Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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It's all about fertility, reproduction. When intelligence offers a greater chance of fertility, that species will trend towards becoming more intelligent. In the scenario where intelligence starts to become an impediment to reproduction, like exactly what is happening right now with humans, then a species will start to become less intelligent. So for an alien species to succeed, they're likely to need to adopt some sort of ideology that:

- Keeps fertility high

- Keeps outward motivation up

- Protects from pleasure traps

Explaining parts 2&3 - imagine we create some sort of virtual device that one plugs in and it just basically gives you endless pleasure. If enough people would be interested in such a device, it could easily destroy a species. A rather odd 'great filter' of the Fermi Paradox. It's a species not going out with a bang or a whimper, but something more like a moan. Similarly, if people are just comfortable enough with what and where they are, then they may not have the motivation to carry out the massive work required to actually explore the stars.

Putting these altogether, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the first intelligent alien species we meet immediately begins trying to convert us to their God(s). Convert all the infidels of the universe seems like one sure fire solution for all the above. It also sets the stage for dystopia for those who choose not to acknowledge the grace of Qzar'dn the Almighty.

> imagine we create some sort of virtual device that one plugs in and it just basically gives you endless pleasure.

There is a term for this concept: wireheading[0][1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/wireheading

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward#Intra...

(I'd thought wikimedia used to have a wireheaded rat?)

The species with the greatest fertility (prokaryotes) are the least intelligent.

(and looking at r-selected vs K-selected species in general the inverse relationship seems to hold: greater intelligence correlates with lower litter size; compare frogs and rats)

Yes, and K-selected species are much more likely to end up dying off. So we're considering an intelligent species that both managed to stay intelligent and also managed to survive against numerous predictable obstacles, including even overcoming hedonism itself which we may one day be able to 'produce' as infinitely and cheaply as anything else.

It really limits the practically viable type of groups that we'd run into, and largely rejects the overwhelming majority of the tropes of sci-fi. Because most utopic visions in sci-fi assume a sort of post-scarcity universe where practically everything is available in practically infinite quantities. Yet exactly 0 (to my knowledge) have ever explained how this didn't just result in mass self indulgence driving an extinction level fertility crisis.

In fact the only episode I can even think of that hit on this was "The Game" [1] in Star Trek, and it ended up being some trite story about the addiction being used as a foreign weapon, and not as an naturally emergent self destructive behavior of a society that surpasses certain technical/material milestones.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_...

If I ever stop seeing youngsters around me pairing off, or the slightly less young having children, I'll start worrying about wireheaded fertility crises.

Until then I'm burning cycles on more pressing sci-fi inspired problems, like whether or not it is ethical to derive sustenance from Eloi if you just drink their blood (like the Maasai?) instead of eating them (like the Fore?).

Perception can be tricky on this issue because each and every female having an average of 1 child would be a catastrophic level fertility crisis. Japan is falling into complete demographic collapse right now, and that's with each and every female having an average of 1.3 children.

So I mean imagine what that would look like. If you look at 6 couples and all have at least 1 child, with 2 of them having 2 - then it seems ridiculous to think about fertility issues as being critical. Yet, paradoxically, that's Japan - that is a ~1.33 fertility rate. And it means you are trending towards complete demographic collapse, all the while baby diapers are selling perfectly fine. And as that collapse kicks in, we'll likely see a vicious cycle - a rapidly shrinking economy and collapsing demography will likely trigger even lower fertility rates.

As for wireheading - I didn't want to nitpick that post, but that was not not quite what I am talking about. Rather, wireheading would be an example of the more general concept of some sort of a pleasure device. Given the state of fertility today, it's arguable that something as simple as the internet would suffice. All you need is something that people are content to engage in, in lieu of our natural biological instincts.

Collapsing demography due to the Black Death didn't trigger either demographic collapse or lower fertility rates: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Samways/publicati...

Tell you what, how about I tackle sustainable ethical Eloi husbandry, and you tackle the fertility crisis?

If you have a uterus, this should be no problem: you're not covered by Jockey Club rules, so AI is an option, and if you prefer live cover, you probably don't even need to pay for the jumps.

If you don't have a uterus, it'll be slightly more difficult, but I get 13m ghits for tradwife, so you ought to be able to find someone with a uterus who can be convinced to have 4-12 children?

Then there's always the A Boy and his Dog (1975) repopulation solution...

The reason we handled the Black Death (and world wars, Spanish Flu, and so on) so relatively comfortably is precisely because we had healthy fertility rates. Now we no longer do. In a place like Japan any such occurrence would now likely be an extinction level event.

And Japan is largely just a window to the future for Western society at large. Fertility rates lag disaster by about 60 years. That's the time it takes for the first generation (give or take 20 years) with poor fertility rates to start dying off. Japan's fertility rate only collapsed about 40 years ago, so today is still the good times for them. Our fertility rate is only collapsing quite recently, so we still have a good number of decades ahead. It's like watching a train wreck unfold at a snail's pace, yet people nonetheless failing to move out of the way.

Just to visually elaborate upon this all, here [1] is Japan's population pyramid. You can see that right now it still looks at least somewhat reasonable, even though they're already having horrible outcomes. Now imagine what it will look like in ~20-30 years when it goes from a sort of vase shape to an outright upside down pyramid. You should be able to see that it means the population will start declining at an exponential rate. And that's what awaits the entire Western world if current trends aren't sharply reversed.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#/media/F...

I guess you could try the russian approach to fertility: make music videos encouraging the populace to get knocked up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuSf1UcFRq0

Hahaha, you know - it seems pretty funny, but I think it's not a bad idea at all! They are also doing other things like offering substantial payments to married couples have who have children. They have an abnormal fertility issue going on thanks to the 90s. When the USSR collapsed Russia economically collapsed and fell into borderline anarchy, to say nothing of rampant alcoholism and drug use, which sent fertility rates plummeting even below Japan.

It's getting much better now, but they lost the better part of a generation, and they're still below where they should be. Their population pyramid is here [1] where you can see it all too clearly. That huge gaping maw that peaks at around 28 years old is due to fertility collapse in the 90s. I think it's also reasonable evidence for my 'vicious cycle' hypothesis.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#/media...

The trough at 80 must be WWII, but I wonder what the trough at 57 might be?

Rampant alcoholism would easily explain the gender imbalance at the older end: male and alcoholic tends to end poorly, especially if tobacco is involved on top.

Really interesting point on the trough at 57. I have no idea! That's really quite visible, and would've been around 1967. But there were, to my knowledge, no particularly major events around then, in the USSR, that could easily explain it.

On the gender imbalance, men just tend to die younger than women. As a funny (?) factoid, evolution/nature also somehow optimizes for this. There's about 107 boys born for every 100 girls. [1] But after we get done getting ourselves killed in all sorts of creative ways, you end up with a sex ratio that's almost exactly 50:50 across all ages; at older ages you end with a sex ratio skewed towards women.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_ratio

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