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

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

#51

Post by twoslide »

There's an interesting link between Facts 1 and 2 that the author misses:

> Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year.

About half of this reduction (from 20 - 10 million) is because:

> Fact #2: Since 1960, the fertility rate has fallen by half.

Globally, the population of young people has decreased. Child mortality has decreased, too, but not by a factor of 3.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO.ZS World Bank reports 0-14 years, rather than 0-5 used for infant mortality.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

babbadook wrote: post #45
bungie4 wrote: post #31

First off, I stand up and applaud the Gates Foundation, and everybody, who work to improve the lives of everybody on the planet. WRT: Extreme Poverty, a few years back, we had a political party who tackled the problem of poverty by redefining the measuring stick of what constitutes poverty. POOF much celebration and self-handshaking when they announced that during their term, their efforts dropped the number of peopl…

If you are curious here is the larger exploration of global poverty from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty It has been a while since I read it but I found it quite compelling. If i remember correctly, the measures are based on consumption of goods per day to try to avoid complications related to differing economic systems. Also while it is true that measures can be manipulated to tell the…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by meritt »

twoslide wrote: post #51

There's an interesting link between Facts 1 and 2 that the author misses: > Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year. About half of this reduction (from 20 - 10 million) is because: > Fact #2: Since 1960, the fertility rate has fallen by half. Globally, the population of young people has decreased. Child mortality has decreased, too, but not by a factor of 3. [1] htt…

You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B. That's faster than the fertility rate decreased.

> Globally, the population of young people has decreased.

The proportion of the population which are young people has decreased but the total population of young people has increased significantly: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO

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

#54

Post by crazynick4 »

meritt wrote: post #53
twoslide wrote: post #51

There's an interesting link between Facts 1 and 2 that the author misses: > Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year. About half of this reduction (from 20 - 10 million) is because: > Fact #2: Since 1960, the fertility rate has fallen by half. Globally, the population of young people has decreased. Child mortality has decreased, too, but not by a factor of 3. [1] htt…

You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B. That's faster than the fertility rate decreased. > Globally, the population of young people has decreased. The proportion of the population which are young people has decreased but the total population of young people has increased significantly: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO

> You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B.

Older people were also staying alive longer - the death rate no longer offset the birth rate to the same extent as before.

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

#55

Post by TangoTrotFox »

icebraining wrote: post #24
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ch…

Right, but the problem is once people do obtain a healthy income and good education, they are not reproducing even to the point of sustainability. Because of this we end up taking 1 step forward, but then 2 steps back. You bring x units of population to education, out of poverty, and so on. But then they fail to reproduce to the point of sustainability. At the same time, some number much larger than x units that remains in poverty is reproducing like there is no tomorrow.

This is a new factor in an old problem. People reproducing beyond their means of sustenance is nothing new. What is new is that those of means are now failing to reproduce.

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

#56

Post by mr_luc »

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #10
jpadkins wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it. do you have earth scale measures for this? what is your threshold for drastic? on most measures I can think of, earth is pretty much the same as it was 100k years ago. maybe you are suggesting humans have a drastic impact on other species on earth?

Geologically it is the same, a stone is a stone, true that. The creatures on it, both plants as well as animals, changed drastically by human intervention. Example: https://mic.com/articles/84681/this-is-exactly-how-much-weig... (it's for this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1338/ ) Then there's the pollution, for example plastics (tiny particles) everywhere, example: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/plasti…

Also, an up to 80% reduction in the biomass of fish stocks over the course of the past couple of centuries.

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

#57

Post by denzil_correa »

bungie4 wrote: post #31

First off, I stand up and applaud the Gates Foundation, and everybody, who work to improve the lives of everybody on the planet. WRT: Extreme Poverty, a few years back, we had a political party who tackled the problem of poverty by redefining the measuring stick of what constitutes poverty. POOF much celebration and self-handshaking when they announced that during their term, their efforts dropped the number of peopl…

> WRT: Extreme Poverty, a few years back, we had a political party who tackled the problem of poverty by redefining the measuring stick of what constitutes poverty. POOF much celebration and self-handshaking when they announced that during their term, their efforts dropped the number of people living in poverty by a very significant amount.

In other words, Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

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

#59

Post by twoslide »

meritt wrote: post #53
twoslide wrote: post #51

There's an interesting link between Facts 1 and 2 that the author misses: > Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year. About half of this reduction (from 20 - 10 million) is because: > Fact #2: Since 1960, the fertility rate has fallen by half. Globally, the population of young people has decreased. Child mortality has decreased, too, but not by a factor of 3. [1] htt…

You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B. That's faster than the fertility rate decreased. > Globally, the population of young people has decreased. The proportion of the population which are young people has decreased but the total population of young people has increased significantly: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO

Indeed, I missed "% of total" on that graph, thanks

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

#60

Post by frockington »

petermcneeley wrote: post #58

Looks good right? but all is not so great. Whats happening is a squeezing of the middle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1oHJezqBYU Thats why this is also front page HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413622

What is inherently wrong with squeezing the middle? Seems like you'll get increased competition and innovation as people scramble to move to the top. Could be a net positive for mankind
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