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> I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we c

> I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more? One of the most stunning and under appreciated facts about the last two centuries is that, no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing.

Jensson 4y ago
And all that innovation happened thanks to the population living a good life with excess of resources. The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all, making more people who live in poverty wont add any innovation. And even worse, if you add people until most has to live a life on the brink of starvation again that could stop innovation from ever happening again in the future, our current time is an historical anomaly and there is no guarantee that we can ever get back here if we screw up and get everyone back to a state of misery. There are only so many ways we can improve food production, we found a lot of them the past 200 years and that led to a ton of innovations since people no longer had to worry about starvation. But all of that will quickly revert if you can no longer buy food at a supermarket, since there is simply not enough food to feed every American, some will have to starve to death.
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  > The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all But as their incomes tripled and their children survived childhood, their birthdates dropped and their surviving children are better educated and less malnourished. This has been happening almost everywhere in the world, and is why world population will peak in a couple decades without mass starvation.
oldsecondhand 4y ago
So they make $3 a day instead of $2? Still not enough to create future Einsteins.
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  How about $2 to $6 in just the last 40 years. Give it a couple generations with rising incomes, lower birth rates, higher literacy, lower child malnutrition, and you’ll see more Einsteins. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?country=OWID_WRL~ESP~KOR~MDG https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?count...
birksherty 4y ago
> poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing That's because humans exploited all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species, exploited so many animals too, just look at Earthling the documentary. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.
- erklik 4y ago
  > That's because humans exploited all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species, exploited so many animals too, just look at Earthling the documentary. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye. the max? I don't know about max. However, yeah, you're right. That does not mean we cannot continue in the future and do it better. Lab Grown meat is nearly a thing, and reducing the price of that will drop global emissions. EVs are becoming far more common and will be replacing ICE vehicles come the turn of the decade, we're building more and more solar and renewable energy resources. We can fix these problems. Yes, the problems are created by us. That does not mean we cannot fix them while continuing to progress and reduce poverty. More people, more brains only benefits that effort. Not reduces it. The system of our society needs tweaks. Our incentives are sometimes wrong. But again, reducing people doesn't fix that. More people aids us to build better systems.
  - sacrosanct 4y ago
    EVs powered by burning coal
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  Yes but this has been improving in recent decades as well. See the book More From Less for an argument. Thanks to modern efficiencies, digitization, and government action, resource use has decoupled from economic growth and some has even peaked.
esrauch 4y ago
> no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased Surely not based on any way of measuring it, since in some reasonable definitions you could say there's 1.5bn people living in poverty right now and only 1bn total humans existing two centuries ago.
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  I mean, If you want to be pedantic you could define poverty in such a relative way that we’re all poor compared to Musk and Bezos. But I think you’d be surprised how much you have to inflate the definition of poverty to still fit 1.5 billion people into it. It’d certainly be the richest definition of poverty the world’s ever seen, with the lowest numbers of starvation, malnutrition, infant mortality, etc
  - esrauch 4y ago
    Just put off curiosity, it looks like only 689 million are "living in extreme poverty" but 1.3 billion people are "multidimensionality poor" which seems to be trying to capture some the things you're talking about. https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-... Even the 689 million "extreme poverty" number does at least mean there's more people in poverty today than were total alive approx 300 years ago.

Jensson 4y ago

And all that innovation happened thanks to the population living a good life with excess of resources. The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all, making more people who live in poverty wont add any innovation. And even worse, if you add people until most has to live a life on the brink of starvation again that could stop innovation from ever happening again in the future, our current time is an historical anomaly and there is no guarantee that we can ever get back here if we screw up and get everyone back to a state of misery. There are only so many ways we can improve food production, we found a lot of them the past 200 years and that led to a ton of innovations since people no longer had to worry about starvation. But all of that will quickly revert if you can no longer buy food at a supermarket, since there is simply not enough food to feed every American, some will have to starve to death.

joshuahedlund 4y ago
> The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all But as their incomes tripled and their children survived childhood, their birthdates dropped and their surviving children are better educated and less malnourished. This has been happening almost everywhere in the world, and is why world population will peak in a couple decades without mass starvation.

oldsecondhand 4y ago

So they make $3 a day instead of $2? Still not enough to create future Einsteins.

joshuahedlund 4y ago
How about $2 to $6 in just the last 40 years. Give it a couple generations with rising incomes, lower birth rates, higher literacy, lower child malnutrition, and you’ll see more Einsteins. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?country=OWID_WRL~ESP~KOR~MDG https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?count...

birksherty 4y ago

> poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing That's because humans exploited all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species, exploited so many animals too, just look at Earthling the documentary. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.

erklik 4y ago
> That's because humans exploited all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species, exploited so many animals too, just look at Earthling the documentary. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye. the max? I don't know about max. However, yeah, you're right. That does not mean we cannot continue in the future and do it better. Lab Grown meat is nearly a thing, and reducing the price of that will drop global emissions. EVs are becoming far more common and will be replacing ICE vehicles come the turn of the decade, we're building more and more solar and renewable energy resources. We can fix these problems. Yes, the problems are created by us. That does not mean we cannot fix them while continuing to progress and reduce poverty. More people, more brains only benefits that effort. Not reduces it. The system of our society needs tweaks. Our incentives are sometimes wrong. But again, reducing people doesn't fix that. More people aids us to build better systems.
- sacrosanct 4y ago
  EVs powered by burning coal
joshuahedlund 4y ago
Yes but this has been improving in recent decades as well. See the book More From Less for an argument. Thanks to modern efficiencies, digitization, and government action, resource use has decoupled from economic growth and some has even peaked.

esrauch 4y ago

> no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased Surely not based on any way of measuring it, since in some reasonable definitions you could say there's 1.5bn people living in poverty right now and only 1bn total humans existing two centuries ago.

joshuahedlund 4y ago
I mean, If you want to be pedantic you could define poverty in such a relative way that we’re all poor compared to Musk and Bezos. But I think you’d be surprised how much you have to inflate the definition of poverty to still fit 1.5 billion people into it. It’d certainly be the richest definition of poverty the world’s ever seen, with the lowest numbers of starvation, malnutrition, infant mortality, etc
- esrauch 4y ago
  Just put off curiosity, it looks like only 689 million are "living in extreme poverty" but 1.3 billion people are "multidimensionality poor" which seems to be trying to capture some the things you're talking about. https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-... Even the 689 million "extreme poverty" number does at least mean there's more people in poverty today than were total alive approx 300 years ago.