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Americans aren't making enough babies to replace ourselves

Well, I did my part with 3 and passed the torch on to them...they said "nu huh"...they're afraid they'll have to pay for their raisin'...:2razz:
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
What if that is the future: an entire planet devoid of farmland.

It would be like the planet Couracent from the Star Wars prequels: a planet dominated by a massive city.
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If so, where is the food coming from. Perhaps Soylent Green isn't that far fetched or that far into the future. Hybrid seed has made it possible to lose half our farm land and yet produce ten to a hundred times more food. But one day, hybrid seed will take us only so far. Some crop disease will take hold.
 
I have 4 daughters... Not only did I do my job but I had to live with 5 females for 20 years of so.

I drink a lot now.. ;)
 
Mach said:
And yet if we identify one, the nutters will oppose it and not believe it, even if there is a consensus among experts. It may leave either collapse, or exodus.
If it were up to me, I'd invest in AI for the goal of singularity, and then have it solve all this stuff for us. Some problems are just beyond us as a species, no shame in that. We're smart enough to solve it though (via singularity). Our minds evolved for some pretty mundane stuff...sex, social stuff, food, sleep, shelter acquisition...we need an OS update.
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Careful what you wish for. A real artificial intelligence would see us as the problem and anihilate us.
 
Idiometer said:
Careful what you wish for. A real artificial intelligence would see us as the problem and anihilate us.
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That's primitive fear-based brain programming though, all a thing of the past if we get it right (first). Why would it annihilate us? Makes no sense.

See Ian M Banks Culture books for some more modern examples :)
 
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Unitedwestand13 said:
Not if we followed and applied issac Asimov’s three law of robotics
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Yeah, good luck with that. If a true AI can be self-taught, what's to stop it from simply overriding that little bit of code? Or possibly replicating itself (reproducing, making copies) and leaving that out? I love Asimov's work as much as anyone, but his logic was coming from the limitations of his era, the 60s and 70s. Think of the advances we've seen just since his death in 1992.
 
Mach said:
That's primitive fear-based brain programming though, all a thing of the past if we get it right (first). Why would it annihilate us? Makes no sense.

See Ian M Banks Culture books for some more modern examples :)
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I've read most of Bank's books, love 'em. "Use of Weapons" and "Player of Games" are my favorites. That doesn't make me feel any safer about the prospect of a true AI. Perhaps it will depend on who programs it.
 
Idiometer said:
I've read most of Bank's books, love 'em. "Use of Weapons" and "Player of Games" are my favorites. That doesn't make me feel any safer about the prospect of a true AI. Perhaps it will depend on who programs it.
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Cool, not many have read them that I run into. They were slow in parts and some books in general, but setting was superb..good vision.
Considering we're all facing certain death, I don't see how much worse it could get.

Although if it created a near infinite "virtual" world...matrix-like, where we all go to live in any manner we choose, nearly perpetually, if that ever got turned into perpetual "hell", that could be worse I suppose. Spooky!
Humans are curious and ambitious though, just a matter of time. :)
 
News to warm cold hard hearts. Republican Fascists wrapped in the flag and religion will push with renewed vigor to stop and sharply curtail all immigration. It gives them the best chance of winning elections and having power.
 
Idiometer said:
Yeah, good luck with that. If a true AI can be self-taught, what's to stop it from simply overriding that little bit of code? Or possibly replicating itself (reproducing, making copies) and leaving that out? I love Asimov's work as much as anyone, but his logic was coming from the limitations of his era, the 60s and 70s. Think of the advances we've seen just since his death in 1992.
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The three laws Asimov laid out seem to be perfectly suited to stand up to advances in A.I.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
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Make those three laws central to any robots programming and tell me how a robot could possibly act freely without violating any of the three laws.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
The three laws Asimov laid out seem to be perfectly suited to stand up to advances in A.I.



Make those three laws central to any robots programming and tell me how a robot could possibly act freely without violating any of the three laws.
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There is no such thing as making code central to a robots programming. Code is code. None is more important from the computers perspective than any other code.
 
Americans can't afford to make more babies because they are getting paid less and less and costs are going up and up
 
Cephus said:
The whole planet could use some negative population growth for a while.
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The world could use a nice quelling of the herd

Skeptic Bob said:
It says one of the biggest factors is the decline in teenage pregnancy. Kind of hard for me to feel bad about that.
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Thanks liberals for improved sex education and access for affordable healthcare. doing away with the idiotic abstinence only education as well.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
Americans can't afford to make more babies because they are getting paid less and less and costs are going up and up
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Not really

The reasons for the lowered birth rate are mainly

1) Delayed sexual activity in teens

2) More widespread use of contraceptives

3) The not poor tend to have fewer children than the poor
 
No consideration is given to how mass immigrants from a particular region with values and views of government different or adversarial to that of the USA affects our political system. Even if they do not obtain citizenship, their children tend to mirror their parents values. That's why most Muslim terrorists in the USA are the children of Muslim migrants who have extremely anti-secular beliefs.
 
The reasons given in advocacy for more immigrants to make up for people not having as many children are a lie. There already are not enough jobs for unskilled blue collar workers and this will worsen with automatic. Exactly everyone knows this.

In addition to the goal of keeping the wages of dwindling blue collar jobs as absolutely low as possible, the main reason is that over 80% unskilled and uneducated immigrants rely upon government welfare, as will most their children, who will be voters even if their immigrant parents do not obtain citizenship. Because they overwhelmingly are dependent upon welfare, they vote Democratic. Therefore, the Democratic Party will do ANYTHING to get as many millions and millions more uneducated and unskilled immigrants into the USA every way possible.

So far, the Democratic Party has blown over $15 billion dollars on the government shutdown solely for the reason to oppose 1//3rd that much to extend they border barrier created originally by the Democratic Party in opposition to anything that may even slow down illegal migrants coming to the USA and having their future Democratic Party voting children here

An addition, by counting all migrants on the census can increase the number of Democrats in the House of Representatives in Congress. Each 250,000 immigrants - legally here or not - equals another Democrat in Congress in their calculation. But for the millions of illegal immigrants in the USA, the House of Representatives of Congress would be solidly Republican with over 50 less representatives.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Make those three laws central to any robots programming and tell me how a robot could possibly act freely without violating any of the three laws.
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"A robot may not through inaction allow a human being to come to harm."

So every someone died of old age, in a traffic accident, from cancer, or from being murdered by another human, all robots would get wiped?
Sounds expensive.
 
Deuce said:
Immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans. Maybe we should deport American citizens and replace them.
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That's a completely inaccurate claim. I've heard that being trumpeted by progressive activists, democrats etc. But it's about as accurate as their other claim that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in entitlements. The basic concept that each of their kids cost Americans roughly $12,000 per year in public education costs x 2-3 kids, and they are most certainly are NOT paying more than $12,000 to $36,000 in taxes each year on a $10-$12 an hour job! That's not even to count the cost of healthcare for their family or any other entitlements. In reality, illegal immigrants cost American taxpayers about $70,000 each annually. They are responsible for several thousand murders each year. I guess progressives don't mind losing 4000 people, as long as the victims aren't related to them, and as long as they get that superficial feeling of being 'virtuous' for support illegal immigration!
 
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joko104 said:
No consideration is given to how mass immigrants from a particular region with values and views of government different or adversarial to that of the USA affects our political system. Even if they do not obtain citizenship, their children tend to mirror their parents values. That's why most Muslim terrorists in the USA are the children of Muslim migrants who have extremely anti-secular beliefs.
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No, no no dude! Didn't you get the progressive memo? ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL! There's no such thing as one culture having more fair, free, or desirable traits than another! The only OBVIOUS exception to that rule, is of course western culture, which is just awful compared with all the others! Lol
 
sangha said:
Not really

The reasons for the lowered birth rate are mainly

1) Delayed sexual activity in teens

2) More widespread use of contraceptives

3) The not poor tend to have fewer children than the poor
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Not totally. My husband and I want kids but we're in our 30's now and still don't have any because we don't make that much money. Even with insurance, having a baby costs thousands out of pocket. Neither of us get any paid family leave, so we'd have to forgo a few paychecks when the time came to actually have the kid, and childcare costs more than our mortgage. We both work full time and have jobs using our bachelors degrees, so it's not like we're not working, or doing unskilled labor where you'd expect to have some lower salaries. The economy still sucks and the middle class isn't getting paid what they used to in relation to cost of living. Anyone who cares about their household budget will be focusing on their careers and being more careful about family planning.

I do agree with that this isn't totally a bad thing. Continuous, unchecked, population growth is detrimental to our environment and our own eventual survival as a species. Natural resources are not unlimited. I understand the negative economic implications of a declining population, but perhaps it's not our stagnant population growth that's the problem, it's our economic system.
 
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