3 ms·

Relevant link: https://medium.com/s/story/by-the-end-of-this-century-the-global-population-will-start-to-shrink-2f606c1ef088 https://medium.com/s/story/by-the-e

Relevant link: https://medium.com/s/story/by-the-end-of-this-century-the-global-population-will-start-to-shrink-2f606c1ef088 https://medium.com/s/story/by-the-end-of-this-century-the-gl... I don't think the global population will ever reach 11B as predicted by the UN. The link above makes a good case as to why it will probably reach around 9B and then start declining. The more important question is what happens to our economic model once the global population stops growing on a global scale, assuming we did not become an interplanetary species by then?

pm90 8y ago
> The more important question is what happens to our economic model once the global population stops growing on a global scale, assuming we did not become an interplanetary species by then? The simple answer is that we don't know. If we don't change our current model, its pretty clear that we will ruin our planet long before we even reach that population level. Some things that could possibly happen: * AI based automation results in a Golden age of ever increasing productivity and changes all economic models forever, resulting in mass unemployment, social unrest and ultimately, socialized medicine, basic income etc. disengaging most of the populace from the economy. * Advances in Space Technology lead to colonization of other planets; communities/cults/religious minorities that want freedom to do what they please emigrate and found human colonies across the galaxy. There are various versions of this where humans learn how wormholes work and use it for interstellar travel etc. * Advances in medicine allow us to upload ourselves into the digital realm where we continue to live after our biological essences are extinguished, allowing a digital economy to be created in parallel to the non-digital one.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  It's probably all of them, except the wormholes. However, all of them are far away and 9 billion will happen way before that.
formercoder 8y ago
This is more from a finance perspective than an economic one. However, and taking the stock market as an example, we can look at what might happen to equity valuations under our current model. Under a discounted cash flow model, free cash flow is modeled explicitly for a certain period, and then a value is calculated for the terminal year cash flow "in perpetuity." This value in perpetuity depends on, in part, a growth rate, which is usually between inflation and GDP growth. It can account for up to 50% of the value at times. Assuming population growth start to decline, and other factors such as TFP don't outweigh the decrease in labor, GDP growth will become negative and it's clear that this will have an immense downward impact on equity valuations.

pm90 8y ago

> The more important question is what happens to our economic model once the global population stops growing on a global scale, assuming we did not become an interplanetary species by then? The simple answer is that we don't know. If we don't change our current model, its pretty clear that we will ruin our planet long before we even reach that population level. Some things that could possibly happen: * AI based automation results in a Golden age of ever increasing productivity and changes all economic models forever, resulting in mass unemployment, social unrest and ultimately, socialized medicine, basic income etc. disengaging most of the populace from the economy. * Advances in Space Technology lead to colonization of other planets; communities/cults/religious minorities that want freedom to do what they please emigrate and found human colonies across the galaxy. There are various versions of this where humans learn how wormholes work and use it for interstellar travel etc. * Advances in medicine allow us to upload ourselves into the digital realm where we continue to live after our biological essences are extinguished, allowing a digital economy to be created in parallel to the non-digital one.

Mirioron 8y ago
It's probably all of them, except the wormholes. However, all of them are far away and 9 billion will happen way before that.

formercoder 8y ago

This is more from a finance perspective than an economic one. However, and taking the stock market as an example, we can look at what might happen to equity valuations under our current model. Under a discounted cash flow model, free cash flow is modeled explicitly for a certain period, and then a value is calculated for the terminal year cash flow "in perpetuity." This value in perpetuity depends on, in part, a growth rate, which is usually between inflation and GDP growth. It can account for up to 50% of the value at times. Assuming population growth start to decline, and other factors such as TFP don't outweigh the decrease in labor, GDP growth will become negative and it's clear that this will have an immense downward impact on equity valuations.