IMO I think the most important takeaways from this work are the following:
Assuming you both have a view where certain humans are positive EV in your book and you think the long term matters, extinction risk reduction may look far less valuable, and in particular we can no longer assume that mere global catastrophes are survivable for the human race, like nuclear war or bioweapons, since we can no longer assume that humans will breed back from a mere catastrophe. Thus, extinction risk no longer looks that special in the grand scheme of things, and global catastrophic risks look more valuable for prevention.
It imposes a deadline on long-termism, and in particular means that we can no longer appeal to very long-term projects. This type of reasoning was implicit in some arguments against making advanced AI like Geoffrey Miller’s arguments, and while I think it could be salvaged somewhat, I do think that most reasoning related to hundreds to thousands of years long feedback loops or more needs to address the paper seriously, or it has 0 expected value in my book.
For those who believe that certain humans have positive EV in your book, then becoming grabby soon (as in the next few centuries) is very important, and that it’s plausible that the actions taken in the next few centuries determine pretty much the whole expected value of the future, and depending on whether infinities are supported, may be the difference between a future where the expected value is 0, and a future where the expected value is +infinity or -infinity.
While I don’t believe that this model will always be robust in all situations, I do think it’s central conclusions are probably going to hold up assuming a non-grabby humanity in the next few centuries, and a humanity that doesn’t get rocked by any global catastrophes, because of the essential uniformity of fertility and the inability of cultures to get out of the low fertility state once they get into it, combined with poor at best transmission of high fertility genetics.
I think the whole thing is a load of nonsense. There are lots of things that are likely to impact fertility rates.
Firstly, it doesn’t at all account for people trying to do something, like generous child tax credits or similar. It requires large numbers of humans to see that the population has declined for centuries, and do nothing to fix this.
Then there is the more high tech stuff, artificial wombs and robot childcare, life extention anti aging tech, or a full tech singularity.
Then there are random economic shifts. A rise in remote work sees many people leaving cities, they move to large countryside houses with room for many children. (And the ability to look after kids while working)
Then there is evolution, biological and cultural.
Then the economic conditions that created the fall in fertility require a level of tech and wealth. What is the proposed model of the economy doing here. If we are reverting to medieval serfdom, fertility will rise. If we are looking at a high tech and wealthy society, why have they not invented any of the techs that would change the game? Is biological immortality really that hard? And more to the point, what disaster would kill 500 million wealthy, high tech people spread across the world that wouldn’t also kill 8 billion people?
I am really struggling to imagine any model of the future that fits their graph. As far as I can tell, their model was constructed by looking at some fertility data, and then pretending that, apart from the changes in fertility and population, nothing else would ever happen.
I might want to mostly change the genetics to cultural transmission of fertility, but the biggest issue IMO is 2 issues:
Even the high-fertility cultures are declining in fertility, and if the highest fertility culture is essentially 2.0 or lower, which demographers predict, then nothing can really save you over the long run, except evolution, and the issue will be discussed below.
Admittedly, this is a cached thought I might have, but the basic issue is one of time. If it was happening in 10,000 years or more, I wouldn’t be worried about it too much, but the big issue is that the time scale is probably too fast for evolution to catch up by default. This will happen in centuries, not millennia, and if I remember correctly, only bacteria or very small life can evolve non-trivial traits on the necessary time-scale. Maybe it’s possible, but I currently suspect that this will be a tall order to select for higher fertility fast enough, and I think the selection effects are probably not strong enough to work.
Evolution can do some things in centuries, if the selection pressure is huge, which it is, and the change is simple, just adjusting a few parameters, which it is.
More to the point, most of the reasons why this model is bunk are technological or cultural changes, not evolution.
the big issue is that the time scale is probably too fast for evolution to catch up by default
This isn’t growing wings, it’s some very simple changes. If the problem is literal fertility (too few sperms, women having difficulties getting embryos to implant, etc) then it’s probably exactly the kind of thing that evolution can select for in a handful of generations. If the problem is a more general cognitive one (given the existing hyperstimuli and/or cultural context that make people less willing to have children, evolve people whose values are geared so that they have a stronger drive to have children even in these circumstances), that might be a lot more complex, if possible at all. But honestly anyway I doubt biology will play any major role in this either way. It’s a matter of culture and economic incentives, mostly.
IMO I think the most important takeaways from this work are the following:
Assuming you both have a view where certain humans are positive EV in your book and you think the long term matters, extinction risk reduction may look far less valuable, and in particular we can no longer assume that mere global catastrophes are survivable for the human race, like nuclear war or bioweapons, since we can no longer assume that humans will breed back from a mere catastrophe. Thus, extinction risk no longer looks that special in the grand scheme of things, and global catastrophic risks look more valuable for prevention.
It imposes a deadline on long-termism, and in particular means that we can no longer appeal to very long-term projects. This type of reasoning was implicit in some arguments against making advanced AI like Geoffrey Miller’s arguments, and while I think it could be salvaged somewhat, I do think that most reasoning related to hundreds to thousands of years long feedback loops or more needs to address the paper seriously, or it has 0 expected value in my book.
For those who believe that certain humans have positive EV in your book, then becoming grabby soon (as in the next few centuries) is very important, and that it’s plausible that the actions taken in the next few centuries determine pretty much the whole expected value of the future, and depending on whether infinities are supported, may be the difference between a future where the expected value is 0, and a future where the expected value is +infinity or -infinity.
While I don’t believe that this model will always be robust in all situations, I do think it’s central conclusions are probably going to hold up assuming a non-grabby humanity in the next few centuries, and a humanity that doesn’t get rocked by any global catastrophes, because of the essential uniformity of fertility and the inability of cultures to get out of the low fertility state once they get into it, combined with poor at best transmission of high fertility genetics.
I think the whole thing is a load of nonsense. There are lots of things that are likely to impact fertility rates.
Firstly, it doesn’t at all account for people trying to do something, like generous child tax credits or similar. It requires large numbers of humans to see that the population has declined for centuries, and do nothing to fix this.
Then there is the more high tech stuff, artificial wombs and robot childcare, life extention anti aging tech, or a full tech singularity.
Then there are random economic shifts. A rise in remote work sees many people leaving cities, they move to large countryside houses with room for many children. (And the ability to look after kids while working)
Then there is evolution, biological and cultural.
Then the economic conditions that created the fall in fertility require a level of tech and wealth. What is the proposed model of the economy doing here. If we are reverting to medieval serfdom, fertility will rise. If we are looking at a high tech and wealthy society, why have they not invented any of the techs that would change the game? Is biological immortality really that hard? And more to the point, what disaster would kill 500 million wealthy, high tech people spread across the world that wouldn’t also kill 8 billion people?
I am really struggling to imagine any model of the future that fits their graph. As far as I can tell, their model was constructed by looking at some fertility data, and then pretending that, apart from the changes in fertility and population, nothing else would ever happen.
Would you be up for expanding more on your last point? What’s the reason for thinking the genetic heritability of fertility is “poor at best”?
I might want to mostly change the genetics to cultural transmission of fertility, but the biggest issue IMO is 2 issues:
Even the high-fertility cultures are declining in fertility, and if the highest fertility culture is essentially 2.0 or lower, which demographers predict, then nothing can really save you over the long run, except evolution, and the issue will be discussed below.
Admittedly, this is a cached thought I might have, but the basic issue is one of time. If it was happening in 10,000 years or more, I wouldn’t be worried about it too much, but the big issue is that the time scale is probably too fast for evolution to catch up by default. This will happen in centuries, not millennia, and if I remember correctly, only bacteria or very small life can evolve non-trivial traits on the necessary time-scale. Maybe it’s possible, but I currently suspect that this will be a tall order to select for higher fertility fast enough, and I think the selection effects are probably not strong enough to work.
Evolution can do some things in centuries, if the selection pressure is huge, which it is, and the change is simple, just adjusting a few parameters, which it is.
More to the point, most of the reasons why this model is bunk are technological or cultural changes, not evolution.
This isn’t growing wings, it’s some very simple changes. If the problem is literal fertility (too few sperms, women having difficulties getting embryos to implant, etc) then it’s probably exactly the kind of thing that evolution can select for in a handful of generations. If the problem is a more general cognitive one (given the existing hyperstimuli and/or cultural context that make people less willing to have children, evolve people whose values are geared so that they have a stronger drive to have children even in these circumstances), that might be a lot more complex, if possible at all. But honestly anyway I doubt biology will play any major role in this either way. It’s a matter of culture and economic incentives, mostly.