It’s no coincidence that Japan’s working age population peaked in 1996 when their GDP began to stagnate. It wasn’t until 2012 that GDP per capita really started to disconnect from the US (“coincidentally” about the same time the post-WW2 baby boomers reached retirement age in Japan).
China’s working age population peaked around 2016 (perhaps lower starting GDP per capita at this time has allowed for continued growth through this shrinking workforce unlike the extreme rich Japan in 1996). China’s Great Leap Forward baby boomers are just turning 60 now (the CPP pushed back retirement age a few years recently to 58 and 63 respectively). My prediction is we start to see low GDP growth (<2%), or even stagnation starting around 2026 for China when mass retirement begins. GDP per working age person will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.
It would be interesting to get data on these four categories (WAP%, dependency ratio, total WAP, and WAP growth) and to compare countries across the world and try to retrogress trends to develop predictive models. Then we could start predicting trends for countries like China and India, and also discover the limits of African growth. I'm cynical that this data is easy to access within a 4 hour research session but would be a good future project.
“Meltdown: planetary china-syndrome, dissolution of the biosphere into the technosphere, terminal speculative bubble crisis, ultravirus, and revolution stripped of all christian-socialist eschatology”
Dragon Ball Z is a great show, everyone should watch it.
AI will probably not be coming for for the jobs of lawyers and engineers because LLMs are basically mechanical wordcels who are good at memory and language but bad at reasoning and anything spatial. Also doctors will not be replaced by AI because it places more liability on medical companies if the AI makes a mistake. The jobs which will be hurt the most are jobs that mainly just exist because the economy needs them to exist — low level government and corporate bureaucrats who spend all day on excel (if even) and programmers who copy and paste from stack exchange all day. Robots in these roles will probably still be expensive due to power requirements and also will not achieve the actual purpose of these jobs which is to give people who aren’t dull but aren’t particularly high in aptitude something to do all day and some money to spend on commodities so that companies can sell their stuff. In this case, because these jobs are already sort of meaningless, they’ll probably stick around if I had to guess.
"AI would have the same effect as importing millions of lawyers, doctors, engineers, and scientists." In other words, no, AI will not eliminate these jobs entirely -- it will suppress wages or shrink the available job pool. Obviously top lawyers and top doctors and top engineers all keep their jobs. It's the lower level clerks, nurses, assistants, and legal aides who are threatened.
The medical industry is a bureaucracy. There is more paperwork in medicine than any other field besides law. There are millions of jobs that come just from filing papers, sending faxes (yes, doctors still send faxes). This will all be eliminated by AI.
The precedent here is the Rust Belt de-industrialization. You are placing a lot of faith in public/private charity if you think all these people are going to be given new / fake jobs in the same industry.
I have a different take on midwit white collar work. I think it is already largely political patronage and technology could already make it obsolete but doesn’t. New technology will be the same.
Let’s take a simple example. Today I was in a meeting where they talked about making sure that individuals speaking a number of obscure languages (including brail) not only got a letter in the mail but a phone call to make sure they got the letter. The letters had to be signed off by legal, HR, compliance, etc. who knows how many other people at other departments or organizations did work related to making sure one eligible member got their translated letter that they would probably throw in the trash without reading?
New technology makes it easier to translate and send and track all these letters, but the very fact that it’s even possible means the government can mandate it. As AI makes new nonsense possible the government will mandate it.
Similarly my kid wastes time at school learning sign language. And you’ve probably seen the sign language person taking on half the screen of every government broadcast.
My district spends $300,000k per teacher and only $72,000 on teacher salaries. The rest goes into admin jobs to do government regulation bullshit.
We could replace those people with Kahn Academy or AI tutors, but we won’t. Or kids will play on their laptops while teachers goof off (already the case).
Because at the end of the day midwits have just enough agency and numbers that they aren’t going to let themselves get mass unemployed. They are going to demand, and get, their share of the pie. Even if it means a thousand bullshit jobs must bloom.
The only thing that occasionally resets a process of midwit bloat is a war or some very unique individual (think Elon blowing up cost plus contracting in rocketry). As you note, such individuals are unique genetically and culturally.
"Split evenly between America and Europe, this would increase the Asian population of both America and Europe by 10% each, respectively."
This is confusing. At first I thought you meant it would increase the Asian population by 1.1x, which isn't that much. Later context shows you mean it would increase the population from 5% to 15%, for instance. You should make that clear, say something like it would triple the Asian population to over 15% of the overall country or something.
Your interpretation of the Turkiye/Azerbaijan situation is strange. Turkiye already is the great protector of Azerbaijan, they have great relations. Azerbaijan has mehh relations with Iran, which has historically supporter Armenia, although there is a pipeline through which the Azeris import gas, mostly from Turkmenistan. Iran and Turkiye are also required for the Azeris to supply Nakchivan with gas.
The baku oil/gas fields are not as lucrative as you think, and Turkiye already greatly benefits from them by the high TANAP pipeline tariffs. TPAO (the Turkish NOC) has no interest in developing offshore o/g projects, and probably not the capacity (the stuff is pretty deep water, only the majors can really handle it). Iranians could neither, and the main block for their participations is sanctions limiting them to venture with BP or TotalEnergies..
Long story short, there is no conflict between Turkiye and Iran over Azerbaijan, nor will there be
Fun analysis. The genetic developments speculative conclusion feels like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Didn't see that coming. I never knew Stalin was Georgian. Interesting indeed. Leaders from fringe borderland territories, or exile, seem to somehow pack an extra punch of power and influence. I've never seen the Stratfor projection. I'm curious to read the linked article and argument for that. The Azerbaijan region of Iran is something I've coincidentally just learned about.
If there is something like a massive Chinese or Indian exodus, I think reactionary politics would counter massive migrations, plus populations would also resettle in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and wherever they could. It'd be far more dispersed. Even in Africa. What comes after that, who knows. Depends on how gradual it is, I suppose.
It’s no coincidence that Japan’s working age population peaked in 1996 when their GDP began to stagnate. It wasn’t until 2012 that GDP per capita really started to disconnect from the US (“coincidentally” about the same time the post-WW2 baby boomers reached retirement age in Japan).
China’s working age population peaked around 2016 (perhaps lower starting GDP per capita at this time has allowed for continued growth through this shrinking workforce unlike the extreme rich Japan in 1996). China’s Great Leap Forward baby boomers are just turning 60 now (the CPP pushed back retirement age a few years recently to 58 and 63 respectively). My prediction is we start to see low GDP growth (<2%), or even stagnation starting around 2026 for China when mass retirement begins. GDP per working age person will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.
This data says American WAP % (lol) peaked around 2006:
zippia.com/advice/working-age-population/
Declining WAP% is the inverse of dependency ratio:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/americas-looming-demograp_b_3422807
But absolute / total WAP is still increasing:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA25TTUSM647N
WAP growth peaked around 1975 and is now fairly slow:
https://www.edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/the-american-working-age-population-and-thus-our-potential-labor-force-is-shrinking-relative-to-the-economy-population-aging-is-the-main-driver-as-4mm-baby-boomers-or-2-of-the-working-age-populat/?view=detail
It would be interesting to get data on these four categories (WAP%, dependency ratio, total WAP, and WAP growth) and to compare countries across the world and try to retrogress trends to develop predictive models. Then we could start predicting trends for countries like China and India, and also discover the limits of African growth. I'm cynical that this data is easy to access within a 4 hour research session but would be a good future project.
Definitely worth exploring. I might do that this weekend with WAP and WAP% if I feel economic analysis urge.
My labor down with fertility,
You know I been working on the GDP.
Feminism's shift, changing how we play.
Gender roles evolve in this modern day.
Growth is slow, but I'm here to make it pop.
With my skills and drive, I will not stop.
Pay gap persists, looking for a fix.
Women's roles expand, but at what risk?
Childcare costs, who's paying the fee?
When both parents work, you lose fertility.
Economic models must adapt and address
The population aging, systems under stress.
Aging population, yeah the number's tight.
Dependency ratios up every night.
Fertility low, so we import the young.
Immigration's speaking in a different tongue.
Feminism's shift, more women in the game.
Changing gender roles, things ain't been the same.
Who's in the workforce? Who pays for the state?
When the old retire, who will innovate?
The macroeconomics of finding a mate
Marital crisis will determine our fate
Economies worldwide, they gotta adapt
Working age population, potential untapped
It's time for growth and social change
The future's now, let's rearrange. (WORD)
“Meltdown: planetary china-syndrome, dissolution of the biosphere into the technosphere, terminal speculative bubble crisis, ultravirus, and revolution stripped of all christian-socialist eschatology”
Dragon Ball Z is a great show, everyone should watch it.
AI will probably not be coming for for the jobs of lawyers and engineers because LLMs are basically mechanical wordcels who are good at memory and language but bad at reasoning and anything spatial. Also doctors will not be replaced by AI because it places more liability on medical companies if the AI makes a mistake. The jobs which will be hurt the most are jobs that mainly just exist because the economy needs them to exist — low level government and corporate bureaucrats who spend all day on excel (if even) and programmers who copy and paste from stack exchange all day. Robots in these roles will probably still be expensive due to power requirements and also will not achieve the actual purpose of these jobs which is to give people who aren’t dull but aren’t particularly high in aptitude something to do all day and some money to spend on commodities so that companies can sell their stuff. In this case, because these jobs are already sort of meaningless, they’ll probably stick around if I had to guess.
Let me clarify my position:
"AI would have the same effect as importing millions of lawyers, doctors, engineers, and scientists." In other words, no, AI will not eliminate these jobs entirely -- it will suppress wages or shrink the available job pool. Obviously top lawyers and top doctors and top engineers all keep their jobs. It's the lower level clerks, nurses, assistants, and legal aides who are threatened.
The medical industry is a bureaucracy. There is more paperwork in medicine than any other field besides law. There are millions of jobs that come just from filing papers, sending faxes (yes, doctors still send faxes). This will all be eliminated by AI.
The precedent here is the Rust Belt de-industrialization. You are placing a lot of faith in public/private charity if you think all these people are going to be given new / fake jobs in the same industry.
I have a different take on midwit white collar work. I think it is already largely political patronage and technology could already make it obsolete but doesn’t. New technology will be the same.
Let’s take a simple example. Today I was in a meeting where they talked about making sure that individuals speaking a number of obscure languages (including brail) not only got a letter in the mail but a phone call to make sure they got the letter. The letters had to be signed off by legal, HR, compliance, etc. who knows how many other people at other departments or organizations did work related to making sure one eligible member got their translated letter that they would probably throw in the trash without reading?
New technology makes it easier to translate and send and track all these letters, but the very fact that it’s even possible means the government can mandate it. As AI makes new nonsense possible the government will mandate it.
Similarly my kid wastes time at school learning sign language. And you’ve probably seen the sign language person taking on half the screen of every government broadcast.
My district spends $300,000k per teacher and only $72,000 on teacher salaries. The rest goes into admin jobs to do government regulation bullshit.
We could replace those people with Kahn Academy or AI tutors, but we won’t. Or kids will play on their laptops while teachers goof off (already the case).
Because at the end of the day midwits have just enough agency and numbers that they aren’t going to let themselves get mass unemployed. They are going to demand, and get, their share of the pie. Even if it means a thousand bullshit jobs must bloom.
The only thing that occasionally resets a process of midwit bloat is a war or some very unique individual (think Elon blowing up cost plus contracting in rocketry). As you note, such individuals are unique genetically and culturally.
"Split evenly between America and Europe, this would increase the Asian population of both America and Europe by 10% each, respectively."
This is confusing. At first I thought you meant it would increase the Asian population by 1.1x, which isn't that much. Later context shows you mean it would increase the population from 5% to 15%, for instance. You should make that clear, say something like it would triple the Asian population to over 15% of the overall country or something.
Hmm…
Your interpretation of the Turkiye/Azerbaijan situation is strange. Turkiye already is the great protector of Azerbaijan, they have great relations. Azerbaijan has mehh relations with Iran, which has historically supporter Armenia, although there is a pipeline through which the Azeris import gas, mostly from Turkmenistan. Iran and Turkiye are also required for the Azeris to supply Nakchivan with gas.
The baku oil/gas fields are not as lucrative as you think, and Turkiye already greatly benefits from them by the high TANAP pipeline tariffs. TPAO (the Turkish NOC) has no interest in developing offshore o/g projects, and probably not the capacity (the stuff is pretty deep water, only the majors can really handle it). Iranians could neither, and the main block for their participations is sanctions limiting them to venture with BP or TotalEnergies..
Long story short, there is no conflict between Turkiye and Iran over Azerbaijan, nor will there be
Fun analysis. The genetic developments speculative conclusion feels like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Didn't see that coming. I never knew Stalin was Georgian. Interesting indeed. Leaders from fringe borderland territories, or exile, seem to somehow pack an extra punch of power and influence. I've never seen the Stratfor projection. I'm curious to read the linked article and argument for that. The Azerbaijan region of Iran is something I've coincidentally just learned about.
If there is something like a massive Chinese or Indian exodus, I think reactionary politics would counter massive migrations, plus populations would also resettle in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and wherever they could. It'd be far more dispersed. Even in Africa. What comes after that, who knows. Depends on how gradual it is, I suppose.
A very pessimistic view of the future, dystopic even. I don't believe it.
You could say the same thing about any moment of history. This isn't an argument, but literally wishful thinking.
You could say the exact same thing about what you wrote, it too is wishful thinking. Just wishful thinking from a pessimists point of view.
Kojima’s metal gear solid 4 but IRL