Whether cultures die depends on what you consider a culture. But languages are often regarded as an important pillar of culture, and that article mentions a language that died within the last 40 years. And that's far from the only one. More languages are dying all the time.
Similarly, small "cultures" are disappearing constantly: local hobbyist groups of various kinds, craft traditions, all sort of things. You can argue that these are only cultural practices and not "whole cultures", but when enough of these things die, the culture has effectively died. It may die in a ship-of-Theseus way where it slowly morphs into something else, but still when that happens, there can come a point at which what the original culture was is lost. That process definitely continues to happen, and probably is accelerating in the present day.
> "Together these trends suggest that today the “cultural” features of our behaviors [. . .] may have long been drifting into maladaptation. This seems most plausible regarding fertility, but also seems believable re increasing mental illness and drug addiction, legal over-complexity, over-regulation of commerce, over-spending on education and medicine, and many other problematic social trends."
He's obviously right. But there's either:
(1) No obvious solution. WRT fertility, nobody really knows what might work -- everything that has been tried thus far, e.g. in S.Korea and Hungary, has failed.
(2) No way there from here. It's all very well and good to say that the status of education should be reduced, or that the medical profession should be opened up, but it's very difficult to do this by decree -- and anybody who tries is up against entrenched "special interests."
In some cases #1 and #2 are, in a way, the same thing. The next step to take on fertility probably involves massive cash bonuses to parents, which a large fraction of the voter-base in democratic states is not going to be happy about. (Which gives China an advantage if they decide to get serious about this.)
I can think of some things that might work re fertility:
Universal healthcare that includes women's health, fertility care, and abortion.
Better wages and shorter working hours.
Free universal childcare.
Protected parental leave for both parents.
People don't have kids because it's risky for their health and their careers, and because it's so incredibly expensive. It can be a catch-22 if you want to have kids, but you can't afford daycare and also can't afford for one parent to stay at home.
Still, all efforts made in those directions haven't really moved the needle. TFR continues to drop.
And "better wages and shorter working hours" isn't necessarily something that government can mandate -- as it doesn't set wages and can't really set a blanket restriction on the working hours of professionals.
The thing is, that's probably the biggest one. When young salarymen and women in Japan are unwilling to become parents because they make too little, or work too many hours to sustain a relationship, or because their employment prospects after having kids are diminished, then they won't have kids.
Any government that isn't a tyranny can't fix that problem, but certain governments (I'll explain below) can give cash incentives to have children. Imagine, e.g., $100k per birth. That would be a tremendous deal for the government, as the child's tax contributions are likely to far exceed that amount. It would also sweeten the deal, in a huge way, for most parents.
...Then loosen restrictions on childcare, and an entire industry would spring up, as if by magic, to help parents. And help them dispose of that money.
That S.Korea hasn't tried this yet suggests that their government still isn't taking the problem seriously, or doesn't care. This is a massive, world-historical failure on their part. (It could be driven entirely by democratic pique -- older generations upset that they missed out.)
Hungary, for its part, can't do that. Let's speak plainly. Hungary has a large, and economically unproductive, Roma population. Huge cash bonuses would send Roma TFR -- already twice as high as the baseline population -- into the stratosphere, which would inevitably lead to civil unrest. In Hungary's case, tyrannical measures, such as onerous restrictions on private business, are probably preferred.
What's certain is that the solutions are not going to be neat, pretty, or even very popular. Few countries, if any at all, are going to get it right.
Take one trip to some nations in Africa, and you'll quickly discover there are indeed, thousands of peasant cultures undergoing, um, "selection pressures". Usually at the expense of one another. Even happens in places where we think, on the surface, one of the global culture holds sway. There are Indians out there, for instance, who might say, "Sure you may be Muslim, but you'd best be not just Muslim, but Medthavese, for my daughter."
There's likely one global culture for the author because they don't observe the others. Like many people they overlook, or don't bother observing at all, critical details. Out in the world, however, it's the details that do you in. That's doubly true on evolution's timescale.
> And our great health, wealth, and peace have greatly reduced selection pressures; cultures hardly ever die anymore.
Somewhat ironic that this is on the front page of HN next to this article about recovering lost languages from old tapes: https://theconversation.com/how-were-recovering-priceless-au...
Whether cultures die depends on what you consider a culture. But languages are often regarded as an important pillar of culture, and that article mentions a language that died within the last 40 years. And that's far from the only one. More languages are dying all the time.
Similarly, small "cultures" are disappearing constantly: local hobbyist groups of various kinds, craft traditions, all sort of things. You can argue that these are only cultural practices and not "whole cultures", but when enough of these things die, the culture has effectively died. It may die in a ship-of-Theseus way where it slowly morphs into something else, but still when that happens, there can come a point at which what the original culture was is lost. That process definitely continues to happen, and probably is accelerating in the present day.
This must be above the top end of my hearing range cause I'm not sure what it means but I have an inkling
Really not enjoying the fascist-eugenic turn this place seems to be taking.
Hanson:
> "Together these trends suggest that today the “cultural” features of our behaviors [. . .] may have long been drifting into maladaptation. This seems most plausible regarding fertility, but also seems believable re increasing mental illness and drug addiction, legal over-complexity, over-regulation of commerce, over-spending on education and medicine, and many other problematic social trends."
He's obviously right. But there's either:
(1) No obvious solution. WRT fertility, nobody really knows what might work -- everything that has been tried thus far, e.g. in S.Korea and Hungary, has failed.
(2) No way there from here. It's all very well and good to say that the status of education should be reduced, or that the medical profession should be opened up, but it's very difficult to do this by decree -- and anybody who tries is up against entrenched "special interests."
In some cases #1 and #2 are, in a way, the same thing. The next step to take on fertility probably involves massive cash bonuses to parents, which a large fraction of the voter-base in democratic states is not going to be happy about. (Which gives China an advantage if they decide to get serious about this.)
I can think of some things that might work re fertility:
Universal healthcare that includes women's health, fertility care, and abortion.
Better wages and shorter working hours.
Free universal childcare.
Protected parental leave for both parents.
People don't have kids because it's risky for their health and their careers, and because it's so incredibly expensive. It can be a catch-22 if you want to have kids, but you can't afford daycare and also can't afford for one parent to stay at home.
S.Korea and Japan have quite a lot of that, or have made efforts in those directions. Granted, it can be argued that implementation of some facets was botched: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17516234.2021.1...
Still, all efforts made in those directions haven't really moved the needle. TFR continues to drop.
And "better wages and shorter working hours" isn't necessarily something that government can mandate -- as it doesn't set wages and can't really set a blanket restriction on the working hours of professionals.
The thing is, that's probably the biggest one. When young salarymen and women in Japan are unwilling to become parents because they make too little, or work too many hours to sustain a relationship, or because their employment prospects after having kids are diminished, then they won't have kids.
Any government that isn't a tyranny can't fix that problem, but certain governments (I'll explain below) can give cash incentives to have children. Imagine, e.g., $100k per birth. That would be a tremendous deal for the government, as the child's tax contributions are likely to far exceed that amount. It would also sweeten the deal, in a huge way, for most parents.
...Then loosen restrictions on childcare, and an entire industry would spring up, as if by magic, to help parents. And help them dispose of that money.
That S.Korea hasn't tried this yet suggests that their government still isn't taking the problem seriously, or doesn't care. This is a massive, world-historical failure on their part. (It could be driven entirely by democratic pique -- older generations upset that they missed out.)
Hungary, for its part, can't do that. Let's speak plainly. Hungary has a large, and economically unproductive, Roma population. Huge cash bonuses would send Roma TFR -- already twice as high as the baseline population -- into the stratosphere, which would inevitably lead to civil unrest. In Hungary's case, tyrannical measures, such as onerous restrictions on private business, are probably preferred.
What's certain is that the solutions are not going to be neat, pretty, or even very popular. Few countries, if any at all, are going to get it right.
Robin Hanson has the superpower of making everybody who reads him stupider.
> over-spending on education
I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks we’re over-spending on education is not a serious person.
While I disagree with a lot in this post I think the author was referring to the huge cost of tuition for _individuals_ vs what is used to be [1].
[1] https://cdn.uvaro.com/member-site/uploads/Price_Changes2000_...
Wrong. Zoom out.
Needs to get out more.
Take one trip to some nations in Africa, and you'll quickly discover there are indeed, thousands of peasant cultures undergoing, um, "selection pressures". Usually at the expense of one another. Even happens in places where we think, on the surface, one of the global culture holds sway. There are Indians out there, for instance, who might say, "Sure you may be Muslim, but you'd best be not just Muslim, but Medthavese, for my daughter."
There's likely one global culture for the author because they don't observe the others. Like many people they overlook, or don't bother observing at all, critical details. Out in the world, however, it's the details that do you in. That's doubly true on evolution's timescale.
[dead]