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Rafinius's avatar

A few things to note:

1.) Humans have had population collapses before. In the short term they led to regression of quality of life (among those whose quality of life was above subsistence farming anyway). But they also led to the creation of work saving technologies and social/political technologies.

2.) There's no reason that we couldn't at some point develop a culture for whom human individuals are a cultivated product. For now Moloch seems to be in the way, but any culture that sufficiently subsidizes child production and increases overall child rearing efficiency will outcompete those whose population collapses. And in a capitalist system (also in other systems) there comes a point where investors (or other people with real power) will notice that there is money to be made (or personal agency and quality of life improved) by directly investing into the production of humans.

3.) Even if all else is true, each subsequent golden age would have more of a head start due to archeology. Tech would advance more slowly than expected, but it would advance.

4.) I feel like you need more close female friends. Not literally, since it never seemed like you are lacking those from things I've heard you say in your podcasts. Just that you mayhaps want to have more conversations with them about what they want and what they enjoy and what makes them unproductive. It's not really all that different from men. Maybe a bit less pr0n, but then that isn't a universal among childfree men either.

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RationalMoron's avatar

Two things.

First, while the description of the process may be very true about Earth, and while some similar pattern may be possible for aliens, saying "this is the reason" is based on assuming the aliens are improbably similar to humans not only biology, but also sociology.

Second, while i believe the described cycle is possible, the cycle is not everything. The golden age is not in our past. Not even "perhaps". The social structure of society is very important, not only it's technology and supply chains. A world with the technology of the 90s, or maybe even worse technology, but an egalitarian society that actually works and not causes any pointless suffering would be far better than the 90s, or our current time. And that's without mentioning the fact different places in the world have both different technologies and different societies. "Children in Africa" and all that.

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