The world might run out of people • Hacker News Board

Re: The world might run out of people

#61

Post by jopsen » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #2

Our economy and intellectual progress is massively predicated on specialisation of labor. When I consider any single aspect of our life, even something as "simple" as how elevators work, it's astounding the amount of complexity that goes into it. Complexity that we can handle because we divvy it up amongst many many people who are completely specialized in understanding and fulfilling that task. Gradual increases in…

You suggest that technology would progress to free us of natural resource constraints, why wouldn't it also free us of manpower constraints? (after all the robots are coming).

As for population going to zero, I suspect it'll be a while -- and that we could increase birth rates with financial incentives, 2-3 years parental leave wouldn't be very dystopian :)

Re: The world might run out of people

#62

Post by epakai » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #13

pasta wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). Citation needed, especially since we are talking about much different cultures.

It's fairly independent of culture, and where culture matters it eventually changes because women become enfranchised.

Use slider at the bottom to vary time.

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar...

Re: The world might run out of people

#63

Post by urbanslug » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #14

pasta wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.

The commenter is talking about averages and you're talking about the tails of the graph.

Re: The world might run out of people

#64

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

pasta wrote: post #9

adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

I think part of it is also social security of sorts - as a mechanism. One successful child can provide for you in old age better than eight struggling to get by.

A robust pension or welfare scheme makes it less mandatory. Some might want to go with six kids, others are content with zero or or one or two just to carry on a family line in at least a token way.

Re: The world might run out of people

#65

Post by urbanslug » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57

adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

Confused: that graph shows birth rates dropping like a stone, all toward 2.

Right? Most countries in Africa actually show dropping birth rates. The ones going up or stable are ones with war or poor social amenities.

Re: The world might run out of people

#66

Post by kijin » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:31 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #38

> “In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline,” they write. “Once that decline begins, it will never end.” I'll give you very long odds against.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the decline ends at some point and a sort of long-term fluctuation takes over. Economic, political, and technological changes all affect how many babies people have, as well as how long they live.

Re: The world might run out of people

#67

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #14

pasta wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.

Cultures have nothing to do with it.

See Hans Rosling's talk on this [1] or see it yourself in data [2]. As soon as education, medicine, economic situation improves, you get a drop to ~2 children per woman across all cultures.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies

[2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

Re: The world might run out of people

#68

Post by ggggtez » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #17

joshuacc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who wants more than 2.1 kids is stupid, impulsive, or a religious zealot? That seems unlikely.

No, but it is true that groups with higher birth rates in spite of having middle class lifestyle tend to be religious. there are lots of stupid, impulsive religious zealots with quiverfuls. But also a lot of wonderful, loving religious folks with quiverfuls. I wish there were more other types who had a birthrate above replacement, but outside of religious circles, having more than 2 kids is rare and even considered u…

>It could be that in the future, religion is a social trait selected for because it leads to higher birth rates.

Why could it not also have been the case in the past as well? Many religions have tenets about raising many children. Could it be that this is why religion is very highly ingrained in society to begin with?

Re: The world might run out of people

#69

Post by thomasahle » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

I didn't know this was controversial? The UN numbers referred to show that this is a likely outcome already on page 2.

At most the author seems to disagree with UN about ~1 billion people. Well within the uncertainty.

https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_Key...

Re: The world might run out of people

#70

Post by idrae » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57

adrianN wrote: post #3

That's interesting. I've heard the exact opposite opinion somewhere, that the education of women doesn't have as big an effect as anticipated by the models, especially in Africa. This graphs shows it https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain... For some countries like India or China, the effect is very strong. Just a few years of education drastically reduce the number of children, but for other co…

Confused: that graph shows birth rates dropping like a stone, all toward 2.

If you hover over Africa you'll notice that the steepness of the lines is much lower than the rest of the world. Extrapolating from the lines I'm guessing they'll end up at 3-4 children instead of the ~2 children that most of Asia and Europe have.