6 ms·

Maybe the presence of 7,646,237,844 people in the world has something to do with it; at the end of the day for as sad as it seems the best thing it could happen

Maybe the presence of 7,646,237,844 people in the world has something to do with it; at the end of the day for as sad as it seems the best thing it could happen to wildlife is a plague that only affects humans (perhaps a plague that sterilizes us would suffice)

overcast 8y ago
Population growth has been slowing since the late 60's, it peaked in 1968. Western countries are being particularly affected by it, as we have less and less, or no children. The predictions of humans overwhelming the Earth just isn't going to happen. Since you're just wasting our resources, feel free to sacrifice yourself though for the greater good. http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/rapid-slowdown-population-growth http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/rapid-slowdown-...
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  We are already overwhelming the earth by just about every measure. We're already using more than one planet's worth of resources, sustainability overshoot comes ever earlier each year. As seen by the sheer number of disparate stories about earth and species' inability to cope. "Population growth has been slowing" Which of course means it is still growing. How many decades ago should it have started to fall in order to avoid catastrophic climate change or the incessant stream of environmental bad news and loss of species? No one should feel obligated to sacrifice themselves. They should feel obligated to replicate less if they want their own children to inhabit somewhere worth living.
  - overcast 8y ago
    What's less? What is your approved number of children for each couple? If someone remarries, does that x number of children carry over from their previous?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - soperj 8y ago
    Vast majority population of the world hasn't even really contributed to climate change until the last couple decades. It's not the number of people that are doing it, it's the american lifestyle.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      It's both. Numbers and our model of what "developed" is. If only 10,000 people were living an American lifestyle the planet would cope just fine. When it's 1bn it seems like it's clearly becoming problematic. What of when it's 3bn? If, as seems to be the case, there are 7bn who want, or are advertised at to want, a throwaway Western lifestyle, we're screwed. All 7bn. We can't pretend the numbers are not there or that most are going to happily remain with subsistence lives for all future generations. It's probably more feasible to make larger families unfashionable or nudge them via the tax system than simply "fixing" climate change globally, habit and species loss.
- drharby 8y ago
  THE GREATER GOOD
- dmritard96 8y ago
  "Population growth has been slowing since the late 60's, it peaked in 1968." Misleading phrasing... "World population projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. The current world population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new UN DESA report, “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”, launched today." http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-r...
  - overcast 8y ago
    Slowing does not equal stopped.
    - Retric 8y ago
      It also does not mean it's going to stay under a limit making it a poor yardstick. As throwaway5752 said, the limit of log(x) -> infinity is still infinity even if it starts growing really slowly. Really though we don't need to kill / sterilize all humans, getting off the planet could work just fine.
      - overcast 8y ago
        Sorry, when did anyone talk about a limit? If the slowing growth continues, then eventually it will cross zero into the negative. Look at the relative growth, by 2100 it's predicted to get close.
        Retric 8y ago
        > If the slowing growth continues, then eventually it will cross zero into the negative. Err, no. The growth of log(x) is always decreasing and yet it always stays positive. This is true for a huge range of functions and one of the reasons limits are important. Now, you can argue that the way human growth is slowing suggests it might possibly go negative at some point. But, that's less obvious.
lisper 8y ago
Or we could just, you know, decide to have fewer kids.
- mattigames 8y ago
  If there is one thing humans can't clearly do is agree on something; so I'm afraid that is not an option, specially since the desire to have kids is one of the most hard-wired desires in sexual organisms.
  - jeandejean 8y ago
    That's just not true, people tend to desire less and less kids, a lot of people deliberately chose to have no kids, something that was unthinkable several decades ago.
  - lisper 8y ago
    If ever there was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that's it. There's a first time for everything. And in fact, there's a proven way to make people decide to have fewer kids: make them rich. People in more affluent societies generally choose to have fewer kids, to the point where the fertility rate in some places (Japan, Italy) is below the replacement rate. So it clearly can be done.
    - Nib9fith 8y ago
      Wealth is just a proxy. What lowers the reproduction rate is higher living standards. And having all humans on current industrialized nation living standards with current methods of production certainly would not make things more sustainable. If you want sustainability you either need fewer humans or clean up the entire supply chain. And the latter might just suffer from jevon's paradox.
      - lisper 8y ago
        I didn't say it would be easy to get from A to B. But it's not impossible.
dang 8y ago
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but please don't post shallow provocations to Hacker News. Those lead to off-topic and frankly dumb subthreads.
- mattigames 8y ago
  I find the discussions about american lifestyle and how much it matters and how much consumption would be acceptable fascinating, and how countries laws would need to affect birthrates and all that as well; but if dang says its off-topic and dumb, well what can I do.
  - dahart 8y ago
    > if dang says its off-topic and dumb, well what can I do. One option would be to listen & learn rather than expressing incredulity, assume that dang knows what he's doing and that you're getting downvoted by others for a legitimate reason. The topic of American consumption is fascinating and important, but this article is about Puffins in Iceland. @dang didn't say it's dumb, he said it leads to dumb. But he did say it was off-topic, because it is. Don't assume that off-topic means dumb, don't take it personally. FWIW, I think there are relevant on-topic ways to introduce topics of overpopulation and American consumption into this thread. Those are related to both the climate change and to the tourism and Puffin hunting that is affecting the Puffin populations in Iceland. If you had tied your comment to something the article said specifically, it would have helped. And, of course, you really could have done without the apocalyptic suggestion for a mass human extinction event.
  - dang 8y ago
    I definitely didn't mean to pick on you personally and am sorry if I came across that way. For more explanation see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870574.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Seems like a productive topic considering the feature article concludes the cause is climate. Global population is a significant factor in most climate discussions.

overcast 8y ago

Population growth has been slowing since the late 60's, it peaked in 1968. Western countries are being particularly affected by it, as we have less and less, or no children. The predictions of humans overwhelming the Earth just isn't going to happen. Since you're just wasting our resources, feel free to sacrifice yourself though for the greater good. http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/rapid-slowdown-population-growth http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/rapid-slowdown-...

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
We are already overwhelming the earth by just about every measure. We're already using more than one planet's worth of resources, sustainability overshoot comes ever earlier each year. As seen by the sheer number of disparate stories about earth and species' inability to cope. "Population growth has been slowing" Which of course means it is still growing. How many decades ago should it have started to fall in order to avoid catastrophic climate change or the incessant stream of environmental bad news and loss of species? No one should feel obligated to sacrifice themselves. They should feel obligated to replicate less if they want their own children to inhabit somewhere worth living.
- overcast 8y ago
  What's less? What is your approved number of children for each couple? If someone remarries, does that x number of children carry over from their previous?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- soperj 8y ago
  Vast majority population of the world hasn't even really contributed to climate change until the last couple decades. It's not the number of people that are doing it, it's the american lifestyle.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    It's both. Numbers and our model of what "developed" is. If only 10,000 people were living an American lifestyle the planet would cope just fine. When it's 1bn it seems like it's clearly becoming problematic. What of when it's 3bn? If, as seems to be the case, there are 7bn who want, or are advertised at to want, a throwaway Western lifestyle, we're screwed. All 7bn. We can't pretend the numbers are not there or that most are going to happily remain with subsistence lives for all future generations. It's probably more feasible to make larger families unfashionable or nudge them via the tax system than simply "fixing" climate change globally, habit and species loss.
drharby 8y ago
THE GREATER GOOD
dmritard96 8y ago
"Population growth has been slowing since the late 60's, it peaked in 1968." Misleading phrasing... "World population projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. The current world population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new UN DESA report, “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”, launched today." http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-r...
- overcast 8y ago
  Slowing does not equal stopped.
  - Retric 8y ago
    It also does not mean it's going to stay under a limit making it a poor yardstick. As throwaway5752 said, the limit of log(x) -> infinity is still infinity even if it starts growing really slowly. Really though we don't need to kill / sterilize all humans, getting off the planet could work just fine.
    - overcast 8y ago
      Sorry, when did anyone talk about a limit? If the slowing growth continues, then eventually it will cross zero into the negative. Look at the relative growth, by 2100 it's predicted to get close.
      - Retric 8y ago
        > If the slowing growth continues, then eventually it will cross zero into the negative. Err, no. The growth of log(x) is always decreasing and yet it always stays positive. This is true for a huge range of functions and one of the reasons limits are important. Now, you can argue that the way human growth is slowing suggests it might possibly go negative at some point. But, that's less obvious.

lisper 8y ago

Or we could just, you know, decide to have fewer kids.

mattigames 8y ago
If there is one thing humans can't clearly do is agree on something; so I'm afraid that is not an option, specially since the desire to have kids is one of the most hard-wired desires in sexual organisms.
- jeandejean 8y ago
  That's just not true, people tend to desire less and less kids, a lot of people deliberately chose to have no kids, something that was unthinkable several decades ago.
- lisper 8y ago
  If ever there was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that's it. There's a first time for everything. And in fact, there's a proven way to make people decide to have fewer kids: make them rich. People in more affluent societies generally choose to have fewer kids, to the point where the fertility rate in some places (Japan, Italy) is below the replacement rate. So it clearly can be done.
  - Nib9fith 8y ago
    Wealth is just a proxy. What lowers the reproduction rate is higher living standards. And having all humans on current industrialized nation living standards with current methods of production certainly would not make things more sustainable. If you want sustainability you either need fewer humans or clean up the entire supply chain. And the latter might just suffer from jevon's paradox.
    - lisper 8y ago
      I didn't say it would be easy to get from A to B. But it's not impossible.

dang 8y ago

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but please don't post shallow provocations to Hacker News. Those lead to off-topic and frankly dumb subthreads.

mattigames 8y ago
I find the discussions about american lifestyle and how much it matters and how much consumption would be acceptable fascinating, and how countries laws would need to affect birthrates and all that as well; but if dang says its off-topic and dumb, well what can I do.
- dahart 8y ago
  > if dang says its off-topic and dumb, well what can I do. One option would be to listen & learn rather than expressing incredulity, assume that dang knows what he's doing and that you're getting downvoted by others for a legitimate reason. The topic of American consumption is fascinating and important, but this article is about Puffins in Iceland. @dang didn't say it's dumb, he said it leads to dumb. But he did say it was off-topic, because it is. Don't assume that off-topic means dumb, don't take it personally. FWIW, I think there are relevant on-topic ways to introduce topics of overpopulation and American consumption into this thread. Those are related to both the climate change and to the tourism and Puffin hunting that is affecting the Puffin populations in Iceland. If you had tied your comment to something the article said specifically, it would have helped. And, of course, you really could have done without the apocalyptic suggestion for a mass human extinction event.
- dang 8y ago
  I definitely didn't mean to pick on you personally and am sorry if I came across that way. For more explanation see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870574.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Seems like a productive topic considering the feature article concludes the cause is climate. Global population is a significant factor in most climate discussions.