Quote from: Knarf on Today at 06:29 AMAccording to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the average US home uses about 7,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year 1. One kilowatt-hour is equal to the energy used to maintain one kilowatt of power for one hour 2. Therefore, 7,200 kilowatt-hours is equivalent to 7.2 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year.

To calculate the energy consumption of Bing per day, we need to divide the annual energy consumption by the number of days in a year. There are 365 days in a year, so the energy consumption of Bing per day is approximately 19.7 MWh (7,200 MWh / 365 days

Knarf, maybe it is just me but I do not understand your data.7,200 kilowatt hour a year is just that.I don't follow how you are saying it is equivalent to 7.2 megawatt-hrs? I am missing something?

Back to the farm for Chinese youth?  Sounds like a recipe for another Cultural Revolution.

The Chinese Toast is getting darker.



https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/vantage-unemployment-defaults-is-the-chinese-dream-dying-13469682.html

Unemployment, defaults ... is the Chinese dream dying?

RE

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the average US home uses about 7,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year 1. One kilowatt-hour is equal to the energy used to maintain one kilowatt of power for one hour 2. Therefore, 7,200 kilowatt-hours is equivalent to 7.2 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year.

To calculate the energy consumption of Bing per day, we need to divide the annual energy consumption by the number of days in a year. There are 365 days in a year, so the energy consumption of Bing per day is approximately 19.7 MWh (7,200 MWh / 365 days

I definitely do focus on economics as the main reason why people aren't having children in the numbers necessary for a reproductively successful species, and I stand by that analysis which I haven't finished.  Working on Part 2 most of today while I waited to see if anyone would chip in.  Why  they're not having children isn't the same reason why they aren't as interested in having sex though, at least in the industrialized societies.

You mention the survey of Koreans who have not had sex for the past year, 43% of the women and 29% of the men.  In the course of my reading for this, I turned up a quote from another survey which said 50% of Japanese women report they don't even like having sex.  As you point out, since women now have the ability to be economically independent without marriage, they don't really have to have sex if they don't like it.

Where this comes into play is in courtship and then marriage.  Although not necessary for having children, marriage generally makes raising them a lot easier.  Being a single parent is very difficult even beyond the economic aspect.  Children who have both a male and female role model around tend to grow up healthier and more balanced, regardless which sex they are.  Coping with problems the child may have growing up is easier if you have someone to share the burden with.  So, decreasing marriage rates will clearly lead to decreasing TFR.  If the 50% of women who don't like sex choose to stay single and not marry, that's going to radically draw down the average number of births per woman in the society.  I think if you look at all of these Asian cultures, you will find decreasing marriage rates to go along with the lowered birth rate.

While this cultural shift seems most pronounced in the Asian countries, it's definitely also true here in the FSoA, based on articles I have read about teenager's attitudes towards sex.  Sex does not seem to be as important to them as their smart phones.  Physical interaction in general isn't as valued, particularly after COVID.

While sex with the opposite sex seems to be on the decrease, sex between members of the same sex appears to be on the increase, at least if you go by what you see in the media now.  Whereas when I was a teenager it was a huge controversy if a character in a sitcom was gay, now if a sitcom does not feature an LGBTQ couple it's cause for media outrage.  Wth the Korean women 43% of whom said they haven't had sex for a year, I wonder if that includes sex with other women?  Same question would apply with the men.

Also not addressed are how many of these folks are having a lot of sex, just they have it by themselves.  My bet is that masturbation is at an all time high, and certainly with the Japanese pornography has been turned into a high art form.  The bizarre fantasies of Japanese pornography can't possibly be equaled by any real life sexual experiences, and the selection of sex toys available for sale on TEMU is literally out of this world.

I think the dislike of sex is a consequence of overcrowding in the urban environment.  Being at close proximity to so many people all day, when you go home at night there is nothing you want more than to be alone, not squished up against another person in bed all night.  The rows of people on phones in call centers or on production lines, squishing onto the subway like sardines morning and night, you have had more than enough smell of the sweat and pheromones of other homo saps by the end of the day.

To conclude, I agree with you that a decreasing desire for sex with other people and a reduction in coupling up and marriage definitely contributes to the lower TFR.  It's still a consequence of the economics though and the urban style of living promoted by industrialization.  Living inside the city is where you find most of the bennies of this type of civilization.  The clubs, concerts, theater, fine restaurants, big sporting events, all at your fingertips.  All this stimulation provides a substitute for sex, which is about the only exciting thing a poor farmer has to look forward to doing at the end of the day.  Thus it is the poorest countries still making all the babies.

RE

It could be what K-Dog is alluding to. But, AI is going to make it solid with providing what a male needs to "come". Sperm will be collected but not only for population control but because there will be few pregnancies as the sperm resides in a receptacle and flushed.

You have it down to economic terms.  But things are more complicated.

QuoteAccording to a new study out of the city's Yonsei University, one in three Seoulites surveyed said they haven't gotten busy in the last year.

The study randomly surveyed 2,182 Seoul residents between the ages of 19 and 69 about their sex lives. Of those, 1,071 were men and 1,111 were women.

Business Insider obtained a copy of the survey's results, which showed that 36% of the surveyed people said they haven't had sex in the last year. Of this number, 43% of the women and 29% of the men said they went without sex for the last 12 months.

Women don't have sex without a reason.  That is a fact of life.  It is more complicated for women to have it.  Going without is something women in general are comfortable with and consider normal.  Some young women have a brief period when they desire a lot of sex, but that time is short and does not last long.

Worldwide women have gained economic parity with men in first world countries.  I don't care to quibble about women still making less than men do on average and in America I am not so sure that is true anymore.  The point is women are screaming 'I don't need a man' like they were being forced to have one which if they were, they could not scream 'I don't need a man'.  It is confusing NONSENSE, but nonsense that signals women wear pants and men can piss in the wind. 

The fact is women don't need men the way they use to. There is no reason to scream this obvious fact, but it does EMPHASIZE the need to give it up is gone.  This to be true in general, and it is more pronounced in Korea because it turns out.

QuoteHumans have inhabited the Earth for approximately six million years, yet one of the most basic instincts known to man is still considered taboo in Korea: sex.
 
It has always been the elephant in the room to the point where children and teenagers in Korea are oblivious and feel awkward discussing the subject.

If a woman does not gain anything by being sexual she is not going to be sexual.  For sure in Korea and really everywhere else, the virginal young woman has a much higher social status than the slut ever does.  The exception being a professional slut, but that is a limiting lifestyle open to few.

So in the world according to K-Dog, combine conservative sexual attitudes with feminine economic parity, and after the pioneer generations have done their pioneering, sex is shunned. 

Happiness falls through the floor.  And while some men adjust to a life where they 'can't get no satisfaction, some don't. 


The fact that some men can't adjust to a sterile life of smiles on the street from every women they meet and pass, and nothing ever else.  Will probably lead to nuclear war sometime soon.

The baby part of things can be managed, but that is not what is going on.  For a modern woman to be beautiful, it is enough.  And the modern woman gets to decide what beautiful is.  No reason to have a man tell them what beauty is.  None at all.  So having to put the beauty to work is a subject for the day of never. 

Sex no longer fills any need for women.  They have phones for social interaction, and phones are filling all kinds of social need.  Muting the desire for anything else.  Making modern life a wasteland where everyone can live like they are at a scrumptious banquet, while they starve to death.

I was already well aware of the electricity consumption pit of Bitcoin mining, however this is the first article I have run across that puts numbers to the absolutely ASTOUNDING consumption of WATER used for each Bitcoin transaction. It boggles the mind to comprehend that each time someone clicks the BUY button on a website and uses Bitcoin to pay for it, he is flushing a swimming pool worth of fresh water down the sewer to do it.  It's hard for me to grasp why these servers don't use the vast quantity of waste water coming from bath tubs or agricultural runoff for this.  Or closed loop radiator systems like ICE cars use.

This raises the question also as to how much water is used to run the ChatGPT3 servers each time you have it write 300 lines of code for a subroutine?  Not to mention the myriad of other applications AI is being thrown at.  Yet another reason the takeover of AI is not unstoppable.  Besides a shortage of power to run the computers, a shortage of water to keep them cool also will put a limit to its expansion.



https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cryptocurrency/each-bitcoin-transaction-consumes-4200-gallons-of-water-enough-to-fill-a-swimming-pool-and-could-potentially-cause-freshwater-shortages

Each Bitcoin transaction uses 4,200 gallons of water — enough to fill a swimming pool — and could potentially cause freshwater shortages

RE

The Children of Men scenario now playing in South Korea.  Coming soon to a maternity ward near you. Now down to a 0.7 Total Fertility Rate!

https://unherd.com/thepost/how-to-avoid-south-koreas-demographic-disaster/

How to avoid South Korea's demographic disaster


RE

Quote from: TDoS on Dec 03, 2023, 07:18 PMPhoto from early November. Didn't realize they were magnets, looked like support pins or some part of holding it together. The locations on the US map look like they are doing the same thing. Are they magnets?

Yes, the ones on the globe are magnets also.  Not just on the US map, also one on Rio de Janeiro in Brasil and another on Sydney, Australia.  All the locations I lived for 2+ years.  The idea was visitors could attach a memento to any of them.  The top ones were to attach a metal top piece which I never got round to having welded together.

I must say you have made me extraordinarily happy to have had at least 1 person who is familiar with my years writing on collapse that has visited the monument.  How did you find it?  It has been years since I last published the location.

I myself have not been back to Springfield since the final placement of the stones, at least 5 years ago by now I think, so that's a good little interval to see the initial wear & tear.  I am not sure of the process on rusting with Neodymium, if it rusts through and corrodes away completely like Iron, or if once the surface oxidizes it protects what is beneath like Aluminum.  I would guess at least for now they still hold their magnetic properties, but if/when they oxidize through they no longer will.  Very powerful magnets though when new.

I don't suppose you got photos of the 12 Principles of Sustainable living for Homo Sap on Earth?  I can't find any of my old files with that stuff on it.

For anybody else who wants to make the trek there, it's at Greenlawn Cemetery on North National Street in Springfield , MO, 37 degrees N latitude, 93 degrees West longitude.  I used to have the location to 4 decimal places, I also can't find that. 

Other than the rusting magnets, structurally it looks to be pretty solid and the site looks like it is being well maintained with good gas powered lawn tractors and Monsanto weed killer.  I wonder how long before it becomes all overgrown?   Anyhow, I think that cemetery is pretty safe from being developed with McMansions dropped on top of it before we get full on collapse.

RE

Quote from: RE on Dec 02, 2023, 07:18 PMDid you take that photo recently?  When did you go by there?  If so, I would say the neodymium magnets are oxidizing faster than I expected.  I thought the epoxy coating would keep the air out better.  I wonder if they still hold their magnetic properties?    Did you try sticking any ferromagnetic object to them?

Photo from early November. Didn't realize they were magnets, looked like support pins or some part of holding it together. The locations on the US map look like they are doing the same thing. Are they magnets?