According to all models where fertility is a choice variable, fertility rates may stabilize at or below replacement level, but could decline indefinitely. However, as I explained above, even if fertility rates will remain below the replacement level, productivity per capita is very likely to continue to grow.
Our rate of adaptation could indeed constrain the pace of technological progress. However, future technologies, such as AI, are likely to foster our ability to adapt and therefore would mitigate this constraint on the pace of technological progress.
Posthuman tech seems like a pretty big wild card in a framework for sustainability. Also hard to imagine a future world in which our sexual impulses are almost entirely vestigial. I guess we're already most of the way there! It just feels like the modern era, as envisioned, eventually takes us somewhere that isn't fully human, in which case the definition of "standard of living" goes up for grabs.
According to all models where fertility is a choice variable, fertility rates may stabilize at or below replacement level, but could decline indefinitely. However, as I explained above, even if fertility rates will remain below the replacement level, productivity per capita is very likely to continue to grow.
Our rate of adaptation could indeed constrain the pace of technological progress. However, future technologies, such as AI, are likely to foster our ability to adapt and therefore would mitigate this constraint on the pace of technological progress.
Posthuman tech seems like a pretty big wild card in a framework for sustainability. Also hard to imagine a future world in which our sexual impulses are almost entirely vestigial. I guess we're already most of the way there! It just feels like the modern era, as envisioned, eventually takes us somewhere that isn't fully human, in which case the definition of "standard of living" goes up for grabs.