World Population Clock: 7.96B People (2022) • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by irthomasthomas » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:30 AM UTC

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…

Where does this kind of thinking lead us? Should we not be even more proactive, then, and start reducing our population as fast as possible to avert the catastrophe that you predict? If less is more, and time is running out, will you live by your own belief, and volunteer for euthanasia? To save the planet, for our children, and our children's children?

Every generation has it's soothsayers that are absolutely certain we are near the population limit and heading for certain doom. And every one of them was wrong. Our population soared past those limits, no problem.

I share the opinion that earth can sustain about 100B of us, with a bit of planning and thoughtful engineering. So long as most people don't mind living in sky scrapers. More people = more brains to solve the type of problems that I assume you are worried about.

I don't actually believe we will continue growing like we have, as nothing in human affairs follows a strait line for long. Every great kingdom has fallen, every empire divided. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. We don't need to try and control it, but only observe and adapt to it.

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

#132

Post by erklik » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:31 AM UTC

birksherty wrote: post #126

joshuahedlund wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

the max? I don't know about max. However, yeah, you're right. That does not mean we cannot continue in the future and do it better. Lab Grown meat is nearly a thing, and reducing the price of that will drop global emissions. EVs are becoming far more common and will be replacing ICE vehicles come the turn of the decade, we're building more and more solar and renewable energy resources.

We can fix these problems. Yes, the problems are created by us. That does not mean we cannot fix them while continuing to progress and reduce poverty. More people, more brains only benefits that effort. Not reduces it.

The system of our society needs tweaks. Our incentives are sometimes wrong. But again, reducing people doesn't fix that. More people aids us to build better systems.

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

#133

Post by kmlx » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:32 AM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #110

bojan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

8 billion is too many to also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals. If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine. But it’s not doing fine, and that’s why 8 billion is too many.

> If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine.

why? and why would it not be worse? just because of the number of people?

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

#134

Post by esrauch » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:32 AM UTC

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…

> no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased

Surely not based on any way of measuring it, since in some reasonable definitions you could say there's 1.5bn people living in poverty right now and only 1bn total humans existing two centuries ago.

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

#135

Post by joshuahedlund » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:34 AM UTC

birksherty wrote: post #126

joshuahedlund wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes but this has been improving in recent decades as well. See the book More From Less for an argument. Thanks to modern efficiencies, digitization, and government action, resource use has decoupled from economic growth and some has even peaked.

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

#136

Post by kmlx » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:35 AM UTC

hilbert42 wrote: post #92

These stats are frightening. In the past I recall seeing several different sets of figures for the amount of food the average human consumes in a lifetime. One estimate was about 70 tons and the other was 100 tons. (If anyone has better or more definite figures then let's hear about them.) Now, if we consider the other resources every new human will also consume during his or her lifetime - houses, vehicles, white go…

> ever since I read Anne and Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb

hasn’t that whole idea been proven wrong already? isn’t it a 70s myth that never materialised?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation#Critici...

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

#137

Post by erklik » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:35 AM UTC

birksherty wrote: post #129

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…

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…

> That's a very selfish view.

Not sure how advocating for more people is selfish, but okay.

> More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits.

Energy can be practically infinite. Simply requires us to use nuclear power. Yes, Yes, there's issues of waste with that. It's overblown and a moral panic.

More resources are used. Yes. However, thinking of it on a universal scale, even resources are "infinite".

That's what i mean. Resources and Energy are practically infinite when you look at it on a long term scale.

I simply don't think, it's a good idea to advocate for humanity to simply reduce and fizzle out. No. Why should we? We should advance life forward. That does not mean in the same way as before. We can do better. But advocating for the reduction of humanity, of life, is wrong in my opinion.

After all, there is no other life we know of out there like us. Why stop?

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

#138

Post by birksherty » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:40 AM UTC

aortega wrote: post #53

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.

>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…

No post body was provided.

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

#139

Post by Jensson » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:40 AM UTC

erklik wrote: post #127

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…

> 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 pe…

Population growth doesn't create nuclear plants, well educated people who don't have to worry about their daily needs creates nuclear plants. Our current infrastructure only supports X billion people to not live in poverty, every person you add over that X will be a miserable and thus unproductive life that still costs resources.

Sure I believe the earth can support 10 billion people who doesn't live in poverty, but that would require a lot of infrastructure that we don't yet have. Adding people before you can ensure they don't have to live a life of misery will just hurt progress, for progress it is better to have 100 people who live a good life than 1000 people who live near starvation, so the fastest way to get to 10 billion people living a well life is not to first add 10 billion people who have to live in misery.

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

#140

Post by joshuahedlund » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

oldsecondhand wrote: post #120

joshuahedlund wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So they make $3 a day instead of $2? Still not enough to create future Einsteins.

How about $2 to $6 in just the last 40 years. Give it a couple generations with rising incomes, lower birth rates, higher literacy, lower child malnutrition, and you’ll see more Einsteins.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?count...