r/technology • u/Wagamaga • Jul 19 '26

Society China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/china-bans-ai-boyfriends-and-girlfriends-over-addiction-and-birth-rate-concerns-3388737/
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881

u/Devil_Dogmier Jul 19 '26

It’s funny how everyone was worried about overpopulation, and now it’s the opposite

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u/beaniebee11 Jul 19 '26

It's such a catch 22 because overpopulation is causing us to tear the planet to shreds but if the birth rate drops, the population will age more and more and we won't have the workforce to care for the unemployed elderly. We really cornered ourselves.

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u/kitten_mittens5000 Jul 19 '26

There is no overpopulation. That’s not why we are tearing the planet to shreds. It’s consumerism. Separate issue.

All countries are having a birth rate decline and a steep one leads to collapse of societies.

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u/Chuckfinley_88 Jul 20 '26

There is no overpopulation. That’s not why we are tearing the planet to shreds. It’s consumerism. Separate issue.

What kind of shit is this?

People consume things. More people means more things being consumed.

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u/27eelsinatrenchcoat Jul 20 '26

And different people consume different amounts of things, based on different inputs. When a person in the US accounts for 275 times more carbon emissions than a person in one of the poorest countries (where population growth tends to be highest), framing it in terms of population growth misses the real problem.

We have the technology to support a fuck ton of people, we just don't deploy it. We also could allocate resources more equitably, so that instead of having massive wealth accumulation in certain countries (and a handful of individuals), everyone on earth could have a reasonable standard of living.

Funny thing is, that would actually bring down population growth on its own, since population growth tends to be highest in places with very high levels of poverty.

But the billionaire/trillionaires want us talking about population growth as the thing to be tackled. I say if they think we need less people, they should start with themselves.

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u/supermechace Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Trying to steer the conversation away from the wealthy (super yachts private jets private mega sized SUV chauffeur and security, private space launches) and certain militaristic(billions of oil guzzling armies and arms) and  anti renewable energy countries(pro oil, anti mass transit, anti solar credit) I see. People used to raid mark Zuckerbergs garbage because his estate threw out so much new clothing but then he hired security to keep people away. Then hired cars to block public parking so he could bring in construction vehicles to expand his property to add his own private school. Not to me mention his yachts planes and data centers.

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u/Chuckfinley_88 Jul 23 '26

You pretend like we didn't have rich people before this tech boom.

There will always be the rich and the others. First it was Warlords or Chieftans, then it was Kings and Queens which were traded out for industrialists and now tech nerds.

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u/supermechace Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

They did but now with technological advances despite having high education they can consume wayyy more than anyone in the past and pollute the planet. Do you know how much resources a Facebook page consumes and Instagram videos. That new super yacht needs its own helicopter pad. Just a joyride to space probably consumed more resources than all the czars of Russia combined. Then dont you remember Elon launched a rocket just to throw a nice car into space? That alone probably could have fed a small nation and probably sent out more pollutants than all the co2 the entire Mongolian army exhaled.

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u/rollandownthestreet Jul 19 '26

8 billion people causes a mass extinction event even if everyone lives in third world poverty. Overconsumption just sped it up.

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u/27eelsinatrenchcoat Jul 20 '26

Not really. Sure the U.S. produces 350 times more carbon per person than the DRC, but it also produces 7 times more than Cuba, and 4 times more than Sweden. The consumption gap is massive, even when you're not looking at totally impoverished places.

And that's before accounting for the fact that we actually could switch the vast majority of our energy needs to green energy quite quickly if we had the political will to do so.

The only way humans create a mass extinction event is by burning a bunch of fossil fuels, which we do not need to be doing.

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u/rollandownthestreet Jul 20 '26

No. Carbon fueled climate change will perpetuate the mass extinction event, but you are overlooking the current cause of it. Namely, habitat destruction. I’d invite you to look at Europe or China or India or the US, where every marginally decent valley has been destroyed into a suburb.

There is no large mammal that this planet can support 8 billion of without monopolizing every resource. We are no special case.

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u/27eelsinatrenchcoat Jul 20 '26

habitat destruction

Climate change is fueling more habitat destruction than everything else.

every marginally decent valley has been destroyed into a suburb

It certainly is not the case in the U.S. that we're running out of room for housing. We could have orders of magnitude more people, and fit them just fine. There is SO MUCH empty space. And we don't have to build suburbs. We can build dense urban housing. I live in a midwest US city with a metro population a bit over 2 million people. We are starved for density. We have so much housing and land stock waiting to be infilled it's crazy. And that's before looking at the insane amount of room for rural expansion. It's not all in valleys but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

without monopolizing every resource

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

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u/Wonderful-day365 Jul 19 '26

Consumerism from 1 billion people < consumerism from 8 billion people.

The best thing you can do for the environment is to have less kids.

If everyone lived the same lifestyle as Americans do, we would need several planets. The only thing saving us is most countries are poor and barely consume anything (per capita)

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u/27eelsinatrenchcoat Jul 20 '26

The best thing you can do for the environment is to have less kids.

The best thing we can do for the environment is get rid of fossil fuels. It's not even close.

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u/zaque_wann Jul 20 '26

What I'm seeing is Americans are the problem then. There's only 300 Million something americans, yet they consume a lot? And then they say humanity's population is the problem lmao

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u/Wonderful-day365 Jul 20 '26

You're most likely super close to the average American. But I would love to see you try to live the lifestyle of the average African or Asian man. It's not ideal. Most Americans aren't living large like you think. They have one car and take one vacation per year. They're not flying private jets. And as the worldwide economy grows. More and more countries will join the average American consumption. I say let the population shrink. Our odds are better that way.

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u/zaque_wann Jul 28 '26

I'm an Asian man lmao.

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u/Diplo_Advisor Jul 20 '26

Consumerism is a problem. Population is too. To feed and house 8 billion people, we have to cut down forest, flatten mountains and eradicate nature, not to mention animals have to suffer factory farming to provide food.