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World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

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Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#121

Post by vidarh »

usrn wrote: post #48
gonzo41 wrote: post #17

This is fine, it's a small blip. Millenials and Zoomers and some Gen Xers will do the environment a huge favor and keep the birth rate trending down.

It doesn't matter when Africa is exploding. All the low birthrate in the West does is weaken the countries trying to protect the environment. As this continues corporations will bring in the people from these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them. This whole "stop having children to save the environment" bullshit is dumber than the anti-nuclear crap and even more obviously wrong.

All available data shows that high birthrates are linked to societal effects of poverty, low access to education and healthcare, not to culture. When Africans move elsewhere, their birth rates adapt rapidly to their new home countries, as do every other group.

As such, talking about "unsustainable cultures" here is pure xenophobia.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#122

Post by usrn »

BjoernKW wrote: post #117
usrn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter when Africa is exploding. All the low birthrate in the West does is weaken the countries trying to protect the environment. As this continues corporations will bring in the people from these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them. This whole "stop having children to save the environment" bullshit is dumber than the anti-nuclear crap and even more obviously wrong.

Given the "theme song" linked to in your profile, it's quite obvious where this is coming from, but let's talk unsustainable cultures then: Again, from your theme song and your apparent fondness for the Teutonic Order I'm assuming you're at least familiar with Germany and the German social security system, which is very much a part of their culture. The German state pension system basically amounts to a Ponzi scheme…

Yup, but if you're heading for a crash generally you try to pull up and not just head straight into the ground.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#123

Post by nivenkos »

jotm wrote: post #115
randomsearch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t think this is the problem. I think it’s an allocation of resources problem. Pre 80s a lot of the best and brightest worked in engineering. Post 80s they went into finance and then tech. The latter a mixed bag - brought us Google maps etc but sadly mostly focused on selling ads. That’s the risk I see. We either need to change incentives or change culture to get back to a focus on progress / exploration rather th…

While incentives are pretty fucked (Instacrack being worth more than SpaceX, etc), allocation of labour is not a problem. We simply have a lot more best and brightest in everything. There's so much talent it's unreal. There's not enough money to hire everyone, or technology to equip them in engineering. It's kind of like art (pictures, movies, music, anything) - there's so much of it, so high quality these days that…

What does "not enough money" even mean?

Those people still live and survive - they're just optimising ad spend instead of working on engineering problems or medical research, etc.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#124

Post by pclmulqdq »

smallerfish wrote: post #113
aortega wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>will do the environment a huge favor and keep the birth rate trending down. Why? intuitively it would seem that that less humans will improve the environment, but intuition is often wrong. The planet can sustain much more people, it's essentially empty. More people means more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. Remember, most of the environmental damage was done by a very small number o…

> The planet can sustain much more people, it's essentially empty. More people means more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. "Empty" is a very biblical word, with shades of the brass age Hebrew mission of “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” It's…

We can discover new resources though. Look at the discussions around "peak oil." Every time people think we can't get more oil we find a way. It's going to be the same for every other resource.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#125

Post by Tchakra »

b112 wrote: post #27
cloutchaser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe google it. Trending down also. World population will max at around 10bn

Last I heard though, in Africa, population decline was due to endemic aids/hiv, and no real inexpensive treatment. And some refusal to use condoms. If this changes, the trend will sharply reverse.

In the grand scheme, HIV/Aids has not had a large effect on population growth in Africa (and unlikely to have for the future as it is a mostly localised to southern parts of Africa and has been coming down rapidly).

Most forecast say population will peak at 10bn to 11bn - https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth

- A big part of this increase in indeed from Africa which is expected to increase by 3bn - from 1.3bn in 2020 to 4.3bn in 2100

- The largest uncertainty is also about Africa where faster economic growth is expected to bring down population growth (counter-intuitively).

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#126

Post by birksherty »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #109
Jensson wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means less energy and resources per person though, and people with little resources wont be using their brains to solve problems. Likely more people would have the opportunity to become Einstein's or similar if the population stayed at 1 billion than at 10 billion simply because we would have so much more raw resources to i…

> I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more? One of the most stunning and under appreciated facts about the last two centuries is that, no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased eve…

> poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing

That's because humans exploited all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species, exploited so many animals too, just look at Earthling the documentary. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#127

Post by erklik »

Jensson wrote: post #95
erklik wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I don't genuinely understand this pessimism. More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means more Einstiens, Newtons, Da Vincis etc. I do think our systems need changing. Our society currently incentivizes the smart people into something that's not entirely productive but wishing for less people, hmm, I don't know. I feel like this is the start of history, not t…

> More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means less energy and resources per person though, and people with little resources wont be using their brains to solve problems. Likely more people would have the opportunity to become Einstein's or similar if the population stayed at 1 billion than at 10 billion simply because we would have so much more raw resources to i…

> More people means less energy and resources per person though, and people with little resources wont be using their brains to solve problems.

I mean .... why? Why are we assuming that more people aren't working to create more energy, more resources? The Earth can feed, and provide far more energy than we currently are using. Pump out nuclear reactors for every town and we will have enough energy for 10 times the people. Granted, it's not as easy as saying that but my point is that energy is not finite, and resources are far more that we are currently not utilizing.

I don't imagine more people will be living with the same resources. After all, the growth to nearly 8 billion resulted in most people's quality of life rising and poverty decreasing. This is a fact. A cold hard fact, that nearly everyone on an absolute level has gotten better lives.

If we can do that for 8 billion, why can't we for another 8?

More so, increased population results in different, new problems and solving those problems results in us further progressing, not regressing.

I guess, I just don't like thinking of this as the end of history. We can grow and grow, and grow. I don't wish for humanity to simply fizzle out. We've done pretty well till now, let's keep going. We can do better.

As far as we know, we're the only species in the universe, in the whole wide universe that can truly appreciate the beauty of the universe. That can observe. Catalogue. Create Art. Sing songs and so on.

The vast wide massive universe. It deserves to be seen. It deserves to be documented. To be explored. We need to live, and grow far more than now to do that.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#128

Post by shafyy »

BjoernKW wrote: post #117
usrn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter when Africa is exploding. All the low birthrate in the West does is weaken the countries trying to protect the environment. As this continues corporations will bring in the people from these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them. This whole "stop having children to save the environment" bullshit is dumber than the anti-nuclear crap and even more obviously wrong.

Given the "theme song" linked to in your profile, it's quite obvious where this is coming from, but let's talk unsustainable cultures then: Again, from your theme song and your apparent fondness for the Teutonic Order I'm assuming you're at least familiar with Germany and the German social security system, which is very much a part of their culture. The German state pension system basically amounts to a Ponzi scheme…

Just looked up the Teutonic Order (from Wikipedia [0]):

> Before and during World War II, Nazi propaganda and ideology made frequent use of the Teutonic Knights' imagery, as the Nazis sought to depict the Knights' actions as a forerunner of the Nazi conquests for Lebensraum. Heinrich Himmler tried to idealise the SS as a 20th-century reincarnation of the medieval Order. Yet, despite these references to the Teutonic Order's history in Nazi propaganda, the Order itself was abolished in 1938 and its members were persecuted by the German authorities. This occurred mostly due to Hitler's and Himmler's belief that, throughout history, Roman Catholic military-religious orders had been tools of the Holy See and as such constituted a threat to the Nazi regime. Hitler based his German Order on the Teutonic Order, especially the Hochmeister's ceremonial regalia itself even though they abolished the said order.

Linking to this "theme song" and your (not yours, usrn's) xeonophic comments have no place on Hacker News.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order#Modern_organiza...

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#129

Post by birksherty »

erklik wrote: post #87
jl6 wrote: post #76

Might as well say it: 8 billion is too many, and it’s a good thing that population growth is levelling off. A decline down to ~1 billion would be fine. If we have to change retirement planning, so be it. No other species can grow its population exponentially indefinitely. Population growth in every other species is kept in check by conflict and starvation. We have an opportunity to voluntarily limit our footprint to…

Why? I don't genuinely understand this pessimism. More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means more Einstiens, Newtons, Da Vincis etc. I do think our systems need changing. Our society currently incentivizes the smart people into something that's not entirely productive but wishing for less people, hmm, I don't know. I feel like this is the start of history, not t…

That's a very selfish view. More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits. Watch Earthling to see only one part of human needs.

All the advances are due to exploitation all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.

Re: World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022)

#130

Post by xtracto »

bojan wrote: post #88
jl6 wrote: post #76

Might as well say it: 8 billion is too many, and it’s a good thing that population growth is levelling off. A decline down to ~1 billion would be fine. If we have to change retirement planning, so be it. No other species can grow its population exponentially indefinitely. Population growth in every other species is kept in check by conflict and starvation. We have an opportunity to voluntarily limit our footprint to…

This makes no sense whatsoever. 8 billion is too many, for what, for whom? Next to 8 billion of us, we also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals, which is enormously expensive and horrible for the environment. Let's start first by making sure we only keep and feed animals that we actually need, and then discuss if we are too many. I wonder how many humans this planet can sustain for every cow th…

IMHO 8 billion is too many for the size of the earth. With a total of 150 million km2 in land, each person corresponds to 0.018 km2 or 18000m2 which is equivalent to a 130x130 meter space. That includes sleeping, eating and "food growing" spaces. And the 150 million also includes inhospitable places.

I think that no matter how efficient our food generation processes get, this is very little space per person. That's why people live in the air and on top of each other.

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