[ExI] tech influence

[John Grigg]

BillK wrote:

I suspect all these are trivial factors compared to the first world
drop in birthrate.

Educate and empower women and they stop having children.

The reasons for this are probably multifactorial, though.
>>>


The birth dearth is a serious problem, especially in parts of Western
Europe and Japan (especially Japan, where fertile women are practically on
a childbearing national strike), for the obvious reason of too many old
retired folks, and not enough young workers to pay for them.  Immigration
has been seen as the solution (except in Japan, where they are betting on
robotics and A.I.), but with the much higher birthrates of the immigrants,
the face of Europe may be changing quite a bit over the next fifty years.
The question is, regarding conservative/fundamentalist Muslim immigrants
and other groups, will they do the "melting pot" thing?  Or as with many
Muslims, will they prove to be memetically resistant?

I wonder if some mid 21st century nations will decide to pay healthy people
to donate sperm and eggs, so that facilities full of thousands upon
thousands of artificial wombs, will produce the young citizens they will
desperately need.  But then between that and the need for high tech and
well-run "orphanages," the costs of playing "Brave New World" would be
prohibitive.

I suppose that with the rise of A.I. and advanced robotics, that the need
for relatively robust human populations may shrink, as machines take up the
slack, and excel in ways that humans may not.


John


On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 4:05 AM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:

> ;-) ;-)
> Let's settle on "I prefer to screw open-minded dates, eat well and smoke"
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 5:09 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> >... On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco
>>
>> >...These days, screw dates, I prefer eating well and smoking...
>>
>>
>> You don't need to make a choice, you would merely change the wording just
>> a
>> bit as follows: I prefer to screw dates, eat well and smoke.
>>
>> {8^D
>>
>> spike
>>
>>
>>
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>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
>
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