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Shocker, Noah Smith pens yet another of his "whig history" takes. The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end

by themgt 9y ago

Shocker, Noah Smith pens yet another of his "whig history" takes. The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. [1] Nearly the entirety of that increase is because fertility rates in Africa have not fallen anywhere near what was expected, so the population there is set to quadruple from 1->4 billion people over 100 years. The 4 billion figure assumes fertility will begin to rapidly fall in line with the rest of the developing world - nearly all of the growth is already "baked in the cake" due to the extremely young population, and if TFR doesn't drop the population could well soar significantly higher. The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Whether the fertility rate can actually be brought down is very much an unsolved question, with a history of optimistic mistakes Noah Smith is smart enough to be aware of. Combine with climate change, resource depletion, the utterly dysfunctional nation-states where this is occurring and the the meteoric rise of neo-fascists after Europe accepted something like 1/100th of the potential economic migrants/refugees as want to come, and this vapid "forward march of history" perspective looks at best cherry-picked and facile, if not disingenuous in the extreme. [1] https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/articles/sa1214Gsci31_web.png https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/art... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-will-soar-higher-than-predicted/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population-...

rukittenme 9y ago
> The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Do you think that's realistic? The population of Niger is expected to be 200 million in 2100 (20 million today)[1]. Have you seen Niger? Its a desert with little natural resources. 1. https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ edit: I'm aware Niger and Nigeria are different countries. I'm changing the subject to Niger intentionally. 10x population growth in the Sahara desert.
- antisthenes 9y ago
  Maybe that's because it's 2 different countries and the parent comment said nothing about Niger?
  - rukittenme 9y ago
    You're confused because the names are similar. I'm shifting the topic to Niger intentionally. I don't see how a country could experience 10x population growth in a desert.
    - antisthenes 9y ago
      That's not how conversations work. It's a complete non-sequitur. Obviously population growth will be higher in areas with bigger resource abundances.
      - rukittenme 9y ago
        The conversation you are reading is obviously different from the one I'm writing. Talking about the growth rate of a country is not a non-sequitur when the conversation centers on growth rates in general. Comparing or discussing the growth rate of a neighboring country not mentioned by the original poster is not a non-sequitur. To be clear, the OP suggested that Nigeria's population growing to 752 million people was a realistic expectation. I view it as absurd. To illustrate the absurdity, I showed the population growth of a neighboring country (in the same data set) that displays a truly absurd amount of population growth. I'm calling into question their source but even so I'm not doing so aggressively or in a debating-context. I was just asking a question hoping to gain more insight into the OP's opinions.
        themgt 9y ago
        Niger's populations has doubled from 11 to 22 million over just the last 10 years. The population today is about 10x the 2.5 million it was in 1950, and the growth rate is higher now that it was decades ago - near an all-time high it only first reached in 2010. That's some progress! [1] The median age in Niger is 15 years old, Niger has the highest fertility rate on earth at 7 children/piece, but despite that "women and men alike in Niger say they want more children than they actually have – women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11." [2] Obviously there are going to be massive strains in trying to deal with a skyrocketing population like this, but that's exactly my point. I'm not putting a lot of weight into you flatly stating that it's "absurd" compared to the actual facts & trends and the UN's projection. And frankly the scenarios wherein these projections don't come to pass ... most likely would look pretty Malthusian. [1] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/niger-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/niger-populati... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/15/why-have-four-children-when-you-could-have-seven-contraception-niger https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
Turing_Machine 9y ago
> The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. The surface area of the Earth is about 510072000 km^2. 13 billion people gives a population density of about 25 people per km^2. By comparison, the U.S. has a population density of about 33 people per km^2. The U.K has a population density of about 255. So, there's plenty of room (heck, much of the U.S. is still essentially unpopulated, particularly in the western states). > resource depletion What "resource" is being "depleted"? Not energy, that's for sure. There's enough uranium to keep our civilization going at the current level for millions of years, assuming breeder reactors are used. That's without requiring any new technology. If we get fusion, then you can up the millions to billions. We're not actually running out of anything vital. Sorry. > history of optimistic mistakes Not to be confused with the history of pessimistic mistakes, running from Malthus, down through the "population bomb" scare of the 1970s, right up to the present day.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > The surface area of the Earth is about 510072000 km^2 Of which 70% is water. > So, there's plenty of room Sure, there's plenty of room. But I think you'll agree that most people don't want to live in a desert, or Antartica, or on top of a mountain. The amount of land that people actually want to live on is much, much smaller than the figure you're quoting. > We're not actually running out of anything vital. Sorry. Maybe nutrient-rich soil? Clean water?
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    > Of which 70% is water. That would put the population density per square kilometer with 13 billion people up to 68, roughly that of Ireland (which has lots of rural areas and farms). > But I think you'll agree that most people don't want to live in a desert, or Antartica, or on top of a mountain. The United States has plenty of mountains and deserts, but many parts of it still have vastly higher population density that the number the alarmists are worried about. The population density of California (which has deserts and mountains all over the place) is about 93. The population density of New York State (which still has quite a large amount of farms and woodlands) is about 159. Heck, the population density of Indiana, which to a first approximation is just a big corn field, is about 71 per square kilometer. That's still less than the 68 per square km that's being touted as a doomsday scenario. > Maybe nutrient-rich soil? Clean water? Wrong, and wrong. Modern farming doesn't require "nutrient-rich soil", and water shortages are a regional thing, not a world-wide thing.

by themgt 9y ago

rukittenme 9y ago

> The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085. Do you think that's realistic? The population of Niger is expected to be 200 million in 2100 (20 million today)[1]. Have you seen Niger? Its a desert with little natural resources. 1. https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/ edit: I'm aware Niger and Nigeria are different countries. I'm changing the subject to Niger intentionally. 10x population growth in the Sahara desert.

antisthenes 9y ago
Maybe that's because it's 2 different countries and the parent comment said nothing about Niger?
- rukittenme 9y ago
  You're confused because the names are similar. I'm shifting the topic to Niger intentionally. I don't see how a country could experience 10x population growth in a desert.
  - antisthenes 9y ago
    That's not how conversations work. It's a complete non-sequitur. Obviously population growth will be higher in areas with bigger resource abundances.
    - rukittenme 9y ago
      The conversation you are reading is obviously different from the one I'm writing. Talking about the growth rate of a country is not a non-sequitur when the conversation centers on growth rates in general. Comparing or discussing the growth rate of a neighboring country not mentioned by the original poster is not a non-sequitur. To be clear, the OP suggested that Nigeria's population growing to 752 million people was a realistic expectation. I view it as absurd. To illustrate the absurdity, I showed the population growth of a neighboring country (in the same data set) that displays a truly absurd amount of population growth. I'm calling into question their source but even so I'm not doing so aggressively or in a debating-context. I was just asking a question hoping to gain more insight into the OP's opinions.
      - themgt 9y ago
        Niger's populations has doubled from 11 to 22 million over just the last 10 years. The population today is about 10x the 2.5 million it was in 1950, and the growth rate is higher now that it was decades ago - near an all-time high it only first reached in 2010. That's some progress! [1] The median age in Niger is 15 years old, Niger has the highest fertility rate on earth at 7 children/piece, but despite that "women and men alike in Niger say they want more children than they actually have – women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11." [2] Obviously there are going to be massive strains in trying to deal with a skyrocketing population like this, but that's exactly my point. I'm not putting a lot of weight into you flatly stating that it's "absurd" compared to the actual facts & trends and the UN's projection. And frankly the scenarios wherein these projections don't come to pass ... most likely would look pretty Malthusian. [1] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/niger-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/niger-populati... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/15/why-have-four-children-when-you-could-have-seven-contraception-niger https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

Turing_Machine 9y ago

> The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. The surface area of the Earth is about 510072000 km^2. 13 billion people gives a population density of about 25 people per km^2. By comparison, the U.S. has a population density of about 33 people per km^2. The U.K has a population density of about 255. So, there's plenty of room (heck, much of the U.S. is still essentially unpopulated, particularly in the western states). > resource depletion What "resource" is being "depleted"? Not energy, that's for sure. There's enough uranium to keep our civilization going at the current level for millions of years, assuming breeder reactors are used. That's without requiring any new technology. If we get fusion, then you can up the millions to billions. We're not actually running out of anything vital. Sorry. > history of optimistic mistakes Not to be confused with the history of pessimistic mistakes, running from Malthus, down through the "population bomb" scare of the 1970s, right up to the present day.

saagarjha 9y ago
> The surface area of the Earth is about 510072000 km^2 Of which 70% is water. > So, there's plenty of room Sure, there's plenty of room. But I think you'll agree that most people don't want to live in a desert, or Antartica, or on top of a mountain. The amount of land that people actually want to live on is much, much smaller than the figure you're quoting. > We're not actually running out of anything vital. Sorry. Maybe nutrient-rich soil? Clean water?
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  > Of which 70% is water. That would put the population density per square kilometer with 13 billion people up to 68, roughly that of Ireland (which has lots of rural areas and farms). > But I think you'll agree that most people don't want to live in a desert, or Antartica, or on top of a mountain. The United States has plenty of mountains and deserts, but many parts of it still have vastly higher population density that the number the alarmists are worried about. The population density of California (which has deserts and mountains all over the place) is about 93. The population density of New York State (which still has quite a large amount of farms and woodlands) is about 159. Heck, the population density of Indiana, which to a first approximation is just a big corn field, is about 71 per square kilometer. That's still less than the 68 per square km that's being touted as a doomsday scenario. > Maybe nutrient-rich soil? Clean water? Wrong, and wrong. Modern farming doesn't require "nutrient-rich soil", and water shortages are a regional thing, not a world-wide thing.