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Re:Are we stuck with cement? by maxerickson on Sunday July 01, 2018 @02:04PM (#17436697)
First step to creating conditions for 7 or 8 billion people to have good lives is to massively grow the economy.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by Gibbon1 on Monday July 02, 2018 @04:33AM (#17440126)
Doesn't work is massively growing the economy pulls the roof over our head. Considering if we do the worlds poor are the ones to suffer.

That 3 bedroom ranch style house in Bangladesh doesn't help anyone if it's under 2m of sea water.

Re:Are we stuck with cement? by FooHentai on Sunday July 01, 2018 @05:56PM (#17437849)
Congrats you grew the economy. Now you have 16 billion people.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by BaesRule on Sunday July 01, 2018 @06:10PM (#17437930)
We see lower birth rates when countries grow richer. People have a lot more kids when there's a high chance a lot of their kids won't live long enough to support their parents in old age. Also in richer countries people aren't relying on their kids to support them in old age as much as in poorer countries.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by quotemstr on Sunday July 01, 2018 @06:57PM (#17438165)
No, FooHentai is right. We're screwed, Malthus-style, in the long run no matter what we do. The problem is that while modernism does tend to moderate fertility, it doesn't do so across the board. Some subgroups nevertheless have fertility far above replacement, and the exponential growth function tells us that these high-fertility groups will come to dominate the population.

In other words, selection pressure ---biological, cultural, doesn't matter --- always wins in the end. Mother nature has the last laugh.

Re:Are we stuck with cement? by guntars on Sunday July 01, 2018 @08:23PM (#17438530)
Oh, please mention some of these subgroups by name.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by quotemstr on Sunday July 01, 2018 @08:27PM (#17438547)
The point I'm making is independent of whatever trap you're trying to set --- the specific groups don't matter. As long as some group has high fertility and is able to pass on this high fertility to future generations, the dynamic I'm describing applies.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by guntars on Monday July 02, 2018 @12:20AM (#17439326)
Your reasoning just reminded me of that of some confused individuals that see everything in purely biological terms. Fertility alone isn’t some silver bullet for the success of a population, even for bacteria and ever more so for people. Why isn’t there already a dominant Uber-fertile group?
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by maxerickson on Sunday July 01, 2018 @06:06PM (#17437910)
So far the evidence is that prosperity reduces (and even reverses) population growth.
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by FooHentai on Monday July 02, 2018 @06:04PM (#17445755)
Correlation is not causation
Re:Are we stuck with cement? by maxerickson on Monday July 02, 2018 @09:29PM (#17446772)
Shish kebab is skewered, grilled meat.