Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know • Hacker News Board

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#21

Post by amingilani » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 10:28 AM UTC

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #14

amingilani wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand, the video isn't a happy colorful animation about an optimistic conclusion to humanity's problems. It discusses one specific problem : over-population. And distills a ton of data collected over the several decades to offer the conclusion. Historical evidence supports that a decrease in mortality rates is followed by a decrease in birth rate. Here, check out the data for yourself[1] The theor…

> It discusses one specific problem: over-population As I said, they make exactly zero effort to say anything of substance about that issue. Key word is "over". I refer back to my comment. They say something about "population" - but the vital "over-" part is not addressed at all. For good reason, that's a complex topic with mostly unknowns. > Colorful animations help people understand a point, but that doesn't necess…

There are unknowns, yes, but that doesn't mean we can't build estimations and try to reduce the unknowns. That's how econometrics works. And that's how the UN came up with projected expectations: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#22

Post by acuster » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:18 AM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #7

I'm curious about one thing. Like the article alludes to there is currently an extremely strong connection between fertility and low education, low income, and high religiosity. This [1] is a list of nations by net natural population growth. So births - deaths. From the top (according to UN predictions for 2015-2020): Uganda, Angola, Mali, Somalia, Tanzania, etc. From the bottom on nations that are collectively dying…

Your 'one thing' is exactly what Thomas Malthus originally wrote about in the first well-known book on population growth!

His thesis, glibly summarized, was that population growth gives the rich a structural problem: given that reproduction is inherently exponential and the poor reproduce more than the rich, the only logical consequence is that poor people will overwhelm the rich.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#23

Post by Wintamute » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:28 AM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #7

I'm curious about one thing. Like the article alludes to there is currently an extremely strong connection between fertility and low education, low income, and high religiosity. This [1] is a list of nations by net natural population growth. So births - deaths. From the top (according to UN predictions for 2015-2020): Uganda, Angola, Mali, Somalia, Tanzania, etc. From the bottom on nations that are collectively dying…

You're completely correct to highlight this, it's a coming challenge to be sure. Developed nations need to fine a way to increase indigenous fertility rates without simply replacing their own populations and culture with immigration. For my part I think the solution is multi-pronged:

- Make child rearing more financially feasible (big tax cuts for families)

- Foster reliance on family and local social networks, rather than reliance on the state

- Nudge younger generations to take responsibility for the future of their nation, rather that the nihilistic individualism that currently pervades our culture

- Etc

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#24

Post by icebraining » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #19

BerislavLopac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what happens when the part of society that is living in economically stable and educated households > is not even reproducing to the point of replacing itself, while those living in low education and low > income households are massively reproducing? Migration is what happens. Followed by integration.

Can you explain how you see this as a solution? We can view this problem on any scale as it seems to be applicable everywhere. On a world scale the fundamental issue is that people who are of low education, low income, and high religiosity are increasingly the ones primarily repopulating our planet. This means that any given child is more and more likely to be born into this sort of circumstance. And many of these ch…

low education, low income, and high religiosity

This describes much of Europe less than a century ago. None of my grandparents had more than four years of schooling. The local priest had enough power to imprison people. People were punished for homossexual acts until quite recently (e.g. Turing). In Ireland, divorce only became legal in 1995.

Low income and education is not a genetic characteristic, it can and is changeable.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#25

Post by baxtr » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:48 AM UTC

amingilani wrote: post #11

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you called it myth. Just because it sort of works short term does not tell you anything about long term consequences. Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it. You need a lot of optimism about solutions for global warming and pollution. The linked short "feel good" video asks an extreme question "Will this lead to the end of our civilization?" (pretend the other side made a ridiculous c…

I think you misunderstand, the video isn't a happy colorful animation about an optimistic conclusion to humanity's problems. It discusses one specific problem : over-population. And distills a ton of data collected over the several decades to offer the conclusion. Historical evidence supports that a decrease in mortality rates is followed by a decrease in birth rate. Here, check out the data for yourself[1] The theor…

Isn’t this prone to inductive fallacy? Just because we’ve never seen overpopulation as problem doesn’t mean it won’t become one. Ultimately, earth as planet is finite.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#26

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

WA wrote: post #2

There is a fantastic video by Hans Rosling about the global population growth and why global population might actually stall around 10 billion people: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_... This relates to fact 2 in the article.

For the sake of the environment and every nonhuman species, we'd better hope that population growth doesn't just stall but reverses itself.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#27

Post by wslh » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:55 AM UTC

The world population has almost doubled from 1960 to 2018. I think this makes the #1 fact much stronger.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#28

Post by andrepd » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:00 PM UTC

I think this is the most important thing to retain from reading this article:

>[...] Both are true at the same time: The world is much better than in the past and it is still awful.

>To bring this to mind I need to know both statistics: When someone says we can sit back and relax because the world is in a much better place, I point out that 11 children are still dying every minute. We cannot accept the world as it is today. And when I feel hopeless in the face of this tragedy, I remember that we reduced annual child deaths from 20 million to 5.6 million in the last fifty years.

Keeping this in mind at all times is a very important thing.

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#29

Post by vageli » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

amingilani wrote: post #11

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you called it myth. Just because it sort of works short term does not tell you anything about long term consequences. Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it. You need a lot of optimism about solutions for global warming and pollution. The linked short "feel good" video asks an extreme question "Will this lead to the end of our civilization?" (pretend the other side made a ridiculous c…

I think you misunderstand, the video isn't a happy colorful animation about an optimistic conclusion to humanity's problems. It discusses one specific problem : over-population. And distills a ton of data collected over the several decades to offer the conclusion. Historical evidence supports that a decrease in mortality rates is followed by a decrease in birth rate. Here, check out the data for yourself[1] The theor…

> My point is:

> - The shortage of resource because of over-population is an old theory, but we've seen no evidence to it yet.

There does indeed exist evidence that unrestrained population growth DOES lead to resource depletion and at least in this case [0] led to the eventual extinction of a population confined to an island.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals

Re: Three facts from “Our World in Data” that everyone should know

#30

Post by hycaria » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:15 PM UTC

amingilani wrote: post #11

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you called it myth. Just because it sort of works short term does not tell you anything about long term consequences. Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it. You need a lot of optimism about solutions for global warming and pollution. The linked short "feel good" video asks an extreme question "Will this lead to the end of our civilization?" (pretend the other side made a ridiculous c…

I think you misunderstand, the video isn't a happy colorful animation about an optimistic conclusion to humanity's problems. It discusses one specific problem : over-population. And distills a ton of data collected over the several decades to offer the conclusion. Historical evidence supports that a decrease in mortality rates is followed by a decrease in birth rate. Here, check out the data for yourself[1] The theor…

>- Population growth eventually slows down when the mortality rate decreases.

But that worked in a world where people were reliant on children to work / take care of elders. I don't think the comparison between 40's occident and nows developing countries is of any worth. Also you can throw a lot of stuff in there : not the same social norms (occident is really individual centered, asia or africa don't seem to have suffered the same shift yet), not the same culture (child policies, cults, education access for women...). I really don't think your sentence is an universal rule. It happened once in a rather homogenical situations. Could we say the same about now ?

>- The population growth rate is expected to begin slowing

Expectations are not enough. And nothing will be inforced to provoke this. Also we're still above 2 children per women, which is too much considering the HUGE energy/consumption/overall spending cutouts we have to make to keep our planet and oceans alive.