Spandrel has a post wondering where all the babies went, and whenever I propose one of the usual suspects, for example no fault divorce, denormalization of masculinity, and such, he says “Ah, but many Muslim countries also have fertility collapse”.
Good point. So let us look at a Muslim country with dramatic fertility collapse, and see if we can find any of the usual suspects. (more…)
Copper production shows three peaks: The Roman Empire in the west, the Song Dynasty, and modernity.
The Roman Empire in the west and the Song Dynasty had about seven times the preceding and following level of copper production, thus while those civilizations were going concerns, they had far more production and wealth than the rest of the world put together.
When the Roman Empire in the West fell, its GDP dropped about a hundred fold.
So, looking at the past few thousand years, the norm has been relatively brief periods of civilization in relatively small parts of the world.
I would guess the problem is that the state lacks the cohesion and self discipline necessary to refrain from devouring civil society, and anarchy lacks the cohesion necessary to keep the roads safe and property rights secure. Technology can advance during anarchic periods, often quite rapidly, but the amount of wealth, as indicated by copper production, shipwrecks, and such, tends to be very low indeed during such periods. Despotic states, on the other hand, have higher wealth, probably because they can make the roads safe over a large area, but are apt to end technological progress, and often reverse it. (more…)
AI is a hard problem, and even if we had a healthy society, we might still be stuck. That buildings are not getting taller and that fabs are not getting cheaper and not making smaller and smaller devices is social decay. That we are stuck on AI is more that it is high hanging fruit.
According to Yudkowsky, we will have AI when computers have as much computing power as human brains.
The GPU on my desktop has ten times as much computing power as the typical male human brain, and it is not looking conscious. (more…)
I have been arguing that social decay is ending technological and scientific progress. In most areas it has strikingly slowed, in some areas, going backwards in the west, as we forget how to do what once we could do. Others, however, argue that technological and scientific progress is still running hot, or that if it has slowed, it is that we ran out of low hanging fruit.
But a big tell is that people are lying about it. The lie indicates not only failure, but that the failure is shameful – that the failure is in us, not in external circumstances. That we are lying about it shows the failure is social decay. (more…)
To make and keep the upper stories of a tall building habitable requires routine high technology. The lifts have to work, the water needs to be pumped, the toilets have let the poop down one hundred stories without shattering violence. It is not all that expensive. Current office space costs in the centers of major cities are so high that very tall buildings are immensely profitable. It is simply difficult to do, requires able people working together, both initially to build the systems, and subsequently to keep them going.
It is habitable floors that are hard to do, and habitable floors are what generates the rental income. So, to assess a society’s technological level, count habitable floors.
By and large, the taller the building, the more the profit. Doubtless there is a limit, but in the center of most major cities, most tall buildings are below that limit. If people could build taller, they would. At our present technological level, settling space seems likely to be fatally unprofitable, but building upwards, building the city of tomorrow, is highly profitable. (more…)
This expedition to Antarctica is led by global warming scientist Chris Turney, whose company, Carbonscape, sells carbon indulgences. If you sin by emitting carbon, Chris Turner will, for a suitable payment, offset your sin with his carbon offset credits.
In the course of this expedition, they have repeatedly smacked up hard against ice that their ideology said could not possibly be there, and then proceeded to act as if the ice was not there. And then their ship got stuck. (more…)
Inflation adjusted price of oil shows no obvious trend, suggesting that limits on oil production reflect social decay and technological slowdown, rather than physical exhaustion of resources.
Oil prices rose, and rose, to 2008, and in 2008, it looked like the peak oilers were, like a stopped clock, finally correct. And then prices fell, a lot. They have risen since, but not to their 2008 peaks. From 2010 to the present oil prices have been high and steady in nominal dollars, while Chinese and Indian consumption soars. But steady in nominal dollars means falling about six percent a year in real prices, (or three percent a year if you believe the official cpi) So, more oil produced and consumed at lower prices, indicating that oil extraction technology continues to advance fast enough to keep up with increased demand.
If real prices start rising again, more likely social decay than limits to growth.
Whenever someone announces that they are in favor of equal opportunity, in favor of equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome, they have usually a few paragraphs, or a few comments away, defended some outrageously unjust inequality of opportunity implemented and enforced by state power to destroy group X, as punishment for group X privilege.
Everyone is in favor of equality of opportunity. I am in favor of equality of opportunity. But, realistically, you are not going to get it, and attempting to get it is apt to result in genocide, as in the Congo, or terror, as in Sri Lanka. (more…)
Scot Alexander has answered the anti anti reactionary faq.
The anti anti reactionary faq argument to which he replies is that leftist have a dreadful record of misgovernment, terror, tyranny, artificial famine, and leftists tend to get lefter over a time. It is a slippery slope, the slope gets steeper and steeper, and at the bottom of that slope, a deep pit filled with sharpened stakes.
Scot’s reply is that these bad things done by leftists were a response to the horrid horrid horrid evil oppression by extremely reactionary regimes, which made the masses so very angry.
The trouble with this story is the King Louis and Tzar Nicholas were very progressive – and very powerless. To the extent that they were able to exercise any power, it was to reward and protect their enemies, and destroy their loyalists. It is probably fortunate that King Louis XVI, a supposedly absolute divine right monarch, was completely unable to get any of his policies implemented, because they were all disastrously stupid highly fashionable left wing policies, in particular the proposal to abolish the taille.
By now everyone knows the real story of thanksgiving. The pilgrim fathers attempted socialism, as usual famine ensued, followed by mass die off, they appointed a new governor who concluded that when God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, God ordained private property in the means of production. Famine solved, prosperity ensues. Pilgrims ordain a day of thanksgiving to thank God for their prosperity.
But strangely, the New York Times, and the left generally, is fighting back, attempting to speak power to truth. According to the New York Times: (more…)