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Re:ChatGPT Plugins by ipaddr on Thursday March 23, 2023 @04:54PM (#35281120)
Some cultures like the Amish said were stopping here.
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by chatmasta on Thursday March 23, 2023 @05:05PM (#35281254)
That's a good point and an interesting example, but it's also irrelevant to the question of human history, unless you want to somehow impose a monoculture on the entire population of planet Earth, which seems difficult to achieve without some sort of unitary authoritarian world government.
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by PaulDavisThe1st on Thursday March 23, 2023 @05:22PM (#35281476)
> unless you want to somehow impose a monoculture on the entire population of planet Earth

Impose? No. Monoculture? No. Encourage greater consideration, yes. And we do that by being open about why we might choose to not do something, and also by being ready for other people that we cannot control who make a different choice.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by kelseyfrog on Thursday March 23, 2023 @05:25PM (#35281517)
Does human history applies to true Scotsmen as well?
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by jonny_eh on Thursday March 23, 2023 @05:48PM (#35281745)
Apparently the Amish aren't human.
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by Barrin92 on Thursday March 23, 2023 @06:46PM (#35282523)
while Amish are most certainly human their existence rests on the fact that they happen to be surrounded by the mean old United States. Any moderate historical predator would otherwise make short work of them, they're a fundamentally uncompetitive civilization.

This goes for all utopian model communities, Kibbutzim, etc, they exist by virtue of their host society's protection. And as such the OP is right that they have no impact on the course of history, because they have no autonomy.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by mcculley on Thursday March 23, 2023 @05:01PM (#35281203)
I have been saying that we will all be Amish eventually as we are forced to decide what technologies to allow into our communities. Communities which do not will go away (e.g., VR porn and sex dolls will further decrease birth rates; religions/communities that forbid it will be more fertile)
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by Wesxdz on Thursday March 23, 2023 @06:24PM (#35282217)
I think a synthetic womb/cloning would counter the fertility decline among more advanced civilization
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by aiappreciator on Thursday March 23, 2023 @07:23PM (#35282935)
Birth is not the limiter, childrearing is. Synthetic wombs are more expensive than just having surrogate mothers. For the same reason that synthetic food is more expensive than bread and cabbage.

The actual counter to fertility decline, may be AI teachers. AI will radically close the education gap between rich and poor, and lower the costs. All you need is a physical human to supervise the kid, the AI will do the rest, from entertainment, to education, to identifying when the child is hungry/sleepy/potty, and relaying that info for the human to act on.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by shanebellone on Thursday March 23, 2023 @08:45PM (#35283615)
This is what ought to happen. The question is what will happen?
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by Wesxdz on Thursday March 23, 2023 @11:03PM (#35284546)
Sine qua non ad astra
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by aiappreciator on Thursday March 23, 2023 @06:48PM (#35282537)
That's not required. The Amish have about a 10% defection rate. Their community deliberately allows young people to experience the outside world when they reach adulthood, and choose to return or to leave permanently.

This has two effects. 1. People who stay, actually want to stay. Massively improving the stability of the community. 2. The outside communities receive a fresh infusion of population, that's already well integrated into the society, rather than refugees coming from 10000 miles away.

Essentially, rural america will eventually be different shades of Amish (in about 100 years). The amish population will overflow from the farms, and flow into the cities, replenishing the population of the more productive cities (Which are not population-self-sustaining).

This is a sustainable arrangement, and eliminates the need of mass-immigration and demographic destabilisation. This is also in-line with historical patterns, cities have always had negative natural population growth (disease/higher real estate costs). Cities basically grind population into money, so they need rural areas to replenish the population.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by pmoriarty on Thursday March 23, 2023 @09:06PM (#35283752)
"People who stay, actually want to stay."

That depends on how you define "want".

Amish are ostracized by their family and community if they leave. That's some massive coercion right there: either stay or lose your connection to the people you're closest to and everything you've ever known and raised to believe your whole life.

Not much of a choice, though some exceptionally independent people do manage to make that sacrifice.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by mcculley on Friday March 24, 2023 @05:47AM (#35286969)
> This is also in-line with historical patterns, cities have always had negative natural population growth (disease/higher real estate costs).

I had not heard this before. Do you have citations for this?

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by VMG on Friday March 24, 2023 @06:38AM (#35287294)
Everybody decides what technologies to use all the time. Condoms exist already, but not everybody uses them always.
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by mcculley on Friday March 24, 2023 @07:49AM (#35287797)
It does not take perfect compliance to result in drastically different birth rates in different cultures/communities.
Re:ChatGPT Plugins by aiappreciator on Thursday March 23, 2023 @06:40PM (#35282428)
The Amish are dependent on a technological powerhouse that is the US to survive.

They are pacifists themselves, but they are grateful that the US allows them their way of life, they'll be extinct a long time ago if they arrived in China/Middle East/Russia etc.

That's why the Amish are not interested in advertising their techno-primitivism. It works incredibly well for them, they raise giant happy families isolated from drugs, family breakdown, and every other modern ill, while benefiting from modern medicine, the purchasing power of their non-amish customers. However, they know that making the entire US live like them will be quite a disaster.

Note the Amish are not immune from economics forced changes either. Young amish don't farm anymore, if every family quadruples in population, there's no 4x the land to go around. So they go into construction (employers love a bunch of strong,non-drugged,non-criminal workers), which is again intensely dependent on the outside economy, but pays way better.

As a general society, the US is not allowed to slow down technological development. If not for the US, Ukraine would have already been overran, and European peace shattered. If not for the US, the war in Taiwan would have already ended, and Japan/Australia/South Korea all under Chinese thrall. There's also other more certain civilization ending events on the horizon, like resource exhaustation and climate change. AI's threats are way easier to manage than coordinating 7 billion people to selflessly sacrifice.

Re:ChatGPT Plugins by thalassophobia on Friday March 24, 2023 @03:21AM (#35286051)
>they'd be extinct a long time ago if they arrived in China/Middle East/Russia etc.

There is actually a group similar to the Amish in Russia, it's called the Old Believers. They formed after a schism within the Orthodox church and fled persecution to Siberia. Unlike the Amish, many of the Old Believers aren't really integrated with the modern world as they still live where their ancestors settled in. So groups that refuse to technologically progress do exist, and can do so even under persecution and changing economic regimes.