From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Sep 12 2003 - 10:10:54 MDT
Robbie Lindauer wrote:
> ...nish tanah, ha lailah hazeh, mikohl ha-ley-lot. But "since
> civilization" there've always been increases in raw numbers of people
> as far as I know.
>
> Best,
>
> Robbie
And that "increase in numbers" is a big part of the problem. Not the
only part, but a big part. I don't see any easy answers. But I'm
reminded of the fur statistics from the Hudson Bay Company on Canadian
Lynx populations. They would periodically peak, and then crash. Hard.
Because of the depletion of the resources (rabbits, I believe) on
which they depended. And the rabbit population went through a similar
cycle, but offset in time by 6 mo.s to a year (I forget exactly). They
crashed because diseases became widespread. We *must* control the
population, but we don't want to. Some governments try very hard,
China, e.g., and, to a much lesser extent, India. Others refuse to even
accept the need (the US comes to mind, and the Catholic church).
If the population could be evenly decimated, many of the current ills
would vanish. But imagine the trauma of a global disease that killed 9
out of 10 people! Control of the population growth, sending it way
negative, is the optimal choice, but even that moderate step would have
immense negative consequences. As the population aged there would be
fewer young people which would mean that social policies would become
inflexible. Schools wouldn't be properly supported (well, they aren't
now, so that's not much change) becase so few were parents. Etc. Of
course, this might cause the age of retirement to be pushed further out,
but it wouldn't necessarily have that result, as increasing automation
is continuing to remove jobs. But people need to be *trained* for the
jobs that remain. And many already so distrust the system (for valid
historic reasons) that it would require tremendous efforts to convince
them to give it another try. Still, the change *WOULD* be slow, which
is both it's benefit and it drawback.
Note that policies that restrict parents to one child will have severe
side-effects. In China it's not uncommon for parents to abandon a child
who is seen as defective, so that it can be replaced with one that may
be better. I am reminded of Larry Niven's world of the ARM and the
birth-right lotteries.
It starts to become crucial to project just how far away the singularity
is. The unpleasant side effects appear quickly, and the beneficial
effects take many years to dominate (presuming that an unpopular
practice can be maintained that long). If the singularity is less than
20 years away, perhaps the best choice is to try to "muddle through".
(Remembering that the ramp up in change rate before the sigularity will
already be imposing huge social changes and stresses.)
OTOH, "No man knoweth the hour...". The "son of man" may appear
overnight. It may appear as a distributed intelligence on the internet.
We can hope that it will be as beneficient as we have dreamed, but if
it appears in a fast takeoff mode, and isn't designed, then that will be
"gartuitous grace". (Sorry for all the religious stuff in this
paragraph, but that language really seems the best shorthand to consider
fast takeoff AI in. It *will* appear to be a miracle, whether of
benevolent or malevolent nature.)
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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