewhat perplexed by how you, after telling me that I haven't done a basic cost-benefit analysis, happen to casually gloss over the rather catastrophic near to medium term economic and societal damage of societies with far more old people than children, or drastic population decline as projected.... in pretty much every developed country. And many developing ones.
I don't lose sleep over this, because I expect technological interventions like AGI+robotics, artificial wombs etc to reduce or eliminate the current coupling between population growth/composition and the stability of national economies. I genuinely don't think we're going to need humans for their physical or cognitive labor in a decade or change, possible less. It's the same reason I don't worry particularly hard about the worst case projections for global warming, if it gets that bad, someone is going to burn a billion dollars of sulphur or inject it into the stratosphere. Inertia only goes so far.
You do not seem as optimistic, nor even as open to technological solutions, and I do not see how you can reasonably claim that your distaste for nudging or assisting the sub-fertile into having more children (by any means) can compensate for decaying infrastructure or potential collapse in a generation or two. If it's business as usual with no major technological breakthroughs and serious social engineering (or even just the widespread adoption of the suggestions I've endorsed), I don't see how you account for the disaster that represents.
@self_made_human where does your optimism for near term AGI come from? I am practically ignorant of AI, but my totally uneducated impression is that it is unlikely to happen within the next 10 years. I would prefer to be wrong, though.
You mentioned in other comments on educational savings for children that you were somewhat certain in would happen within 5 years. Knowing you, you must have some sources you find reliable on AGI progress. Again, from my uneducated view it seems like promises of AI / AGI is merely slick marketing to separate wealthy investors from their money.
The most impactful part of AI on my life so far is the elimination of customer facing jobs on the phone, who have been replaced with AI chatbots which can never fix the unique problems I need addressed. I end up waiting longer to speak to a real person to get the work or chore done.
I have answers that cannot fit in the margin of this comment box, mostly because I have a career gating exam tomorrow. Ask me later?
Good luck, @self_made_human. Rooting for you :)
(Rooting. Why? What are the roots of rooting? How in the name of God does roots have anything to do with wishing people well? Root beer?)
Thank you <3
I have never been this angry at an upcoming exam in my life, mostly because the "best" study material is out of date or dangerously misleading. But I'm less stressed than I was before, which might be mostly due to fatalism, but I'll take it.
Im definitely drinking something more alcohol-enriched than root beer tomorrow, I can tell you that.
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The solution to this is redistributing from the old to the young. He who does not work shall not eat. Easy.
That would be awesome. Can we design ourselves to be extremely beautiful, moral, and intelligent after that? Considering we will no longer will need the lower classes.
I think the people who made the disaster, so the old generation at that time, should suffer the consequences of their behavior. They are being told how to be good, by several voices at the moment, and they are not listening at all. That is wrong, and I'm fine with it if they pay the price. They deserve it.
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