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The interesting thing to me is the way natural rat populations self-regulate once they reach their equilibrium density. Maybe some of it is the benefit of hinds
by alwa 2y ago
The interesting thing to me is the way natural rat populations self-regulate once they reach their equilibrium density. Maybe some of it is the benefit of hindsight, but why would it follow that human populations, any more than rats, would continue to reproduce and expand beyond the natural limits where things get too crowded?
I thought the notion of demographic transition—that is, birth rates declining as societies modernize—was already circulating by mid-century when this work started. I also was of the impression that that idea or something similar continued to inform credible estimates like the UN’s WPP [0].
[0] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/1_Demographic%20Profiles/World/Line%20Charts/1-Total%20population.png https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/1_Demographic%20Profile...
- fwip 2y agoOne reason that humans might not self-regulate population is because we are less in direct contact with our ecosystem. A rat knows if food has been scarce lately, or the nest crowded. Your average human has no intuitive idea if the soil in the big AgriCorp farms has been depleted, or if the oil reserves are about to run out, and the price of housing in the suburbs only a intellectual consideration.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoHuman population is going to decline, soon, and quickly. Should be really exciting for those doomed to witness it firsthand.
- netbioserror 2y agoNo intuitive idea of the direct issue, but a VERY intuitive idea of the downstream resource scarcity: Prices. Or, in the case of house prices, the downstream result of money printing and interest rate suppression.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]