In a sense, this kind of thing (value drift due to differential reproduction) is already happening. For example, see this article about the changing racial demographics of the USA:
According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023
An increasing Latin-American population in the US seems to be causing an increase in Catholicism, which, if it continued, would constitute a significant axiological shift, as anyone who takes a pro-choice stance on abortion will attest.
Extrapolating these kinds of effects out to 2100 and beyond seems to indicate that we are (by default) in for much more such change.
What effect do you think the demographic shift will have? It isn’t as though blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, and South Asians are going to be a single power bloc.
I honestly have no idea, and I wish I had a good way of thinking about this.
Far right people say that the end of white America will be the beginning of doom and disaster. It is important not to let either politically motivated wishful thinking or politically correct wishful thinking bias one when trying to get to the real facts of the matter.
One way to think about the problem is to note that different immigrant populations have different social outcomes, and that there is some evidence that this is partially genetic, though it is obviously partly cultural. You could simply say, what would happen if you extrapolated the ethnic socioeconomics in proportion to their increased share of the population. So, in this spherical cow model of societies, overall American socioeconomic and political variables are simply linear combinations of those for ethnic subpopulations. In this simple model, fewer whites would be a bad thing, though more east asians would probably be a good thing.
Another effect is to note that humans innately cluster and ally with those who are similar to them, so as the ethinic diversity (you could even calculate an ethnic entropy as SIGMA[ r_i log r_i ] ) increases, you’d expect the country to be more disunified, and more likely to have a civil war or other serious internal conflict. (Hypothesis: ethnic entropy correlates with civil wars).
My rational expectation is that the demographic shift will have a mildly bad effect on overall welfare in 2042, but that no one will believe me because it sounds “racist”.
If the trend continues to 2100 and no major effect intervenes, US will be Hispanic majority as far as I know. My rational expectation of outcomes in this case is that something disruptive will happen, i.e. that the model will somehow break, perhaps violently. I just can’t imagine a smooth transition to a majority Hispanic US.
What, by 2042? There’s no chance that it will take all the way to 2043 for this to occur? I wish I could be as confident in predicting events three decades yet to come!
(So far as I can tell from tracking down the press release and then the study in question, the prediction in question was formed by estimating birth, death, and migration factors for each age group within each demographic and performing the necessary calculations. Error bars are not indicated anywhere I have found.)
I think that a serious flaw of Less Wrong is that the majority of commenters weigh the defensibility of a statement far higher than the value of the information that it carries (in the technical sense of information value).
A highly defensible statement can be nearly useless if it doesn’t pertain to something of relevance, whereas a mildly inaccurate and/or mildly hard to rhetorically defend statement can be extremely valuable if it reveals an insight that is highly relevant to aspects of reality that we care about.
In a sense, this kind of thing (value drift due to differential reproduction) is already happening. For example, see this article about the changing racial demographics of the USA:
An increasing Latin-American population in the US seems to be causing an increase in Catholicism, which, if it continued, would constitute a significant axiological shift, as anyone who takes a pro-choice stance on abortion will attest.
Extrapolating these kinds of effects out to 2100 and beyond seems to indicate that we are (by default) in for much more such change.
What effect do you think the demographic shift will have? It isn’t as though blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, and South Asians are going to be a single power bloc.
I honestly have no idea, and I wish I had a good way of thinking about this.
Far right people say that the end of white America will be the beginning of doom and disaster. It is important not to let either politically motivated wishful thinking or politically correct wishful thinking bias one when trying to get to the real facts of the matter.
One way to think about the problem is to note that different immigrant populations have different social outcomes, and that there is some evidence that this is partially genetic, though it is obviously partly cultural. You could simply say, what would happen if you extrapolated the ethnic socioeconomics in proportion to their increased share of the population. So, in this spherical cow model of societies, overall American socioeconomic and political variables are simply linear combinations of those for ethnic subpopulations. In this simple model, fewer whites would be a bad thing, though more east asians would probably be a good thing.
Another effect is to note that humans innately cluster and ally with those who are similar to them, so as the ethinic diversity (you could even calculate an ethnic entropy as SIGMA[ r_i log r_i ] ) increases, you’d expect the country to be more disunified, and more likely to have a civil war or other serious internal conflict. (Hypothesis: ethnic entropy correlates with civil wars).
My rational expectation is that the demographic shift will have a mildly bad effect on overall welfare in 2042, but that no one will believe me because it sounds “racist”.
If the trend continues to 2100 and no major effect intervenes, US will be Hispanic majority as far as I know. My rational expectation of outcomes in this case is that something disruptive will happen, i.e. that the model will somehow break, perhaps violently. I just can’t imagine a smooth transition to a majority Hispanic US.
What, by 2042? There’s no chance that it will take all the way to 2043 for this to occur? I wish I could be as confident in predicting events three decades yet to come!
(So far as I can tell from tracking down the press release and then the study in question, the prediction in question was formed by estimating birth, death, and migration factors for each age group within each demographic and performing the necessary calculations. Error bars are not indicated anywhere I have found.)
I don’t think that the message is significantly changed if you add some variance to that.
You’re right—I’m just a bit trigger-happy about futurism.
I think that a serious flaw of Less Wrong is that the majority of commenters weigh the defensibility of a statement far higher than the value of the information that it carries (in the technical sense of information value).
A highly defensible statement can be nearly useless if it doesn’t pertain to something of relevance, whereas a mildly inaccurate and/or mildly hard to rhetorically defend statement can be extremely valuable if it reveals an insight that is highly relevant to aspects of reality that we care about.