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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

#3
Relevant Kurzgesagt video on overpopulation: https://youtu.be/QsBT5EQt348

I learnt about the overpopulation myth during my undergrad, but I'm continuously surprised by how many people (including Thanos) didn't know this.

Edit: Here's a chart of expected population growths. It's expected to start slowing down[1]

[1]: Select WORLD from the menu: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

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

#5

Relevant Kurzgesagt video on overpopulation: https://youtu.be/QsBT5EQt348 I learnt about the overpopulation myth during my undergrad, but I'm continuously surprised by how many people (including Thanos) didn't know this. Edit: Here's a chart of expected population growths. It's expected to start slowing down[1] [1]: Select WORLD from the menu: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

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 claim to make them look foolish and to easily counter what nobody said), takes an incredibly tiny number of data well selected to support the desired conclusion, and of course lots of colorful animations - I'm supposed to take that seriously? I find the myth that the myth is a myth to be too mythical for my taste.

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

#6
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.

His foundation's website also has some really nice data visualizations: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/

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

#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: Bulgaria, Latvia, Ukraine, Hungary, Lithuana, Romania, Portugal, Greece, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.

One of the facts is that 137,000 people/day have been escaping 'extreme poverty'. 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?

The natural response here is that if we can just improve the situation of places such as Africa then this situation ought resolve itself with birth rates starting to become comparable thus preventing a condemnation of the next generation. There are two problems with this view. The first is that this relies exclusively on a correlation which to date has proved less than predictive of African fertility levels. More importantly this effect is not just international but also intranational. Those who earn the most in the US have the fewest children with households earning less than $10,000 having a 50% greater fertility rate than those earning $200,000+. [2] It seems we're creating a society where each new birth is more and more likely to come into this world in some of the least appropriate households.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_i...

[2a] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

[2b] - https://www.census.gov/topics/health/fertility.html (the link to statista presents this data in a cleaner format - also adding this as just a more reliable source)

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

#8

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…

> 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.

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

#9

Relevant Kurzgesagt video on overpopulation: https://youtu.be/QsBT5EQt348 I learnt about the overpopulation myth during my undergrad, but I'm continuously surprised by how many people (including Thanos) didn't know this. Edit: Here's a chart of expected population growths. It's expected to start slowing down[1] [1]: Select WORLD from the menu: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

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…

> 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?

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

#10
post #9

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…

> 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/plastic-...

We change(d) the atmosphere, from pollutants to CO2 levels.

Land for agriculture: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS -- much of it is to support livestock

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/human-footprint-...

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