causal

Growth Feedback Loop Broke With Demographic Transition

Standard economic theory predicts accelerating growth from a people-ideas-resources feedback loop, but this loop broke a couple hundred years ago when people stopped having more children when they got richer—they got richer instead of more populous—which is why we don't currently see the accelerating feedback loop, though AI doing the 'ideas' work could restore it.

causalpending

Speaker

Holden Karnofsky

Evidence Quote

one of the steps of that feedback loop broke a couple hundred years ago. So it goes more people, more ideas, more resources, more people, more ideas, more resources. But, a couple hundred years ago, people stopped having more children when they had more resources.

Source

Holden Karnofsky — History's most important centuryDwarkesh Patel Podcast
Created: 6/13/2026, 3:35:22 AM

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