Now take in account the ecosystems destroyed and the picture is very different. We must leave behind the humans-only perspective.
We should always value humans over other species, and if you disagree you're an enemy of our species.
The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
61–70 of 280 posts
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#62the dismissal of Malthus seems itself ideological. It's not due to any necessary reason that Malthusianism itself is wrong, quite obviously putting population pressure on restrained resources is an actual disaster. What was wrong with Malthus or the food scare talked about in the article is simply that they made their argument about the wrong thing and at the wrong time, the rebuttal is based on contingent facts. The…
>nobody today really argues for any of that stuff ahem https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/themes/population-pol... https://iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/20140918-PDR-pop.htm... https://blog.iiasa.ac.at/2014/02/27/what-is-the-optimal-fert... https://www.ined.fr/en/glossary/population-policy/ Malthus should be targeted by the time-travellers for culling as soon as convenient ..
Those pages promote birth control (with a focus on avoiding forced reproduction/birth) not culling the sick.
Are you making a handwaving argument about supposed genocide via birth control?
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#63As 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.
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#64the dismissal of Malthus seems itself ideological. It's not due to any necessary reason that Malthusianism itself is wrong, quite obviously putting population pressure on restrained resources is an actual disaster. What was wrong with Malthus or the food scare talked about in the article is simply that they made their argument about the wrong thing and at the wrong time, the rebuttal is based on contingent facts. The…
But that was exactly why he was so wrong - he thought that the limits to resources was static, and they are not always.
In computing we say that all problems are O(1) in the limit, because there is a practical limit to the available resources.
The devil is in the details, and escaping the trap once isn't a permanent solution. Feeding us more efficiently now by poisoning our environment isn't a long term solution.
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#65Now take in account the ecosystems destroyed and the picture is very different. We must leave behind the humans-only perspective.
We should always value humans over other species, and if you disagree you're an enemy of our species.
You can value humans over other species without assigning a nil value to the latter
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#66Now take in account the ecosystems destroyed and the picture is very different. We must leave behind the humans-only perspective.
We should always value humans over other species, and if you disagree you're an enemy of our species.
We should always value our family and friends over others, or else you are an enemy of family and friends.
Also race, religious and ethnic group...
What's your point?
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#67This is interesting political analysis, but the fact remains that the global population is topping out at several billion with almost all arable land already being farmed and ecological impacts accumulating. All these related problems may have solutions, but reframing the situation doesn't really address potential for improvement.
Yes. Problems like this one:
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution....
are an unintended consequence of scale.
I don't have good solutions, and the way our economies are set up discourage population degrowth (see the panic in Europe), and there are many bad, immoral ways to go about it, but so many of our problems are not a problem with technologies employed, but the scale at which they are employed.
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#68"The myth, as is commonly told, tells the story of a mid-twentieth century world headed for disaster. There were too many people being born and not enough food being produced. This combination of forces would lead inexorably to famine, unchecked migration, conflict and other calamities. However, thanks to the inventiveness of Western scientists more food was produced, Armageddon was avoided, and the world did not exp…
> Our climate issues are in large due to overpopulation and subsequent increasing demand for resources Industrialization, not population is to blame. Maybe we have an industrialization crisis. But it's difficult to blame that on "developing nations" so it probably won't get much press. Then again, things like the Paris Agreement provide incentives to move polluting industry to China, so nationalist anti-Chinese media…
Another way to frame it is we have a developed-world population crisis. I agree that still makes "8billion+" a false alarm.
But another way to say it that if we are to lift the materialistic standard of living for the other 4 billion people, there needs to be same or less population of them.
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#69"The myth, as is commonly told, tells the story of a mid-twentieth century world headed for disaster. There were too many people being born and not enough food being produced. This combination of forces would lead inexorably to famine, unchecked migration, conflict and other calamities. However, thanks to the inventiveness of Western scientists more food was produced, Armageddon was avoided, and the world did not exp…
But in many ways the situation described was true, until artificial nitrogen fertilizer was invented. It is apparent that we've been pretty good at improving productivity and efficiency. But use of fertilizer has caused other problems.
Re: The Global Population Crisis That Never Was
#70"The myth, as is commonly told, tells the story of a mid-twentieth century world headed for disaster. There were too many people being born and not enough food being produced. This combination of forces would lead inexorably to famine, unchecked migration, conflict and other calamities. However, thanks to the inventiveness of Western scientists more food was produced, Armageddon was avoided, and the world did not exp…
Bangladesh has some struggles. It is the most densely populated (large) country on earth. They have major floods often which cause big problems. But they manage to survive. Thus there isn't really a threat to anyone else. There's enough food to feed everyone, and the only problem remaining is political and with distribution. It would not be difficult or expensive to end world hunger, cents a person.
This is silly. If it only cost cents to feed a person, food wouldn't cost dollars.