this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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your great grandkids living in total economic collapse. peachy
Infinite growth was never gonna last forever.
Carefully planned level sustainability wasn't off the table. No one even tried.
Applying pressure to the middle class just topples the cards
That's a capitalism problem, not a demographic one.
Then why are communist countries also seeing the same problem?
Because they're not communist. At best they're state capitalism, at worst they're dictatorships, which is just capitalism with less steps.
If you can get even low quality robots that can provide some amount of elder care, even if it's just reminding them to take prescriptions and helping them walk, then you can drastically reduce the economic problems. there will be massive shortages of basic CNA and nursing home care workers.
Caring for the elderly is unfortunately a very small piece of the pie. A small number of CNA can handle a pretty decent number of elderly, in a facility.
Of course, we (corporate) stretch those CNA as thin as possible.
Automation in every industry that we're so worried about being our undoing will soften the blow.
It's possible that nanny bots could eventually help ease daycare costs.
Problematically anytime somebody creates something that reduces financial cost for someone else, They usually end up charging them significant amounts for it. Those inexpensive elderly care robots will end up being subscriptions and have planned obsolescence. Everybody's got to get a piece of that pie.
Do you have numbers for that? Because staffing is already very short and the ratio of workers to people needing care will get much higher. And a lot of them will want to stay in their home, which needs a much higher amount of care than in a centralized facility.
Sure!
Depends on what you're looking for capability-wise.
DME pill dispenser that notifies family if they're not taking the glass off the platform is a couple of grand and available now. It's like $100 worth of parts. Of course, you can have it for less upfront by paying a perpetual subscription fee.
But helping them walk, Helping them get up, even if steps aren't involved, that's a way higher price tag, we're looking at something Atlas or ASIMO class, you're looking at 1-2 million for the hardware and basic functionality. Tacking on insurance because they will be sued when someone slips and a decade or so of r&d in hospice and homecare. I don't think we're likely to see anything affordable in 1-2 generations.
Japan is leading the charge in looking at this because it's being hit hard by population decline. This will be in their face shortly. They have bots that can drive around and talk to people and can report on people in distress. Those are more car-priced. They're not going to help anyone walk, but they can provide companionship, which isn't nothing.
With lifespans advancing and birthrates dropping, you can be sure that they'll be moving as fast as they can. Even if the hardware becomes affordable, they'll charge as much as the market will bear. Look at the price for senior care. They own the building, and they're understaffing the facilities as much as possible. Slumlording as a service.
You sure have a sunny outlook.
And it's really going great now with all those people and their economies
My outlook is based on studies, and this crap is studied a lot. and also on readily observable evidence.
It's dire, and it's not based on my opinion.
Studies have been wrong before.
Some things are foreseable, "the future" is a combination of plenty variables and impossible to predict.
The single subject of population isn't even simple.
Little anecdote: I found an old school book, you know based on studies, and it had predictions for 15 years.
They were off by a billion.
Whatever it is, I'm not going to be a nihilist or fatalist for reasons and issues I have zero control over.
I am living now and do the best with what I got.
And people who just don't like what most studies say and try to use that as an argument are overwhelmingly in the wrong. Perhaps you're not, but I don't like your chances.
source please, sounds like good reading.
Settling for what you have because what's coming is inconvenient is likely a core mechanism of the Fermi Paradox.
I don't own that book and obviously wouldn't since it's outdated and wrong.
AFAIK most of the sources were UN or related.
And I think you make a lot of assumptions about me.
"just don’t like what most studies say" is wrong.
It doesn't influence my thinking. They may be true or not, I will deal with them pragmatically since they are out of my control.
It is you who believes "what’s coming is inconvenient". Catastrophic even.
What do you think you can or should do about the impending apocalypse?
So if you're not going to believe peer-reviewed studies, that means you just don't like what they say. That's unfortunately how the logic works there.
I'm not making assumptions I'm going off directly what you said.
When facts don't influence your thinking that's blind faith. And even scriptures tell you that blind faith is not viable.
I look at the facts, I look at the peer reviewed studies, I look at the current demographics for the countries where it's happening. Real tangible things.
You're looking at... nothing. You simply don't believe anything so you're not looking at anything, yet you call me the nihilist.
I believe based on fact and scientific evidence. There's math, there's projections, and they're there for a reason it's not some author just writing a story. These things are written by people who have spent their entire lives researching population and economy.
It's extremely difficult for prime breeding aged citizens to afford housing. At a level that is never happened. There's never been this much disparity between paychecks and housing. In the US, The price of education has never been higher ratio-wise. Four generations ago, your average person could get a 9:00 to 5:00 work hard and own house and a car no problem. Their wife could afford to be a house maker. In the end they still had enough money left over to go on trips take vacation when you could get it.
Current generations, even with college educations are struggling to afford housing. Even dual income are struggling. People are living very long times now, generational wealth is being delayed 20-30 years compared to back then. It's being depleted as the average life expectancy raises, they're living in these old houses until they're not worth anything anymore. Independently wealthy house flippers move in, by the property for a pittance, remodel it and sell it for full price again, or turn it into a rental.
Most of our retirements are based on the economy at this point. Hell we've even seen pensions collapse. When population reduction happens, you have less younger people and more older people. You have people that are retired with money sitting in funds that are affected by the economy. Population reduction means workforce reduction, tax reduction, social security reduction. You going to take all those old people at the top and put them back to work. When a population finally hits the red line, The economy and all of that retirement goes to hell.
Inflation, wage disparity, house pricing, education pricing, these are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Look at what you'd have to do to fix each of those individually.
Japan tried giving free daycare In a relatively small test. It worked a little.
People want to have kids. It's such a struggle at the bottom that they know that it's a bad idea for them and they consciously decide not to.
We need the younger lower and middle class to be prosperous enough to feel they can afford a family.
Can you get the oligarchs and the CEOs to stop hoovering up all the money and raise wages universally? If you do get the wages raised universally, can you Make sure that housing just doesn't go up universally afterward? Can you stop inflation from just eating all that income? Can you drive down the price of education? Can you stop the chain of greed? If most of the population is from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and they have houses and retirements, can you get them to care enough to act on anything to fix the incoming problems or are they just going to look at all the facts and say they don't bother them or they don't exist?
You can watch the video, you can go look up the population numbers for the countries involved.
This is unfortunately, the end of my discourse with you. You're welcome to respond however you see fit. I won't argue my points any longer. You're already perfectly willing to ignore fact and education of people far greater than me. What I'm saying here is probably rather pointless to you, but it's not for you it's for everyone else. Some people might watch the video actually get worried and think about it a bit. Maybe somebody's smarter than me has some ideas for viable solutions. Right now we're stomping the gas to go the opposite way as fast as possible.
I don't have the misfortune of being an inhabitant of the US banana republic.
Nothing o in your long rant applies to me.
Furthermore you put words in my mouth and misrepresent my view.
Indeed best to stop.
It's friday afternoon here and unusually sunny.
I'm going to enjoy my childfree life and weekend with a nice cocktail and some excellent beers.
Have a good one
You too. 👍
The only reason to believe it would be better with less people is delusional fantasy.
The problem isn't population, it's policy.
that's just your oopinion