Dr. Jordan B Peterson and Stephen J Shaw discuss the Birthgap, a term recently coined by Shaw– and the subject of his documentary. They examine the invisible causes of the global population collapse. They describe one of the very bad but not worst case scenario: total societal collapse due to a lack of new children being born, and a rise in senior citizens living longer. The actual worst case scenario is actually complete extinction of humanity in about 500-1000 years.
Stephen is a British national who has studied and lived on three continents. He trained as a computer engineer and data scientist before starting his first film project, “Birthgap,” at age 49.
I, Brian Wang, spoke about trying to solve this issue with Robin Hanson.
Over 70% of the World’s population live in countries that are below replacement fertility levels and this includes poor countries like India and Pakistan. 30% of the World’s population is in countries that have declining populations and this includes China, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain. China is on track to drop from 1.4 billion people today to less than 1.1 billion in 2050 and Japan is heading from 122 million today to less than 100 million in 2050.
China and Japan need to spent $700 billion to $1.5 trillion between now and 2050 to save their populations and economices. It will be totally worth it to stabilize the working age population by around 2040. Instead of halving by 2050, the economy might only be 30% less. It would be a 5X to 10X return every year from GDP that was saved.
The traditional pro-baby policies used in Sweden would likely not be enough. Free egg freezing for all women and free invitro fertilization and support and subsidies for surrogate births will likely be needed.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Do you think that housing being treated as an investment rather than a commodity is a large part of the problem, and global population decline could be fixed by simply building more housing?
https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=poy5fzGTSSf2XpgW&t=1019
Call it the Endless Recede.
I think we can all agree that the “overpopulation” argument against anti-aging life extension is dead.
We had 3 kids that found jobs and got married to other folks that also have jobs. We now have six grandchildren with a couple more on the way.
Interesting thing, the fathers have good jobs, sure, but the mothers all work from home (one of them self-employed) and two of them are actually making more that their husbands.
I think there may be a way forward when people get over their hang-ups about stereotypes.
The 21st century is a race between falling/aging populations and increasing CO2 concentrations causing global warming.
We can recover from a population drop this century with pro-natal policies and technologies in 22nd century.
We can’t recover from an uninhabitable Earth. That’s game over.
P.S. If we do develop workable IVG combined with artificial wombs and robots advanced enough to serve as mom/dad surrogates we have the tools we need to seed the universe with our kind even if limited to a tiny fraction of the speed of light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WtgmT5CYU8
P.S. Why do you not even have a category for global warming and climate change on this otherwise superb website?
Dunno … I really think ‘our problem’ is not reproduction per-se, but rather endowing our up-and-coming youth with purposeful, socially acceptable ways to make a living. Having more — or less — kids is a fine philosophical point of pique, but really it does not make one whit of difference, if the replacement population fails to transcend ignorance, sloth and lassitude.
Not, of course, that ALL members of the up-and-coming generation(s) is so inclined. In fact from what I’ve seen so far, not many are. Most, somewhere in their 20s, seem to be incentivized to make decent money, doing whatever work employs their still-being-developed skills. I think you could say this for any sub-population on Earth actually.
Thing is, with the just-around-the-corner functional AI revolution, there is ever diminished for people to fill jobs at the low-end-of-the-talent-scale level. It isn’t long before the fast-food joints will shrink their workforces without taking a hit to production. The machines are still stupid-as-rocks, but that’s not a perpetual inevitability.
I feel this is parallel to a long (decades!) discussion I’ve been having with my brother, regarding ‘well, what will we do when AI makes better ART than people do?’ He’s an artist of course, well attuned to what AI is presently doing. And yah, somewhat cynical in general, though that is a trait of many artistic folks.
At this point, his point of view is that the press-a-button-get-a-masterpiece (PABGAM) future becomes incredibly empty of purpose and meaning. We tend to value those things which are rare, which take extraordinary effort (and even more extraordinary luck) to produce in their ‘masterpiece’ form. PABGAM dissolves this in the ‘Chinese Art’ way (yes, it is somewhat denigrating, but one need walk no more than 10 minutes in any Chinatown to encounter shops festooned with endlessly fake ‘masterpieces’). It isn’t limited to the Chinese either … its everywhere where tourists romp around.
The biggest point though in thinking on this is, ‘well, if not ART, but more generally EVERYTHING’ then what becomes of the future, and the utility of purpose the people may ‘enjoy’ looking out a couple of decades forward?
THAT is the problem. In a nutshell, the purposeless of pushing buttons, or sewing seams, or selling cars, or reprogramming cell phones … is wearing on the current young generation. And that wear-of-purpose will only get worse. It needs reinventing.
Reagsrding purpose, do read the book “Why warriors lie down and die” about what happened to the Australian Aboriginals when introduced to western culture.
Their standard of living improved by the numbers, but they lost their culture, without being able to fit into the new dominant culture.
You respected your elders because they could sing you the song with the 79 waterholes on the path to Uluru, and your uncle was a hero because he could nail a roo with a rock at 30 meter distance, but suddenly all that is worthless.
Get water and grilled chicken at the gas station.
You see the same in many steamrolled cultures. Unable to find a new purpose people a lot of default to drugs and alcohol: They sit down and die.
AI is the mother of all steamrollers. Anything you want, you simply ask for it.
Learn to play!
Our culture cant deal. “The one who will not work, will not eat” is baked into us by our parents, and in that aspect, AI will make humans obsolete.
I am wondering, if some of us could just make culture/ideology & economy secession / while also confining themselves to some specified territory, isolated from the rest, by agreeing an in-group AI ban, kind of Amish-style, but with electricity & PCs.
I think we still have the option to NOT make AI/robots self-motivated, in particular not give them any desire for autonomy. AI/robots could do all the ‘real’ work, while humans interact with humans and motivate the bots and make some or most major decisions and take responsibility for outcomes.
If we start now, we can train kids to be entrepreneurs themselves or at least to take responsibility as an employee of a small business – in charge of the AI/robots while the owner is away. If we do that too well and no one wants to work for anyone else, they can just form small partnerships.
Ideally shape economic/regulatory/tax incentives to keep big corporations from taking over everything. A UBI could help, so long as it’s at a subsistance level so anyone who doesn’t like living in the equivalent of a shared student dorm room will still want to work. Allow zoning for ‘worker dorms’ for those who haven’t yet found their footing or who are taking a break to write poetry. A policy to make small start-up loans pretty easy to get.
Guys, do your IVG start-up, if you have the relevant bio-tech skills to to it.
Wow. The interview with Hansen was really negative. Whenever I see someone who is always negative, I’m skeptical of their skepticism. Hansen dismisses automated robots because we have been expecting them for decades but they haven’t shown up? Is he aware of current developments with FSD & androids? So he’s confident that, because something hasn’t happened yet then it won’t happen in the future? And he calls himself a futurist?
On this topic one needs to bear in mind that, at least in America, this hasn’t really been on the public radar for more than a couple of years. Our population is still growing. So there is not yet the political will to get serious about it. As the problem
becomes apparent, past inaction will be replaced with greater action.
Second, the population collapse is a very slow-motion catastrophe. Will technology be significantly more advanced in 2050? You bet it will. Will ectogenesis be possible by that time? Probably. Will automation make cars, 3D-printed houses, agriculture much less expensive and hence remove the main driver for pursuing education / careers? Probably. So we really need to be open-minded about what the future will bring.
Contraception did it’s part. Depends where you live, but it seems hard for young families to build a house, expenses are high.
Women want to be like men, work long hours in companies, raising children is not a priority any more. If you say anything you are attacked by disturbed feminist population.
Things can turn out different, because there will be more robotic workforce.
There will be problems, but I don’t think collapse will happen.
Where are the interviews with women on this issue Brian?? Seems kind of relavent…
60M+ children conceived yet not born since the early ’70s. No mention of the effect of that ‘choice’ on a nation’s birth rate….. also sold as empowerment and freedom (not cruelty).
not to worry about extinction: 30 % of world population live in countries above replacement fertility. Africa alone has big fertility (e.g. Niger TFR_ 6.8 children per woman)
Africa is dropping TFR by 1 every 15 years. The average is TFR 4. In 30 years, Africa is on track to drop below replacement. All of the same factors are in play and are driving Africa below replacement. 15% of the world that is not below replacement yet is on the verge of dropping below replacement within ten years and the other 15% within 30. The other thing is that part of the world has less than 8% of the world GDP.
As more women left the home because motherhood and marriage were sold as oppression and slavery, in order to enter the workforce and enrich business owners and shareholders, which was sold as empowerment and freedom, the birthrate dropped. How about that.