100 million people with high rates of education could do alot of innovating. Also, I don’t think human population will drop 98%. If the world fertility rate were 1.3, it would drop by about 3 billion after 25 years, 2 billion more after 25 more years. At this point? they’re be a lot of empty houses and vacant land and raiding kids would become cheaper and more desirable. Settler populations historically have had massive fertility.
> Why is aggregate global gdp important? If there are 100 million peaceful, prosperous, happy people, why is that bad?
It's not so much that the end state is bad, it's the old people voting themselves ever more entitlements and farming young people for the revenue to support that, then political and cultural upheaval, riots, and eventually, billions of people dying to get to that 100M peaceful state.
And that transition is likely to be rough enough that we won't be an industrial civilization on the other end, but some combination of scavengers / foragers / farmers without an industrial technology pyramid.
Why is aggregate global gdp important? If there are 100 million peaceful, prosperous, happy people, why is that bad?
Shrinking population = smaller markets, less specialization, less innovation, rising costs to maintain an aging population, financial implosion.
100 million people with high rates of education could do alot of innovating. Also, I don’t think human population will drop 98%. If the world fertility rate were 1.3, it would drop by about 3 billion after 25 years, 2 billion more after 25 more years. At this point? they’re be a lot of empty houses and vacant land and raiding kids would become cheaper and more desirable. Settler populations historically have had massive fertility.
> Why is aggregate global gdp important? If there are 100 million peaceful, prosperous, happy people, why is that bad?
It's not so much that the end state is bad, it's the old people voting themselves ever more entitlements and farming young people for the revenue to support that, then political and cultural upheaval, riots, and eventually, billions of people dying to get to that 100M peaceful state.
And that transition is likely to be rough enough that we won't be an industrial civilization on the other end, but some combination of scavengers / foragers / farmers without an industrial technology pyramid.