HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> What can we do to change this?

Get people out of poverty. Educate people. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

⬐ jlawson

You can't get people out of poverty, you can create opportunities for them to get themselves out of poverty.

But what if some never do, for whatever reason?

Even if 99% of humans climb out of poverty and stop overpopulating, there must be a few on the end of the bell curve who never will, and that group will multiply exponentially until it eventually dominates the global population.

It doesn't matter why. Could be religion, or culture, or genes. But someone is on the end of that fertility curve. It only takes one man breeder and one woman breeder and they will, in a world of non-breeders, soon dominate the world population because of the explosive power of exponential math. So what then?

(As an example, Amish in America double their population every 20 years or so. We can calculate that they'll number >250 million within maybe 150 years.)

Assuming that life expectancy will remain the same and that the number of children will also not change Hans Rosling predicted our world population never will exceed 11 billion people.

He was a very passionate and entertaining public speaker.

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

⬐ Jach

Does anything in his talk refute the UN projection of over 11 billion people by 2100? https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world...

⬐ collyw

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

Carrying capacity is estimated at 7.7 billion. And I have seen that Hans Roslings predictions have been revised upwards. Doesn't look good either way.

⬐ empath75

carrying capacity keeps getting revised upward also.

⬐ collyw

Sure, but what's the end goal? That we all end up like caged chickens? We could probably cram in lots of people that way.

⬐ drb91

IMHO the idea of a goal is an attractive illusion.

Read Factfulness by this person [1]. I wonder if you'd reconsider your argument. At the very least, I'd say that you wouldn't all-caps "LOT".

Disclaimer: I am not rich and dev salaries here are about 30K to 60K (rent is 1.5K per month). Tax is 40%+ (i.e. thrifty SV-people make a lot more)

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

⬐ Jedd

> I am not rich and dev salaries here are about ...

As someone who isn't where here is, this kind of comment isn't as hugely insightful as you may think.

⬐ kahnpro

He lives in the Netherlands.

⬐ mettamage

You are right!

⬐ mistermann

Could you give us a hint why this book might be worth buying, and what about this argument we might reconsider, and why, because of the book?

⬐ wilsonnb2

I'm not the person you're asking, but I did coincidentally read this book last night.

It's main message is that:

1) The averages person's knowledge of the world is extremely outdated and in most cases blatantly incorrect. It's not that people don't know the answers to questions like "what percentage of the world's population live in extreme poverty", it's that they think they know and their answer is incorrect.

2) Human's have a lot of instincts that work against them when trying to evaluate data. For example, implicitly assuming that straight line graphs will continue in a straight line, focusing far more on negative things than positive things, categorizing things incorrectly, and misunderstanding large numbers.

3) Positive change tends to happen very slowly and therefore isn't consider newsworthy, so we don't hear about it even though it's happening every day.

The book really made me question my view of the world and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It's short, easy to read, enjoyable, and very insightful.

That said, the author focused more in the differences between what he calls the four levels of poverty, and to be on level 4 (the level almost everyone on this site is on) you only need to make $64 or more a day. He doesn't talk much about the inequality between the people at the bottom of level 4 and those at the top.

I would attempt to apply the authors thoughts to this specific situation, but I only finished the book a few hours ago and haven't really finished processing the information yet so I will leave that task to someone else for now.

Hope this information helps, and I really think the book is a good read for everyone. Bill Gates is giving a free .epub copy away to all college grads in the US this year, and I don't think his website actually verifies that you are graduating, so I think anyone that signs up can download it here. [1]

[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-colle...

⬐ askafriend

Loved reading your summary, it was valuable to me. Thanks for taking the time to write it out!

A quick google search puts the average number of deaths due to car crashes at 3,287 per day [1]. Another one gives me a list of four deaths attributed to autonomous vehicles [2]. Not four per day. Just four.

Ever.

Memory leads me to recall that statistical reports indicating that vehicles with assistive features like autopilot have a better than traditional safety record [3].

I especially disagree with your thought experiment, because I've watched YouTube videos of situations in which Tesla's autopilot avoided accidents both through stopping and through swerving out of the way [4].

I don't agree with your claim that robotic cars tend to have more severe accidents than traditional cars.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+number+of+deaths+via...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalit...

[3]: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/stay-within-the-li...

[4]: https://youtu.be/FrJ2uPRRtz0?t=46

The short seller thesis for TESLA is that since the company is one which is valued based on its story, not its underlying fundamentals, it follows that its price will be volatile in response to negative press (accidents, missed projections, etc). There is a clear path from this observation to making money via negative press.

If you're interested in hearing more about how the world is a lot better than you thought it was, but the truth of our situation is distorted by competing forces, here are some cool TED talks [5][6].

[5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCm9Ng0bbEQ

[6]: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

I'm not sure why that's the case for Niger, but I don't think it's totally unique. Mali undergoes the same sort of shift (though less dramatic) in the 1950's and 60's. 1947 corresponds roughly to the beginning of the independence movement in Niger (though France wouldn't acknowledge this until 1958), and the turbulence shown around 1970 (where child mortality briefly increases again) was likely caused by the Sahelian drought.

I would (cautiously) speculate that when an oppressive force (either political or natural) is abruptly removed from a population, that population will tend to experience increased birthrate and decreased child mortality simultaneously. Extreme poverty is such a hardship that it can lower the birth rate (in addition to its obviously adverse effect on child mortality). When the force is removed (e.g. by a regime change, or a period of economic growth), child mortality decreases due to better health and better food security. Simultaneously, people have access to a luxury that they may not have before: the opportunity to start families. So the birth rate can rise as well. It takes another generation before the positive effects (better health, stable food supply, etc.) to translate into better education, higher economic mobility, and ultimately lower birth rate. So perhaps independence from a colonial power that often used military force against the civilian population is the cause of this simultaneous increase in child survival and birth rate, which we see in several of the poorest African nations shortly after their independence.

As for the charts, they're among my favorite data visualizations. They were invented by Professor Hans Rosling, who you may know from this very animated TED talk [0]. Rosling passed away last year, but his book Factfulness was just released (co-authored with his children). It's all about the preconceptions and biases that people in the "developed world" carry with them that prevent them from thinking rationally about poverty and global development. The book is well worth your time.

[0]: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

⬐ Retric

Ethiopia from 1935 to 1950 and 1965 to 1985 also slightly increased birth rates with slightly increased infant mortality. However 1985 to 2018 showed a very strong correlation.

Looking at other countries I think the effect is strongest under 120 infant morality and there are plenty of short term counter examples like the US from WWII to 1958. Or Albania from 1932 to 1968.

I find this [1] one quite amazing as well.

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

A sad day indeed. One of his TED talks changed my career forever:

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

⬐ ChuckMcM

I saw him give a variant of this talk at Google, it was very powerful. The world has lost a great teacher.

⬐ puzzle

He actually had a green badge for a while. That's normally associated with interns, but it's also given to visiting scientists. Something about that was just funny.

I only waved hello to him, but was very lucky to spend time with the Gapminder/Trendalyzer folks in B41 (his son Ola, Anna and Henrik), before they moved back to Stockholm. My thoughts go out to Ola and Anna. :-(

⬐ curiousgal

Could you elaborate?

⬐ rovr138

Just seeing his presentation here, the most I can take away for my career is presentation.

The way data is presented means if the audience understands it and is interested versus simply saying good job and moving on.

⬐ tigroferoce

Every medicine student should watch that video to understand how much a proper presentation of data might change your vision about a subject.

Aw man. What a loss! Hans is the guy that gave me eyes to see statistics as something beautiful and exciting. I still remember the first time I saw his TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen.

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

This is basically the thesis of Hans Rosling's 2006 Ted talk* . Things, on average are better.

What bothers me about this way of measuring progress is that for some, e.g. drug addicted or abusive families, people living in war torn regions, things are not better. For some, things are bad and have been for generations.

For this reason I try to refrain from "things are better" rhetoric, because it feels cruel to those people. Like I'm saying "I know it's bad for you, but I don't really care because it's better for many".

And personally I think from a moral standpoint we have the same responsibility to lift up the bottom as we do to lift the average. The trouble is people at the bottom are often at the intersection of multiple intergenerational disadvantages, which makes helping extremely difficult.

It's exactly this reason that I think it's so important not to say "things are better" without qualifications. If we can't help these people, the least we can do is acknowledge their situation.

* https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

⬐ refurb

I think the better approach is to highlight progress. Sure, many people still live in difficult situations, but overall, we've made a lot of progress over time.

⬐ threeseed

The single, biggest problem is that the progress isn't being shared.

In all first world countries wages are stagnant, housing is completely unaffordable, education is a luxury rather than a right and the rich are getting richer and worst of all more brazen e.g. Rich Kids of Instagram.

⬐ pavlov

The Western countries are not a uniform block. Many European countries have free or affordable colleges. Wages are not stagnant in Germany. Housing is affordable in many places, including USA except for a few coastal cities. Etc.

⬐ None

None

⬐ return0

indeed, Calendar advancement is not progress.

⬐ kzrdude

On the other hand, something must be done to push back against those opposite sentiments that, “the whole world is on fire”, “everything is getting worse” or “the world has never been more violent”, all of which are notions that are spread in media and on social media.

Hans Rosling's original Ted talk, which has so much passion about data visualisation and making information accessible - http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

⬐ paol

"Don’t Panic – The Facts About Population" is probably the ultimate Rosling presentation. Highly recommended.

https://vimeo.com/79878808

⬐ internaut

Hans's charts show convergence of undeveloped countries towards the West's standard of living. Globalization basically.

This is a optimistic story but notice how the two largest wars in history are mere blips. Only China's Maoist revolutions show up as periods of significant radical decline.

Do not let the apparent stability of the gapminder presentation give you the impression our society is on an ever upward trend. That belief is one we need to snap out of and fast.

Major questions need to be asked of the past. There are serious holes in the hypothesis that everything is getting better and better.

Why is it half a century since men walked on the moon. Almost 50 years. That is a long time! Blah blah 'politics' doesn't cut it.

Why aren't new effective medicines being invented and why is the cost of production in drug manufacture doubling every nine years while the costs of discovery (genome sequencing and x-ray crystallography) have radically declined.

Why are the majority of people in Western society's not getting richer over the last two-four decades? The diversity of things to spend on has increased without a real increase in the quantity of money in the bank account and wallet.

Why did African decolonization result in epic (and ignored) failure? Today's states are poorer by most metrics than they used to be half a century ago. Take a look at photographs of Egypt, South Africa and Zimbabwe from that time period. The difference is undeniable.

Why aren't prices declining for basic materials in house construction? During the housing boom up to 2008 (materials should have been expensive) basic materials were cheaper than they are now. It seems like nobody is talking about basic supply & demand being inverted. You cannot explain this with economies of scale or price rigging cartels, there are limits to those things. Prices have doubled for basic materials while demand radically dropped in the interim (at least in my country, about 5k builds last year in the capital). Does anybody understand what the fuck happened here? A new build today must be > 300k as a result. We'll have an epidemic of homelessness if this continues for much longer.

I can point out lots of good things that happened in the last half century, such as the Net, it is just that major questions are utterly ignored by the media and happy-go-lucky TED talkers.

⬐ internaut

Here is another post which might go some way to explaining my defiance of the Nordic data-hero Mr Rosling:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12197054

I love Han's charts too, I do appreciate the significance of growth for the world over the past few centuries but I just can't sit and as one fellow said: "lie back and allow the movie of the future to unfold".

In the 70s with OPEC, the Club of Rome, there was a lot of feeling in the air that we were plateauing, even declining. That turned out not to quite be true, but nonetheless it was some kind of important inflection point where something started happening or stopped working. If 2008 was a similar inflection point then it is time to consider the possibility we may be going into a stall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_%28engine%29) instead of progressing.

⬐ lsh

site requires javascript, here is link to plain video:

http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2006/None/HansRosling_2006-...

⬐ woliveirajr

Funny: went to his site tho find out if he does more details on how he make so beautiful graphs, and the "labs" link has a error in database connection:-)

Does he use some specific developed software tho do his graphs and animations?

⬐ None

None

⬐ okket

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trendalyzer

⬐ woliveirajr

Thanks! I'll try to use the API...

⬐ vonnik

Can we capitalize Rosling and add (2006) in the title?

⬐ beefield

Sorry. Obviously I should have done that already when submitting, but I guess I did not think too much. I do not seem to be able to make the edit (not enough karma?)

⬐ okket

(2006)

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373041

1,631 hits for "rosling" here on HN https://hn.algolia.com/?query=rosling&sort=byPopularity&pref...

His website for presenting data: https://www.gapminder.org/

I also recommend (from Max Roser): https://ourworldindata.org/

Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved (https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.

⬐ soperj

When you haven't even fulfilled the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't think that it matters whether the poverty is relative or not.

⬐ tomp

You could simply introduce more taxes. For example, one interesting idea is a universal land tax - with more expensive/desirable land being taxed much more - the idea being that there's no fundamental reason why the right to use a piece of land would belong to one citizen and not the other just by the virtue of their birth. So those who want to use scarce land (wealthy people, corporations) would be paying rents to the rest of the society. That would quite quickly restore inequality back from inherited inequality to just meritocratic inequality (people who produce more would be richer).

⬐ refurb

not the other just by the virtue of their birth

What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased.

And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere.

⬐ tomp

> What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased.

Purchased from whom? I would imagine a lot of land in the most desirable locations (cities etc) are owned by private individuals or family trusts/companies, so they have been/will be inherited (even if the owners change in between). And if it's owned by a corporation, I guess the same logic could apply.

> And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere.

Yeah, that's kind of the point. Land used for investment is the purest form of unproductive rent-seeking.

⬐ mason240

So no actual stats, just your gut feelings about how you think things work.

⬐ refurb

Living on a piece of land is rent seeking? I don't think you know what that word means.

⬐ prutschman

Land being lived on by its owner is being used to live on, not for investment.

⬐ tn13

Poverty is an issue long solved in USA. We are talking about relative poverty and governments are trying to push totalitarian redistribution schemes everywhere.

⬐ toomuchtodo

You are grossly misinformed:

https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/

⬐ dionidium

I think you both know that you're talking past one another, seemingly intentionally. It's absolutely true that, given even a minimal family/friend support structure, people to the very left of the earnings curve have a decent standard of living in the U.S. today. If you have an able body, it's pretty hard to starve (or even go without cable TV). I think you both know that.

On the other hand, some people obviously don't have able bodies or any support network to speak of. I think you both know that, too.

So, why he disconnect?

⬐ toomuchtodo

> If you have an able body, it's pretty hard to starve (or even go without cable TV). I think you both know that.

I'm not so sure. I know people who are able bodied, college degree educated, and some months can barely afford groceries after all non-discretionary spending is accounted for.

⬐ grahamburger

Barely afford groceries after all non-discretionary spending is a lot different than "can't afford groceries or non-discretionary spending." I've been in the former category, for quite a long time - I would not call that poverty. If that was the worst of what people experience in the US, I would also call poverty solved.

(It's not the worst of what people experience, and I would not personally call poverty solved.)

⬐ Jtsummers

  > Poverty is an issue long solved in the USA.

When? How?

EDIT: While I disagree with the parent poster, primarily because I've seen plenty of homeless, underemployed, malnourished individuals in my travels around the US my entire life, and no significant decline in the past several years, my questions were not meant entirely sarcastically.

If poverty is solved, explain how or by what measure you consider it to be solved.

My viewpoint:

From a purely technical standpoint it could be considered solveable. We have sufficient housing, clothing, food for literally everyone in this country, and more. The issue becomes one of distribution. But just having the resources doesn't mean that the problem itself is solved.

⬐ dionidium

The grandparent's POV is a pretty common one. Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage, which will bring home at least (7.25 × 40) × 4 = $1,160 each month (more in some places).

That is enough money in most places to rent a basic apartment and buy plenty of food to eat. Plenty of people in that bracket also have cable TV and a car and a smart phone. It's not easy and it's not all that much fun, but you're not going to starve or freeze to death and the Wheel of Fortune you watch every night is the same Wheel of Fortune that Bill Gates watches.

That's the definition of "solved" that's in play here.

⬐ drabiega

> Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage

It can be hard to see because the problem is so unevenly distributed through the social fabric, but this is just objectively not true.

⬐ dionidium

You should read "anybody" here in the same way as if I'd said, "Just about anybody can walk across a room."

That's also just objectively not true, but when we're talking about the population as a whole, then it's an OK proxy for the complete truth.

⬐ drabiega

I agree in general, I just don't think it's a good enough proxy in this case.

⬐ Jtsummers

Which isn't actually a solution, we still need to connect people to those jobs somehow. Many people live in areas where those jobs simply aren't available. I drive through those towns all the time. There's insufficient money invested in the area in other businesses to offer a middle class that can support a lower class making minimum wage.

These people need to move, which is a non-trivial cost. There's no guarantee they'll get a job when they go to, say, Atlanta. And they'll be paying more in rent or living in even worse living conditions (crammed into small apartments with more people). They'd be giving up their connections to family and friends and a community that they've been a part of.

The problem of poverty will only be solved when no one is in poverty for any reason but choice. Calling it solved because technically there may be enough minimum wage jobs for everyone is the same as saying hunger is solved because technically there's enough food for everyone.

⬐ tn13

homeless, underemployed and malnourished etc. in USA are far better than Homeless, Underemployed and Malnourished 50 years ago and even the lower middle class in the rest of the world.

I would prefer to be a homeless in USA than lower middle class in India.

⬐ Jtsummers

That doesn't make poverty solved. That means we've improved the lot for many people, but we haven't solved the problems of poverty. They're still homeless. They're still underemployed/unemployed. They're still malnourished.

When those are consequences of anything but rational, healthy, deliberate choice [0], or very temporary circumstances, then poverty is not solved.

[0] Which pretty much means religious/cultural reasons. The rationality of those choices are still debatable, but they aren't predicated on mental or physical illness.

⬐ RankingMember

I was going to say "Well jeez, can someone please alert the media? Where's the photo op with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner in the background? :P

⬐ ktRolster

By some measures, poverty already is a solved problem in the United States. Relative poverty is all we have left to solve....

⬐ jbmorgado

There are quite a lot of people in the USA that consistently starve. I'm quite sure that according to most definitions that's clearly absolute poverty, not a relative one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States

⬐ ktRolster

A quote from your link: "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger."

(Of course, that's referring to the United States)

⬐ fiatmoney

"Food insecurity" is not remotely the same thing as starvation. I would wager a fair amount that no one in the US has starved to death due to lack of money (ignoring neglect of children, catatonia, etc) in quite a while.

⬐ sgnelson

I'm pretty sure he was talking about food insecurity and not actual starving to death, though his use of the word in this case is actually quite correct. Starve does not solely imply starvation unto death, Mr. Pedant.

And his point still stands, it's an issue in the US that has yet to be solved.

⬐ ktRolster

In the US, "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger."

⬐ Analemma_

The fact that you even think "totalitarian levels of redistribution" is a cogent concept is a strong indicator that your opinion on this topic isn't worth much.

⬐ fixermark

... unless, of course, that individual votes.

"Your opinion is worthless" isn't a useful debating tactic when you're talking to people with as much political power as you yourself have.

⬐ Analemma_

Who said I wanted a debate? Perhaps I'm having a bad morning and simply wanted to vent at the uninformed adolescent libertarianism all too common on HN.

⬐ Retric

Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless.

The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem.

PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 people across the United States were homeless, other counts vary widely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...

Note: Many people end up homeless temporarily which makes counting complex.

⬐ toosmart4u12

Absolute poverty is pretty much a solved problem. Homeless people are a very small percentage, and continues to fall.

⬐ pavel_lishin

There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even if they weren't monetarily impoverished.

⬐ sgnelson

And what if they could afford health care (or rather the state stepped in) to help with that addiction/mental illness?

A study just done about a year ago in the City I live in, housed a fairly large number of the non-temporary homeless people (between 20 and 50 I want to say, the numbers escape me) in an apartment complex that provided basic social services and access to health care. They found that in actuality, this helped solve many of the long term problems (even if it did not solve all the problems for all the people), as these people now had access to health care, _AND_ it saved money, because these people were no longer ending up in the emergency room or the local jail (and a few other cost saving measures as well)

I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.

⬐ pavel_lishin

> I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm 100% sure I don't know what I'm talking about! That's why I couched my opinion in all the weasel words like "probably" and "likely".

⬐ sgnelson

Okay. I'm sorry to have gotten on you. There so many comments in this thread I found to be so completely wrong, and/or unsympathetic, it had really bothered me, and I took it out on you. Thank you for admitting that you may not fully understand what is a very serious situation for many. And sadly, at least in the US, we do a rather poor job of solving the problem, not because we don't have the resources, but because a large amount of people (and their leaders) simply ignore or don't wish to fix the problem. It's frustrating, and all the more frustrating when you read comments about it on HN, which again, tend to lack sympathy for their fellow human beings. And again, I apologize.

⬐ Retric

I don't think it's all that clear cut. Living on the street likely promotes a range of mental health problems. Though, most of this is temporary. One out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in America will be homeless each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...

It’s not as bad as you think — “Don’t Panic”: http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-p...

If you can’t spare an hour, please watch Rosling’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

⬐ jakeogh

and https://overpopulationisamyth.com

⬐ Ixio

Thank you for sharing "Don't Panic", watching that is really an hour well-spent.

Since permanent growth comes from fertility and as "Don't Panic" shows we're getting to a sustainable average of 2 child per woman, augmenting our lifespan will only increase our maximum population, not our population growth.

However I think YC research would be better spent trying to find better ways to fight climate change, world stability and/or lift billions out of poverty. This way if we ever augment lifespans in a significant way it will be available to more people and in a healthier world. Also lifting billions out of great poverty will have the added benefit of allowing more minds to work on issues like increasing life expectancy.

If society doesn't need more babies, we should not encourage people to have more babies. Of course, this is not true today. I am talking about a situation where economic activity (and growth) does not depend on ever increasing human consumption. My assumptions are likely flawed (please don't take my words at face value). As your sibling comment suggests, I am about to watch a ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

My unverified, unscientific thoughts: My ideal is we move beyond this ideal of 2.4 children per couple. I want us to go even beyond one child policy. I want it to be socially acceptable for couples to choose to not have children. More than that, I want it to be sustainable for people to have -- on average -- fewer than one child. Now, it seems we are already moving in that direction. It seems as of 2012, we are already at 1.88 in the US, 1.66 in China PR, and 1.41 in Japan. https://www.google.com/search?q=total+fertility+rate+usa I'd say we can do better and drive it further down all over the world but we cannot promote this until we have some kind of assurance that doing so will not cause the global economy to stagnate, or worse, contract. If people live longer and are productive for longer, we can safely transition into a more automated future with fewer humans than we have today.

⬐ eru

What do you mean by `society needing (or not needing) babies'? Society _is_ babies plus time.

What goals would be served by having babies (or not having them)? And whose goals are these?

For any finite human life span, you need two babies on average per woman to keep population stable. Transitioning into a lower population number via below replacement fertility works great for a while (children are expensive), but causes problems once you have more pensioners than working people. Japan and various European are about to experience that soon, China a bit later.

> I'd say we can do better and drive it further down all over the world but we cannot promote this until we have some kind of assurance that doing so will not cause the global economy to stagnate, or worse, contract.

Per capita, or absolute? And why care about the global economy so much? (If you do, there are some easy policies to drive up global GDP like crazy: full free trade, free movement of people, simplify urban real estate development (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-i...), and transition to a less distorting tax system (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val... and perhaps carbon tax).

Not according to Hans Rosling.

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

⬐ wernerpm

and this talk is already 9 years old

This TED talk focuses on the anticorrelation I wrote about: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y....

⬐ Retric

Richer countries have lower birth rates.

Richer men in the same country have more kids.

PS: I think I just misread your comment. By "national scale" I thought you meant in the same country.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Ok, I think I should have written "international scale", I apologize for the confusion.

I don't know of any study on national level, i.e. of families in a single country. The only thing I know of are anecdotes and stories about very poor families having 5+ children.

⬐ Retric

I have seen this stat from a few studies.

EX: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/kids_are_normal....

Higher income > more kids, Higher education > fewer children.

This seems fairly obvious as people are less likely to have children and stay in school. But, as I understand it the effect is larger than that.

⬐ MSM

I have heard the opposite from many studies as well. You linked a post that spawned many, many rebuttals by various organizations.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/richer-people-w...

http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/10/the-rich-vs-poor-debate-a...

⬐ Retric

Both of those ignore the education factor.

Basically if you have two groups of American born, collage educated men, with of the same age then income positively correlates with number of children. But, if you compare collage dropouts vs. people that have PHD's then the PHD population makes more money and has fewer kids. So, education is a huge confounding factor.

We went from 14 being a reasonable age to start a family to 24 or even 34 being the 'reasonable age' that's a huge impact. But, ‘wealth’ as an independent factor aka adjusted for age, education, country etc becomes a positive factor.

PS: Historically, starvation also limited family size.

Also increase in comfort and development is correlated with smaller children number, so an hyper modern world may have smaller population "momentum". There's a statistician with a TED talk about that. Maybe that one http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... I cant recall.

⬐ mirimir

Right. I have no children, that I know of. I never much wanted to focus on money, and raising children didn't appeal to me as a hobby or avocation.

⬐ agumonkey

You may be a niche though. Some people did want kids as part of the family tradition, but not too much so they could play the career game. In a world without work, people wouldn't have that dream so how would they fill the void. Maybe a little bit more children (goes against my previous argument), or art, social bonding, travel.

There's a good TED talk which illustrates the correlation between a country's wealth and birth rate:

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

The idea came from here - http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

This was my first major project on javascript... I am not a developer by profession. What do you guys think?

Here's a pretty convincing TED talk which makes the point that global poverty has indeed significantly gone down in recent history, especially among developing countries: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

It was posted here about 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373041

I don't think we should look at poverty as a solved problem, but I think it would be overly cynical to not acknowledge how much the "system" has done for the poor.

⬐ psychometry

American slaves in 1850 were much better off than American slaves in 1650. Should we acknowledge what great things slavery did for black people in the U.S.? Do you see why your argument is worthless?

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 think Hans Rosling's TED talk may provide some interesting information: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

Basically, he argues (perhaps my interpretation) through statistics that income equality is very significantly related to what is typically considered a good country to live in, which in contrast to many, does not include salary/GDP and such monetary stats but rather how long you live, infant mortality rates, social mobility, etcetera, where the Nordic countries and Japan outperform all other countries (more or less) and where the USA have it really difficult to compete against other Western/developed nations.

Thus, one can quite easily argue that regardless of the adjusted GDP growth, Japan has managed to develop in a much more healthy way compared to the USA, which may be because of the quickly rising income equality.

"Hans Rosling TED Talk"

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

"This is an extraordinary presentation. Being informed about the world is the first step towards a better humanity."

I'd recommend watching all the TED talks by Hans Rosling, they are pretty awesome and eye opening, in particular these:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_shows_the_best...

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_reveals_new_in...

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_at_state.html

This backs up Hans Rosling's talk on "The best statistics you've ever seen" pretty well: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

The world is definitely improving - from a health perspective. Of course you could talk about overpopulation as a chronic global problem as well, but in my opinion education on birth control will improve enough over the next few decades to help combat that.

⬐ tomjen3

My greatest problem with that talk is that he gloss completely over the countries that haven't improved (in particular Congo/Zaire) and never will.

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!

If you did that, though, you'd have to plot each president as a line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a different visualization entirely.

This reminds me in many ways of Hans Rosling's TED talk on visualizing global health outcomes and other data:

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

Regarding cultures with high child mortality and the effects of vaccine: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... If these cultures can focus on development instead of battling sickness the surprising fact is that the earth population actually will stop growing...

People who like exploring statistics like this (as opposed to just being impressed by the nice technical implementation - which I love, btw) should take a look at GapMinder.

Eg:

http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly...

http://www.gapminder.org/world/#http://www.gapminder.org/wor...

The Hans Rosling TED talk is fantastic too: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

According to Hans Rosling on a TED talk, overpopulation is not really a problem: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

In short: as soon as the economy of a country improves, its population growth stabilizes (and sometimes it even decreases like in Europe).

⬐ Qerub

Arithmetic, Population and Energy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

⬐ danparsonson

Ah, the power of the exponential function - well worth a watch

⬐ danparsonson

That was very interesting, thanks, but it says nothing directly about planet-wide population growth; only that family sizes tend to get smaller and infant mortality rates to decrease as a societies get richer - less people are born but they tend to live longer.

My original point is that if the population is increasing at all, that will at least partially offset gains in efficiency brought about by newer technologies, and since population growth compounds over time, we'll need to make bigger and bigger gains just to maintain the status quo in terms of absolute energy and resource usage.

⬐ iaskwhy

I do agree, I was just trying to show world population might not continue growing like we are used to in the upcoming decades/centuries.

(Still it does say something about it, my country's population (small European country) is decreasing, around 10% less people in the last ten years even with all the immigration.)

⬐ xiaoma

Technological growth compounds over time, too.

Just look at the progress of just about any large scale research project such as sequencing the human genome or making an AI capable of beating a chess grandmaster. The progress starts out unbearably slow, and then most of the gains happen in the last 20% of the time spent researching.

One reason for this is that as our technology increases, so does the power of the tools we use for creating more technology. Not only are computers getting better performance/price at an exponential rate, but those gains are fueling research into materials sciences, bioinformatics, and other emerging fields.

Relevant TED Talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_shows_the_bes...

Maybe comes from the fact that child mortality has reduced dramatically.

But the habit in this countries of having more than 5 children hasn't changed yet? Probably it takes a generation for families to adapt to the fact that you don't longe need to have several children to make sure that some of them survive to adulthood.

Take a look at this TED presentation for some amazing facts. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

I remember watching his TED talk [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...]. It was mind-blowing. I'm excited to see what else he has to show us.

As for Africa and South Asia, check out this presentationL http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y.... They don't look nearly the same as thirty years ago!

He gave a similar presentation at TED. It's a lot longer though.Check it out. -> Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

More stuff from Rosling: -> http://www.ted.com/search?q=hans+rosling

⬐ jh3

I knew I saw something like this before. Thanks for reminding me.

⬐ forza

In the documentary Swedish national television made about him, he says this regarding that TED video:

"If I count the number of minutes I've been teaching, this video teaches more than anything I've done in my life. All the articles, books, courses... None of it can compare with this one video. That's a humbling experience."

The documentary is now available on youtube, with English subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7howQzatw

For those who haven't seen it, his TED Talk is excellent: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

⬐ stretchwithme

Thanks!

  I am interested in use of data visualization of information that has an endpoint of simple dynamic well known picture/image.  Every item in the picture is linked to the data.  
 
  Imagine a picture of a harbor with boats, calm water, clear sky,etc..  (Still looking for the specific tech talk)
 Every distinct visual category in the picture should have a distinct data link.  

I would model it in the same way as Protovis http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/ But with pictures linked to the data.

Some links: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

Digital Arts@Google: W. Bradford Paley, Martin Wattenberg, and Fernanda Viegas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRrmE7BFdJs&feature=playe...

http://www.slideshare.net/fichter/data-20-harnessing-new-dat...

⬐ stagas

Protovis pretty much covers everything, from what I can see. What you're looking for (I think) is an implementation on some specific data you have, mapped to hyperlinks from Wikipedia or similar? Please correct me if I didn't understand correctly or elaborate a bit.

⬐ EastCoastLA

Protovis is very close, but imagine one of the digital frames you put pictures in. The date dynamically creates the one image. Each element of the picture might represent a data element I feel is important. The javascript API will allow me to select the picture which could be a landscape or water-scape or mountain scape. The data can be encoded in JSON. The user could look at the image and have a visual representation of the data in a familiar format.

Hans Rosling with the best stats you've ever seen:

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

The "flagship" data visualization seems to be the one Hans Rosling [1] is famous for, and that Google acquired from Gap Minder. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg for interactive data visualization - something made possible by personal computers, but certainly won't be the last we'll see. It's a great first example of our technology being used not as a "better" version of what came before, but a step into what was impossible on the former medium (paper).

Two interesting related questions: (1) what is possible by combining these with a multitouch interface? (2) aside from "drag this slider back and forth", what kind of interaction would be useful?

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

⬐ sp332

The animations are pretty much the same as from http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/

I recommend watching some videos from http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ , they have a lot of great stuff in there.

⬐ fnid2

They are built in flash, so they won't work on the iphone, but the same thing can be done in Canvas. But I don't have an iPhone, so maybe canvas doesn't work there either.

What does work on the iphone? Raphael?

⬐ rendezvouscp

Both Canvas and Raphael work on the iPhone (and well, I might say: I don’t think I’ve run into hiccups with using Canvas or SVG, but I haven’t stretched them to their limits either).

If you haven't seen his TED talk, it's here:

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

⬐ sp332

He's actually given three talks at TED and one at the US State Department which is accessible from his TED bio page, http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html. The software is using is available at http://www.gapminder.org/, which was bought by Google about 2 years ago.

Time and time again Hans Roslings talk about statistics is posted here on HN. (http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...)

His message is clear.