HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Or, for those who want a more entertaining version (by the excellent and late Hans Rosling) https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

⬐ GrumpyNl

Some nice graphs on the subject here. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

⬐ ti_ranger

You mean the link this thread is about?

for those who have not seen it, the "Global population growth, box by box" by the late Hans Rosling is (IMO) a more entertaining introduction on the same subject.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

Population growth is in decline in real terms [0], but as you say it will take decades, unless you advocate enforced involuntary euthenasia. Even plunging populations, as Japan is experiencing [1], brings other problems such as economic recession. We really need to stop worrying about population [2] and revisit some baseless norms of common policy, such as "trickle-down economics" and other Friedman gems that leads to rampant overconsumption and wealth concentration.

There is hope, we just need to listen to those who want a change, not those who just want to maintain their already huge asset piles.

0: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_... 1: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/679103541/japans-population-i... 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

⬐ mc32

Only crazies think euthanasia is an option. There are alternatives to forced contraception. Education and economic engagement and opportunity, eliminating taboos on personal contraception and making them available. Yes, consumerism is a problem, but it’s manageable in countries with the infrastructure.

What’s bad is encroaching in on wilderness for farming, resource mining/extraction, and population settlements.

Malthusian overpopulation stopped being a serious scientific theory years ago.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

⬐ overkalix

> And if, but only if, we invest in the right green technology

Key sentence of the presentation. Population overshoot is a fact.

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.

⬐ ForHackernews

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

⬐ vjerancrnjak

It's going to be weird to live in an age when pyramidal schemes (pension systems, academia etc.), that have been foundation of the modern civilization, start falling apart (given that they are based on a healthy population pyramid).

⬐ gbear605

That's modern-day Japan.

⬐ ForHackernews

We're going to have to adapt. New technology and higher productivity should allow us to keep enjoying higher standards of living with declining populations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

⬐ lancebeet

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

⬐ amingilani

Here's a UN chart: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

Hans Rosling has done some research and ted talks about this: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

When child survival increases, kids per family decrease at an enormous rate down to one kid per family

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

Quite few countries, and the common theme isn't really "the west" anymore, but rather the "not too poor to have decent education" :

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

So sad, this guy was amazing and very enlightening in an era of misinformation.

Check out his presentations: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_... (to showcase just one)

Education, prosperity and equality can solve that.

TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

⬐ jamesblonde

I take issue with Hans Rosling (even though i happen to live in Stockholm). His message is 'dont worry, they will have babies for 50 years, then it will be all ok'. Sub-saharan Africa will have a similar population density to south east Asia. The world will have 10 billion. That's ok. But the truth is we don't know the carrying capacity of the earth. It's deeply unpopular to say this, but the only way i can see us solving this collective action problem is with a world government.

⬐ the8472

Prosperity == higher living standards, which means more resource consumption per capita. So you merely substitute population growth with increased living standards as driving factor for emission increases.

See also Hans Rosling's TED talk on the subject, [1].

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

Our population should cap out at 10billion: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g... and the ethical thing we can do to encourage that is to pull people out of poverty and give them education and tv.

Watch any talk by Hans Rosling - this one https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_... for example - and you'll learn that your mixing up cause and effect re affluence and children.

His TED talks are well worth watching too:

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

⬐ Evgeny

There goes my weekend! Thank you so much.

⬐ TeMPOraL

I strongly recommend those talks.

The 'magic washing machine' talk is beautiful. One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from it.

And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books."

⬐ agumonkey

IIRC that talk had a powerful ending (beside that quote).

⬐ zo1

Are you referring to the one where he performs sword eating? (I kid you not)

I agree, apart from the over-population thing which is best explained by Hans Rosling - http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

"Give a guy a fish, and he'll have food for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he'll have food for a lifetime."

This is why I really love the Kiva model: instead of giving money away, you instead become a 2nd/3rd world Angel Investor.

It also makes me think about Hans Rosling's excellent TED talk about population growth and globalization: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

⬐ rhc2104

I'd like to plug Zidisha ( https://www.zidisha.org )

It's a lot like Kiva, except there's no MFI acting as a middleman. Thus, borrowers pay far lower interest rates.

You see, borrowers of Kiva loans actually pay a lot in interest, with an average rate of about 35% - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva_(organization)#Current_int... . At Zidisha, borrowers pay as little as 5% in interest.

Kiva has a pilot program inspired by Zidisha called Kiva Zip.

Disclosure: I'm on the board.

⬐ crucialfelix

I keep a bunch of money in rotation on Kiva myself. But it's not angel investing, it's just small loans for very small businesses. If a decent sized business showed up on there then they wouldn't get sponsors I think because they would seem too well off.

and actually angel investors or crowd funding for african tech entrpreneurs is a much needed thing right now.

Play with the raw data as you like at Gapminder.org.

For example, here is a graph I created of infant mortality vs children per woman: http://www.bit.ly/QTPNBk (starts at 1900, press play to see changes to current)

Note that each axis has a small 'various sources' button under it that will cite specific sources.

You may also enjoy Hans Rosling's TED Talk on global population growth, as he gets into the details pretty thoroughly. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

This thread triggered a memory of a couple of amazing TED talks Hans Rosling presented:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

Oh joy, he has a new TED talk posted in March that I haven't seen yet. Thanks!

A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative.

The situation China, in many ways, better than it was in the Western world when we were going through our Industrial Revolution.

It made me think back to a TED talk from Hans Rosling on Population Growth, and the relation to economic status: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

Although it seems bad to us now, globilization is, over all, a net positive.

⬐ brudgers

>"these terrible conditions are better than the alternative."

That was the argument made against divestiture in South Africa during apartheid.

History has shown that it was wrong, at the time.

At the time, moral reasoning showed that it was wrong, as well.

⬐ decode

> A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative.

This is often brought up, but strangely "the alternative" is defined as "the way things were before" instead of "better working conditions." The fact is that there is no one "alternative" to these kinds of business situations; there are many different alternatives, some of them better and some of them worse. Conditions can be improved, if people want it. Otherwise, there would still be 12-year-olds working 80 hour weeks in factories in the US and Europe.

Reminded me of the Hans Rosling Ted talk on global population: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_on_global_pop...

"The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you'll see)."

⬐ cpeterso

Phillip Longman spoke at the Long Now Foundation about the coming depopulation problem. Developed countries have fewer children (near or below replacement rates) and increased life expectancies. So much of the world population growth is from fewer deaths, not more births. This trend will pose new economic challenges for health care and social security because a shrinking workforce will be supporting a growing elderly population.

If families in developed countries continue to have just one child, few children will have brothers, sisters, aunts, or uncles! In Phillip Longman's talk, he says that some developed countries like France and Australia already have subsidies and programs encouraging couples to have more children.

http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/aug/13/the-depopulation-pr...

⬐ Khroma

Though there's also a plus side. I assume that world consumption of resources will go down, since one person not born in a developed country is equivalent to probably 2+ not born in a developing country.

Humans do not necessarily reproduce exponentially. Hans Rosling's TED talks feature, as a central theme, that the population can stabilize at 9 billion with the right initiatives and social changes. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

⬐ alanh

My post starts with "If". (I imagine the possibility of a singularity and the consequent interstellar expansions and/or virtual entities.)

I also used to assume that getting rid of a disease like malaria would cause populations to sky rocket in developing nations.

Fortunately, this line of thinking is wrong. There is a great TED talk by Hans Rosling on global population growth that shows increased child survival rates result in smaller families and more prosperous nations.

See http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...