Posted by jasondavies 10/26/2024
Fortunately, it takes no energy at all from inside the United States to manufacture solar panels in, you know, some place, over there, somewhere, that I have trouble pronouncing.
Doesn't matter. I just order them online and they magically show up on my doorstep.
You go live in a city. Leave nature alone. Send the rest back where they came from.
oh that wish has already been granted. the world fertility rate is 2.3, and it has been falling precipitously for decades. once it gets to 2.1 we start depopulating an ageing population without a growing workforce (assuming no AI takeoff in the next decade) is going to be a lot of fun. you saved in your pension fund? too bad you can't eat numbers on a computer.
I guess space colonization is a third variable here, but the feedback loop on that is likely to not materially affect our trajectory in either direction.
it's possible that a lot of the loss in working age people won't be that bad - "bullshit jobs" (Taleb) do make up a lot of the existing jobs, so perhaps it's only the economic system that needs to change and the underlying population and means of production will be enough to work with.