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In my short lifetime, the world's population has more than tripled. Life on this planet was much better back then. All of today's environment woes are tied to overpopulation. The sooner we can reduce the human population on this planet the better. Doing it through better education and promoting women's rights is good thing. It's our quality of life which is important, not quantity.
In my short lifetime, the world's population has more than tripled. Life on this planet was much better back then. All of today's environment woes are tied to overpopulation. The sooner we can reduce the human population on this planet the better. Doing it through better education and promoting women's rights is good thing. It's our quality of life which is important, not quantity.
The last time we had 3 billion people, was 1952 or thereabouts. The rules of exponential decline are the same as the rules of exponential growth, so most demographers expect the decline to be pretty steep - still measured in decades, but steep. A loss of 1% per year means the population halves every 75 years.
I am not optimistic. To see an area with a declining population I look at the counties in West Mississippi. Or I could look to Detroit. There is nothing pretty or convenient about crumbling infrastructure that cannot, for lack of capital, be repaired, or buildings that, because of title considerations, cannot be torn down.
On the subject of environmental woes, I do not expect federal regulators to ever back down and declare "emergency over". Not in 200 years.
Excerpts (comments in parenthesis are mine):
- Asia faces a problem: Its population is aging faster than any other continent’s. A growing percentage of people in Japan, South Korea and China are over 65, and those countries’ economies are suffering because of a lack of available workers. Governments are struggling to find the money to support retirees."
- Life expectancy is also long in these (Asian) countries. Japan has the highest percentage of old people with dementia. And there are not enough workers to take care of them and even to fill the jobs to run the economy.
- People have fewer children than they used to. Those children move to cities, and are not in a position to take care of their parents who are left behind in depopulating areas. So old people are living (and dying alone) in isolation. (Same here in the USA as rural areas shrink, businesses and hospitals close up shop for densely populated areas.)
- Bringing in workers from other countries seems to be the only solution, but Japan is notoriously opposed to immigration.
Japan currently has the highest percentage of people over 65; data is from the U.N. Population Division.
In 2021 Japan is now at 30%, USA and S. Korea at 18%, China at 13%, and the rest of the world is at 10%.
By 2035 Japan will be at 33%, S. Korea at 31%, China at 27%, USA at 23%, and the rest of the world is at 14%.
By 2050 Japan will be at 38%, S. Korea at 40%, China at 31%, USA at 24%, and the rest of the world is at 17%.
By 2100 S. Korea will be at 45%, China at 43%, Japan at 39%, USA at 31%, and the rest of the world is at 24%.
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- Life expectancy is also long in these (Asian) countries. Japan has the highest percentage of old people with dementia. And there are not enough workers to take care of them and even to fill the jobs to run the economy.
Would it be uncouth to note, that regarding public finances, economic dynamism and the worker-to-retiree ratio, the main problem is, that life expectancy is just too darn high? In especially poor countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, even if the birth rate were to plummet, the population-pyramid still wouldn't teeter, because for myriad reasons, life expectancy is [by Western standards] abysmally low.
For a model utopia/dystopia run as a "benevolent" dictatorship, we have two levers: (1) coerce more people into having more kids - which seems to be the enduring theme of this thread; or (2) lower the life expectancy, or more precisely not the aggregate life expectancy but the median number of remaining-years after some canonical retirement age.
Let's consider two health crises, one now rampant, one long in abeyance: opiates, and smoking. Opiates tend to kill the young, as such drug-abuse is unusual in say the over-70 set. Opiate usage is rising. Smoking on the other hand rarely killed people in young adulthood or middle age. Instead it took outwardly healthy 40-year-olds and killed them by say 65, denying them maybe 20+ years in retirement. But in the developed world, smoking has been decidedly on the wane, for 50+ years.
Without sounding too cynical about it, we need less opiates and more smoking. Less callously, we need a healthcare system that emphasizes vitality of the young, and de-prioritizes aims to extend life in advanced age. Putatively "unhealthy" lifestyle also helps. If the Japanese had a high-fat, high-carb diet based on processed foods and red meat... smoked a lot, were largely sedentary and so on, then perhaps the number of bodily-healthy 90 year olds, whose brains are failing and who need professional care, would be less. The years spent in retirement per-worker would be lower. The population pyramid would equilibrate, not because there are more people at the base of the pyramid, but because there are fewer at the top.
Something to consider, as a matter of public health.
Would it be uncouth to note, that regarding public finances, economic dynamism and the worker-to-retiree ratio, the main problem is, that life expectancy is just too darn high? In especially poor countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, even if the birth rate were to plummet, the population-pyramid still wouldn't teeter, because for myriad reasons, life expectancy is [by Western standards] abysmally low.
For a model utopia/dystopia run as a "benevolent" dictatorship, we have two levers: (1) coerce more people into having more kids - which seems to be the enduring theme of this thread; or (2) lower the life expectancy, or more precisely not the aggregate life expectancy but the median number of remaining-years after some canonical retirement age.
Let's consider two health crises, one now rampant, one long in abeyance: opiates, and smoking. Opiates tend to kill the young, as such drug-abuse is unusual in say the over-70 set. Opiate usage is rising. Smoking on the other hand rarely killed people in young adulthood or middle age. Instead it took outwardly healthy 40-year-olds and killed them by say 65, denying them maybe 20+ years in retirement. But in the developed world, smoking has been decidedly on the wane, for 50+ years.
Without sounding too cynical about it, we need less opiates and more smoking. Less callously, we need a healthcare system that emphasizes vitality of the young, and de-prioritizes aims to extend life in advanced age. Putatively "unhealthy" lifestyle also helps. If the Japanese had a high-fat, high-carb diet based on processed foods and red meat... smoked a lot, were largely sedentary and so on, then perhaps the number of bodily-healthy 90 year olds, whose brains are failing and who need professional care, would be less. The years spent in retirement per-worker would be lower. The population pyramid would equilibrate, not because there are more people at the base of the pyramid, but because there are fewer at the top.
Something to consider, as a matter of public health.
Public health??
I grew up when "Doctors who smoked recommended a menthol cigarette", when "Wonder Bread grew healthy bones; schools promoted chocolate milk; Spam (it was a kind of canned meat); DDT; playing behind the mosquito spray truck. We rode without bicycle helmets, drank from water hoses, and when we were toddlers, we stood up in the front seat while our father drove. All of those things didn't kill us, so they sent up off to Viet Nam and sprayed us with Agent Orange!
We're like roaches, Fer Christs sake
Change in life expectancy would change the rate of collapse. As long as women (half the population) produce less than 2 children each, on average, the end result comes out the same - fewer people. But, as you say, the worker to non-worker ratio would change for the better if people croaked at 65 at their retirement party. But, no. The public health policy will remain to prop us up against the wall until there is nothing left.
As far as I can see, that will remain the public policy in every country forever.
Bloomberg reports that new data is in from South Korea and their fertility rate has fallen again, now at 0.78 births per woman, lowest in the world.
Stats are on the World Bank website and indicates these data sources. "(1) U.N. Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2022 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) U.N. Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot ( various years ), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme."
The USA shows a TFR of 1.6 births. At the bottom of the chart is a breakdown of TFR by income level and the higher the income level the lower the TFR.
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There sure are a lot of overpopulation deniers on this thread. Yes, there will be some disruptions if we reduce the world's population, but the massive downsides of not doing so are far worse.
There sure are a lot of overpopulation deniers on this thread. Yes, there will be some disruptions if we reduce the world's population, but the massive downsides of not doing so are far worse.
Jack, I see this in terms of quality vs quantity, and wish I could live another 100 years to see it play out.
For example, all farms, anywhere in the world, 150 or more years ago, needed large farm families to work the land; that's the quantity side of the world's population as it existed long ago.
About 150 years ago farm machinery started to become available, farms could produce lots of food with ever-reducing amounts of family members; that's the quality side of population issues. Farm kids have left the farms for the big cities for so long that our rural farm areas are largely hollowed out.
Most manufacturing has followed that same trend during the industrial revolution, becoming ever more efficient with the amount of labor per unit of output. That trend continues and population will need to decline to prevent large amounts of excess labor floundering around looking for something to do.
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Jack, I see this in terms of quality vs quantity, and wish I could live another 100 years to see it play out.
For example, all farms, anywhere in the world, 150 or more years ago, needed large farm families to work the land; that's the quantity side of the world's population as it existed long ago.
About 150 years ago farm machinery started to become available, farms could produce lots of food with ever-reducing amounts of family members; that's the quality side of population issues. Farm kids have left the farms for the big cities for so long that our rural farm areas are largely hollowed out.
Most manufacturing has followed that same trend during the industrial revolution, becoming ever more efficient with the amount of labor per unit of output. That trend continues and population will need to decline to prevent large amounts of excess labor floundering around looking for something to do.
In your example, there were jobs to go to in the cities with people moving from the farm lands to fill them. (for the sake of this argument we won't discuss the rise in unemployment)
What you're argument is missing is, there will be jobs, but they will be hard pressed to find people to fill them. The reason is they weren't birth. From labor to white collar, AI will be needed and used to do the work, people use to do.
Less is more, yes. Prices will not decrease, because those that provide goods and services are not going to want to take a pay cut. They will increase their prices, with the fewer living will either try to pay it or do without. Quality vs quantity, in that scenario I see neither. AI doesn't need groceries, a house, a car or clothes. It pays for nothing.
imo Listner2307 sums up the situation here in this post, in a way that should be understood.
A person doesn't need to live another 100 years to see how it plays out. Just look back at ancient civilizations and see how it played out for them when they couldn't sustain themselves economically. Evolution waits for no man.
There sure are a lot of overpopulation deniers on this thread. Yes, there will be some disruptions if we reduce the world's population, but the massive downsides of not doing so are far worse.
There has never been a demonstration that the world is overpopulated. Not a scientific demonstration, at any rate. We have lots of people declaring it to be a fact, but you have to ask, "If that's the case, why are we not starving?" There IS starvation, but only in the poorest of places and most of that starvation is political, not fundamental.
No, the world is not overpopulated, since it can still produce all the food and fuel people require.
Keep in mind, population decline is not some sort of goal we are working toward. It is happening in many, many places and the decline will become steeper.
Nothing seems to be able to increase population once it starts to decline. Many countries have tried, but no result has ever been recorded that was strong enough to affect a population increase. The best that has been done is to slow the decrease.
No, the question is, "What will a world with, say, 2 billion people be like? And where will they live?" It's complicated because even with 2 billion people, the population will still be falling.
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Aging Societies, NY Times 19 FEB 2023
