“we might also be dealing with a new species of the state”
I think you've touched on something really important there. It feels like we're going through a phase change in how modern civilization is structured -- a catastrophe cusp if you like. We won't know what the new status will be until we arrive there as it's path dependent and unpredictable.
So let's work thru the claims for fertility alarmism:
1. China has about 1B people today. It is projected to have about 0.6B in 2100. That is less than today but more than it had in 1900 (say 0.4B people). We can do this for other nations but I think most will agree these figures are 'directionally accurate'. We can, however, say if present trends continue those 600M people will have lives much more free from famine and sickness than 1900. While resource use concerns were overplayed in the 1970's, 0.6B will consume less than 1B in resources regardless leaving resources humanity can use beyond 2100 if it needs or wants.
2. If someone had a baby today to address, the baby would be nearly 80 in 2100 and she will be living in a world that has more people than today and likely more than has ever existed in human history.
Given these two, what is the evidence that there is an issue or that if there is one we can do anything about it today? Imagine going back to 1900 and telling people we have a 'fertility crises' in 2024. What are they going to do? Have some more kids? If they did those kids would be dead today.
It is quite possible in 2100 increased productivity will cause people to worry less about their own bills (and consumption has diminishing marginal utility after a certain point) so will find increased fertility will be a better way to fill up time and better health or they won't.
If they do then population will start growing again and since we are going to be more productive after 2100 than before it, those resources we didn't consume between 2024-2100 will still be there for us to put to even better use.
If they don't, well you could put more people into the funnel today by having more babies so 2100 will be marginally higher but you can't fix a 2100 fertility rate with extra babies today. Not only that, using up resources now rather than in the future is by definition wasteful and increases future risks.
Of course this is all just using current trends and asking about non-dramatic changes. I'm not entertaining more extreme cases like CRISPR extending our lifespans to be more like elves, nuclear war wiping out a huge portion of the population, some type of back to basics jihad turning us all Amish or whatnot. I'm also entertaining just normal productivity growth. No AI singularity that solves all problems of physics, chemistry, and biology etc all over a single weekend.
You seem to be addressing an issue that was barely even touched on. I mean you're welcome to hold forth on why you don't think falling fertility is a problem, but I barely touched on that in this post. What I was interested in is the fact that the state had the effect of increasing fertility for thousands of years, and then within the memory of people now living it stopped. Doesn't that strike you as curious?
Apologies, I often find myself composing replies in my head so sometimes multiple posts are piled up and bleed into each other, which applies to you since you do talk about fertility frequently. I would question of whether the state's purpose has really been to increase fertility and whether this decline has even been something of recent living memory?
England, for example, seems to have mapped a massive decline before the memory of anyone alive today:
Note that was before women's suffrage, mass media, legal divorce and birth control. It also brings up something else. Around that time the English were essentially in the business of running India and China as colonies (or pseudo colonies). Yet by measure of fertility you have to say England was inferior as a state to those two. I mean whatever the rates were the point of fertility must be to have people therefore more people should be better. England and Europe versus Asia is so lopsided in history that it is really hard to say they are just an exception to a rule.
I would consider that the state increases its power by whatever the most efficient means over time. For individuals in a state, the goal has always been to achieve what's best called a middle class lifestyle. If you could get detailed population records, I suspect what you'd find is early states may have had higher fertility rates overall but those living middle class levels of lifestyle had lower. Exceptions abound but we have more in common with Cato than, say, an Amish man with ten kids. The difference is we deploy electricity while Cato had plantations worth of slaves.
A counter maybe that I'm just using a tautology. Sure everyone who lived in ancient Rome like a knockoff of Seinfield looks like Seinfield just relocated to the past. But I would define middle class lifestyle as moving from:
Survival -> Security -> leisure
A civilization skeptic like Scott may argue there was a 'leisure' at the beginning of that cycle and we just blundered by letting that happy state go in favor of actual states. I don't know but I personally suspect civilization happened very quickly and much earlier.
Regardless, I think the fertility shift is divided between the security and leisure proportions of the population. A lot of security focused people, like a low capital agricultural economy with almost nothing in the way of a social safety net probably lean towards more children. Sure it's a miserable existence for most of them and if times are tough, your kids may sell some of your other kids off to the Egyptians as slaves, but you just need one of them to make it really good and at least you'll have more tickets than the other guy who has fewer.
But even then the state was doing its work of creating a leisure centered class and with them come declining fertility. We just don't see it until around 1800 when we finally got around to a serious portion of the population moving out of the bottom of the well of constant focus on security.
But why does the state do that? Because that is optimal to increase power. I agree it seems intuitive that a society filled with young 20ish men who look like Conan the Barbarian should have more power than one dominated by pudgy Henry Kissengers. But, ouch, here the world is.
I suspect the cycle that causes this is since individuals inside a state seek middle class lifestyles, the state needs to bargain with its citizens over time to gain power by giving them that in exchange. It happens that when you combine pudgy Henry Kissengers with physical capital, you get a lot of power. Much more than if you combine it with 20-something Conan the Barbarians.
Dune projects an opposite case but note it does it by using a lot of contrivances to make that bargain impossible (bans on technology, a special substance found in one place etc).
“we might also be dealing with a new species of the state”
I think you've touched on something really important there. It feels like we're going through a phase change in how modern civilization is structured -- a catastrophe cusp if you like. We won't know what the new status will be until we arrive there as it's path dependent and unpredictable.
"path dependent and unpredictable" is a great but also terrifying way of phrasing it.
So let's work thru the claims for fertility alarmism:
1. China has about 1B people today. It is projected to have about 0.6B in 2100. That is less than today but more than it had in 1900 (say 0.4B people). We can do this for other nations but I think most will agree these figures are 'directionally accurate'. We can, however, say if present trends continue those 600M people will have lives much more free from famine and sickness than 1900. While resource use concerns were overplayed in the 1970's, 0.6B will consume less than 1B in resources regardless leaving resources humanity can use beyond 2100 if it needs or wants.
2. If someone had a baby today to address, the baby would be nearly 80 in 2100 and she will be living in a world that has more people than today and likely more than has ever existed in human history.
Given these two, what is the evidence that there is an issue or that if there is one we can do anything about it today? Imagine going back to 1900 and telling people we have a 'fertility crises' in 2024. What are they going to do? Have some more kids? If they did those kids would be dead today.
It is quite possible in 2100 increased productivity will cause people to worry less about their own bills (and consumption has diminishing marginal utility after a certain point) so will find increased fertility will be a better way to fill up time and better health or they won't.
If they do then population will start growing again and since we are going to be more productive after 2100 than before it, those resources we didn't consume between 2024-2100 will still be there for us to put to even better use.
If they don't, well you could put more people into the funnel today by having more babies so 2100 will be marginally higher but you can't fix a 2100 fertility rate with extra babies today. Not only that, using up resources now rather than in the future is by definition wasteful and increases future risks.
Of course this is all just using current trends and asking about non-dramatic changes. I'm not entertaining more extreme cases like CRISPR extending our lifespans to be more like elves, nuclear war wiping out a huge portion of the population, some type of back to basics jihad turning us all Amish or whatnot. I'm also entertaining just normal productivity growth. No AI singularity that solves all problems of physics, chemistry, and biology etc all over a single weekend.
You seem to be addressing an issue that was barely even touched on. I mean you're welcome to hold forth on why you don't think falling fertility is a problem, but I barely touched on that in this post. What I was interested in is the fact that the state had the effect of increasing fertility for thousands of years, and then within the memory of people now living it stopped. Doesn't that strike you as curious?
Apologies, I often find myself composing replies in my head so sometimes multiple posts are piled up and bleed into each other, which applies to you since you do talk about fertility frequently. I would question of whether the state's purpose has really been to increase fertility and whether this decline has even been something of recent living memory?
England, for example, seems to have mapped a massive decline before the memory of anyone alive today:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033074/fertility-rate-uk-1800-2020/
Note that was before women's suffrage, mass media, legal divorce and birth control. It also brings up something else. Around that time the English were essentially in the business of running India and China as colonies (or pseudo colonies). Yet by measure of fertility you have to say England was inferior as a state to those two. I mean whatever the rates were the point of fertility must be to have people therefore more people should be better. England and Europe versus Asia is so lopsided in history that it is really hard to say they are just an exception to a rule.
I would consider that the state increases its power by whatever the most efficient means over time. For individuals in a state, the goal has always been to achieve what's best called a middle class lifestyle. If you could get detailed population records, I suspect what you'd find is early states may have had higher fertility rates overall but those living middle class levels of lifestyle had lower. Exceptions abound but we have more in common with Cato than, say, an Amish man with ten kids. The difference is we deploy electricity while Cato had plantations worth of slaves.
A counter maybe that I'm just using a tautology. Sure everyone who lived in ancient Rome like a knockoff of Seinfield looks like Seinfield just relocated to the past. But I would define middle class lifestyle as moving from:
Survival -> Security -> leisure
A civilization skeptic like Scott may argue there was a 'leisure' at the beginning of that cycle and we just blundered by letting that happy state go in favor of actual states. I don't know but I personally suspect civilization happened very quickly and much earlier.
Regardless, I think the fertility shift is divided between the security and leisure proportions of the population. A lot of security focused people, like a low capital agricultural economy with almost nothing in the way of a social safety net probably lean towards more children. Sure it's a miserable existence for most of them and if times are tough, your kids may sell some of your other kids off to the Egyptians as slaves, but you just need one of them to make it really good and at least you'll have more tickets than the other guy who has fewer.
But even then the state was doing its work of creating a leisure centered class and with them come declining fertility. We just don't see it until around 1800 when we finally got around to a serious portion of the population moving out of the bottom of the well of constant focus on security.
But why does the state do that? Because that is optimal to increase power. I agree it seems intuitive that a society filled with young 20ish men who look like Conan the Barbarian should have more power than one dominated by pudgy Henry Kissengers. But, ouch, here the world is.
I suspect the cycle that causes this is since individuals inside a state seek middle class lifestyles, the state needs to bargain with its citizens over time to gain power by giving them that in exchange. It happens that when you combine pudgy Henry Kissengers with physical capital, you get a lot of power. Much more than if you combine it with 20-something Conan the Barbarians.
Dune projects an opposite case but note it does it by using a lot of contrivances to make that bargain impossible (bans on technology, a special substance found in one place etc).