ROGUE Age Accessory #1 - Population

The world coming out of its fifty-year slumber is entering an 'interesting' new age. Two independent phenomena conflate with this process: Population implosion and Climate Change.

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No one commented on the main text of my last post. This may mean:

1. You do not agree but are too polite to object

2. I state the obvious and do not rate a reaction

3. People could not care one way or the other.

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I summarise: The world is entering a very interesting new age when the technological change will accelerate rapidly. The reasons are:

1. Knowledge revolution thanks to LLM/GPT technologies

2. Educated people across the world now starting to pursue next generation technologies after having already catched up with the SOTA¹

3. Cheap energy

4. Multipolar world where the inventors may conveniently navigate between different sovereigns instead of being subject to the whims of one.

Looking forward, I am both excited and anxious for my granddaughter. It is not going to be an easy era. Whatever you say about the last fifty years, they were one of the most tranquil eras of human history. Not any more. We are now living through interesting times as in the Chinese curse. That is why I coined the acronym ROGUE, Renaissance Overlaid Globe with Upheavals Everywhere.

While the ROGUE Age is progressing, there are two independent parallel processes that coincide and interact with this progress. These accessories did not cause the ROGUE but will influence it. They are:

• The world population that will start decreasing soon; and

• The human-induced climate change with uncertain outcomes.

I wrote on the climate change before. I plan a refresher later. This week I will write about population.

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Peak Population

The world population is now 8 billions and is still rising, but at a fast decreasing rate. The growth rate is projected to vanish in 2086 and the world population will start going down after that, as shown in the following graph:

The above is a very interesting graph. The rate of growth curve (the red curve) suddenly takes a turn south in the early sixties. It must be the birth control pill (if not the strange dealings from the Laurel Canyon🙂).

The population growth rate is still strong in poorer countries:

The total high-income countries population has already started decreasing (the rate is negative in the above chart). But even in countries that still have positive growth rates (like Turkey and Australia), this is because people live longer not because babies are being born to maintain the current numbers.

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Peak Child

Most countries in the world have already passed the point with maxiumum number of children. Every year fewer children are being born in these countries. The following graph shows that rich countries have had the maximum number of children they would ever have in early sixties:

The above chart shows that compared to the peak of 80 million children in early sixties, there are now twenty million fewer children in rich countries. This is a reduction of 25% in fifty years. The effect of this trend on education establishment is worth looking at but I will not do it here. Turkey is about to reach the peak child point:

This chart does not include the Syrian and other country migrants living in Turkey. This is a serious confiunding factor for Turkey but I do not think anyone yet fully understands its significance.

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So What?

These are all interesting factuals and they will impact the ROGUE process. I do not subscribe to the view that a demographic collapse is awaiting us that will take us to the “End of the World” (this is title of a book by Peter Zeihan, who makes the most strident arguments on the definitive importance of demographics), but the population implosion is not insignificant.

The global population will influence the ROGUE Age in the following ways:

• As the number of the retirees exceed the number of wage earners, the existing financial structure will find it difficult to pay the retirement benefits. This is not a physical problem. The increased productivity in the 20th Century makes it easy to produce enough goods to supply the entire society even with fewer workers. It is a distribution problem but this does not make it any easier to solve.

• The nations will become more conservative as the ratio of elderlies increase because, in general, people get more averse to change as they get older.

• I have no firm evidence for this but I will say so anyway. I feel that the increasing elderly population is one of the reasons for the cultural identity wars. The youth finds it easier to change positions on social issues. In fact, the act of growing up is finding your place in the world and this is done by trying different viewpoints. Most elderly is entrenched in their opinions, which get stronger in positive feedback cycles offered by social media platforms. I follow some such platforms and always get bemused by some otherwise intelligent people having gotten stuck in their thinking tracks².

• My last point is self-evident. With fewer young males, it will be difficult to wage wars in the conventional format. This will not prevent warlike behaviour, but new warfare formats will have to be invented.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on what else may happen as nations get older.

I should also mention that the aging is not a phenomenon yet for most African nations and some South Asian countries, e.g. Pakistan. I do not know what will happen to them.

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Short Takes

US Steel company bets $35 millions on commercial fusion in 2030

Power, 28 September 2023

Nucor is a steel maker. Helion is a fusion energy venture. They are collaborating to develop a 500-MW fusion power plant to supply baseload electricity to a Nucor’s steelmaking facility. This is the first fusion Power Purchase Agreement that I know of. The Helion technology relies on magnetic confinement to start fusion in a plasma.

Referring to the above figure, the magnetic field accelerates the plasma from both sides towards the centre where it is compressed and heats up to 100 million degrees and fusion starts. Once the the fusion is started, it is self-sustaining. The hot plasma expands in the same magnetic field. The motion of the plasma in the magnetic field generates electrical current in the field windings. This is an ingenious technology and bypasses the intermediate steam cycle that most other fusion start-ups propose as the means to convert the fusion heat to electricity. I am not sure if this is still considered a heat engine and subject to the Carnot efficiency limit. Even if it is, and if it works, I expect it to have a very high efficiency. Many obvious technical questions come to mind but we probably will not know the answers until the technology is commercially established.

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You Tube

This is a clip that shows a way of getting off the floor from a sitting position. Ha ha, it is for old people. With your both legs in the forward position and the knees bent, you fold your left leg rotate your torso and try to lift yourself supported by the left foot, the lower part of your leg and the heel of the right foot. Peter Attia says that this needs warming up first. Otherwise, you can tear your meniscus.

Practice should take you to the point where you can get up without needing hand support, or so he says. I tried and cannot do it. I always need hand support. If anybody tries it and can stand up without using their hands, please let me know.

I think I mentioned Peter Attia before in the past. I have his book on my Kindle but it is a slow read at the moment.

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Pascal - Hagi

A few days ago, I was updating my computer. I left Pascal and Hagi in the room and I was out doing something else. When I came back, I found Hagi in a terrified state. He was refusing to enter their favourite playground, the recess on the left side of my desk. Pascal was OK but was understandably disturbed by Hagi’s panic. I think Hagi took a fright by the loud sound my Mac computer makes when rebooting.

How do I know this? When they are out in the garden, I put four balls in the recess. When they are let in, the first thing they do is throw the balls out. This time only three of the balls were thrown out and they were scared to go back in. I think the computer made the rebooting sound just at the moment they were trying to roll the fourth ball out but the sound scared them and Hagi probably thought it was the ball fighting them back.

This was two days ago. They are still not going into the recess and even have to be pushed into the cage at night. If I do not force them in they stay perched on the curtain rail, which is the highest point in the room.

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Diary

.Last Saturday, Eleanor had her first birthday. Our granddaughter is now 1 year old. We had a family birthday with Taylan, Yi, and Eleanor of course, and Yi’s parents and Meliz and I.

Yi had baked a cake the day before. It looked good and it also tasted good:

Eleanor can only talk a few words yet but can respond to English, Chinese, and Turkish to questions like:

• Where is your head?

• Kafan nerede?

• 你的头在哪里？

In response to any of these, she holds her head. She is also good with the ears and the nose.

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There is a Chinese ritual that you do on the first birthday. You lay out tools of different professions on the floor and let the child select three items.

Eleanor’s first pick was the ball of red string; the second time she chose the gold coins; and the final choice was the book. The Chinese rule book is predicting a comfortable life with no material concerns and fulfilled learned pursuits. Good result. Happy Birthday Eleanor.

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1. State of the Art

2. I try not to be like that but how can one tell?