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Paul Ehrlich was almost exactly wrong about everything, but he continues to frame the discourse to a ridiculous degree. I'm not sure what the magic pixie dust i

by api 1y ago

Paul Ehrlich was almost exactly wrong about everything, but he continues to frame the discourse to a ridiculous degree. I'm not sure what the magic pixie dust is that allows people to be this wrong and still have credibility.

profstasiak 1y ago
how is Paul Ehrlich linked to the original post? what is he wrong about?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- UncleMeat 1y ago
  Paul Ehrlich was the most visible figure in the midcentury fear of overpopulation. He claimed that by now we'd have seen starvation so profound around the world (100,000,000s dead of starvation) that large portions of the third world would collapse completely and that the only mechanism to prevent this starvation was extreme population control measures placed by the west on the rest of the world (including things like partitioning India and just letting some regions starve completely to death with no aid). He believed that the sustainable population for the planet was one billion. He was completely wrong. I think it is a great example to use in these modern discussions. Just 50 years ago we were seeing highly influential people say "we are going to breed ourselves to death and the only solution is extreme curtailing of rights." Today, we are starting to see highly influential people say "we are going to not-breed ourselves to death and the only solution is extreme curtailing of rights."
  - api 1y ago
    Unfortunately a lot of people are now saying we need extreme curtailing of rights -- largely womens' rights -- because of underpopulation. The answer to every panic is always curtailing of rights. Scary thing may happen therefore we need big alpha ape to fix it for us by bashing people on head with big rock. Grunt, grunt.
    - rendang 1y ago
      Which people are saying we need to curtail womens' rights because of underpopulation?
      - api 1y ago
        It's a huge theme on the secular nationalist right. Visit Xhitter for 5 minutes.
        xp84 1y ago
        This seems like a wild take. All that I see right wingers saying is that there are huge benefits to families when a mother doesn’t have to work, that we should not exclusively frame being a SAHM as some kind of brutal oppression, and that we should advance policies that make it easier for families to do that. Is there some shitposting fringe that says dumb things like “abolish all BC”? Yes, just as there are matching “sOcIaLiSt” idiots who think that if we “just” confiscate all of Musk and Bezos’ net worth, it’ll pay off everyone’s student loans plus pay for UBI, free college in perpetuity, and buy all of Gen Z nice houses.
    - UncleMeat 1y ago
      Right this is what I am saying. And I think that we should be outrageously skeptical of such people and oppose them with fervor. In the 70s people were saying that we needed to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world based on geography in order to prevent future catastrophe. These people were wrong in every possible dimension and has we listened to them we would have committed a world-historic evil. Similarly, we are starting to see people say that we need to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world (this time based on gender) in order to prevent future catastrophe. I suspect that these people will be wrong in every possible dimension and that if we listen to them that we will be committing a world-historic evil.
      - lurk2 1y ago
        > In the 70s people were saying that we needed to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world based on geography in order to prevent future catastrophe. What is this referring to?
  - Animats 1y ago
    India got there on overpopulation. Total fertility rate around 6 in 1965. India does not have enough water for its population.[1] China would have hit similar problems if not for their one-child policy. China managed to avoid the overshoot when medicine starts to work but the economy hasn't developed yet. India didn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_India
    - FredPret 1y ago
      If you have access to the sea and to uranium you can make all the freshwater you need, even recycle your own wastewater nearly infinitely. This is a technological and economic problem, not an overpopulation problem.
      - JPLeRouzic 1y ago
        > If you have access to the sea and to uranium you can make all the freshwater you need I don't believe that would be true on a large scale because the seaside would quickly become polluted with brine, and then having an infinite supply of uranium wouldn't help you. Desalination only works in the long term if there is an unlimited amount of body water to dilute the brine produced by the process.
        triceratops 1y ago
        Do you have to release brine directly into the seaside? What about long pipes with holes that go 50-100 kilometers into the sea? There's no question of polluting all the oceans with brine. They get freshwater from the rain and the salt came from the oceans in the first place. We aren't net destroying water molecules.
        JPLeRouzic 1y ago
        That's a very theoretical point of view. How to maintain those pipes? In two or three years, they will be full of small mollusks and other seafood.
FredPret 1y ago
The modern-day Malthus, except so much worse, because he had the example of Malthus but chose to ignore the lesson there
AndrewKemendo 1y ago
He came to the US Air Force Academy every year to give the incoming freshman class his lecture. This was mandatory and went on for years. I distinctly remember he sat in a folding chair next to an overhead projector and used what looked like 20 year old laminate slides (this was in the early 2000s) to go through his pitch. Is he still doing that at other schools? He must be too old at this point.
hermitcrab 1y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager Most never get held to account for their wrong predictions. But he seems a particularly egregious case.

by api 1y ago

profstasiak 1y ago

how is Paul Ehrlich linked to the original post? what is he wrong about?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
UncleMeat 1y ago
Paul Ehrlich was the most visible figure in the midcentury fear of overpopulation. He claimed that by now we'd have seen starvation so profound around the world (100,000,000s dead of starvation) that large portions of the third world would collapse completely and that the only mechanism to prevent this starvation was extreme population control measures placed by the west on the rest of the world (including things like partitioning India and just letting some regions starve completely to death with no aid). He believed that the sustainable population for the planet was one billion. He was completely wrong. I think it is a great example to use in these modern discussions. Just 50 years ago we were seeing highly influential people say "we are going to breed ourselves to death and the only solution is extreme curtailing of rights." Today, we are starting to see highly influential people say "we are going to not-breed ourselves to death and the only solution is extreme curtailing of rights."
- api 1y ago
  Unfortunately a lot of people are now saying we need extreme curtailing of rights -- largely womens' rights -- because of underpopulation. The answer to every panic is always curtailing of rights. Scary thing may happen therefore we need big alpha ape to fix it for us by bashing people on head with big rock. Grunt, grunt.
  - rendang 1y ago
    Which people are saying we need to curtail womens' rights because of underpopulation?
    - api 1y ago
      It's a huge theme on the secular nationalist right. Visit Xhitter for 5 minutes.
      - xp84 1y ago
        This seems like a wild take. All that I see right wingers saying is that there are huge benefits to families when a mother doesn’t have to work, that we should not exclusively frame being a SAHM as some kind of brutal oppression, and that we should advance policies that make it easier for families to do that. Is there some shitposting fringe that says dumb things like “abolish all BC”? Yes, just as there are matching “sOcIaLiSt” idiots who think that if we “just” confiscate all of Musk and Bezos’ net worth, it’ll pay off everyone’s student loans plus pay for UBI, free college in perpetuity, and buy all of Gen Z nice houses.
  - UncleMeat 1y ago
    Right this is what I am saying. And I think that we should be outrageously skeptical of such people and oppose them with fervor. In the 70s people were saying that we needed to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world based on geography in order to prevent future catastrophe. These people were wrong in every possible dimension and has we listened to them we would have committed a world-historic evil. Similarly, we are starting to see people say that we need to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world (this time based on gender) in order to prevent future catastrophe. I suspect that these people will be wrong in every possible dimension and that if we listen to them that we will be committing a world-historic evil.
    - lurk2 1y ago
      > In the 70s people were saying that we needed to commit brutal oppression against a large portion of the world based on geography in order to prevent future catastrophe. What is this referring to?
- Animats 1y ago
  India got there on overpopulation. Total fertility rate around 6 in 1965. India does not have enough water for its population.[1] China would have hit similar problems if not for their one-child policy. China managed to avoid the overshoot when medicine starts to work but the economy hasn't developed yet. India didn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_India
  - FredPret 1y ago
    If you have access to the sea and to uranium you can make all the freshwater you need, even recycle your own wastewater nearly infinitely. This is a technological and economic problem, not an overpopulation problem.
    - JPLeRouzic 1y ago
      > If you have access to the sea and to uranium you can make all the freshwater you need I don't believe that would be true on a large scale because the seaside would quickly become polluted with brine, and then having an infinite supply of uranium wouldn't help you. Desalination only works in the long term if there is an unlimited amount of body water to dilute the brine produced by the process.
      - triceratops 1y ago
        Do you have to release brine directly into the seaside? What about long pipes with holes that go 50-100 kilometers into the sea? There's no question of polluting all the oceans with brine. They get freshwater from the rain and the salt came from the oceans in the first place. We aren't net destroying water molecules.
        JPLeRouzic 1y ago
        That's a very theoretical point of view. How to maintain those pipes? In two or three years, they will be full of small mollusks and other seafood.

FredPret 1y ago

The modern-day Malthus, except so much worse, because he had the example of Malthus but chose to ignore the lesson there

AndrewKemendo 1y ago

He came to the US Air Force Academy every year to give the incoming freshman class his lecture. This was mandatory and went on for years. I distinctly remember he sat in a folding chair next to an overhead projector and used what looked like 20 year old laminate slides (this was in the early 2000s) to go through his pitch. Is he still doing that at other schools? He must be too old at this point.

hermitcrab 1y ago

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager Most never get held to account for their wrong predictions. But he seems a particularly egregious case.