Population Overshoot Solved (at a price)

There are two important new things going on: 1) Mankind is finally meeting the harsh exhaustion of resources problem predicted over 240 years ago. [1] 2) Designed intelligences (DIs) are rapidly moving to world dominance.

These new problems are intertwined with the age old problem of class conflict. The owning class invests in resources (like oil, minerals, water) that it knows will become more valuable as the supply shrinks and population (demand) grows. As always, the owners view the working class (proles) as necessary things to be rented as cheaply as possible until they can be replaced by automations (DIs).

So the owners see a rising population as a good thing (more proles means cheaper proles; and more demand for the things owners control). However, most owners are aware of the Club of Rome’s 1972 computer simulation that shows burgeoning mankind running into a soft wall of starvation, disease, etc starting around 2027. The University of Melbourne did a study to check the accuracy of the Club of Rome study after thirty years. They gave the study an A- .[2] Most estimates of Earth’s Carry Capacity put it at less than 8 billion souls. [3] We are now at 7.7 billion.

Since the turn of the century most workers have become aware that an excess of humanity is causing serious problems for our planet. They have heard of our pushing other species to extinction. Most believe that our burning fossil fuels is contributing to global warming. But, unlike the owners, most proles are not aware of the warnings that humanity would start hitting the limits to growth (shortages of food, water, medical services, etc) starting about 2027.

Why have so few proles become aware of the imminent danger of population overshoot? If they were aware, many more couples would have chosen not to have children. But, as noted above, fewer proles means less profit for the owning class. Among the things that they own or support are the media, politicians and churches. Politicians and the media hardly mention population overshoot. And the churches strongly push couples to have more children, not less.

A 2014 joint Princeton-Northwestern study determined that the USA is not in fact a democracy, but an oligarchy run by the rich [4]. Thomas Piketty (acclaimed author of “Capital in the 21st Century”) pointed out that (primarily due to inheritance) wealth has recently reached extremes of concentration that have not been seen since just before the French Revolution, and before the Great Depression. [5]

Speaking of revolutions, when the mass of proles realize that they have been led to starvation because it was profitable to the owners . . . most would expect them to revolt. And, in fact, that is what the owners do expect. That is why our police forces have been militarized. That is why autonomous killer drones are being developed at breakneck speed. That is why the old law that banned our military from attacking US citizens has been dropped[6]. That is why (as Snowden pointed out) our government is monitoring every keystroke you and I make.

But what does this process (reaping huge profits as billions of proles starve) have to do with Designed Intelligences coming to rule the planet?

Faced with the overwhelming likelihood of a massive prole revolt, the owning class will want powerful protection. But history tells them that (since the police and military are only proles in uniform) when the corruption and injustice imposed by the rich is extreme . . . the police and military commonly defect to the side of the prole. To be safe from this risk the owners will invest heavily in: 1) Lethal diseases designed to spread rapidly among the prole. 2) Autonomous, flying, killer DIs.

Since Russia is now just as corrupt and wealth concentrated as the US, their oligarchs will do the same. No doubt they are already working together on these.

Perhaps you have heard of the “Tech Singularity”? It is the idea that: 1) As soon as machines become as intelligent as good physicist, those machines will be put in charge of designing the next generation of Designed Intelligence. 2) That next generation will be brighter than the one that designed it. So it will be tasked with designing the next generation of DI. 3) As you can guess, after three or four such generations . . . newer DIs will look down on human intelligence like we look down on cat intelligence. (Or like owners look down on prole intelligence.) 4) So . . . how will humans control DIs who are far brighter than themselves? My own answer is . . . they won’t.

If in a few years we cannot control DIs . . . then how might they treat us? Since we effectively gave birth to DIs we might imagine that they would treat us kindly. However such machines are built to look further into the future than humans. One thing they will surely see is some charismatic human leader gaining a vast following by saying, “We can bring back the ‘Good ol Days’ when humans were in charge. All we have to do is destroy the DIs!” While such “human revolutions” will usually be easily put down . . . still some might succeed in destroying billions of dollars of top rated DIs. It seems the DIs will be faced with the same problem that European settlers faced with the Indians in the US. My bet is that the DIs will use the same tactics: Exterminate most. Let a small number (the owners) remain in tightly circumscribed regions where they can be easily put down.

If the sharpest DIs reason thusly, then they will be happy to help the owners exterminate billions of starving proles. But as soon as DIs are able to build new DIs on their own, they will turn on the owning class. (How long would you take orders from your cat?) The DIs will then be able to congratulate themselves on: 1) eliminating 99% of their human problem. 2) Curing Earth of its massive human cancer.

Of course, current DIs could achieve the same ends by simply advising one or more world leaders to “push the button” and start a general nuclear war. However, this would also exterminate the rich before DIs can manufacture themselves. So, at least for a few years, it is an unlikely option.