This presumes that it’s OK to become a parent under such circumstances. As part of my solution, am I allowed to suggest that it might not be?
If there was a moral rule that forbid most parents from becoming parents and this rule was widely followed, then we’d be facing an even more drastic fertility decline and population collapse than we’re seeing now. Possibly enough to wipe out humanity within some generations (assuming no drastic transhumanism like indefinite life extension in the meanwhile).
Are you supposing that the majority of children of allowed-parents would themselves qualify to be parents? If the trait was only weakly correlated across generations, then the exponential argument might remain less than unity for many generations.
I am assuming that there are sub-sub-subcultures which will have higher success rates of instilling this trait in would-be parents and at least one will have higher than replacement rate. Maybe a fertility cult that happens to give lots of child autonomy.
I don’t think that would occur until we got to apocalypse levels of depopulation where a modern economy simply dissolves due to lack of workers. My assumption (given I and my wife are both highly intelligent, well off, are non-violent, don’t suffer from any significant physical or mental health issues, and are generally reasonable people) is that we are in the top say 10% of parents in terms of child welfare. If we don’t make the cut, and TFR is already about 1.5 without this rule, then in one generation world population would be 90% less, and if the desired traits aren’t maximally heritable, another generation would see it drop to 95-99%.
Yes, that’s why I said populations would initially collapse. I think you are missing that there are already groups of people who would qualify, live close enough together (or would be willing to relocate), and instill that culture on their children. And if there isn’t, I expect some religious cults will quickly spawn once the gods reveal themselves and start enforcing this new moral law.
There definitely will… eventually. What bad things happen in between when we have 1 billion people too old to support themselves and 300 million working age people? When food prices go through the roof because there’s not farmers to produce food for everyone? When supply lines collapse because the modern economy is built on a certain density of population and minimum demand that no longer exists.
If there was a moral rule that forbid most parents from becoming parents and this rule was widely followed, then we’d be facing an even more drastic fertility decline and population collapse than we’re seeing now. Possibly enough to wipe out humanity within some generations (assuming no drastic transhumanism like indefinite life extension in the meanwhile).
Populations would initially collapse, but then people who follow the rule will exponentially increase the population.
Are you supposing that the majority of children of allowed-parents would themselves qualify to be parents? If the trait was only weakly correlated across generations, then the exponential argument might remain less than unity for many generations.
I am assuming that there are sub-sub-subcultures which will have higher success rates of instilling this trait in would-be parents and at least one will have higher than replacement rate. Maybe a fertility cult that happens to give lots of child autonomy.
I don’t think that would occur until we got to apocalypse levels of depopulation where a modern economy simply dissolves due to lack of workers. My assumption (given I and my wife are both highly intelligent, well off, are non-violent, don’t suffer from any significant physical or mental health issues, and are generally reasonable people) is that we are in the top say 10% of parents in terms of child welfare. If we don’t make the cut, and TFR is already about 1.5 without this rule, then in one generation world population would be 90% less, and if the desired traits aren’t maximally heritable, another generation would see it drop to 95-99%.
Yes, that’s why I said populations would initially collapse. I think you are missing that there are already groups of people who would qualify, live close enough together (or would be willing to relocate), and instill that culture on their children. And if there isn’t, I expect some religious cults will quickly spawn once the gods reveal themselves and start enforcing this new moral law.
There definitely will… eventually. What bad things happen in between when we have 1 billion people too old to support themselves and 300 million working age people? When food prices go through the roof because there’s not farmers to produce food for everyone? When supply lines collapse because the modern economy is built on a certain density of population and minimum demand that no longer exists.