Meet on the ground floor of QNC, on or near the gray slab benches at 7:20ish, and a regular will let everyone into a room in IQC for 7:30 pm. You can see the precise location on plus.codes. The benches are near the Ring Road entrance, and across the hall from an orange-tinted lab space.

As always, vegetarian snacks will be provided.

Activity

This week, we will discuss population decline and its consequences.

Readings

Optional Reading:

Please don't give up on having kids because of climate change- Scott Alexander (2021)

Discussion questions:

1) Does lower population mean a lower standard of living?

2) Should we count future people in utilitarian calculations? Does that obligate us to have more children than we want?

3) If population decline is economically fine at the national level, is it still bad at the civilizational level?

4) If some traits correlated with productivity are heritable, does a society have any legitimate interest in the average trait distribution of future generations — and if so, through what mechanisms?

5) If the non-rival goods argument for more population is correct, should we massively increase immigration from low-income to high-income countries (more researchers in productive environments = more ideas).