Oh, and fuck

[Inkubus]

Scientists in the 1970s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a method to determine when the fall of society would take place. That method indicated the fall will be some point near the middle in the 21st century around 2040, and so far, their projections have been on track, new analysis suggests.

[Thumpalumpacus]

So long as I get my flying cars and teleporters before then, I'm good.

[brewerb]

I should be dead.

[Minimalist]

Me, too.

[jerry mcmasters]

[Fireball]

Eh. Mankind is just too damned stubborn a beast to go quietly into the night. We'll persist, but I'm not sure that I'll like the place when it happens.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Eh. Mankind is just too damned stubborn a beast to go quietly into the night. We'll persist, but I'm not sure that I'll like the place when it happens.

Thankfully, someone invented shotguns. I'll stay on while I can.

Perfectly honest, I'm more worried about my body than these putzes around us.

[Cavebear]

Eh. Mankind is just too damned stubborn a beast to go quietly into the night. We'll persist, but I'm not sure that I'll like the place when it happens.

When the asteroid hit the Earth 65 million years ago, it killed most every land and air mammal over 1 kilo. We are larger than that. We would "probably" die off should a similar event happen.

[skyking]

Meh, I'd be 80. Nobody on dad's side lived that long. My GAF will be just about worn out by then, if not my vessel itself.

[SYZ]

Scientists in the 1970s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a method to determine when the fall of society would take place. That method indicated the fall will be some point near the middle in the 21st century around 2040, and so far, their projections have been on track, new analysis suggests...

I'm afraid I couldn't persevere with the linked video...

The robotic voice-over was astoundingly irritating.  
The only thing I could hear after 5 minutes was the
over-enunciation of the last syllable generated before
each period.

       

[Alan V]

I read The Limits of Growth back in the 1970s, and several of its follow-up books some years later. I was impressed at first, but not so much now. Too much has changed, as I will explain.

Population decline is generally a good thing. Our present populations are unsustainable into the future.

If you worry about the decrease in productivity caused by population numbers going down, you should rest assured that computers and AI can compensate to a large extent. However with immigration, we will not run out of able workers for a long time yet.

If you worry about fossil fuels running out, just remember that we will have to transition away from them long before they run out to avoid the worst of climate change. We are already working in that direction.

If you worry about society collapsing, you have to define which society you are talking about. Certain countries are already collapsing. Others are doing very well indeed. I am sometimes surprised that Americans and Europeans can worry about such things when, relatively speaking, we have almost never had it better.

We are now knowledge-rich, so I don't foresee any problems we can't tackle, climate change included. Yes, we will have to adapt as well as mitigate, but that has been the case for some time now.

The fact that life is never easy doesn't mean we are all doomed. We old people may be sidelined, but young people usually have the energy to tackle big problems.

If all of the above sounds like a survival-of-the-rich scenario, it may well be. With our progress, we have created many new cultural-evolutionary pressures. We have not yet escaped our history of the strong taking advantage of the weak and then leaving them behind. So humanity will always survive in some form, since so many of us are opportunists.

[Inkubus]

I read The Limits of Growth back in the 1970s, and several of its follow-up books some years later.  I was impressed at first, but not so much now.  Too much has changed, as I will explain.

Population decline is generally a good thing.  Our present populations are unsustainable into the future.

If you worry about the decrease in productivity caused by population numbers going down, you should rest assured that computers and AI can compensate to a large extent.  However with immigration, we will not run out of able workers for a long time yet.

If you worry about fossil fuels running out, just remember that we will have to transition away from them long before they run out to avoid the worst of climate change.  We are already working in that direction.

If you worry about society collapsing, you have to define which society you are talking about.  Certain countries are already collapsing.  Others are doing very well indeed.  I am sometimes surprised that Americans and Europeans can worry about such things when, relatively speaking, we have almost never had it better.  

We are now knowledge-rich, so I don't foresee any problems we can't tackle, climate change included.  Yes, we will have to adapt as well as mitigate, but that has been the case for some time now.

The fact that life is never easy doesn't mean we are all doomed.  We old people may be sidelined, but young people usually have the energy to tackle big problems.

If all of the above sounds like a survival-of-the-rich scenario, it may well be.  With our progress, we have created many new cultural-evolutionary pressures.  We have not yet escaped our history of the strong taking advantage of the weak and then leaving them behind.  So humanity will always survive in some form, since so many of us are opportunists.

Contrived naivety.

Alan, are you and Rhythmcs in competition? Did either of you actually watch the thing?

Here it is again. Watch, Listen and Learn:

[Inkubus]

Scientists in the 1970s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a method to determine when the fall of society would take place. That method indicated the fall will be some point near the middle in the 21st century around 2040, and so far, their projections have been on track, new analysis suggests...

I'm afraid I couldn't persevere with the linked video...

The robotic voice-over was astoundingly irritating.  
The only thing I could hear after 5 minutes was the
over-enunciation of the last syllable generated before
each period.

       

Oh for fuck sake! Yes it's awful. SYZ I'm sorry man. I posted the wrong one but I don't know how, I always use preview to double check. 

I hate getting links wrong.

[Alan V]

Contrived naivety.

Alan, are you and Rhythmcs in competition? Did either of you actually watch the thing?

Here it is again. Watch, Listen and Learn:

Believe whatever you like, but the "how civilizations end" discussion strikes me as so much nonsense.  To me the guy is just another the-sky-is-falling scholarly type, when in fact he only grasps one part of a much bigger and more complex problem.

Edit to add: That video was from a different discussion, not this one. So mentioning it in this context was really a kind of bait and switch as far as topics go. I was responding to the video in your OP. I wanted to address what I considered a serious topic.

My mistake. Again.

[SYZ]

I'm afraid I couldn't persevere with the linked video...

The robotic voice-over was astoundingly irritating.  
The only thing I could hear after 5 minutes was the
over-enunciation of the last syllable generated before
each period.

       

Oh for fuck sake! Yes it's awful. SYZ I'm sorry man. I posted the wrong one but I don't know how, I always use preview to double check. 

I hate getting links wrong.

No problems my friend.    

Thank you for posting it for others, at least!

[Gwaithmir]

I should be dead.

I've got only three or four years left anyway, so I don't give a hoot. 

[mordant]

I don't believe this guy's assertion that women have been treated "cruelly" for wanting to have children. My daughter had 5 of the little buggers and that's her choice / right, and none of my business. I have not seen her being persecuted for it. Au contraire, her husband's mother is wealthy and has showered the family with largesse. She loves playing "fun grandma".

That women don't feel obligated to the patriarchy anymore to be perpetually barefoot and pregnant has been liberating for them. Nothing about that prevents a woman from voluntarily choosing to have a big family. Most women are just saner than my daughter, lol.

I have never seen low birth rates as the way to environmental sustainability. We are way past the point of resource overshoot anyway. I have never seen high birth rates as anything but a self limiting problem. When there's no $$ and no resources, people either quit having children, or the kids die. In any case, wherever the standard of living has been decent, which includes higher education, that naturally suppresses birth rates.

The real problem is unbridled capitalism and its need for constant growth at all costs.

The guy is right that there's no easy way out of this, but what I think he's overlooking is that we're not entitled to live in the lap of Western luxury either. With good leadership (ha!) there'd probably be a path to preserving basic health care and comm technology, but falling back to a lifestyle with far less travel / commuting, more locally sustainable farming and way less factory farming and the like.

[LastPoet]

I wouldn't care if i stayed with masturbation my whole life. Alas, i somehow brought newer life to this shithole. You might feel sorry for these words, but i feel fantastic, to teach my daughter maths  and physics. She, by her mother goes catholic. I will always love her as i love the universe, with all.
While i like to pretend to know quantum mechanics, i greatly fail. That shit goes too deep.

[pattylt]

There has been various stigmas on women for having large families and for single women having any children, much less more than one. It varies and the large family stigma isn’t very strong…unless the woman’s single.

Large families with wealth or access to grandmas money are treated very differently from the poor family with many children and they’re just barely scraping by. Just as a wealthy single woman with a child doesn’t face near the stigma of a poor one. So, it’s not always overt but it’s often there.

The pill and no fault divorce changed women’s choices by a landslide…and many men are pissed about it. Losing their ability to keep the wife at home bearing him children while he has some koochie on the side just isn’t tolerated anymore…not to mention the violent husbands. Some men are also pissed that their wives have to work outside the home. The male doesn’t make enough to “keep her happy” and she has opportunities to meet other men and women gaining a new view of her options. Of course this isn’t all men. It’s actually unusual amongst Democrats but much more common in the religious communities. Being as so many religious are Republicans, they are naturally looking at outlawing the pill and doing away with no fault divorce. They want the white 1950’s back. They’re never going to get it again. But, they’ll scream and pout and make a ton of noise anyway.