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The New Population Bomb: Four Mega Trends That Will Change the World
- tjoozeylabs 17y agoMagnificent article, a great read
- davi 17y agoFormer CIA director agreed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414373 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414373 (Link to this speech has now changed to: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/speeches-testimony-archive-2008/landon-lecture-series.html https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/spee...)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoI fucking hate Scribd; here is the original article: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/65877 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/65877 And PDF version: http://andrewgrahamnyc.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/the-new-population-bomb.pdf http://andrewgrahamnyc.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/the-new-p...
- Sukotto 17y agoScribd: bringing the worst of flash and PDF together in one annoying package. Thanks for the links. I wish I could mod you up more than just +1
- billswift 17y agoI love your description of Scribd - does anyone here know what audience scribd was intended for or what problem it was supposed to address? I can't see any possible benefit from the way it works and wonder what I am missing.
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoThe cynic in me says that the problem they were attempting to address was the lack of money in their pocket, and the solution they came up with was to release a platform ostensibly about displaying PDF files for the web (which is ridiculous to start with, but whatever), so they could get users to steal other people's content for them, and then run ads against that content. Huzzah!
- robg 17y agoI got a login required on the FA site. Thanks for the pdf.
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoArg...I found it through Google, so they didn't give me that. Sorry :(
- CWuestefeld 17y agoOnly read half so far, but so far it's interesting. It's NOT just a return to Malthus and Ehrlich, although the latter is cited several times as a sort of parallel. Even so, I think they miss the point of why Ehrlich lost his wager with Simon. While it's true that prosperity is helped by constant increases in manpower, it's not the biggest factor. Our climbing prosperity is primarily due to improving know-how. And barring really extreme circumstances, we're not going to forget the technology that has allowed us to feed more with less work, and other feats. That technology will still exist into the future, and because IP isn't rivalrous (claims of Disney and RIAA notwithstanding), it'll be available the whole world.
- billswift 17y ago>due to improving know-how The biggest factor is educated manpower. That is more important than any other factor by a fairly large margin. Not least because increasing manpower even without education increases market size, which is an independent benefit of its own.
- applicative 17y agoThe update on ye olde population hysteria seems to be this: Erlich thought there would be too many people. He was wrong, but he didn't distinguish between people. The real problem will be that will be too many of the wrong kind of people ... foreigners mostly.
- joubert 17y agoI can't read this on my iPad.