Lots to say about this, but for now I'll just bring up something about birthdates that's been rattling around in my head for a while: why does the demographic transition model assume that the replacement rate is some sort of natural equilibrium? It seems totally unjustified, as there isn't any personal feedback between peoples individual choices to have a certain number of children and mass society's population growth rate. It's the exact opposite situation as among hunter-gatherers.
It seems plainly obvious that humans can and will adjust their breeding strategy based on their environment, and that an overcrowded, warming world with eight billion people will have an effect on that breeding strategy regardless of what governments do. Both the idea that rates must go up forever, or that lower birth rates will lead to extinction, are so moronic since humans will naturally adjust their breeding strategy based on environmental conditions. Birth rates are sensitive to circumstances like overcrowding, stress, pollution, inequality, and competition for resources, and will naturally increase in the absence of those things. Plus, everyone knows that urbanization is happening rapidly across the globe. Of course herding the world's population into into filthy, overcrowded slums will suppress birth rates. How could it not?
I can't help but ponder the similarities between Universe 25 and the behaviors we're witnessing in humans today. The rats had abundant resources--the only problem was crowding. Males faced a lot of competition for territory. Many males simply gave up and withdrew from society. Others spent all day grooming and lost interest in the opposite sex. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes where they lived alone. In other cases, aberrant behavior was observed like violence, asexuality and cannibalism. Social cohesion broke down. The mice stopped breeding and the colony eventually collapsed.
"Once the number of individuals capable of filling social roles greatly exceeds the number of such roles, only violence and disruption can follow," John Calhoun wrote of the experiment. This was the behavioral sink. Humans aren't mice, of course, and we are much more socially complex with larger brains, but we are fellow mammals and share similarities to all mammals on the tree of life. Regardless of the flaws and criticisms of the experiment, the similarities between what we're witnessing in human societies around the world and Universe 25 is just too striking to ignore or dismiss, I think.
Lots to say about this, but for now I'll just bring up something about birthdates that's been rattling around in my head for a while: why does the demographic transition model assume that the replacement rate is some sort of natural equilibrium? It seems totally unjustified, as there isn't any personal feedback between peoples individual choices to have a certain number of children and mass society's population growth rate. It's the exact opposite situation as among hunter-gatherers.
It seems plainly obvious that humans can and will adjust their breeding strategy based on their environment, and that an overcrowded, warming world with eight billion people will have an effect on that breeding strategy regardless of what governments do. Both the idea that rates must go up forever, or that lower birth rates will lead to extinction, are so moronic since humans will naturally adjust their breeding strategy based on environmental conditions. Birth rates are sensitive to circumstances like overcrowding, stress, pollution, inequality, and competition for resources, and will naturally increase in the absence of those things. Plus, everyone knows that urbanization is happening rapidly across the globe. Of course herding the world's population into into filthy, overcrowded slums will suppress birth rates. How could it not?
I can't help but ponder the similarities between Universe 25 and the behaviors we're witnessing in humans today. The rats had abundant resources--the only problem was crowding. Males faced a lot of competition for territory. Many males simply gave up and withdrew from society. Others spent all day grooming and lost interest in the opposite sex. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes where they lived alone. In other cases, aberrant behavior was observed like violence, asexuality and cannibalism. Social cohesion broke down. The mice stopped breeding and the colony eventually collapsed.
"Once the number of individuals capable of filling social roles greatly exceeds the number of such roles, only violence and disruption can follow," John Calhoun wrote of the experiment. This was the behavioral sink. Humans aren't mice, of course, and we are much more socially complex with larger brains, but we are fellow mammals and share similarities to all mammals on the tree of life. Regardless of the flaws and criticisms of the experiment, the similarities between what we're witnessing in human societies around the world and Universe 25 is just too striking to ignore or dismiss, I think.
By sheer coincidence, I read this immediately after I wrote this: https://old.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/1fqw6cm/being_childfree_is_my_revenge/