China demographics thread.

[ZeEa5KPul]

There were many predictions all the way from 1990s to 2000s about limb replacement etc. but they have not come to fruition. Specially in biology it is very hard.

This is the second time you've brought up limb replacement. Who cares about limb replacement? And what predictions are you talking about? It's a niche problem nobody cares about. Orders upon orders of magnitude more people are going to need hearts replaced than arms. Your limb replacement is a ridiculous non-sequitur.

Humanizing the tissues and organs of pigs is something already in clinical trials. Since you've so patronizingly "explained" exponential processes (poorly) as if you're the only one here who understands them, try applying your understanding to biology and the exponential advances there.

Instead of wasting our time with "limb replacement from the 1990s to 2000s", go read something about multiplex gene editing.

But what if you are wrong, and there are no artificial wombs, advanced automation, AI etc. And in the end number of humans do matter in the end still after 50 years for sustaining the economy, innovation, defence and having a large market?

Being wrong is an impossibility because the prerequisite technology is already being developed. Even in the alternate universes where you're correct, China will still have far more people and it will still win its competition with the United States los Estados Unidos.

 

[azn_cyniq]

East Asia is not over populated by any means. Compared to North America, Russia and some other parts maybe, but population densities are lower than many other regions, on top of that East Asia has built the infrastructure for that.

At the end it is all about the infrastructure.

And the high population of East Asia also grants it one of the most important powers in the modern world: a huge domestic market.

Another factor that hasn't been mentioned here yet is that in the digital age, both men and women tend to be more picky when choosing a partner. As such, many people choose not to have children because they are unable to find a partner who meets their inflated standards. Perhaps the solution is to encourage those who do have children to have as many as possible by introducing drastic measures such as exempting couples who have four or more children from the income tax.

 

[tokenanalyst]

1. AI and Automation are coming for the more skilled jobs, like coding, writing, painting etc. rather than for lower skilled jobs. This will just lead to increase in productivity of an average human, no displacement of humans as a whole, or redundancy of humans.

Equal less people to do the same job, you only hire the top tier, so the people who aren't smart enough will have to find other jobs or be jobless. like the video I posted, for every worker that the owner of clothing factory could find she replace it with a machine, those jobs are not coming back.
I personally using these models to automate some stuff that otherwise I would have to pay an assistant.

1. AI is a big misnomer, these are just good curve fitting machines, even big systems like ChatGPT can't do basic maths well despite having being trained and fed on large parts of the internet.

even some locals model can do basic math.
This technology is advancing an at speed that I have never see other technologies advancing, a few years ago these tech was unusable.

1. Even if say you were true, are you going to decrease the population (as a policy) or let it decrease, when it is your most important resource, simply on the assumption that AI/automation will save you later? What if you are wrong?

I am saying that extreme problems require extreme solutions, if this is a problem that threaten China as a country and AI can not solve the problem, the Chinese are not going to sugar coat a problem like Western countries do, if they have indoctrinate and force women into motherhood, they will do it. One of the reason of the global falling birth rates is women entering the labor force.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Let's see if that works, positive incentives have definitely not worked in South Korea/Japan etc

It worked in Hungary.

. And they have tried incredible amounts of those. One other thing that can be done is to massively reduce child bearing pressure and costs. Today it has become almost a fashion to get your kid to enroll in super expensive classes, or take random expensive activities etc. Maybe all of these things can be banned altogether to reduce financial and social pressure on parents.

That is one the reason why private tutoring is banned in China, also why China doesn't want to prop up house prices.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Okay, but in my personal opinion that point is way way far ahead. But maybe you're more optimistic.

I'm not optimistic or under any illusion that we are approaching a society where robots do everything and people just enjoy life. I answered that in response to someone else claiming that life would be meaningless if people didn't have to do work to survive. I'm saying, no it wouldn't; it would be super awesome! However I didn't say we're going there at any visible rate. I think even in 100 years, we might still not see this kind of society even on the horizon.

This is definitely true to an extent, however it is not only the traditionally educated that are important. You need people for agriculture, fishing, etc. etc. In fact, the curious trend of modern AI/automation is that they are getting better at coding/creative-endeavors much faster than they are getting better at basic mechanical things.

Well, that's an important aspect of the evolution of society. You go from 20 pig farmers with no middle school or possibly even elementary school education carrying buckets in the baking sun wading in knee deep mud to 8 college-educated technicians, 2 mechanical engineering PhDs and a management PhD working in a highly automated 10+ story facility to raise 10x more hogs than the 100 guys in a field while occupying the same floor space. Education and automation is the future.

However, I would agree with your characterization largely (with some caveats), quantity * quality. I believe however that you can't be very different to others in terms of quality. Every human is largely capable of the same stuff, obviously culture, values play some part, but every human can be trained to be of the same "quality." So quantity also matters a lot.

But with swaths of undereducated, it would appear that the bottle neck is education rather than population. And then, with many highly educated who are jobless, we are at another bottleneck of development rather than education. So in this bottleneck pyramid, pure population is still in overabundance.

I agree, however my point was different. I am talking about predictions. There were many predictions all the way from 1990s to 2000s about limb replacement etc. but they have not come to fruition. Specially in biology it is very hard.

But let's agree to disagree. My question to you is that, obviously it's good and convenient if there are artificial wombs, and automation etc.. But what if you are wrong, and there are no artificial wombs, advanced automation, AI etc. And in the end number of humans do matter in the end still after 50 years for sustaining the economy, innovation, defence and having a large market?

In that case, there is no disagreement. I was simply arguing against the claim that artificial wombs are just "meat machines" that churn out babies that are "not the same" and thus it's dehumanizing people. That would be an argument to not invest in artificial wombs, and I strongly disagree. It's a technology that needs to be invested in and you seem to agree. However, long before you made your account, there was a debate here regarding strife between the genders with some users claiming men and women don't need each other anymore with artificial wombs. I came out strongly against that sentiment because 1. you could lose a generation or even more waiting for this technology since we're not anywhere near getting it to work and implementing it in mass with affordability and 2. once the technology is made, it should be a boost to what we already have, instead of a reason to shun each other and break down the connections and weaves of society.

 

[coolgod]

View attachment 126552
It worked in Hungary.


That is one the reason why private tutoring is banned in China, also why China doesn't want to prop up house prices.

Wow, I'm surprised by how low the fertility rate is in Hungary, I thought conservative Christian values would keep fertility rate above replacement level.

 

[Eventine]

Wow, how do you come with these numbers man? How you disappear 1700 billions humans from this planet, even at a lower birthrates people are going to still have children, what ? every single East Asian is going to become gay or lesbian or something? In the worst case scenario unless a massive nuclear war happens East Asian population will fall from 20% to 15% of the global population and that is the worst in the reality is probably not near as bad, probably will fall just 2-3% due that birthrates are also falling in Africa and the middle east. Even the White Europeans populations will be still around, the reason why white European are becoming minorities in their host countries in due mass migration not because they are having zero babies.

China's population is projected to fall to 525 million by 2100.

World population is projected to rise to 10.4 billion by 2100.

525/10.4 = 5%, meaning 95% of the world population will not be Chinese.

"Oh but East Asians are not just Chinese!"

Right, but 80% of them are Chinese, so give it another few decades after that, and the numbers still work out.

"Ah, but you can't just project current rates into the future. We don't know what will happen in 100 years."

Correct, but "not certain" isn't the same as "not plausible." Honestly, if we're going to be having these discussions, we might as well work with actual projections instead of hopium. Japan's TFR has not recovered. Neither has South Korea's, or Taiwan's, or Singapore's. What makes China so special?

 

[tokenanalyst]

China's population is projected to fall to 525 million by 2100.

World population is projected to rise to 10.4 billion by 2100.

525/10.4 = 5%

"Oh but East Asians are not just Chinese!"

Right, but 80% of them are Chinese, so give it another 20 years after that, and the number still work out.

"Ah, but you can't just project current rates into the future. We don't know what will happen in 100 years."

Correct, but "not certain" isn't the same as "not plausible." Honestly, if we're going to be having these discussions, we might as well work with actual projections instead of hopium.

Forget it those numbers are way off. I do think will fall to between 1200-1000 million.

 

[Eventine]

Forget it those numbers are way off. I do think will fall to between 1200-1000 million.

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You aren't appreciating the difference between a TFR of 1.6 - as in Australia, US, etc. - and a TRF of 1.0, as in China, or a TFR of 0.72, as in South Korea. Those don't seem to be large differences but in percentage terms they are absolutely massive. A TFR of 0.72 is <50% that of 1.6, and since population collapse - like population growth - is exponential, it is a massive, massive difference.

 

[manqiangrexue]

"Ah, but you can't just project current rates into the future. We don't know what will happen in 100 years."

Correct, but "not certain" isn't the same as "not plausible." Honestly, if we're going to be having these discussions, we might as well work with actual projections instead of hopium.

Oh, but it's better to call something unknown and let it be than try your best to imagine numbers 100 years into the future. Sometimes, when the accuracy is just too low, the best estimate is worse than no estimate.

It's the same as PLA plane-watching. If we actually have no idea weight and engine power of China's 9th gen fighter, it's better to just say that than to go, "According to estimates of China's current engine power and material science, with a projected improvement rate of XXX per year, the engine is predicted to to rate 326.2kN and the empty weight is predicted to be 8.54 metric tons by the year 2128 when we project the 9th gen prototype will fly."