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i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow. I imagine it like this, s

i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow. I imagine it like this, say everyone but you died. you'd have all sorts of crap, you would virtually have anything you wanted. but with no people to make food, stuff, medicine, keep things running, eventually you have virtually nothing. I have always believed the great depression was the result of a population decline from ww1 and Spanish flue that lead to the roaring 20s, followed by a bust that was only put to a close by the end of ww2

jdmichal 9y ago
That's an interesting idea. Basically, availability lags production. Which makes sense when you consider things like stock distributed in stores and warehouses. So when you have a large, relatively sudden population drop, there's a glut of availability before the production drop hits.
pishpash 9y ago
No. "You" would just make the things you need, slowly. Why would you have virtually nothing?
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Because after everything starts rusting and decaying, you're left with just what you're able to maintain as an individual. Which is to say, you'd be approaching iron age technology after, say, 70-80 years. There'd be plenty of metals all around, but, without a technological society to maintain them, almost all machines will have decayed beyond usefulness by that point. There's a strong benefit from division of labor and economies of scale that would bite you HARD if you're all by yourself. Anti-globalism and population decline together would slice and dice up useful populations to the point where you'd get strong negative productivity curves as time went on. Slight population decline combined with increasing globalism and automation isn't too bad. Until you get to the point where you have an incredibly aged population. That starts to bite hard as it still takes people to take care of the elderly. So either productive people have to spend their time primarily taking care of the elderly (instead of inventing things and building things and growing the economy) or the elderly go without care. Neither are very good. If we get increasing and arbitrarily good automation and AI, it's not so much a problem. The robots take care of the elderly, and human beings gradually decline in population to be replaced by sentient AI. But I guess that's still a problem if you don't want humans to become extinct.
  - pishpash 9y ago
    You may not have experienced overpopulation. There is a point beyond which negatives outweigh the positives. Many people in the Old World feel they would like to live with more space between people. One person left is not a useful extremum to consider, but population declining to early 20th century levels is arguably good for everybody.
    - Robotbeat 9y ago
      I don't buy that. The problem in the third world isn't over population but under development.
      - xbmcuser 9y ago
        It is population growth speed that hurts the third world most as the population increase to fast for development to keep pace. But overall high population is a big problem people in the western/first world use atleast 10 times the electricity per person compared to the third world. First world population is 1 billion third world population is 7 billion. Similar is for other resources as the economic situation improves for these 7 billion they will put larger strain on all resources which are finite.
        Robotbeat 9y ago
        Hardly finite. Do you realize how much solar energy hits the Earth every second? Provided we transition to clean energy (as we're doing) and electrify everything especially transport, there are plenty of resources. And there definitely aren't 7 billion in the third world.

jdmichal 9y ago

That's an interesting idea. Basically, availability lags production. Which makes sense when you consider things like stock distributed in stores and warehouses. So when you have a large, relatively sudden population drop, there's a glut of availability before the production drop hits.

pishpash 9y ago

No. "You" would just make the things you need, slowly. Why would you have virtually nothing?

Robotbeat 9y ago
Because after everything starts rusting and decaying, you're left with just what you're able to maintain as an individual. Which is to say, you'd be approaching iron age technology after, say, 70-80 years. There'd be plenty of metals all around, but, without a technological society to maintain them, almost all machines will have decayed beyond usefulness by that point. There's a strong benefit from division of labor and economies of scale that would bite you HARD if you're all by yourself. Anti-globalism and population decline together would slice and dice up useful populations to the point where you'd get strong negative productivity curves as time went on. Slight population decline combined with increasing globalism and automation isn't too bad. Until you get to the point where you have an incredibly aged population. That starts to bite hard as it still takes people to take care of the elderly. So either productive people have to spend their time primarily taking care of the elderly (instead of inventing things and building things and growing the economy) or the elderly go without care. Neither are very good. If we get increasing and arbitrarily good automation and AI, it's not so much a problem. The robots take care of the elderly, and human beings gradually decline in population to be replaced by sentient AI. But I guess that's still a problem if you don't want humans to become extinct.
- pishpash 9y ago
  You may not have experienced overpopulation. There is a point beyond which negatives outweigh the positives. Many people in the Old World feel they would like to live with more space between people. One person left is not a useful extremum to consider, but population declining to early 20th century levels is arguably good for everybody.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    I don't buy that. The problem in the third world isn't over population but under development.
    - xbmcuser 9y ago
      It is population growth speed that hurts the third world most as the population increase to fast for development to keep pace. But overall high population is a big problem people in the western/first world use atleast 10 times the electricity per person compared to the third world. First world population is 1 billion third world population is 7 billion. Similar is for other resources as the economic situation improves for these 7 billion they will put larger strain on all resources which are finite.
      - Robotbeat 9y ago
        Hardly finite. Do you realize how much solar energy hits the Earth every second? Provided we transition to clean energy (as we're doing) and electrify everything especially transport, there are plenty of resources. And there definitely aren't 7 billion in the third world.