This is a favorite trope of the left, and several of their "hey I am cool too!" emulators -who may not be socialist/leftists, but probably picked it up the way most vacuous ideas are picked up, around a bong session in a dorm room - often cite it. It was VERY popular as an article of faith back in the day, with Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" being required reading in most sociology classes. I never took a soc class, but read the book anyway, just to see what the fuss was about. When you have a head full of NOTHING (most college age kids) and you read nonsense of this type, you have nothing with which to evaluate it against, and when all your friends are parroting the same nonsense (and it gets you good grades), you tend to spout off the same silliness.
This is an interesting but crucial aside, here. Most people "pick up" their view of the world and how it works and what drives men and women and the structural devices in society NOT by thoughtful examination, comparison, evaluation of arguments etc. Rather, they "pick it up" in the same way they would get Covid and the common cold. There is actually very little thought that goes into views that they would consider "firm," as the firmness of the views are rooted 1) in the emotional enjoyment they receive from peer approbation and 2) whether or not those views support their own desired behaviors.........., NOT in how defensible their views are. (HINT: it makes them really mad if you point that out!
)
Anyway, the club of Rome has just concluded a study of population, population trends, and projected trends, with a fairly decent list of data sets to back it up. My conclusion (embellished at times by my statements... some of which are not politically permissible for such an outfit to say plainly) :
1) The world is NOT headed towards overpopulation, with the definition of "overpopulation" being too many people in relation to earth's available resources. Graph after graph, table after table shows that although the earth's resources are "finite" they may as well be infinite, as man's technological prowess and tools for discovery of both known resources and invention of new ones has CONSISTENTLY outstripped increases in population to provide an increasing (not decreasing) standard of living. The prognostications of megacities full of teeming poverty, disease and famine so far have been shown to be simply inaccurate, for this reason.
2) It is statistically incorrect to simply take a table of the world's population and use that as a base for computation. The fact is that while some geographic sectors undergo explosive growth, others undergo an implosion of population which actually threatens their existence as nations and cultures. This implosion has NOTHING to do with disease and famine, either. In fact, the more "healthy" and advanced the culture is, the greater the tendency is towards negative population growth.
3) Population growth can turn on a dime... again, NOT due to disease, famine, or war (the three biggest threats to populations). Examples in our lifetimes are China (now in a crises of depopulation) - which turned around the numbers by both economic growth (eye popping) and political dictate, and Latin America, which seems to have stabilized growth simply by adopting market principles (as a whole) and seeing financial growth. This leads to point 4 below.
4) THE NUMBER ONE CORRELATION FOR GROWTH SLOWING DOWN IS THE ECONOMIC WELL BEING IN A SOCIETY. It is an inescapable conclusion that wealthy people have fewer kids. That statistical correlation is unarguable. The world has seen the most massive shift from poverty and subsistence living to prosperity in the last 100 years as in recorded history.... and this has been in the face of some horrible wars, and some of the most demonic, wicked, and stupid political structures ever imagined. The fact is that freedom, liberty, and open markets have "won" in the world of ideas, and this has propelled people out of misery at a rate unimagined before. With that prosperity has come reduction in population growth. It is also true that the most backwards, protectionist corrupt and tribalist cultures (Africa), and those affected by religiously anachronistic restrictions (the Islamic world of Middle East and SE Asia), are the repositories of a) the worlds most grinding poverty and b)the most rapidly growing sectors of the world (in fact, where almost the entire pop growth of the planet is occurring). The great news here is that Africa is moving, (grinding?) towards acceptance and adoption of market based economies, and away from the tribal corruption and warfare over resources and wealth. If this occurs, Africa should see both an explosion in living standards and a reduction in growth of people.
6) Every statistical study out there sees a population "top" for the earth in about 2080, after which the concern will NOT be for too many people, but too few. The important thing though, is that the issues are NOT just a crude trend of the whole world, but the mini trends. Some nations are, even now, on such a population decline that their survival as a culture is in doubt. Japan, Russia, Germany, Nordic countries and several other European countries are undergoing horrific birth rate declines. China is openly panicking about their own trends and see a terrifying inability to provide workers to keep their economic engine going in less than 30 years. Several other countries (including the USA) would have labor shortages which are acute were it not for immigration trends.
In short, the visions of zero growth net population folk is not only statistically WRONG, it is actually demonic. It devalues the NUMBER ONE ASSET to any culture, which is its children. A healthy society sees kids as a hope, a future, with them being future producers, inventors, discoverers and the engine that provides leaps in science, business, productivity, and wealth. A sick society either sees kids as insurance against grinding poverty OR as in the west.. .kind of like locusts or consumers who will be eating up precious limited resources. Such a view spawns social policies which focus on "controlling the spread" of these wasting little vermin, as though they were a disease or plague of rats. You see this stuff constantly in the papers and journals of the academes in the west. It is not only unwise, but in fact nonsensical and wicked.
We should resist the inane babbling of this crap whenever it comes up in conversation, and know why/how to do so. Oh, and by the way.... Bill Gates is a monster.
This is an interesting but crucial aside, here. Most people "pick up" their view of the world and how it works and what drives men and women and the structural devices in society NOT by thoughtful examination, comparison, evaluation of arguments etc. Rather, they "pick it up" in the same way they would get Covid and the common cold. There is actually very little thought that goes into views that they would consider "firm," as the firmness of the views are rooted 1) in the emotional enjoyment they receive from peer approbation and 2) whether or not those views support their own desired behaviors.........., NOT in how defensible their views are. (HINT: it makes them really mad if you point that out!
)Anyway, the club of Rome has just concluded a study of population, population trends, and projected trends, with a fairly decent list of data sets to back it up. My conclusion (embellished at times by my statements... some of which are not politically permissible for such an outfit to say plainly) :
1) The world is NOT headed towards overpopulation, with the definition of "overpopulation" being too many people in relation to earth's available resources. Graph after graph, table after table shows that although the earth's resources are "finite" they may as well be infinite, as man's technological prowess and tools for discovery of both known resources and invention of new ones has CONSISTENTLY outstripped increases in population to provide an increasing (not decreasing) standard of living. The prognostications of megacities full of teeming poverty, disease and famine so far have been shown to be simply inaccurate, for this reason.
2) It is statistically incorrect to simply take a table of the world's population and use that as a base for computation. The fact is that while some geographic sectors undergo explosive growth, others undergo an implosion of population which actually threatens their existence as nations and cultures. This implosion has NOTHING to do with disease and famine, either. In fact, the more "healthy" and advanced the culture is, the greater the tendency is towards negative population growth.
3) Population growth can turn on a dime... again, NOT due to disease, famine, or war (the three biggest threats to populations). Examples in our lifetimes are China (now in a crises of depopulation) - which turned around the numbers by both economic growth (eye popping) and political dictate, and Latin America, which seems to have stabilized growth simply by adopting market principles (as a whole) and seeing financial growth. This leads to point 4 below.
4) THE NUMBER ONE CORRELATION FOR GROWTH SLOWING DOWN IS THE ECONOMIC WELL BEING IN A SOCIETY. It is an inescapable conclusion that wealthy people have fewer kids. That statistical correlation is unarguable. The world has seen the most massive shift from poverty and subsistence living to prosperity in the last 100 years as in recorded history.... and this has been in the face of some horrible wars, and some of the most demonic, wicked, and stupid political structures ever imagined. The fact is that freedom, liberty, and open markets have "won" in the world of ideas, and this has propelled people out of misery at a rate unimagined before. With that prosperity has come reduction in population growth. It is also true that the most backwards, protectionist corrupt and tribalist cultures (Africa), and those affected by religiously anachronistic restrictions (the Islamic world of Middle East and SE Asia), are the repositories of a) the worlds most grinding poverty and b)the most rapidly growing sectors of the world (in fact, where almost the entire pop growth of the planet is occurring). The great news here is that Africa is moving, (grinding?) towards acceptance and adoption of market based economies, and away from the tribal corruption and warfare over resources and wealth. If this occurs, Africa should see both an explosion in living standards and a reduction in growth of people.
6) Every statistical study out there sees a population "top" for the earth in about 2080, after which the concern will NOT be for too many people, but too few. The important thing though, is that the issues are NOT just a crude trend of the whole world, but the mini trends. Some nations are, even now, on such a population decline that their survival as a culture is in doubt. Japan, Russia, Germany, Nordic countries and several other European countries are undergoing horrific birth rate declines. China is openly panicking about their own trends and see a terrifying inability to provide workers to keep their economic engine going in less than 30 years. Several other countries (including the USA) would have labor shortages which are acute were it not for immigration trends.
In short, the visions of zero growth net population folk is not only statistically WRONG, it is actually demonic. It devalues the NUMBER ONE ASSET to any culture, which is its children. A healthy society sees kids as a hope, a future, with them being future producers, inventors, discoverers and the engine that provides leaps in science, business, productivity, and wealth. A sick society either sees kids as insurance against grinding poverty OR as in the west.. .kind of like locusts or consumers who will be eating up precious limited resources. Such a view spawns social policies which focus on "controlling the spread" of these wasting little vermin, as though they were a disease or plague of rats. You see this stuff constantly in the papers and journals of the academes in the west. It is not only unwise, but in fact nonsensical and wicked.
We should resist the inane babbling of this crap whenever it comes up in conversation, and know why/how to do so. Oh, and by the way.... Bill Gates is a monster.
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