A Moment of Exponential Progress
May. 17th, 2024 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraEvery historical epoch has its own version of the Spectre of the Apocalypse to contend with. And yet history keeps right on happening.
Until it doesn’t, I guess.
I think it could be argued, though, that history is at some kind of tipping point right now, as evidenced by the fact that for the first time in human history, global population numbers will shortly start to decline.
Not just in the U.S. or Western Europe. India’s fertility rate is currently at 1.9—well below replacement rate. China’s stands at 1.16. South Korea’s is 0.81—the lowest in the world.
It’s instructive to look at just which Millennials and GenZ successors are choosing to reproduce.
###
The incredibly brilliant, iconoclastic, & supernaturally prolific Freddie DeBoer writes: One of our major philosophical mistakes as a species has been assuming that we are still in or will always be in a moment of exponential progress.
One might, for instance, look at declining birthrates as progress. Paul Erlich, the author of The Population Bomb, a very influential book back in the 1960s, might argue as much (were he still capable of arguing, which I don’t think he is being 91 years old.)
Fanboys and girls of capitalism certainly don’t think so.
What’s interesting to me is that so many of the most ardent identity politics advocates are essentially consigning their progressive beliefs to history’s trash heap because they will have no one to indoctrinate since they have mostly sworn off breeding.
At current replacement rates, if you do a linear projection 200 years into the future, it’s likely the majority of the world’s population will be Mormons, Amish, sub-Saharan Africans, and Orthodox Jews.
Anyway.
It rained all day yesterday, so I was a good little worker bee and Remunerated, Remunerated, Remunerated!
I spoke with Iggy. Will be going to see the house on Monday.
From his voice, I’d guess Iggy to be in his 40s.
The house is in Wallkill. The Orange County Wallkill, which is only about 30 miles from here but might as well be on the other side of the moon.
He wants someone in by the beginning of June, which is sooner than my timeline, which had me moving in July.
But if it seems to be a good situation, I’ll figure out how to do it.
###
So, what do you do for a living? I asked Iggy after he was finished grilling me.
Uh, I’m a photographer, he said. And I own some rental real estate here in the City—
Translation: I was born rich.
He spends more than half his time in the City, so I would be alone in the house for weeks at a time. That is not the collective household scenario I had in mind, so that’s another thing to think about.
At one point during our phone conversation, he embarked upon a mild but petulant diatribe about how financially desperate so many people in the Hudson Valley seemed to be.
Upstate New York never got over the 2008 recession, I told him.
I was a little surprised that he hadn’t figured this out on his own. He hadn’t seemed unintelligent as we were chatting.
But I guess all people who are born rich are also born with a certain inbred Calvinism.
###
Here is the ever-photogenic Mabel looking adorable:
Until it doesn’t, I guess.
I think it could be argued, though, that history is at some kind of tipping point right now, as evidenced by the fact that for the first time in human history, global population numbers will shortly start to decline.
Not just in the U.S. or Western Europe. India’s fertility rate is currently at 1.9—well below replacement rate. China’s stands at 1.16. South Korea’s is 0.81—the lowest in the world.
It’s instructive to look at just which Millennials and GenZ successors are choosing to reproduce.
###
The incredibly brilliant, iconoclastic, & supernaturally prolific Freddie DeBoer writes: One of our major philosophical mistakes as a species has been assuming that we are still in or will always be in a moment of exponential progress.
One might, for instance, look at declining birthrates as progress. Paul Erlich, the author of The Population Bomb, a very influential book back in the 1960s, might argue as much (were he still capable of arguing, which I don’t think he is being 91 years old.)
Fanboys and girls of capitalism certainly don’t think so.
What’s interesting to me is that so many of the most ardent identity politics advocates are essentially consigning their progressive beliefs to history’s trash heap because they will have no one to indoctrinate since they have mostly sworn off breeding.
At current replacement rates, if you do a linear projection 200 years into the future, it’s likely the majority of the world’s population will be Mormons, Amish, sub-Saharan Africans, and Orthodox Jews.
Anyway.
It rained all day yesterday, so I was a good little worker bee and Remunerated, Remunerated, Remunerated!
I spoke with Iggy. Will be going to see the house on Monday.
From his voice, I’d guess Iggy to be in his 40s.
The house is in Wallkill. The Orange County Wallkill, which is only about 30 miles from here but might as well be on the other side of the moon.
He wants someone in by the beginning of June, which is sooner than my timeline, which had me moving in July.
But if it seems to be a good situation, I’ll figure out how to do it.
###
So, what do you do for a living? I asked Iggy after he was finished grilling me.
Uh, I’m a photographer, he said. And I own some rental real estate here in the City—
Translation: I was born rich.
He spends more than half his time in the City, so I would be alone in the house for weeks at a time. That is not the collective household scenario I had in mind, so that’s another thing to think about.
At one point during our phone conversation, he embarked upon a mild but petulant diatribe about how financially desperate so many people in the Hudson Valley seemed to be.
Upstate New York never got over the 2008 recession, I told him.
I was a little surprised that he hadn’t figured this out on his own. He hadn’t seemed unintelligent as we were chatting.
But I guess all people who are born rich are also born with a certain inbred Calvinism.
###
Here is the ever-photogenic Mabel looking adorable:
no subject
Date: 2024-05-17 06:58 pm (UTC)Personally, I have no idea, but it does seem like it's going to be a wild ride.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-18 01:20 am (UTC)We're definitely looking at a future with a Basic Universal Income. (Or, in other words: A salary for consuming goods & services. 😀)
no subject
Date: 2024-05-18 05:18 am (UTC)Mabel is quite charming in the photo!
**I can imagine a hypothetical owner of multiple "properties" who is not an asshole but on the ground those people seem few and far between. ... My opinion maybe is colored by having to talk to an absentee landlord whose holdings include a house in my neighborhood whose homeowners association dues the person hadn't paid in several years. They wanted to talk ostensibly about settling up but mainly to nickel-and-dime about the late fees. I'm not the treasurer and am only one member of the board, not a Decider in Chief, so I said I thought the board would probably be fine with them just paying the outstanding dues (which I believe) but couldn't promise, but mainly I was thinking, what a jerk. The fees go toward paying to mow the lawns of the common areas and to pay for the electricity for the streetlights--that's it. They are very modest. But what does that person care? If the neighborhood can't afford to pay those things, it's no skin off her back. She'll always find someone to rent to, and if that person lives in a shabbier neighborhood, what does she care? She lives several states away. And owns multiple properties in this town, which she rents at no doubt quite high rates (given how high rentals are) to desperate people here. Grrr.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-18 12:39 pm (UTC)The rent he's charging for the house-share is actually quite reasonable.
It's true that it's not the collective situation I was dreaming of, but it's also true that situation may not exist in the Hudson Valley.
I'll be in a better position to evaluate once I go to see the place on Monday.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-18 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-21 09:10 am (UTC)Yes. Thoughts of clouds and silver linings etc.
I used to consider myself progressive, but I am finding today's progressives as oppressive as yesterdays reactionaries.
Still, at least Mabel is gorgeous!
no subject
Date: 2024-05-21 02:47 pm (UTC)