87 replies to this topic

[chubtoad]

Here is an interesting chart at the census website, http://www.census.go...w/worldpop.html . Predicting only 9 billion in 2050. It shows the highest growth rate all the way back in 1962 and 63.

[Bruce Klein]

Right, for a number of reasons directly related to advancing tech, worldwide, people are choosing to have fewer and fewer children... that's a good graph... and a good counter to the overpopulation question.. Average Annual Growth Rates have been declining from an all time high of 2.19% in 1963 to a current low of 1.16% in 2003... I think projections for 2050 are to conservative at .43% and 9 Billion... but it's interesting nonetheless to see the current numbers carried out.

[Lazarus Long]

This chart should be added to the FAQ's charts you have put together BJ. I agree it is a very good one.

One caveat however it isn't just "numbers" that reflect the population issue. If you examine the amount of land required to meet the demands of each individual being born today it is more not less than before and going up. We require vastly higher amounts of energy for consumption as well, all while resources are depleting faster and areas of natural habitat are being devastated.

I have long argued that it is too simplistic to keep arguing against Malthus by restricting the debate to the numbers only. There is also the loss of the fronter mentality that has actually been as important to social development over the millennium as the centers of civilization have.

Whether we have reached 9 billion or 11 billion it will mean that we have more than doubled consumption of resources over what is needed today and it can be argued we are not doing that great now if one examines the real costs.

Also there are social issues reflected in the politics of populations and cross cultural conflicts that challenge traditional culturally homogeneous democratic models, which force or resist cultural shifts due to migration and differing birth rates of subgroups within larger populations.

These types of conflict are actually getting worse and are reflected in the core of disputes around the world such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. These scenarios are likely to get worse by 2050 not better, and are being reflected in the US and EU with growing new immigrant populations that challenge the old ethnic and cultural attitudes and practices.

Regional overpopulation right now is driving a growing threat of warfare in many areas around the world and we are barely treading water against that tide, so I don't look at these graphs as particular encouraging except in the longest view which says that if we can give humanity the information and resources then they are more likely to behave rationally. But the clock on the Population Time Bomb is still ticking but its trigger mechanism is not so clearly understood anymore than its explosive material defined.

There exists a certain parallelism here with respect to our cause as the same argument about selfishness and immortality is made by people with regard to the bearing and rearing of children, that we beneficiaries of technological advantage are selfish and thinking only of ourselves. That it is our obligation to bear young.

I am not advocating here I am explaining BTW.

This is a central core dispute in the cultural clash between many more traditional groups with the current crop of technocrats. Actually the core reason that works across cultural lines to cause the diminution in birth appears to be economic. As people feel they are wealthier they have less children and seek the means to have less, while providing better care and opportunity to fewer offspring. The second is the empowerment of women. These are social advancements not specifically "technical" ones, Consider this as a variation on the "chicken and egg argument," which comes first, the advancing tech or the wealth to appreciate it?

Well with respect to birthrate it is money and female wisdom that leads, not follows the wave of technological advancement. The hen with the yen comes first.

[Bruce Klein]

This chart should be added to the FAQ's charts you have put together BJ. I agree it is a very good one.

Laz, thanks for the suggestions.. done.

[kevin]

The hen with the yen comes first.

That's a keeper.. [lol]

[Mind]

Lets see, population growth is slowing(good), women are gaining economic freedom (good), technology continues to increase food production per acre (good), yet some people still project gloom and doom forever and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever....

These types of conflict are actually getting worse and are reflected in the core of disputes around the world such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. These scenarios are likely to get worse by 2050 not better

Another thing that will help stem the tide of war is increased communication. Just look at how many countries Imminst represents (maybe soon from Iraq too now that they are free to speak). When we can talk to anyone anywhere at anytime, it is hard for governments (including the U.N.) to use propoganda and pit populations against each other.

I see the glass half full.

[Lazarus Long]

I see the glass half full.

Good

I see more people now than can drink from the half full glass but you are correct in stating communication is key to the solution and the question of optimism and pessimism is perhaps as important to the debate as defining altruistic behavior.

"One mans' pleasure is another's poison" is the idea that what you see as good, is bad from someone else's perspective. More often than not this isn't moral relativism at work but merely cultural confusion with respect to priority and nuance that is reconcilable through communication. Sometimes however the enhanced communication can also expose irreconcilable differences and that process drives us into conflict, not out of it.

The issue of rational optimism and pessimism falls back on our discussions of "belief" and can be better understood as "Articles of Faith" even from this skeptical perspective. I would suggest however that for the perspective taken to be rational it must be balanced and seeing the glass by halves is only a start but by no means a solution to the problems being faced. That start is the preservation of the psychology of hope that solutions do exist and thus embarking upon the quest for them will not be fruitless.

[lordprovost]

The SARS outbreak may also have been a forerunner to a global plague that could significantly alter world population figures.
AIDS in africa is currently (and will be seen historically) as the shame of ostensibly 'caring' western societies, as multi-national drug companies continue to withold patent rights to retroviral drugs to the poorest most in need nations.
These issues would seem to hold more importance to the global community than whether or not a professional white female decides to pursue her career and thus postpone procreation til after the age of 35

[Lazarus Long]

BTW, the curve on productivity and cost of production per acre is flattening fast and not rising exponentially, or even in accord with Population growth. The impact of such methods on culture and environment are highly suspect with results that are often objectionable both to land use strategies and human social issues of labor, wealth distribution (reference the madness in Zimbabwe again), and urban sprawl.

Also the food supply's dirty little secret of the 20th century was nearly unlimited abusive exploitation of marine resources that is about to come to a crashing halt one way or another. Not to mention our nearly addictive behavior with respect to energy consumption and fossil fuel exploitation. We have solved many of the past's problems but can now look forward to ever more complex one's in our future.

Is that a glass half empty?

No, but it is recognition that the glass is not full by a long shot.

[Lazarus Long]

The SARS outbreak may also have been a forerunner to a global plague that could significantly alter world population figures.

I have said repeatedly in this forum that the two greatest threats to life historically are war and disease. Clearly pandemic is a valid concern as well as coping with nearly an entire generation of orphans from its effects of AIDS in Africa and possible Asia soon.

The ethical dilemma with respect to the profiteering on retrovirals is valid one too Lordprovost but the manner that you pose the question implies some form of mutually exclusive character to the issue with respect to women's rights over their procreativity and wealth and I would suggest that they are linked too.

The west did not invent AIDS and part of what drives its spread in Africa is a consequence of women still being denied choice and general ignorance but the remedy may not catch up to the spread of the disease and the issues overlap socio-economically. These should perhaps be seen more as non-competing long and short term strategic aspects IMO.

[Lazarus Long]

AIDS in Africa is currently (and will be seen historically) as the shame of ostensibly 'caring' western societies, as multi-national drug companies continue to withold patent rights to retroviral drugs to the poorest most in need nations.

Also I want to add here that it is nonsense that we continuously attribute emotions to non corporeal entities like institutions, corporations, governments, religions, and regions. Individual humans "care", institutions can act but have no emotional "feelings". They never have and they never will, they are purely artificial abstract constructs composed of individuals that may act and believe in accord with a common purpose but the collective possesses no conscience.

Or does it?

This common tendency to assume and attribute emotion (personalize hence anthropomorphize) to collective cultural organization predates even the modern concept of treating a corporate entity "legally" as an "individual" in possession of "Protected Rights" and is more an example reflecting the "Super-being" behavior of humans I often refer to. Historically it can be seen as how Pharaohs became deities and Kings become ordained by "Right" extended from God for evolving human social organization. It is better understood today as the result of this social apes' evolutionary psychology.

Ironically it is also a good test case for how we pragmatically will relate to artificial intelligence when it comes finally into existence and this debate is exposing a house of cards built upon untested assumptions, which will determine many aspects of our ability to evolve socially in the short term and more definitely in the long term.

[Lazarus Long]

More on the issue of population from the current US News & World Reports. This is a reality check for those that think the problem has gone away or will stabilize in time on its own. The numbers speak for themselves and it is arguable that we are already significantly past a sustainable population size.

Anyway here is a less sanguine analysis by economists that do pay attention to the issues. This is just about the US but you can read it as representative of a growing world problem


http://story.news.ya...ulationoverload

Population overload
Sun Oct 19, 8:00 PM ET
BY LOU DOBBS

As individuals and as a nation, we're defined by the choices we make. And too often, by the tough decisions we avoid. Most of us have avoided even thinking about how our rapidly growing population is affecting our quality of life and shaping our society.

Our population has more than doubled since World War II, and at this rate, we could be on our way to 1 billion people living in the United States by the end of the century. One billion people.

Our population growth, driven in part by unchecked immigration, is already straining our healthcare and educational systems and, less noticeably--but far more important--putting a heavy burden on our land, food production, water supply, and the quality of the air we breathe.

All these pressures on our resources will only worsen unless our leaders begin a national dialogue on the future of this country and start making the tough choices. Our future will be shaped largely by our trade policies, our environmental and economic policies, and our immigration policies.

Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, are avoiding debate on these issues because they are the most difficult ones for politicians to confront. In campaign parlance, these are wedge issues. But failure to come to terms with them will drive a wedge between all of us and a prosperous, healthy future for this country.

Hunger pains. The U.S. population is growing by more than 3 million each year and loses 3 million acres of farmland annually. Food and agriculture generate $40 billion a year in export income for the United States, but at the present rate, we won't be exporting food at all by 2025.

Our water supply is equally at risk. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, says, "We're overpumping and overusing our water." He says that states such as Arizona are pumping aquifers at 10 times the rate at which they can be recharged. If this overpumping is left unaddressed, droughts could become a way of life in many states.

Our air quality is not improving, either. Despite legislation and industry regulation, nearly half of this country lives in counties with dirty air. It is estimated that as many as 50,000 people go to hospitals each year because of air pollution. And environmental regulators say that the smog in Los Angeles is the worst it has been in seven years.

Schools in many cities are severely overcrowded. California is facing nothing less than a facilities crisis. There are about 6 million students in mostly overcrowded California public schools. Of that total, about a quarter, or 1.5 million, are students whose primary language is not English. This overcrowding is not just an inconvenience but rather a serious dilemma regarding resource distribution. Funding for California students with limited English has tripled since 1986. Federal grants for special language programs have more than doubled from $157 million in 1995 to $460 million in 2002.

The strains of overcrowding are equally apparent in our healthcare system. Hundreds of emergency rooms have closed over the past decade because of budget shortfalls, and the ones that remain open are overburdened. According to a recent study conducted by the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, Chicago will need nine more 500-bed hospitals by 2020. Hospitals also are writing off as much as $2 billion a year in unpaid medical bills to treat illegal aliens, who are ineligible for Medicaid.

Our population explosion not only detracts from our quality of life but threatens our liberties and freedom as well. As Cornell's Pimentel puts it, "Back when we had, say, 100 million people in the U.S., when I voted, I was one of 100 million people. Today, I am one of 285 million people, so my vote and impact decreases with the increase in the population." Pimentel adds, "So our freedoms also go down the drain."

In order to even begin coping with our overpopulation crisis, we must first understand that it is often determinant in other critical areas: our schools, hospitals, infrastructure, economy, and our very way of life. We must prepare to make very tough choices on all these issues that we've too long ignored.

[Mind]

In order to even begin coping with our overpopulation crisis, we must first understand that it is often determinant in other critical areas: our schools, hospitals, infrastructure, economy, and our very way of life. We must prepare to make very tough choices on all these issues that we've too long ignored.

We've ignored....WE'VE IGNORED!!!

Politically speaking the overload of immingration comes from one party in the U.S. - DEMOCRAT. "Racist" is literally (I mean literally) screamed (I mean SCREAMED) from the lungs of Democrats the minute anyone suggests limiting immigration for whatever reason. They refuse (absolutely refuse) to see any other side of the issue. Whether it be disease, the environment, strain on social services...etc. they have consistently blocked any reasonable dialouge on the issue.

[AgentNyder]

Australia only has a population of around 19 million. And most of that is concentrated around 4 cities. Australia also doesn't have much of a problem with illegal immigrants - due to it's isolation. There is the asylum seeker issue - which politically divides this country.

Still, immigration is pretty much controlled. The Government emphasises the economic aspects of immigration levels and standards. Generally they are in favour of a 100,000 p.a. influx of mostly young, skilled migrants.

[chubtoad]

http://www.scienceda...31114072555.htm
Source: Rockefeller University
Date: 2003-11-14


Another estimate of about 9 billion by 2050


By The Year 2050, Human Population Could Add 2.6 Billion People, Reports Rockefeller Scientist


It took from the beginning of time until 1950 to put the first 2.5 billion people on the planet. Yet in the next half-century, an increase that exceeds the total population of the world in 1950 will occur.

So writes Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., Dr.P.H., professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations at The Rockefeller University and Columbia University, in a Viewpoint article in the November 14 issue of the journal Science.

In "Human Population: The Next Half-Century," Cohen examines the history of human population and how it might change by the year 2050. By then, the earth's present population of 6.3 billion is estimated to grow by 2.6 billion.
"There are some things we can reasonably know and other things we cannot know," Cohen says about population projections. "By examining population size and distribution, it is possible to get a feeling for possible challenges to our future well-being. It is possible to get a sense of the larger picture."

What can be reasonably predicted? The world's population will be growing at a slower rate than it is today, especially in the richer, developed countries, but it will be larger by 2 to 4 billion people. It will also be more urban, especially in the underdeveloped countries. And it will be more elderly. However, exactly how international migration and family structures will change demographers cannot say.

"I also do not know whether we will inflict a doomsday on ourselves by warfare, disease or catastrophe. Our future depends on choices -- on the choices we have made in the past and those we will make in the future," adds Cohen. "We cannot continue the exceptional growth of this last half century without experiencing consequences."

The demographic projections that Cohen cites assume that fertility rates will continue to decline and that more effective preventions and treatments against HIV and AIDS will be implemented and major catastrophes such as biological warfare, severe climate change, or thermonuclear holocaust will not be inflicted on the human population and the planet. These assumptions underlie the United Nations Population Division's urbanization forecasts and its online database, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision.

In the Science article, Cohen reports such statistical information as the following:

* history of human population: It took from the beginning of time until about 1927 to put the first 2 billion people on the planet; less than 50 years to add the next 2 billion people (by 1974); and just 25 years to add the next 2 billion (by 1999). In the most recent 40 years, the population doubled.

* birth rates: The global total fertility rate fell from five children per woman per lifetime in 1950 to 2.7 children in 2000, a result of worldwide efforts to make contraception and reproductive health services available, as well as other cultural changes. Encouraging as this is, if fertility remains at present levels instead of continuing to decline, the population would grow to 12.8 billion by 2050 instead of the projected 8.9 billion.

* urbanization: In 1800, roughly 2 percent of people lived in cities; in 1900, 12 percent; in 2000, more than 47 percent. In 1900, not one metropolitan region had 10 million people or more. By 1950, one region did -- New York. In 2000, 19 urban regions had 10 million people or more. Of those 19, only four (Tokyo, Osaka, New York, and Los Angeles) were in industrialized countries.

* poor, underdeveloped regions: Despite higher death rates, the population of poor countries grows six times faster than that of rich countries.

* population density: The world's average population density is expected to rise from 45 people per square kilometer in the year 2000 to 66 people per square kilometer by 2050. Assuming 10 percent of land is arable, population densities per unit of arable land will be roughly 10 times higher, posing unprecedented problems of land use and preservation for the developing world.
* aging population: The 20th century will probably be the last when younger people outnumbered older ones. By 2050, there will be 2.5 people aged 60 years or older for every child 4 years old or younger, a shift that has serious implications for health care spending for the young and old.

Although it is not possible to predict how global demographics will affect families or international migration, Cohen points out that three factors set the stage for major changes in families: fertility falling to very low levels; increasing longevity; and changing mores of marriage, cohabitation and divorce.

In a population with one child per family, no children have siblings, Cohen explains. In the next generation, the children of those children have no cousins, aunts, or uncles.

If people are between ages 20 and 30 on the average when they have children and live to 80 years of age, they will have decades of life after their children have reached adulthood, and their children will have decades of life with elderly parents, Cohen also points out.
Cohen's article kicks off a four-week long series titled "The State of the Planet," which examines key issues of our planet's well-being. Cohen was asked to initiate the series because "population is people and people matter."

[chubtoad]

http://www.reference...ple/Death_rate/

World: People: Birth rate
21.16 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)

World: People: Death rate
8.93 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Note .89%, is fairly large and comparable to the total projected % increase of people. If people start living forever in the next 50 years you could would expect more people by 2050, but I don't think it would be more than a billion or two off of the projected amount.

World: People: Age structure
0-14 years: 29.2% (male 932,581,592; female 885,688,851) 15-64 years: 63.7% (male 2,009,997,089; female 1,964,938,201) 65 years and over: 7.1% (male 193,549,180; female 247,067,032) (2002 est.)

[advancedatheist]

Refer to the graph and table at:

http://www.earth-pol...date27_data.htm

It looks as if absolute grain production has been declining since the late 1990's.

[Lazarus Long]

This is a very good contributory article thank you chubtoad. I am glad someone is paying attention that the problem probably will pass "critical mass population" before it gets better unless we approach the problems very differently than we now are.

* birth rates: The global total fertility rate fell from five children per woman per lifetime in 1950 to 2.7 children in 2000, a result of worldwide efforts to make contraception and reproductive health services available, as well as other cultural changes. Encouraging as this is, if fertility remains at present levels instead of continuing to decline, the population would grow to 12.8 billion by 2050 instead of the projected 8.9 billion.

This statistic is the reason that I generally refer to the likelihood of an average population growth mean of around 11 billion by 2050. That is assuming the population demand for resource redistribution doesn't precipitate either intentional or unintentional genocide well before that. War is genocide in my opinion not noble.

I do expect and see that the reduction in birthrate within industrialized nations will begin to stabilize and also we are experiencing a redistribution of global populations that will help alleviate pressure but will not solve the problems before we hit critical mass sometime in the 21st Century; if not before 2050 then even more likely after.

Those who think that Malthus has left the building need to reexamine the dangerous level of pressure our population growth is placing on us socioeconomically and environmentally. The ideas are directly related and this pressure is alleviated only short term by freer markets, it is not solved by them. Expecting innovation without practical methods in place is basically a religious faith in technology and as bad as "faith in government" is dependent on theocratic principle.

* poor, underdeveloped regions: Despite higher death rates, the population of poor countries grows six times faster than that of rich countries.

This has been shown to be far more the result of economics and the effects of Evolutionary Psychology than even biology, culture, religion and one reason I suggest the study of environmental paradigms defining ecologically balanced closed systems are necessary to promote healthy survival strategies not dependent on catastrophes to redistribute wealth or stabilize excess population growth. This idea is one the central aspects of Evolutionary Economics.

People alive today, especially the younger half think that what they are experiencing since birth is "normal" rather than an aberration; if they do not stop taking the current conditions for granted they will find out the hard way change is inevitable.

* history of human population: It took from the beginning of time until about 1927 to put the first 2 billion people on the planet; less than 50 years to add the next 2 billion people (by 1974); and just 25 years to add the next 2 billion (by 1999). In the most recent 40 years, the population doubled. 

Examine another aspect of the statistic, there may be more people alive today than have been alive in the entire evolution of our species. In other words if not already then soon there will more people alive than have ever lived cumulatively.

* population density: The world's average population density is expected to rise from 45 people per square kilometer in the year 2000 to 66 people per square kilometer by 2050. Assuming 10 percent of land is arable, population densities per unit of arable land will be roughly 10 times higher, posing unprecedented problems of land use and preservation for the developing world.

* urbanization: In 1800, roughly 2 percent of people lived in cities; in 1900, 12 percent; in 2000, more than 47 percent. In 1900, not one metropolitan region had 10 million people or more. By 1950, one region did -- New York. In 2000, 19 urban regions had 10 million people or more. Of those 19, only four (Tokyo, Osaka, New York, and Los Angeles) were in industrialized countries.

* aging population: The 20th century will probably be the last when younger people outnumbered older ones. By 2050, there will be 2.5 people aged 60 years or older for every child 4 years old or younger, a shift that has serious implications for health care spending for the young and old.

Combined these three statistics represent a profound economic & socio-psychological shift that will inevitably occur and the character of that shift will be defined by the dominant generations now in power. For better off or worse, longevity feeds directly into this issue. It doesn't cause the problem, it does however contribute to it and it may offer some hope ironically for solving complex problems confronting us but alone longevity cannot solve the problems and we will only benefit from the improvements in technology if we survive the race against time that is accelerating the impact of Human Selection on global habitat.

Urbanization is also impacting on social structure and a reason I describe the shift toward adaptive strategies as consistent with other urban species, insects. We are not insects by through a process of convergent evolution we are applying strategies socially that result in parallel solutions to similar problems.

Additionally while strategies involving potential efficiencies for agrarian productivity and potential new sources of food stocks show we can possibly meet the challenges before reaching critical mass population they also show we are already in a race against time.

While ideas such as off world migration sound good in principle, though they do not relieve the socio-economic pressure in time without a level of socio-economic growth and political will that is simply not yet visible or technologically viable. It is long past time to change paradigms and begin thinking our way out of history's boxes.

[chubtoad]

http://www.unesco.or...age/graphic.gif
From UN population division

[kevin]

Link: http://www.futurepun...799.html#001799
Date: 11-19-03
Author: Randall Parker
Source: http://www.futurepundit.com
Title: Human Population May Add 2.6 Billion By 2050

---

Human Population May Add 2.6 Billion By 2050
There will be 8.9 billion people on planet Earth by 2050.

It took from the beginning of time until 1950 to put the first 2.5 billion people on the planet. Yet in the next half-century, an increase that exceeds the total population of the world in 1950 will occur.

So writes Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., Dr.P.H., professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations at The Rockefeller University and Columbia University, in a Viewpoint article in the November 14 issue of the journal Science.

In "Human Population: The Next Half-Century," Cohen examines the history of human population and how it might change by the year 2050. By then, the earth's present population of 6.3 billion is estimated to grow by 2.6 billion.

...

In the Science article, Cohen reports such statistical information as the following:

[*]history of human population: It took from the beginning of time until about 1927 to put the first 2 billion people on the planet; less than 50 years to add the next 2 billion people (by 1974); and just 25 years to add the next 2 billion (by 1999). In the most recent 40 years, the population doubled.

[*]birth rates: The global total fertility rate fell from five children per woman per lifetime in 1950 to 2.7 children in 2000, a result of worldwide efforts to make contraception and reproductive health services available, as well as other cultural changes. Encouraging as this is, if fertility remains at present levels instead of continuing to decline, the population would grow to 12.8 billion by 2050 instead of the projected 8.9 billion.

[*]urbanization: In 1800, roughly 2 percent of people lived in cities; in 1900, 12 percent; in 2000, more than 47 percent. In 1900, not one metropolitan region had 10 million people or more. By 1950, one region did -- New York. In 2000, 19 urban regions had 10 million people or more. Of those 19, only four (Tokyo, Osaka, New York, and Los Angeles) were in industrialized countries.

[*]poor, underdeveloped regions: b

[*]population density: The world's average population density is expected to rise from 45 people per square kilometer in the year 2000 to 66 people per square kilometer by 2050. Assuming 10 percent of land is arable, population densities per unit of arable land will be roughly 10 times higher, posing unprecedented problems of land use and preservation for the developing world.

[*]aging population: The 20th century will probably be the last when younger people outnumbered older ones. By 2050, there will be 2.5 people aged 60 years or older for every child 4 years old or younger, a shift that has serious implications for health care spending for the young and old.

Although it is not possible to predict how global demographics will affect families or international migration, Cohen points out that three factors set the stage for major changes in families: fertility falling to very low levels; increasing longevity; and changing mores of marriage, cohabitation and divorce.

In a population with one child per family, no children have siblings, Cohen explains. In the next generation, the children of those children have no cousins, aunts, or uncles.

If people are between ages 20 and 30 on the average when they have children and live to 80 years of age, they will have decades of life after their children have reached adulthood, and their children will have decades of life with elderly parents, Cohen also points out.

If family sizes shrink in the Middle East one consequence will be to reduce tribalism. But if life expectancy increases dramatically then the tribal bonds may continue for somewhat longer period of time due to intergenerational bonds and because the older generations whole still have siblings and cousins galore will stick around longer.

All else equal, the political value of having a larger population is to make a country potentially stronger as a resut of having more workers and also greater economies of scale. But the costs of crowding, pollution, and burden on the environment rises as well (and suburbs and freeways stretching as far as the eye can see is esthetically undesireable for most of us). For a country that wants to compete in terms of power and influence given that the productivity of workers varies literally by orders of magnitude it makes much more sense to have a much smaller increase in population but to make that increase be much more heavily weighted toward people who have very high economic productivity.

Productive potential is a function of innate cognitive ability, training, and motivation. A large raw increase in population decreases the amount of resources available to train each new member of a society. It is more cost-effective to add people who have much higher cognitive ability because:

[*]smarter folks are faster learners and are quicker and therefore cheaper to train.
[*]smarter folks can do brain work more rapidly.
[*]smarter folks can do types of brain work that are beyond the ability of lesser minds.

The value of physical labor continues to decline relative to the value of complex mental work as the sum total of all knowledge increases and provides a larger body of information which can be manipulated to create economic value. But even the value of having a smarter brain may eventually be obsolesced by technological advances.

If computers become smarter than humans then the economic value of even having a larger number of smarter and more productive humans will eventually pale next to value of having smart artificially intelligent computers

[Lazarus Long]

This post was made by ddhewitt in another area and it's too valuable to this discussion too ignore. Here is the link:

http://imminst.org/f...t=0

[Lazarus Long]

Here is coincidently an article from today's news relating to the problem. It is about the rate of hunger that is increasing again world wide.


http://news.bbc.co.u...lth/3236364.stm
World growing hungrier, says UN
Tuesday, 25 November, 2003, 11:59 GMT

Nearly 800 million malnourished people live in the developing world
The United Nations food agency has warned that world hunger is rising again, despite international efforts to reduce poverty.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) annual report says nearly 850 million people go to bed hungry every night, mainly in Africa and Asia.

The number of undernourished people is climbing by 5 million a year, it says. The agency warns that the UN goal of halving world hunger by 2015 is looking increasingly remote.


The FAO report, entitled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003", calls the latest figures a "setback in the war against hunger".

It says that according to the most recent available figures from 1999 to 2001, there are 842 million chronically hungry people in the world. The overwhelming majority of them, 798 million, are in the developing world.

Political will

While the numbers of undernourished people went down in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific region, they continue to increase in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa.

The agency said it was time for nations to ask themselves why millions of people went hungry in a world that produces more than enough food.

"Bluntly stated, the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will," said the report.

FAO director-general Jacques Diouf said in the report's foreword that countries that succeeded in reducing hunger were characterised by faster economic growth, especially in the agricultural sector.

The report pointed to some encouraging signs, such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Zero Hunger project, which aims to eliminate hunger in Brazil by 2007.

[advancedatheist]

[You might also compare this with the Dieoff Website.]

http://dsc.discovery...mans_print.html

1,000 Times Too Many Humans?
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Nov. 25, 2003 — A study that compared humans with other species concluded there are 1,000 times too many humans to be sustainable.

The study, published in the current Proceedings B (Biological Sciences) by the Royal Society, used a statistical device known as "confidence limits" to measure what the sustainable norm should be for species populations. Other factors, such as carbon dioxide production, energy use, biomass consumption, and geographical range were taken into consideration.

"Our study found that when we compare ourselves to otherwise similar species, usually other mammals of our same body size, for example, we are abnormal and the situation is unsustainable," said Charles Fowler, co-author of the paper and a lead researcher at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fowler likened the concept of normality to body temperature, where measurements can fall above or below the accepted average. A temperature of 105 degrees F, for example, is considered abnormal and unsustainable. In his paper, Fowler and colleague Larry Hobbs argue that the human population, now measured at approximately 6 billion, falls outside the range of sustainability, which puts us at risk.

"Collectively the risks reflect the complexity of biotic systems, but specifically (they) include things like the risk of extinction, starvation, and disease," Fowler told Discovery News.

Such pathologies can be alleviated, according to the paper, but changes would have to be profound and widespread.

"It is probably not unrealistic to say that nothing less than a full paradigm shift is required to get there from here," Fowler explained. "It requires changes in our thinking, belief systems and understanding of ourselves."

William Rees, professor of community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia, disagrees that humans are abnormal and said, "I would use the term 'unusual' instead."

Rees explained that humanity has been inordinately successful. Unlike other species, humans can eat almost anything, adapt to any environment and develop technologies based on knowledge shared through written and spoken language.

Rees, however, said that we may be "fatally successful." He agrees that industrial society as presently configured is unsustainable.

"In the past 25 years we have adopted a near-universal myth of 'sustainable development' based on continuous economic growth through globalization and freer trade," Rees wrote in a recent Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society paper. "Because the assumptions hidden in the globalization myth are incompatible with biophysical reality the myth reinforces humanity's already dysfunctional ecological behavior."

Rees believes unsustainability is, in part, driven by a natural predisposition to expand, in the same way that bacteria or any other species will multiply. He claims that it is an old problem, reflected in the collapses of numerous civilizations, such as the early human population at Easter Island.

Rees told Discovery News that there is a way out, but he wonders if we will take it.

Rees added, "It would be a tragic irony if, in the 21st century, this most technologically sophisticated of human societies finally succumbs to the unconscious urgings of fatally self-interested primitive tribalism."

[MichaelAnissimov]

A problem here is that you can't compare humans with other species too easily - humans routinely cheat the laws of sustainability by manufacturing our own quasi-artificial sources of food, water, and other products. We've already jumped out of the confines of the global ecological system in many ways, (by manufacturing our own products and energy sources) ways that would be incredibly difficult to model. Anyhow, trying to shoehorn that complex behavior into statistical models typically used on other animals probably won't tell us too much; it can tell us the number of people we would need to have to somewhat "blend into the background" of the prehuman ecology, I suppose. Of course, this analysis totally ignores nanotechnology or any material technology above that, which could quickly 1) restore the biosphere to a practically pre-human state in many areas, 2) grant us immunity to extinction, starvation, and disease from natural causes. Oh, and the possibility of space travel.

[Lazarus Long]

A problem here is that you can't compare humans with other species too easily - humans routinely cheat the laws of sustainability by manufacturing our own quasi-artificial sources of food, water, and other products. We've already jumped out of the confines of the global ecological system in many ways, (by manufacturing our own products and energy sources) ways that would be incredibly difficult to model. Anyhow, trying to shoehorn that complex behavior into statistical models typically used on other animals probably won't tell us too much; it can tell us the number of people we would need to have to somewhat "blend into the background" of the prehuman ecology, I suppose.

Michael we have done nothing of the sort, we have achieved what we have achieved directly at the expense of the entire energy and effort of the food chain that we have exploited to its very limits and now generalized extinction. All with the self indulgent attitudes of willful children that wish to deny their own patrimony claiming "we do it all by ourselves" rather than through any contribution of what goes before. We build on the efforts of all the giants that went before us, from dinosaurs to diatoms.

We have not jumped out of the confines of global ecology, we have decimated it while attempting to confine what little remains to "conclaves and preserves." Our most abundant energy source is the result of hundreds of millions, if not billions of years of ecology; fossil fuel. Even fissionable materials may be seen as the result of the ecology of stars.

No this is not an exaggeration it is the core of the problem. It is the great wealth of what has been derived through the process of evolution that we are rapidly expending with only a questionable investment in the future and examination of returns.

Michael, as you so fondly call us "meat-minds" please try to remember we are just another animal, even if we occupy the very pinnacle of the food pyramid, even if we tolerate no competition, even if we are becoming less corporeal in our pursuits.

Of course, this analysis totally ignores nanotechnology or any material technology above that, which could quickly 1) restore the biosphere to a practically pre-human state in many areas, 2) grant us immunity to extinction, starvation, and disease from natural causes. Oh, and the possibility of space travel.

It does not ignore this at all. Nanotech may bring as many risks as rewards and we are still working out the balance and restoring the "biosphere" assumes we share a rational common standard of what to restore it to in the first place.

It doesn't grant us immunity from genocide and/or extinction by a long shot and in fact makes us the greatest threat of all to all life. And Space Travel?

Please Micheal you really do need more study of history, finding frontiers to resolve these problems predates history itself. Now come up with a new idea.

[Mind]

I agree with Michael's analysis. The demise of humans has been predicted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Rees explained that humanity has been inordinately successful. Unlike other species, humans can eat almost anything, adapt to any environment and develop technologies based on knowledge shared through written and spoken language.

Rees, however, said that we may be "fatally successful." He agrees that industrial society as presently configured is unsustainable.

Malthus said the same thing. He didn't factor in technology. The key phrase in the quote is "presently configured". Well, duh! If we were still polluting as much as back in the early 1900's we would all have cancer too. If society never changed, if there was no progress, the 6 billion people on the earth would have starved by now. These predictions rarely factor in increasing intelligence.

Lazarus: Please Micheal you really do need more study of history, finding frontiers to resolve these problems predates history itself. Now come up with a new idea.

The frontiers are as endless and the resources as plentiful as the universe itself. I am not sure what new idea you are talking about.

[Lazarus Long]

The frontiers are as endless and the resources as plentiful as the universe itself. I am not sure what new idea you are talking about.

Actually Mind the Universe looks more and more like a closed system, not infinite at all, just vast like an untamed planet, and as for new ideas, what I refer to is the very old prehistoric idea of constantly falling back on colonization. This is even what bacteria do, and not novel at all. As for a new idea perhaps it would be to look at the issues without denial as the basis for discussion and find balance.

Space travel is not qualitatively different in that respect, it is only another appeal to quantitative solutions to qualitative problems. For example you are predicating your response on the 'assumption" that the Universe is infinite and this same assumption about planetary resources was the one that both got us into today's level of progress and exposed repeatedly the flaws of such thinking by causing catastrophes that are always much easier to face in hindsight, or as someone else's problem.

A close and broad study of history reveals a profound and almost Universal set of examples for the rise AND fall of civilizations that all relied on adaptive technological strategies that were catastrophically exposed for their flawed paradigms and thinking too late to save them from themselves.

Are you really so certain that we are so qualitatively different?

You may be willing to bet your life on that premise but I for one refuse to let you bet mine.

[ddhewitt]

I agree with Michael's analysis. The demise of humans has been predicted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

For the most part I agree with you but a prediction of demise of humanity only needs to be correct one time for it to be of concern.

Duane

[Lazarus Long]

Please Michael and Mind do not confuse me for a Luddite or against Space travel as this would be far from the truth pilgrim. But when this pioneer sets sail I would prefer it were without compact or covenant containing fine print so that others may follow and bring genocide and wanton destruction to the beauty I might find.

To add insult to injury how many times has it been claimed to be being done for my own good?

Colonization is not a panacea, it is a stop gap measure, and a pretext not to address a fundamental necessity for change within ourselves. It is needed and I support it along with colonizing the sea, but I see this as buying time not the solution in itself to the problems we face. Buying time as we have done repeated since long before Malthus and many times since. But are like those that claim the Holocaust never happened?

WWII wasn't so bad? That genocide didn't make itself the ugly hallmark of the twentieth century almost from the start?

Oh and for an idea of how the Native American sees our vision of progress, to all too many of them they perceive themselves prisoners in their own occupied land, and the all too slowly recovering victims of a genocide that made our progress possible through the corrupt violation of repeated treaties they entered into in good faith and were cheated thereby.

Well on that note here is a joke.

Subject: Chief Two Eagles

An old Indian chief sat in his hut on the reservation, smoking a ceremonial pipe, and eying two U.S. government officials sent to interview him.

"Chief Two Eagles," asked one official, "you have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his material wealth. You've seen his progress and the damage he's done."

The chief nodded in agreement.

The official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?"

The chief stared at the government officials for over a minute and then calmly replied, "When white man found the land, Indians were running it. No taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, women did all the work, medicine man free, Indian man spent all day hunting and fishing, and all night having sex."

Then the chief leaned back and smiled, "White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that."

Side-note:

Ladies please before I get ripped apart remember it is a joke and the reality is that everyone back then worked in what was a lot closer to an equitable distribution of labor than most modernists might have you believe. Survival of the fittest was like the Colt revolver on prairie, "a great equalizer".

If society never changed, if there was no progress, the 6 billion people on the earth would have starved by now. These predictions rarely factor in increasing intelligence.

Also Mind it isn't that they do not factor in intelligence, quite to the contrary those in search of valid solutions rely on it to make the prediction false and not self prophetic. There isn't one example of predicting doom from thoughtful and responsible individuals that did not in and of itself contribute to forcing the analysis of serious problems that then contribute to the discovery of solutions; consider them "squeaky wheel doomsayers" not "Chicken Belittler's".

Society never changed by accident, it changed because those that were often ridiculed for questioning the complacency of the majority sought solutions and were prepared when others were losing their heads.

[advancedatheist]

Regarding the mirage of space colonization:

Has Humanity Already Shot Their (Space) Bolt, by Mark Mortimer

Regarding how quickly we could all starve to death from a disruption in the supply of fossil fuels, read about North Korea's experiences in the last dozen years or so:

Drawing Lessons from Experience; The Agricultural Crises in North Korea and Cuba -- Part 1, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

And just today the Canadian press reports that Energy crisis looms, experts warn:

Nov. 26, 2003. 06:33 AM

Energy crisis looms, experts warn
Worldwide oil, gas production expected to peak in 2020
Only solution to impending shortage will be higher prices


PETER CALAMAI
SCIENCE REPORTER

OTTAWA—Forget about hydrogen fuel cells, wind power, nuclear reactors and even global warming. The real energy crisis is that worldwide production of oil and natural gas will peak by 2020, warn some of the country's top experts.

And the only solution will be higher energy prices, from the gas pumps right through to household electricity.

That stark forecast was delivered here yesterday at a crystal ball session on energy and the environment organized by the Royal Society of Canada, the national academy for top achievers in the arts, sciences and humanities.

University of British Columbia professor Bill Rees, widely known for devising the ecological footprint method of measuring environmental impact, predicted that social and political shock waves will be felt worldwide when oil production peaks.

Analysts forecast that production from both conventional oil and sources like Alberta's tar sands will start declining around 2017, with natural gas production peaking soon afterwards, Rees said.

"Canada is not responding. Since 1990, energy use in Canada has gone up by 20 per cent and last year our fossil fuel use went up by 4 per cent," he told the meeting. A 4 per cent annual increase means a doubling in 18 years.

"That's an absolute travesty of logic," Rees said.

Rees and other experts took issue with the more benign energy outlook presented by Don Johnston, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Johnston, a cabinet minister in the Pierre Trudeau era, argued that a huge expansion of nuclear power would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and slow the rate of climate change. Most questions about nuclear power could be solved by technology once countries were past the political and economic hurdles, he said.

But many people simply don't trust assurances from the nuclear industry, Johnston acknowledged — including his own wife.

"Whenever I tell her all the good things about nuclear, she says: `They lied.'"

Several speakers expressed skepticism about the much ballyhooed "hydrogen economy" linked to fuel cells as a new power source for vehicles.

"Is it worth setting in motion this huge research and development effort just so we can keep our automobiles?" asked Richard Gilbert from the Centre for Sustainable Transportation in Toronto.

Gilbert said it was more sensible to redesign communities to make maximum use of tracked transit, such as streetcars and light rail, because these could be powered by electricity from any source.

"We can be reasonably clear that we're going to have a lot less energy than we have now," he said.

The Royal Society session also heard warnings that the looming challenge from declining oil and gas production is being obscured because governments in Canada are preoccupied with the Kyoto response to climate change.

"Kyoto is a distraction," Gilbert said of the multinational agreement for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.