5 ms·

How do we contain population growth? That seems, to me, to be the single largest unsolved problem in the world.

mc32 9y ago
Educate and offer both contraception got free as well as the reversible sterilization for those who opt for that. China did what they had to do, India is doing things a bit differently.
wavefunction 9y ago
Education and access to family planning. Access to economic opportunities that provide a compelling reason to wait to give birth to children until later in life than directly post-pubescence. If Westerners were serious about staving off a mass of immigrants they'd work to improve the situations where the migrants originate. That would mean a cessation to mercantilism and colonialism and likely a decline in the quality of life but surely that's a small price to pay
- thnkdtoifn 9y ago
  Colonialism is largely frowned upon today, but that's what you're calling for, when Westerners show up and tell the natives what to do and how to do it. It may still be a better choice then the European disaster, but the West is culturally against it.
Robotbeat 9y ago
Why do people STILL think it's an unsolved problem? The birthrate among the native born in the West and the Far East are almost universally below the replacement rate. Education and urbanization/development do it.
- burfog 9y ago
  because math All it takes is one tiny subpopulation with more than 2 kids per woman, and you get exponential growth. Exponential growth conquers all. If you have a computer science background, think back to big-O notation. Having 4 kids per woman (thus 2 per person) is a growth rate that doubles the population every generation. So, do the Amish exist? Yes they do. That alone ensures that growth will not stop. Even if everybody else decided to not reproduce, we'd be well above the current world population after a few centuries.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    > All it takes is one tiny subpopulation with more than 2 kids per woman, and you get exponential growth. There's an essential factor missing from this assumption: sustained birthrate above replacement. I realise you probably intended to mean that, but it's an important distinction because there are at least a few other important factors at play.
sien 9y ago
Look at the list of fertility rates around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... It doesn't seem like there is a rich country, say with GDP over 25K that has replacement levels of fertility.
- eximius 9y ago
  Great, so the poorest countries that are least capable of supporting their current population will be the most burdened? That isn't encouraging.
  - sien 9y ago
    Poor countries are getting wealthier. Look at the list of countries by GDP growth and sort for the highest ones. Most of them are poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real)_per_capita_growth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real... Mobile phones, payment systems that avoid corrupt banks like m-pesa and the internet are really helping these places. In addition education is shooting up: https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education In 1950 60% of the world was illiterate, today it's less than 20. Have a look at how fertility rates can drop when people get richer and governments allow some fertility control. In the Islamic Republic of Iran fertility rates dropped from about 6 per woman in 1980 to below replacement in 2005. https://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:IRN&ifdim=country&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f...
sfifs 9y ago
There are only 2 major societal problems in the world (1) how to produce a lot of energy for cheap without damaging the ecosystem (2) how to get people to sustainably value common good at least at par with individual good. Given (1), a few thousand skyscraper farms are enough to support the food needs of our entire planets population. When I did the calculation, I was surprised how little it actually takes. For (2), the simplistic pure capitalism and pure communism experiments have clearly failed but there are various "in-between" experiments running (northern Europe, Xi Jiping's China, Singapore etc) which seem to be heading to both individual and societal prosperity.

mc32 9y ago

Educate and offer both contraception got free as well as the reversible sterilization for those who opt for that. China did what they had to do, India is doing things a bit differently.

wavefunction 9y ago

Education and access to family planning. Access to economic opportunities that provide a compelling reason to wait to give birth to children until later in life than directly post-pubescence. If Westerners were serious about staving off a mass of immigrants they'd work to improve the situations where the migrants originate. That would mean a cessation to mercantilism and colonialism and likely a decline in the quality of life but surely that's a small price to pay

thnkdtoifn 9y ago
Colonialism is largely frowned upon today, but that's what you're calling for, when Westerners show up and tell the natives what to do and how to do it. It may still be a better choice then the European disaster, but the West is culturally against it.

Robotbeat 9y ago

Why do people STILL think it's an unsolved problem? The birthrate among the native born in the West and the Far East are almost universally below the replacement rate. Education and urbanization/development do it.

burfog 9y ago
because math All it takes is one tiny subpopulation with more than 2 kids per woman, and you get exponential growth. Exponential growth conquers all. If you have a computer science background, think back to big-O notation. Having 4 kids per woman (thus 2 per person) is a growth rate that doubles the population every generation. So, do the Amish exist? Yes they do. That alone ensures that growth will not stop. Even if everybody else decided to not reproduce, we'd be well above the current world population after a few centuries.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  > All it takes is one tiny subpopulation with more than 2 kids per woman, and you get exponential growth. There's an essential factor missing from this assumption: sustained birthrate above replacement. I realise you probably intended to mean that, but it's an important distinction because there are at least a few other important factors at play.

sien 9y ago

Look at the list of fertility rates around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... It doesn't seem like there is a rich country, say with GDP over 25K that has replacement levels of fertility.

eximius 9y ago
Great, so the poorest countries that are least capable of supporting their current population will be the most burdened? That isn't encouraging.
- sien 9y ago
  Poor countries are getting wealthier. Look at the list of countries by GDP growth and sort for the highest ones. Most of them are poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real)_per_capita_growth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real... Mobile phones, payment systems that avoid corrupt banks like m-pesa and the internet are really helping these places. In addition education is shooting up: https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education In 1950 60% of the world was illiterate, today it's less than 20. Have a look at how fertility rates can drop when people get richer and governments allow some fertility control. In the Islamic Republic of Iran fertility rates dropped from about 6 per woman in 1980 to below replacement in 2005. https://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:IRN&ifdim=country&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f...

sfifs 9y ago

There are only 2 major societal problems in the world (1) how to produce a lot of energy for cheap without damaging the ecosystem (2) how to get people to sustainably value common good at least at par with individual good. Given (1), a few thousand skyscraper farms are enough to support the food needs of our entire planets population. When I did the calculation, I was surprised how little it actually takes. For (2), the simplistic pure capitalism and pure communism experiments have clearly failed but there are various "in-between" experiments running (northern Europe, Xi Jiping's China, Singapore etc) which seem to be heading to both individual and societal prosperity.