The Possibility of Human Extinction with Samo Burja

[@derek4412]

There are so many reasons that the birth rate could be declining, it’s almost dizzying. It’s seriously at least 15 or 30 separate stressors on modern life: smart phones, media, finances, housing, individualism, too many years of schooling, contraception, vacations and the comforts of modern life, irreligiousity, plastics, lack of community, etc. But lately I’ve started to realize it might come down to a simple inability to plan for the future. Even when we were all farmers, we at least knew what we would be doing when we became an adult, even if we were poor. We would be farming. But now? How can somebody make a 30-year plan if everybody’s job feels like it could end at any moment? Because we all feel that way, we stress out and put too much emphasis on our work, which adds to the problem. Each child is roughly a 20-25 year investment. It’s very hard to plan that far ahead these days.

[@Dannyxlm]

this is an interesting perspective i hadn’t thought of before , thank you

[@Ryanrobi]

I am a farmer for me when you have a kid it's a 5-year expense followed by a 13 to 15 year benefit when they start working and half the time they work for you for the rest of their life. Big part of the problem is people think their kids need to just go to formal education and you need to do all the stuff for your kids and your kids don't do any work for you That's just silly. Kids need to work and learn responsibility and the value of the dollar.

[@derek4412]

@@Ryanrobi thank you for commenting. Depending on where anyone of us lives, it’s rare to meet a farmer these days! Just imagine the dynamics of fertility and population growth when 80% of the society was farming on a small scale. Now, even the 2% of society that are farmers have so much industrial equipment and machine use that children are not as helpful as they used to be.

[@martinjohnson5498]

It seems to me that obvious place to start understanding this, though I have not seen anyone say it, is urbanization. Going back to ancient Rome, and likely much farther, large cities have rarely if ever maintained their population levels without immigration from the countryside. This has usually been explained away in economic terms. Maybe we should not be so superficial and look at deeper cultural forces emanating from hyper-dominant hyper-large urban places, and then how they diffuse throughout society. Especially how such factors and modes of diffusion have changed with modernity coming to each country or region since roughly 1900.

[@derek4412]

“Urbanization“ seems to be a catchall term for dozens of things that actually cause the decline. But as catch-all terms go, it’s not a bad one. Cities don’t reproduce, but the countryside does. But what happens when a society is 90% urban? Big population decline is the only avenue.

[@benjamingrist6539]

Urbanization means that people can no longer support all/most of their own needs and have to rely on the government to make sure their needs are met. Once their needs are met, they become obsessed with comfort and their definition of “comfort” gets more and more ludicrous as they become desensitized to their previous level of comfort. Since kids get in the way of comfort, they’re one of the first things abandoned. Since religion gets in the way of comfort, it’s also abandoned. Soon the society becomes so obsessed with comfort that it abandons other things that are necessary for a society to function but are uncomfortable. Eventually, society collapses and the light of civilization falls to those in the countryside.

[@jakaribic8494]

Its hard to breed animals in captivity, especially if they are stressed.

[@JC-qh6wl]

The mouse utopia experiment refuted population growth optimists, even if they haven’t accepted that yet.

[@tuckerbugeater]

are you a pet animal?

[@Ryanrobi]

No it's not I'm a dairy farmer it's very easy to breed animals in captivity. They actually become very low stress and come into heat every 21 days and they show you when they're in heat. Humans are not a herd species though lol

[@BeachandHills-hb2pq]

@@Ryanrobi Only a tiny number of animals can breed on farms. 90% of wild animals can NOT be domesticated and breed.(ref Jarid Diamond) Humans are closer to wild animals in temeprement. We go mad in conditions that have no effect on domesticated animals. (ref Psychology Therapy)

[@kjell744]

Many animals are breed in captivity, and are breed for it. Humans will adapt by evolution. Some humans are going to be resistant or partly resistant and they will have more surviving children. Humans are the same in a evolutionary sense as other animas.

[@viking4476]

Negative growth can be a good thing. For example, for Serbia, where I live. If we didn't have that for the last thirty years, as well as immigration, we would have 50% unemployment. We wouldn't have anything to eat, like in Africa. Now we even bring people from abroad India, Bangladesh, Nepal to work. Compared to 1989, today's economy and industry is several times weaker. Even today, 70% of young couples live with their parents because they cannot afford a house or an apartment.

[@derek4412]

Don’t you think it’s a really bad thing for the young people today? If the conditions in Serbia are as bad as you say, I suspect that means Serbia will experience a 90+% population decline over the next century or two.

[@martinjohnson5498]

59:00. Sounds an awful lot like how in the 1920s the Soviets set out to create Homo sovieticus.

[@lordliege]

I will be happy to worry about this when the population is down to 2B. A world of resource abundance.

[@MuhammadakbarAK47]

4:43 Not a single country in the Eastern bloc returned to the replacemen rate (TFR2.1) After the fall of communism. Only a countries in Central Asia .Which goes back to the glory days of the Soviet Union with TFR 2.5 Even the Caucasus countries collapsed TFR yes after the Soviet Union era like Eastern Europe. 5:33 After they legalized LGBT. Turkey Doom like Europe

[@grahamgoodman1740]

I freaking love this channel, thanks for the thoughtful content

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

4:21 The only event in modern history where the birth rate collapse was successfully reverse direction is 1967. when the dictatorship Romanian🇷🇴 communist government banned abortion, causing the birth rate to jump from 1.90 in 1966 to 3.66 in 1967 and ending up stable at 2.44 -2.22 in the 1973-1989 period. and then the brith rate fell again simultaneously with the fall of the Romanian communist party.

[@Trials_By_Errors]

It's all about Inflation and Wage growth. Inflation results in Wage growth then it results in Deflation, deflation makes it cheaper to raise Children. People have more children with high Inflation, Wages and then Deflation.

[@matthewmallan1995]

I loved that, great conversation thank you.

[@christian-qq1tp]

I have a question for Sam burja. When will your book come out ? Thanks

[@Ryanrobi]

What he's saying is very true I'm from Massachusetts pretty close to Boston My whole family besides myself and my little brother have never been outside of New England besides when they go on vacation in Europe or something or go to the West Coast. They think that cities in Wisconsin and the Midwest are boring and terrible but I've lived in the cities they're just as nice as anywhere else just much cheaper. My little brother recently moved from Portland Oregon to Columbus Ohio after a finally persuaded him that the Midwest is the best place to be he got a significant raise and his cost of living is down 50%! Hes never geen happier and the rest of my family is like wait i though ohio is awful? No people if anything Boston is worse overpriced and awful roads and homesless, and more crime.

[@sigmsctt8130]

58:49 luving the discussion! Reincarn8d Elusian Mysteries, fertility ruals 🎉😅

[@sigmsctt8130]

Can't get Little House on the Prarie image out of my mind, as an increasingly optimistic viżion 4 Mars

[@sigmsctt8130]

Or intentionally test out no-money needed, StarTrek-like communism🤞🤑

[@sigmsctt8130]

We heirarichal apes😂...can't deny it! AI will pattern recognize it! Prolly has!😮 Keep those in charge, those few in charge. They likey dat way

[@sigmsctt8130]

Couple points on Main Topic: Felt naive about nefariou$ pharm@🤑👹 Perhaps weight complicayshunẓ̌ far outweigh(?), as threat Also, would luv2hear this blended w/Bret Weinstein...perhaps a guest?!🙏😁

[@Charlie-Em]

The dukes of history, stacked high like the symbol of Moment of Zen: the dookie pile.

[@KSNDXFW534D3FW3]

The noblest animals refuse to breed in captivity.

[@skruti2549]

Prevalence and easy availability of contraceptives

[@etorawa9367]

Calling on all my crypto bros out there, we need to save our species. Make Harems Great Again (M.H.G.A)!

[@and1play5]

Y’all don’t like women tho

[@wadedavies3924]

Asking someone on a first date if they would like to make babies, isn't a function of speed dating. It is your contribution to the survival of your gene pool.

[@tuckerbugeater]

maybe most women don't want to reproduce if given the choice

[@Emptytopfloor]

1:01:00 you could foresee this far but couldn’t see artificial utero as baby factories.

[@rafalrocks]

IVF is bad for the gene pool. As crass and cruel as it sounds, there is a reason why certain individuals shouldn’t have babies

[@midragga]

It's all by design

[@tuckerbugeater]

but people made the choice too.

[@bobnemo7485]

Here is a hypothesis what if women working is what drives down the birth rate, cultural groups like The Amish what are the Orthodox Jews who don't allow their wives to work outside of the family have high birth rates, unfortunately I'm not very academic at all, so I'd like someone else to look into this

[@Emptytopfloor]

Mother is the first teacher. If mother isn’t literate, the nation gets into dark age. And literacy values quality over quality so birthrate goes down.

[@behindthecurve6468]

I think you maybe onto something. The Spartans had replacement problems too. Their women had a level of equality that was unusual for the period.

[@tuckerbugeater]

it's better to get rid of their nihilistic genes

[@abdullahmeo]

I don't think this works. Algeria, Egypt, and Iran all have the lowest participation of women in the workforce, but their birth rates are still plummeting. There is an inverse correlation between women's workforce participation and birth rate, but this could be caused by an independent factor. For a more concrete example of why the correlation doesn't prove causation you can consider the following alternative scenario. Imagine women began joining the workforce because valuable work is less physically intensive. And, men's access to sexually explicit material diminished their capacity to maintain a long-term relationship. Both factors correlate to the proliferation of computers, but neither would cause the other. e.g. reducing the number of women in the workforce wouldn't increase the birth rate in this scenario. For another concrete example, a rise of satellites also inversely correlates with birth-rate, but the two factors are not causal.

[@BraveNewWorld5404]

Current population collapse is fatal, because its root cause is none other than the civilization advancement itself, if civilization cannot retrack, there is no pathway for birth rate recovery. Civilization is a very strange fella, it can produce people, who are self nihilism, these people think the planet earth will be better off without human, including themselves. This can only be the phenomenon of a high civilization, since animals or lesser educated civil people will be incapable of self hatred because it is unnatural and completely against the evolution principle. In other words, self hatred cannot exist naturally, it must be a post civilization phenomenon. Of course the population who have this self nihilism tendency is very small, but they are among the most highly educated group. The fact that they exist, the fact that they are the product of our high education system is very concerning, especially in an era of nuclear power. But they are not the real cause of human extinction, even after the catastrophic nuclear event which destroys the entire world, human who survived will rebuild fast as long as human still has the desire and capability of reproducing. Other than a moon size planet hit the earth, the only thing can destroy human civilization completely and cause human extinction is human stop reproducing, the only thing can stop us from reproducing is the civilization advancement. When civilization was at its lowest, human was 100% animal instinct driven, we followed what our gene programmed us without asking why, just like all other animals. Our gene told us to reproduce as much as possible by implanting us with all kinds of sexual instincts, so our gene can avoid the extinction and move up the evolution ladder quickly. Once we became little bit more civilized, our consciousness took over the animal instincts, then we followed the mythical culture and religion to reproduce as much as possible without asking why. Modern civilization completely lifted human out of the animal realm, we are no longer animals except our legacy body. It is a slow discovery and realization that our civilization is incompatible with our reproduction mechanism rooted from our animal heritage. If we are aliens and never exposed to the earthling reproduction mechanism, we would think the pregnancy is torture, giving birth is barbaric, and binding human reproduction with human life cycle is cruel and artificial. Of course, we do not think like aliens, not there yet, but our youngsters, our most progressive young mind which represents our future, are moving quickly to that same mindset through our civilization advancement in biology, health, and morality. Civilization, by definition, is bias towards rationale over natural instinct, Today our basic instinct of wanting children is effectively neutralized by the civilized rational concerns of the physical cost, emotional cost, social cost, and economic cost of having children. The result of this transformation is that having children becomes a project, requires planning and cost benefit analysis, the problem is that as the civilization advances, the individual life become safer, easier, richer, freer, and more secure, the perceived cost of reproduction can only goes up and the benefit of having children can only goes down. As the civilization advances, the old people will be taken cared of by the society through the work of the economy or the social safety net, the fear of a feeble elder life without children is removed. AI is probably the most convincing evidence that civilization will be the root cause of total collapse of human reproduction. With the emerging Intelligent service robots the benefit of children will be completely removed, from emotional support to physical support, cross all spectrum. To each individual human, especially women, the reproduction becomes all costs with no or minimal benefit. With advancement of civilization, human population is not just collapsing but doomed. Maybe at some point in future, we may have no choice but to accept the concept of human manufacturing through technology with quality control and auditing, all under legal provisions and governances, so that human reproduction and human civilization can finally be compatible again.

[@kjell744]

There is one know mechanism evolution.

[@PassagePass]

“wat means?” yes indeed

[@williamgrice1712]

We also pretend that co2 has any great effect on the climate!

[@PepitoSbezzeguti]

The baby boom is not unexplained! It strongly correlates with decline in infant mortality. They weren't having more kids than previous generations, kids were dying less.

[@derek4412]

Then why did Germany, Japan, and Italy all have baby booms, but they were much smaller? And why did Argentina and Brazil not have a baby boom at all? And why did the baby boom begin around 1940, and then end in the early 1960s?

[@PepitoSbezzeguti]

@@derek4412 access to life saving medicine. It ended cause fertility rate declined lower and lower, consistently with what you would expect when a new factor was introduced in the equation, its effect generates a boom and then normalizes.

[@BeachandHills-hb2pq]

@@derek4412 I checked and in europe the fertility collapse in each country happens 3 years after Pill / contrception was made legal. Every country i checked. As for Japan no pill but abortion is legal yjey had mass abortions.

[@derek4412]

@@BeachandHills-hb2pq the US had a baby boom peak in 1957, with a TFR of 3.7 . The pill, to my understanding, was not widely available until 1962. So what caused it to peak so early and then decline? Contraception definitely played a role, but it’s probably not sufficient to say exactly why the boom ended. And we are still left wondering why the boom started if the US was below replacement rate in the 1930s, and most of Europe was as well. Why did the boom take off around 1940 in the US, which was before the war?

[@Emptytopfloor]

Wolves are panicking because sheeps won’t breed.

[@pankajsinha385]

Earlier people had kids without thinking much, now people think before having kids, I don't see that as a bad thing actually. The wolfs would always want sheeps to breed a lot.

[@and1play5]

Do yall even get girl tho

[@TickerBitcoin]

Free Palestine HarryPotterObamaSonic10inu

[@AkiKii519]

an hour of uselessly dancing around the issue. classic.