The Global Population Crisis That Never Was • Hacker News Board

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#211

Post by corty » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

saddlerustle wrote: post #106

corty wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that refutation is, population growth is O(2^n), available space is O(1) and available food is limited by available space and energy. Maybe there will be advances in science, increasing food production. However, to keep up with O(2^n) we need to double food production in constant time intervals, around 40 years. Otherwise, there will be overpopulation. There is no escaping it, except if exponential p…

> And food production following an O(2^n) curve is highly improbable, the best we can imho do is something polynomial or linear. Why? All technology has so far outpaced population growth.

Moore's law was famously exponential, until it wasn't, because there are physical limits. Grain per hectare made some noticeable jumps, but no growth or even negative growth due to organics. Limit now is probably what the ecosystem will bear, and that is something linear or constant.

The reason why I think a polynomial is the best we can do is that some very special processes generate exponential behaviour, mostly stuff that is self-replicating. I don't see those in technology. Technology doesn't reproduce all by itself, it needs to be invented, financed, etc. Those are limits that force it subexponential.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#212

Post by OrbitRock » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #199

OrbitRock wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well then you come back around to valuing nature imo

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#213

Post by xyzzyz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

dillondoyle wrote: post #176

eloff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not directly. It will cause mass migration and refugee crises as coastal cities and low lying areas slowly flood. That seems inevitable at this point. That could maybe lead to wars, and nuclear war is still an existential threat. If the changes somehow disrupt the ability to support cereal crops in the northern hemisphere (which actually is also the biggest risk from nuclear winter), that could lead to wides…

I just read a study showing this europe crops crisis. And to the parent of this thread we keep seeing constant research showing IPCC is off (sometimes wayy off) in their worst case (e.g. we're there or past it in many respects). Armagedon is the last battle. To me that's what climate crisis is and how we need to look at it and take immediate action. We battle and win or we lose and it's really really really bad. Mayb…

> And to the parent of this thread we keep seeing constant research showing IPCC is off (sometimes wayy off) in their worst case (e.g. we're there or past it in many respects).

Of course, that's expected. Even if you assume that IPCC is 100% on point, then with p-value threshold of 0.05, you'd expect 1 in every 20 studies to show that IPCC is off.

The real question is whether the scientific consensus changes by the time the next IPCC report comes out. Maybe it will, we shall see. At the same time, consider what kind of message you are sending here: you are asking everyone to not listen to scientific consensus, and instead promote alarmism, because there are a few studies that challenge the consensus.

There is nothing wrong with challenging the consensus, that's how we get progress, but how do you want to win trust of the society, which is required to deal with this planet-wide situation, when, right after the (mostly won) fight for people to stop with denialism and believe the science, you turn around and say "yeah, that consensus we asked you to believe, instead of a handful of contrarian papers, is not what we actually want you to believe, instead you should believe this other handful of contrarian papers"? That's only going to sow distrust and alienate people.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#214

Post by snarf21 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

8draco8 wrote: post #181

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…

IMHO education plays huge role. More often people decide to go to collage, then have a career, people also learn what a huge effort have to be put into rising child. On top of that there is so many fantastic things that person can do and have to give up at least to some extend if having a baby. In my opinion those are huge factors. This is a reason why on average successful, well educated people tend to have less chi…

Agreed, the best way to raise the standard of living is to educate women and loan them money. They now have options. They are stuck being baby factories. When this happens, population growth quickly follows.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#215

Post by OldHand2018 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #187

tzs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No large coastal city will become flooded on a permanent basis. Building levees is just too easy and cheap relative to cost of giving up on a city, just ask medieval Dutchmen. Levees don't work in south Florida. Well, they work to stop water that comes in horizontally above ground level, but in south Florida floods usually come in by bubbling up through the porous ground.

Yes. Miami needs to move a few meters straight up. This is quite possible. Galveston, TX [1] and Chicago [2] did that a century ago. Miami Beach is raising some main roads, finally. Here's Miami's flood zone map.[3] Worldwide, cities on river deltas face problems. Mostly in Asia. New Orleans is the only US city built on sand flatland at the mouth of a huge river. Asia has several of those. New York is building a seaw…

It appears that in the case of Galveston and Chicago, the government paid to raise the streets and sidewalks, and it was up to private property owners to deal with it themselves.

In the USA, is that even possible anymore? I've been to both Galveston and Chicago, and you can see oddities here and there in some neighborhoods. In many cases, homes were not actually raised - the main floor became a basement and above it new doors were made into the existing walls!

In a lot of locations, you cannot have a basement and get flood insurance. So what poorer people did in Galveston and Chicago is no longer an option.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#216

Post by slibhb » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #195

slibhb wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

You're making a tortured semantic argument. We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. Malthus being "correct up until the 17th century" is beside the point.

You've also made bizarre arguments elsewhere in this thread. Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#217

Post by xyzzyz » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #216

xyzzyz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

You're making a tortured semantic argument. We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. Malthus being "correct up until the 17th century" is beside the point. You've also made bizarre arguments elsewhere in this thread. Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's n…

> We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions.

We can, and we do, just not for human population in future. Again, Malthusian models are completely standard way to model past human populations, and also animal populations.

> Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact.

Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct, and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions. We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't: we both had the technology grow carrying capacity faster than the population had grown, and also we had population growth slow down a lot, and then go down to shrinking regime.

I expect these trends to continue in my lifetime, and probably in the lifetime of my children -- but not forever. Instead, I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. However, I have much less confidence in this prediction than I do in the validity of Malthusian model.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#218

Post by eloff » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #159

eloff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not directly. It will cause mass migration and refugee crises as coastal cities and low lying areas slowly flood. That seems inevitable at this point. That could maybe lead to wars, and nuclear war is still an existential threat. If the changes somehow disrupt the ability to support cereal crops in the northern hemisphere (which actually is also the biggest risk from nuclear winter), that could lead to wides…

Any flooding of cities will take decades. This gives plenty of time for people to build and/or move to new cities on higher ground.

Where do you move the hundred million people in Bangladesh?

What do you do in Florida?

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#219

Post by eloff » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

xwolfi wrote: post #163

eloff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not directly. It will cause mass migration and refugee crises as coastal cities and low lying areas slowly flood. That seems inevitable at this point. That could maybe lead to wars, and nuclear war is still an existential threat. If the changes somehow disrupt the ability to support cereal crops in the northern hemisphere (which actually is also the biggest risk from nuclear winter), that could lead to wides…

It will most likely not do all this. It s sad and bad, it's happening and our fault, but there has been costal cities in trouble before, people already mass migrate in time of despair without the need for the climate, and wars happen for far less. You can roll up agonizing in fear, or you can prepare yourself for a bit of struggle. We can help lower the impact, but there's no reason to panic. Most likely the impact o…

I'm fine with taking things calmly. But what your advocating is the ostrich approach to problems.

That's just being blind about the problems. Nuclear war is all one of the biggest existential threats to civilization. It didn't end with the cold war.

Think of all the close calls we've had. Now look forward 100 years, what's the odds it happens? 1000 years? 10000?

We're our own worst enemy and our civilization is the biggest threat to civilization.

Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was

#220

Post by firebaze » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:30 PM UTC

Humans are bad in estimating exponential growth (like, totally - we're good in suppressing bad news, and _very_ bad in accepting ideas we don't like)

Still, we're depending on exponential growth (be it pension funding, companies, inflation, you name it).

We're lying to ourselves regarding population. Ok, too many people - we'll resort to a vegetarian diet - oh wait, that's not sustainable, too many people. Well, we'll be vegans! Oh wait, not sustainable also, we'll need gene editing (bad, but we'll accept that reaching a certain threshold). Well, then let's grow our food in vertical farms! Seems sustainable, until we reach the next (last?) limit.

This expands to anything (ICE vs EE, flying vs train travel). Unless we accept this inherent flaw and restrict us accordingly, we'll outgrow anything.

Oh well, then let's just ... ? Go to mars :) (I truly believe this is the only mid-term sustainable¹ option, since we'll never be able to have at most only 2 children as a population - and I'd love to gain as much hate for this statement as possible if I were proven false).

¹ Mars will not be enough in just a few centuries, probably even just decades