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"Demographic Apocalypse", Jeez. I for one see more dystopian scenery originating in the hell-bent overpopulation we've been witnessing on the planet for the pa

"Demographic Apocalypse", Jeez. I for one see more dystopian scenery originating in the hell-bent overpopulation we've been witnessing on the planet for the past 100 years or so. We're looking at ~1'000 places with a population of 500'000 up to 37'000'000 these days (source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities); https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities); they comment, quite correctly IMHO: There are quite a number of popular and culturally rich cities that have smaller populations, often making for higher living standards for their residents. Barcelona, Sydney, Berlin and Vancouver all have fewer than five million residents, but are very popular choices for city living. There are also some comparatively very small cities with big cultural, historical or political reputations, such as Sarajevo (314,000), Edinburgh (502,000), and Venice (631,000), demonstrating that small cities can be highly significant regardless of the size of their population. For almost the entire history of mankind, one million people in one place was a singularly big place, and non-existent as recently as maybe 3'000 years ago (personal estimate). Mankind must learn how to live with a shrinking population. I hope figures will cap out at ~10b people as predicted by the UN; after that, I consider ~1b people as a goal, that's the figure from 1800, so 200 years ago. Even when I was born in the 1960s we had but a paltry 3 .. 4 billion people on this planet and we made it to the moon for heaven's sake. Should be good enough, right?

erddfre3423 4y ago
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
Addendum Quote "The economic systems of virtually all developed countries are predicated on an assumption of constant growth"—I'm with you that shrinking societies will be facing a wholly new set of societal problems. However an economic system that is predicated on constant growth will necessarily fail at some point in the future because physics. We as a species have to find ways to prevent that from happening. To keep adding people is not an option. If we can live with 10 billion people or maybe with 20 billion people (shudder, but who knows) then at some point–100 billion? 200 billion?–there must come a point at which it is with absolute certainty not going to work.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  >However an economic system that is predicated on constant growth will necessarily fail at some point in the future because physics. Nonsense. And the audacity to add "because physics" at the end. Newton himself proved this wrong. 1+ 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.125.... Is this sequence constant growing? Yes. Is this sequence infinitely increasing? Yes. Does this sum up to a finite value? Also yes!
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Cute counterexample, I'll grant you that, but the parent posts were – if implicitly – talking abound unbounded growth. Bounded growth on the other hand might mathematically indeed continue for an infinite length of time, but for all practical purposes can most certainly be rounded down to zero past a certain point.
  - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
    You are right and I am glad I didn't write 'because Maths'. The sum you're quoting from is monotonically growing but at an ever shrinking clip. However, the series does not describe the kind of growth that our economy seemingly needs and our politicians like to promise, nor does it AFAICS describe the OP's idea of continued population growth given his recommendation to shun shrinking populations with fertility below replacement rate; theirs is a constant or in the midterm increasing growth and notwithstanding [minority opinions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww) claiming that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... equals -1/12 such a series cannot have a finite sum, hence is physically unfeasible to represent.
  - orwin 4y ago
    But that's not our growth. Our system suppose constant exponential growth. And to use your maths: 1% + 0.5% + 0.25% + 0.125%.... Is this sequence constant growing? Yes. Is this sequence infinitely increasing? Yes. Does this sum up to a finite value? _Sadly no_
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
jdmoreira 4y ago
I really hope our civilization can go from 7 billion people to 1 billion without a total collapse. Unfortunately we might not be ready. Will we be able to keep our technological level? Our current understanding of math, physics and nature? That requires quite a lot of people to transmit and learn. It certainly is theoretically possible but in practice? It's exponential. This has the potential to creep on us really soon.
- idlehand 4y ago
  The issue lies in who those 1 billion people will be. The most anti-LGBT, anti-women, anti-education, low income cultures which have the most kids? Or a "controlled landing" in which most of the Western world doesn't become a ghost town or has its culture more or less replaced because it couldn't reproduce itself?
  - jtbayly 4y ago
    Is this what you are saying?: “Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our world for the generations to come. In this orgy of multiplying and replenishing the earth, this type is pari passu multiplying and perpetuating those direst evils in which we must, if civilization is to survive, extirpate by the very roots.” -- Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 1922
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  In hindsight I should've probably not make 1b (1800) but rather the 1.65b of 1900 the goal, just because from a time frame and as a vision it is so much easier to communicate: around the turn of the century we already had electric streetcars, electric underground, electric lighting, motorcars, elevators, entire countries with rail networks and so on. I do not see why a slow-ish-ly shrinking population should entail tossing all of our advances since then—in medicine, computers, telecommunication, chemistry, virtually all fields, not least agriculture (although the way we do it now is utterly unsustainable). Rather, I believe that in a situation where you have an extremely high birthrate and a doubling of the population in a matter of just 15 or 30 years you end up with half of population being rather young and lacking experience; you will also, as an economy, have a hard time to build enough schools and housing. People will and already do live, in many places, in cities that are almost entirely without any built history to speak of. This is what erodes local traditions, customs, awareness; I see this and not the OP's notion of 'shrinking societies cause cultural attrition and global homogenization' (paraphrased from memory) as a major cultural problem. Population growth, not shrinkage, is a great contributor to cultural loss.
zaptheimpaler 4y ago
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice...

erddfre3423 4y ago

DemocracyFTW2 4y ago

Addendum Quote "The economic systems of virtually all developed countries are predicated on an assumption of constant growth"—I'm with you that shrinking societies will be facing a wholly new set of societal problems. However an economic system that is predicated on constant growth will necessarily fail at some point in the future because physics. We as a species have to find ways to prevent that from happening. To keep adding people is not an option. If we can live with 10 billion people or maybe with 20 billion people (shudder, but who knows) then at some point–100 billion? 200 billion?–there must come a point at which it is with absolute certainty not going to work.

cuteboy19 4y ago
>However an economic system that is predicated on constant growth will necessarily fail at some point in the future because physics. Nonsense. And the audacity to add "because physics" at the end. Newton himself proved this wrong. 1+ 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.125.... Is this sequence constant growing? Yes. Is this sequence infinitely increasing? Yes. Does this sum up to a finite value? Also yes!
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Cute counterexample, I'll grant you that, but the parent posts were – if implicitly – talking abound unbounded growth. Bounded growth on the other hand might mathematically indeed continue for an infinite length of time, but for all practical purposes can most certainly be rounded down to zero past a certain point.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  You are right and I am glad I didn't write 'because Maths'. The sum you're quoting from is monotonically growing but at an ever shrinking clip. However, the series does not describe the kind of growth that our economy seemingly needs and our politicians like to promise, nor does it AFAICS describe the OP's idea of continued population growth given his recommendation to shun shrinking populations with fertility below replacement rate; theirs is a constant or in the midterm increasing growth and notwithstanding [minority opinions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww) claiming that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... equals -1/12 such a series cannot have a finite sum, hence is physically unfeasible to represent.
- orwin 4y ago
  But that's not our growth. Our system suppose constant exponential growth. And to use your maths: 1% + 0.5% + 0.25% + 0.125%.... Is this sequence constant growing? Yes. Is this sequence infinitely increasing? Yes. Does this sum up to a finite value? _Sadly no_
  - cuteboy19 4y ago

jdmoreira 4y ago

I really hope our civilization can go from 7 billion people to 1 billion without a total collapse. Unfortunately we might not be ready. Will we be able to keep our technological level? Our current understanding of math, physics and nature? That requires quite a lot of people to transmit and learn. It certainly is theoretically possible but in practice? It's exponential. This has the potential to creep on us really soon.

idlehand 4y ago
The issue lies in who those 1 billion people will be. The most anti-LGBT, anti-women, anti-education, low income cultures which have the most kids? Or a "controlled landing" in which most of the Western world doesn't become a ghost town or has its culture more or less replaced because it couldn't reproduce itself?
- jtbayly 4y ago
  Is this what you are saying?: “Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our world for the generations to come. In this orgy of multiplying and replenishing the earth, this type is pari passu multiplying and perpetuating those direst evils in which we must, if civilization is to survive, extirpate by the very roots.” -- Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 1922
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
In hindsight I should've probably not make 1b (1800) but rather the 1.65b of 1900 the goal, just because from a time frame and as a vision it is so much easier to communicate: around the turn of the century we already had electric streetcars, electric underground, electric lighting, motorcars, elevators, entire countries with rail networks and so on. I do not see why a slow-ish-ly shrinking population should entail tossing all of our advances since then—in medicine, computers, telecommunication, chemistry, virtually all fields, not least agriculture (although the way we do it now is utterly unsustainable). Rather, I believe that in a situation where you have an extremely high birthrate and a doubling of the population in a matter of just 15 or 30 years you end up with half of population being rather young and lacking experience; you will also, as an economy, have a hard time to build enough schools and housing. People will and already do live, in many places, in cities that are almost entirely without any built history to speak of. This is what erodes local traditions, customs, awareness; I see this and not the OP's notion of 'shrinking societies cause cultural attrition and global homogenization' (paraphrased from memory) as a major cultural problem. Population growth, not shrinkage, is a great contributor to cultural loss.

zaptheimpaler 4y ago

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice...