The Global Population Crisis That Never Was • Hacker News Board

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#191

Post by marshmallow_12 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

ta988 wrote: post #168

frockington1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been doomsday Climate predictions as long you can go back. Historically, look at the flood stories and you can see climate worry in biblical times. More recently Miami Beach is always going to be underwater 5 years from the prediction date. It's a serious problem, but there has always been a cult like following to climate change. Personally, I think it's best to ignore the hysterical predictions and focus…

That's assuming that only controlling our own impact is sufficient to limit the problems.

periods of global cooling and warming have always happened (ice age). The fear is our activities are accelerating the change, not that it causes it

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#192

Post by Geee » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #180

The author has one anecdote about the US and India arguing over food aid, and he projects that into "population growth was not a problem". Why fertility rates declined worldwide is the big question. Worldwide, births per female were about 5 in 1960 and about 2.4 worldwide now. That is a huge, and unexpected, trend. Japan, South Korea, and the EU are in actual decline. Nobody really expected a change that big. It's st…

I think it might be caused by the modern pension system. There's no need for children if pension is provided by other means.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#193

Post by pascalxus » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #180

The author has one anecdote about the US and India arguing over food aid, and he projects that into "population growth was not a problem". Why fertility rates declined worldwide is the big question. Worldwide, births per female were about 5 in 1960 and about 2.4 worldwide now. That is a huge, and unexpected, trend. Japan, South Korea, and the EU are in actual decline. Nobody really expected a change that big. It's st…

is it so hard to understand? the material wealth of the developed world has dropped by quite a large amount (at least for shelter, medical insurance, education). Don't trust those GDP per capita figures (even adjusted for PPP), they don't tell you the true story because inflation isn't being counted correctly and the basket of goods used is questionable at best. there's a lot of subsitutions going on in those figures that understate inflation.

On an interview with an older guy from the 50s, he was explaining how a painter could have support a family and 6 kids and a house, all on a single income. Try doing that today. These days, it would be hard for a painter to just support himself, much less a wife, a house and six kids.

In the US, in blue states, millenials are now spending upwards of 40 to 50% of their incomes just on shelter.

In the bay area, it's not uncommon for couples in the highest income brackets to rent out rooms in their townhouse (notice i said townhouse) to make ends meat ( at least for those who bought recently). and that's just the top 2-3%. you can imagine how everyone else lives.

We need to get away from using GDP per capita as a measure of wealth and instead use number of hours worked to earn necessities (shelter, food, water, transportation, education and medical).

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#194

Post by mc32 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

yellowstuff wrote: post #80

BurningFrog wrote: post #63

As I've gotten older and seen predicted doomsdays come and go, I've started to think that expecting armageddon is an innate part of human psychology. I'm not aware of any era or place where many people have not expected the world to meet disaster soon. It's a part of all major religions.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. It could be that worrying about doomsday is an innate human trait, and that as the article asserts, certain types of worries are motivated by racism. I still think it's a good idea to allocate some resources towards mitigating low probability, high impact events.

Nice Heller/Kobain reference.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#195

Post by xyzzyz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #175

xyzzyz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the past is as murky as the future, there is little reason to distinguish between the two.

I have no opinion about your broader argument (that Malthus' model is accurate with respect to his past) but the way you choose to express it simply makes no sense. You can't use the word "prediction" if you're unwilling to make a distinction between the past and future.

Of course you can. The crucial distinction is not about actual chronology, but rather about your state of mind. The scientific method is about predicting the outcomes of experiments, natural or artificial ones. It works just as well regardless of whether the thing you are trying to predict happened in the past or is yet to happen.

Otherwise, the whole field of astronomy wouldn’t be possible, as it by its nature is all about observing the past, and building models to explain and predict other events that happened in the past. If you grant that astronomy is a scientifically sound pursuit, why is astronomy observing and testing their theories on events that happened thousands or millions year ago in another galaxy fine, but observing and testing econometric theories on events that happened hundreds or thousands years ago make no sense? How is archeology, or ancient population genetics supposed to work, if you only allow scientific method to be applied to future events?

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#196

Post by kiliantics » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

woeirua wrote: post #184

nahuel0x wrote: post #15

Now take in account the ecosystems destroyed and the picture is very different. We must leave behind the humans-only perspective.

What are you talking about? Humans have already irrevocably altered the natural ecosystem over the past 100k years. We have: killed off all the megafauna, domesticated thousands of plants, drastically changed the landscape through agriculture, literally changed the courses of rivers, diverted water all over the planet, etc. And that was all before the modern era.

Sure, this sounds reasonable, but it's really not when you look at the magnitudes of our impact over time. It's clear that the actions of the last 50-100 years or so are in extreme excess of what can be stabilised by the global weather and ecological systems. We've gone from about two thirds remaining natural wilderness in the world in the early 1900s to one third remaining today. The continued survival of most species, including ours, is very much in danger if we don't reverse a lot of this.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#197

Post by xyzzyz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #174

xyzzyz wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of Malthus’ predictions have come true. They just did so in his past, not future. Malthusian model is the standard one to describe evolution of human populations up until 17th century or so. If you are familiar with scientific literature, with economic history, with population genetics etc, the Malthusian model is pretty much the consensus view these days. See, for example Gregory Clark’s “Farewell to Alms” or Sh…

> All of Malthus’ predictions have come true. They just did so in his past, not future. This is trying to win an argument by changing the meaning of a term. “Predictions” refer to future events. All of my stock pick “predictions” also came true. However, I did not become a billionaire, because they did so in the past.

So what words you are using for astronomers and their theories of stars and galaxies? After all, almost all of the events they observe and test their theories on have happened in the long, long past. If you don’t call it “prediction”, then what?

The crucial issue is not when the event happened chronologically, but rather whether you have knowledge of the event. If you have knowledge, then indeed it is not prediction. However, in Malthus time, there was very, very little historical econometric data available.

The point here is that if you judge Malthus by quality of his predictions for immediate future, then yes, they turned out badly. However, that’s not because his model was wrong, but rather because some of his assumptions, that have been valid for entirety of the past history before him, have just stopped being valid anymore.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#198

Post by esja » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #63

As I've gotten older and seen predicted doomsdays come and go, I've started to think that expecting armageddon is an innate part of human psychology. I'm not aware of any era or place where many people have not expected the world to meet disaster soon. It's a part of all major religions.

Perhaps we can thank evolution for that. The people alive today are descended from the survivors of disasters.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#199

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

OrbitRock wrote: post #122

BurningFrog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should always value humans over other species, and if you disagree you're an enemy of our species.

Valuing humans over other species at all costs leads to humans collapsing our environment and thus harming humans.

Only if you apply the idea in a stupid and shortsighted way.

I advocate for doing it smartly.

It's a bit exhausting to have to point out something so obvious.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#200

Post by wizzwizz4 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

OrbitRock wrote: post #123

basilgohar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An even more rational approach is think about it in terms of classes of scenarios to prepare for – many threats can be averted and/or mitigated through common preparations. Seed stores, distributed infrastructure, general survival training, and so on. But given how remote many scenarios seem to most people making decisions, the extra effort for long term benefits over short term gains tends to favor the latter over t…

> Seed stores, distributed infrastructure, general survival training, and so on. If we actually thought like this and prepared ourselves in this manner during good times it’d increase the resilience of our species so profoundly.

We can. Now is good times. Apart from the pandemic – but that's only one type of bad time; we're mostly okay as regards climate change, we don't currently have much crop blight, nuclear armageddon seems far away… and we're mostly in a position to prepare and mitigate those issues, even if we missed the boat on this particular pandemic.